RNC head Steele: “The supposed warming, and I am using my finger quotation marks here, is part of the cooling process…. It was once called Greenland for a reason…. Oh I love this.”

The titular head of the GOP is one Michael Steele, who coined the phrase “Drill, baby, Drill”

In a recent interview with Bill Bennett, Steele revealed he is an unusually ill-informed global warming denier — if that isn’t too redundant:

We are cooling. We are not warming. The warming you see out there, the supposed warming, and I am using my finger quotation marks here, is part of the cooling process. Greenland, which is now covered in ice, it was once called Greenland for a reason, right? Iceland, which is now green. Oh I love this. Like we know what this planet is all about. How long have we been here? How long? No very long.

What can one say to this litany of disinformation?

We are, in fact, warming and not cooling, Mr. “Head of the GOP.” I am now using quotation marks since anybody who spouts such nonsense is clearly taking direction from ideologues, not giving direction to anybody — as if recent events hadn’t made clear that Steele-Head-GOPer answers to Rush Limbaugh.

For those open to the facts on warming and Greenland, here are some places to start:

As for “it was once called Greenland for a reason,” how embarrassing that the leader of even a semi-serious political party would bring up such a canard.

Greenland has been mostly ice covered for several hundred thousand years. If it had ever had even half as much ice at any time in the recent past, sea levels would have been 10 feet higher. I expect someone would have noticed that. Also, Greenland is only a tiny fraction of the total area of the earth, so small changes in its climate (had they occurred) would have indicated little about planetary trends.

As for how it got its name, Wikipidea notes:

There are two written sources on the origin of the name, in The Book of Icelanders (slendingab³k), an historical work dealing with early Icelandic history from the 12th century, and in the medieval Icelandic saga, The Saga of Eric the Red (Eirks saga rau°a), which is about the Norse settlement in Greenland and the story of Erik the Red in particular. Both sources write: “He named the land Greenland, saying that people would be eager to go there if it had a good name.”

It’s kind of like naming the GOP the “grand old party” or calling yourself “conservative” even though you have no interest in conserving anything, including nonrenewable resources or a livable climate. You’re simply trying to appeal to the easily duped (see “Gallup poll shows conservatives still easily duped by deniers”).

For more on the “Greenland was once green” denier talking point, see Grist and Skeptical Science.

Finally we have Steele’s

Oh I love this. Like we know what this planet is all about. How long have we been here? How long? Not very long.

Most of us know that homo “sapiens” sapiens has been here a while, and, more importantly, that science can tell us about the planet even before “we” were here.

I suppose Steele thinks we’ve only been here 6000 years, which in any case is apparently long enough to trash the place.

I don’t “love” this — and I rather suspect that future generations will utterly loathe people like Steele.