Meanwhile, John Shimkus (R-Ill.) added his two cents: “The uncertainty is just way too high. I mean, tell me what will happen on January 24. Right now. Go. You can’t. Will it snow? NOT IN CUBA, IT WON’T. See? You just don’t know. And if we don’t know what the climate is doing, then it doesn’t exist. Q.E.D.”

Shimkus is among several Republicans maneuvering to become chair of the House energy committee. He added that since we can’t predict exact wind conditions, wind power clearly doesn’t exist either.

But it was in the Senate that the most thorough denials were thrown about, with Kentucky Senator-elect Rand Paul echoing the sentiments on climate change strongly. “Climate doesn’t change. There is no climate. In fact, there is no change. Nothing changes. You know what’s the only thing that actually exists, other than maybe Jesus? The Constitution. It never changes, so it exists.” When told that there is in fact a method by which the Constitution changes, Paul responded “NOT ON MY WATCH.”

Good luck with that, Maldives.

An international purchase agreement revealed yesterday that the low-lying island nation of the Maldives has ordered an extremely large number of sandbags from multiple companies in the United States and Europe. A representative of the Maldives government responded to an e-mail question of what the bags are for as follows: “We are expecting a bit of flooding.”

Although it was not immediately clear precisely how many sandbags were ordered due to the complicated nature of the agreement and the number of companies involved, a representative of one such company in Texas said they alone had an order from the Maldives for a “shit-ton” of sandbags. It is unclear if that is an English shit-ton or a metric shit-ton, also spelled shytte-tonne.

With an average elevation of only six feet above sea level, the Maldives could be thinking of holding back rising sea levels on a nationwide scale. The country has 1,192 islands, so analysts say the sandbag idea is completely feasible.

A call placed to the government of Vanuatu, another low-lying island nation that could be threatened by sea level rise in the coming decades, revealed that the Maldives’ approach may be novel. “Wait, would that work?” said the Vanuatu representative before quickly hanging up.

Several months ago the Maldives held a parliament meeting under water in SCUBA gear to call attention to the country’s plight. The country’s vice president, Mohammad Waheed Hassan, said that the underwater meeting “sucked,” and he would rather “just sandbag the crap out of this place” than do that again.

A denier fuel well gusher in the Peruvian Andes.

Climate change deniers of the world rejoiced yesterday when Exxon-Mobil announced the discovery of a large deposit of denier fuel in Peru. The deposit, which preliminary estimates say could power the denial movement for at least another 15 years, lies underground about three hundred kilometers east of the Andean city of Cuzco.

Although the exact amounts of denier fuel left in the world have been disputed for years, most experts agree the dreaded “peak denial” point came early in 2003, when President Bush managed to distract everyone by blowing up a country. Climate change deniers have intermittently announced discoveries of new small deposits of denier fuel since then, but the Peruvian deposit is by far the largest addition to global reserves of denier fuel in more than two decades.

“To all those quacks, deliverers of misinformation, out there, this discovery shows that the so-called ‘consensus’ about climate change is complete crap,” said de facto denier chief Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK). “With this new source of fuel, we’ll keep fighting the good fight on this issue for years to come.”

The climate change mainstream, though, appeared devastated by this new infusion of fuel to the denier camp. “The denial movement is like Michael Freaking Myers,” wrote Climate Progress blogger Joe Romm. “You just can’t kill it.” A statement from the Environmental Defense Fund expressed “deep concern” that in order to get at the denier fuel, large-scale drilling operations will have to be started in protected areas of the Andes. The Peruvian government seemed willing to overlook the protections, with a spokesperson saying “it’s too valuable a resource to just leave in there. We’ve got plenty of mountains. Whatever.”

Denier fuel is the only known source of the strange controversy that has plagued climate science for decades. It is a carbon-based fossil fuel, but the precise mechanisms by which it allows various vocal deniers to make completely ridiculous arguments and stall the movement to avert catastrophic climate change remain poorly understood. The discovery of such a large amount of the substance will allow those mechanisms to continue unabated into the foreseeable future; for example, Sen. Inhofe had trouble finding enough fuel to take him to Copenhagen for the COP15 climate summit, but now his entire “Truth Squad” will have enough denier fuel to make it there and back for the second week, as well as enough to shout some unintelligible obscenities while there.

For his part, President Obama called the denier fuel deposit’s discovery “grim news,” and changed his plan for Copenhagen once again. After originally scheduling a visit for early in the summit (Dec. 9), the president’s planned attendance on Dec. 18 will now be via satellite hookup. The White House cited security concerns surrounding the large volume of highly combustible denier fuel in the vicinity of the president as reason for the switch.

Another sometime member of the denier camp, former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin, was reached for comment while on her multi-state book tour. “This is fantastic news, and just shows the ingenuity of the great denier community in this fine nation of ours.” When told that the deposit was in Peru, she said that Americans probably were the ones who told them where to look. “My only regret is that we haven’t discovered a similar bunch of denier fuel in my home state of Alaska. We’re always hoping for new things to drill for, dontcha know.”

With President Obama making his first visit to China this week, the top two emitters of greenhouse gases in the world have pledged to “definitely possibly plan on agreeing on a mostly binding emissions target in the days, weeks, months and years following the Copenhagen summit,” a spokesperson for the Chinese government said.

A number of other countries have also signed on to the agreement to agree on an agreement, maybe. Germany, a leader in wind power and other renewable energy projects, has committed to considering the possibility of joining a climate treaty that may or may not be written by 2014. Italy and France followed suit shortly after Germany’s announcement, with an Italian government spokesperson adding they hoped to set a timetable to plan on the next meeting “soonish.”

In his weekly web address, President Obama stressed the need to combat climate change before some of the more catastrophic effects are realized. “Achieving energy independence, reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and lowering our emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases are all inextricably linked. That is why I and other world leaders have come to a substantive agreement to discuss this issue again in the near future, with the eventual goal of possibly deciding on a course of action that might help. That decision will most likely come at a future summit, the planning of which we will set a date for when we meet in Copenhagen next month.”

In Romm’s last post about a new poll that indicates only 37 percent of the country approves of a moratorium on oil shale development in the Rockies, the opinionated climate pundit was pontificating on how scientists lack any ability to communicate the problem and that journalists like Andy Revkin deserve more blame for global warming than all the coal power plants in China. Part of the way through the post, reports tell us that his head appears to have spontaneously combusted. Romm’s final words to the planet he tried so valiantly to save were: “…when so many articles tell the country that we’re actually on a cooling trend, which I have personally debunked 1,000 times over, how could you expect the public to adsfhj 8o;ioha;ewoadjklsjkl hin;oen.”

It remains unclear if his suddenly headless body simply pitched forward and randomly hit the “Publish” button, or if the post was unleashed on the world by more sinister means. One anonymous source suggested Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) may have gleefully sent an aide to ensure the gore-inducing prose reached the public. Inhofe’s office did not return calls asking for a comment.

The question now arises of who will fill the void left by Romm’s disintegrated head. Time Magazine has called Romm the web’s most influential climate blogger, and it may be hard to find another so voraciously capable of bringing down consistent denier claims. He doled out blame to scientists, journalists, politicians and whoever else dared to parrot the stupidity that eventually caused his head to blow up.