Super Storms, Super Norms

The only thing matching the close timing of the highest levels of greenhouse gases ever recorded, the unfolding disaster from the biggest typhoon, the ongoing cleanup from Super Storm Sandy and the realities of the widest tornado ever - - see The National Geographic magazine's superlative current coverage - - is the super denial of climate change and the extreme weather events it spawns.

Or as then-US Senate candidate Ron Johnson said: 

Johnson, in an interview last month, described believers in manmade causes of climate change as "crazy" and the theory as "lunacy."

"It's far more likely that it's just sunspot activity or just something in the geologic eons of time," he said.

Excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere "gets sucked down by trees and helps the trees grow," said Johnson.

A position duly noted by The League of Conservation Voters, for the record.

On the other hand, 97% of scientists disagree with Johnson's position, NASA reports:

Temperature data from four international science institutions. All show rapid warming in the past few decades and that the last decade has been the warmest on record. Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities, and most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position.