Good grief. There’s so much idiocy about climate change coming from conservatives today it boggles the mind (and we all know how painful that can be).

Let’s start with this absurdly stupid comment from GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz:

“On the global warming alarmists, anyone who actually points to the evidence that disproves their apocalyptical claims, they don’t engage in reasoned debate,” Cruz said in an interview with reporter Jay Root on Tuesday. “What do they do? They scream, ‘You’re a denier.’ They brand you a heretic. Today, the global warming alarmists are the equivalent of the flat-Earthers. It used to be [that] it is accepted scientific wisdom the Earth is flat, and this heretic named Galileo was branded a denier.”

There’s so much ignorance in these few sentences it’s a bit amazing.

First, it was never “accepted scientific wisdom” that the Earth was flat. This was an unscientific viewpoint that came from the Bronze Age, and it was science that debunked it.

Second, Galileo wasn’t branded a heretic because he argued against a flat Earth; he argued against geocentrism, the idea that Earth was the center of the universe and everything else revolved around it. In Galileo’s time, a round Earth was already well established.

Third, scientists don’t “scream ‘You’re a denier!’” They point out with voluminous facts and evidence that climate change is real and it’s happening now, and conservatives like Ted Cruz ignore the facts and evidence. That’s why they’re called “deniers” — because they deny mountains of scientific evidence and an overwhelming consensus.

But Ted Cruz wasn’t the only top GOP politician being stupid about climate change today; our old friend Bobby “Don’t Be Stupid” Jindal put on his clown makeup too. The creationist Governor of Louisiana is upset because FEMA is planning to require states to deal with climate change in order to receive disaster relief funding: Jindal: WH Shouldn’t Use FEMA to Push Climate Change Ideology.

Bobby has decided to try to paint the science of climate change as a “left wing ideology,” because of course he is.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) on Tuesday slammed a new FEMA rule that could force states to recognize climate change in order to receive disaster preparedness funds.

“This preparation saves lives,” Jindal said in a statement to the Washington Times. “The White House should not use it for political leverage to force acquiescence to their left-wing ideology.”

It’s easy to mock these people, but what they’re doing borders on criminal behavior; they’re deliberately misleading the public to try to get us to ignore an existential threat against the entire human species. I try not to use this word in front page posts, but these people are the very definition of ignorant, lying assholes.