GOP lawmaker says rocks falling into ocean to blame for rising sea levels

A Republican lawmaker on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee said Thursday that rocks from the White Cliffs of Dover and the California coastline, as well as silt from rivers tumbling into the ocean, are contributing to high sea levels globally.

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) made the comment during a hearing on technology and the changing climate, which largely turned into a Q&A on the basics of climate research.

Climate scientist Philip Duffy testified before the panel, addressing lawmakers’ questions about climate change, according to E&E News. “The rate of global sea-level rise has accelerated and is now four times faster than it was 100 years ago,” Duffy told the panel.

Brooks said that erosion played a factor in that.

“Every time you have that soil or rock or whatever it is that is deposited into the seas, that forces the sea levels to rise, because now you have less space in those oceans, because the bottom is moving up,” Brooks said at the hearing.

“I’m pretty sure that on human time scales, those are minuscule effects,” responded Duffy, president of the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts and a former senior adviser to the U.S. Global Change Research Program, responded.

It’s gotten to the point where I have a hard time paying attention to what politicians are saying and doing these days.

Rocks and erosion made the sea level go up? Really? That’s logic a child would use and not someone on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee.

#climatechange #politics