Ok, hold on to your hat. As La Marguerite said earlier this week, and as Grist has been proving for eons, there’s no reason why we can’t laugh. So, it’s Friday. And here’s one winner-takes-all (the kudos) climate change question for you.

Which of these graphs was actually used in a serious article to help explain climate change impacts?

A)

B)

C)

or D)

So, which was it?

The correct answer, or course, is…

is…

B). As Climate and Capitalism reported, the U.S. Canadaian (thanks Ian) Financial Post editor Terence Corcoran, offers this graph, produced by another climate-change-denier, Roger Pielke. It really does try to put together income and flood damage as a rational pair of axes to explain climate change’s link to the current U.S. flooding.

As C&C’s Ian Angus writes, this:

would make a weird kind of sense if we accept that GDP growth (ie capitalist economic activity) causes climate change and that climate change has an effect on the number and frequency of floods. But that is exactly what Corcoran and his ilk deny. Consistency is not one of their virtues.

And listening to the wise words of Richard Littlemore of DeSmogBlog: “Only if you imagine that the U.S. economy has not grown in the last 80 years could THAT be a reassuring notion.”

Thanks to Climate Audit, its commentators, and Lubos Moti, for the graphs and images. They all link back to you.

Have a good weekend.