Santorum swamped Romney (sorry) at two caucuses and a nonbinding primary yesterday, suggesting that his candidacy is a less funny joke than previously thought. Well whatever, they've clearly been playing King of the Mountain all campaign season, knocking each other off the top of the dung heap -- at this point, do we care which of the anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-health care climate deniers gets the nod? Yeah, because when it comes to climate change (and everything else), Santorum doubles down on the wild-eyed conspiracy theories.

The 2012 version of NASA's iconic "Blue Marble" image. (Photo by NASA Goddard Photo and Video.)

This essay was originally published on TomDispatch and is republished here with Tom’s kind permission.

If we could see the world with a particularly illuminating set of spectacles, one of its most prominent features at the moment would be a giant carbon bubble, whose bursting someday will make the housing bubble of 2007 look like a lark. As yet -- as we shall see -- it’s unfortunately largely invisible to us.

In compensation, though, we have some truly beautiful images made possible by new technology. Last month, for instance, NASA updated the most iconic photograph in our civilization’s gallery: “Blue Marble,” originally taken from Apollo 17 in 1972. The spectacular new high-def image (shown at right) shows a picture of the Americas on Jan. 4, a good day for snapping photos because there weren’t many clouds.

It was also a good day because of the striking way it could demonstrate to us just how much the planet has changed in 40 years.

Alain de Botton's proposed atheist temple. (Image by Tom Greenall and Jordan Hodgson.)

Fundamentalism and magical thinking are all the rage these days. Rational scientific thinking is out, especially when it comes to climate change, and atheists are really unpopular.

But what if non-believers grabbed a few ideas from the religious set? Writer Alain de Botton, whose most recent book is called Religion for Atheists, has come up with a plan to build an enormous atheist temple in the city of London. On his website, de Botton asks “Even if religion isn’t true, can’t we enjoy the best bits?”

De Botton doesn’t see an atheist temple as a contradiction in terms. Here’s what he told The Guardian:

It wasn’t surprising that the Wall Street Journal published an error-riddled op-ed about climate change last week, essentially saying it was bunk and we shouldn’t “panic” about it. We’ve gotten used to that. But what has really started to amaze me about that newspaper’s editorial page and the far right is that they now venture beyond delusion or misinformation. They lie, and they know they are lying.

That’s a big claim, but how else do you account for the statement that “the earth hasn’t warmed for well over 10 years now” when it is well known by anyone working on climate that 2010 was the hottest year on record?

Despite the fact that many of the authors of the article are funded by ExxonMobil through the George C. Marshall Institute, and despite the fact that none of them are leading scientists, they, and the editor of the opinion page, simply had to know that that statement was false. They may be unethical, but they are not stupid.

Ready for a little peek behind the editorial decision-making curtain at the Wall Street Journal? On Friday, the paper published an op-ed disputing anthropogenic global warming, on the strength of its being signed by 16 scientists. Sixteen, wow, that's a lot! Except that in May 2010, 255 members of the National Academy of Science wrote an op-ed laying out the actual facts about global warming, and the WSJ turned it down. (It was published in Science instead.) Wait, is it possible this isn't about the number of scientists at all??

A study just out from the University of Kent inquires into the nature of conspiracy theorists, and comes out with this interesting or maybe obvious conclusion: It's not that they really believe what they're saying. It's more that they don't trust authority figures on the matter.

Newt Gingrich has been all over the map on climate change. Instead of trying to pinpoint all his many stances from over the years (who even has that many pins?), I'll just highlight a few key moments.

In 2008, when the cool kids were at least feigning concern for climate change, Gingrich appeared with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a TV ad for Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection. “[O]ur country must take action to address climate change,” Gingrich solemnly proclaimed.

Did you hear that popping sound last Thursday? That was the sound of thousands of New York Times readers’ heads exploding after reading public editor Arthur Brisbane’s piece on whether the paper has an obligation to challenge falsehoods at the risk of being a labeled a “truth vigilante.”

Obvious, laughable, and ridiculous were just a handful of the responses to his piece across the internet.

But there’s another word to describe it: enlightening. Brisbane’s post offered a peek behind the curtain at how the mainstream media perceives objectivity. In short, it’s akin to stenography.

Photo: Gage Skidmore

In 2007, Newt Gingrich and Terry L. Maple wrote a book called A Contract with the Earth, outlining a "green conservatism" that takes problems like climate change seriously. Gingrich and Maple have been working on a follow-up, a collection of essays called Environmental Entrepreneurs, that tells the stories of private businesses innovating solutions.

The Los Angeles Times tells the tale: Maple reached out to atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe, a Texas Tech researcher who also happens to be an evangelical Christian (and wife to an evangelical minister). In an email he told her the book ...

Kerry Emanuel.Prominent MIT researcher Kerry Emanuel has been receiving an unprecedented "frenzy of hate" after a video featuring an interview with him was published recently by Climate Desk. Emails contained "veiled threats against my wife," and other "tangible threats," Emanuel, a highly-regarded atmospheric scientist and director of MIT's Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate program, said in an interview. "They were vile, these emails. They were the kind of emails nobody would like to receive." "What was a little bit new about it was dragging family members into it and feeling that my family might be under threat, so naturally I didn't …