Obama: Climate deniers on a ‘shrinking island’

President Obama on Monday night took shots at those who deny climate change during his trip to Alaska, saying they are “on their own shrinking island.”

{mosads}”We’re starting to see that enough consensus is being built internationally and within each of our own body politics that we may have the political will, finally, to get moving,” Obama said.

“So the time to heed the critics and the cynics and the deniers is past. The time to plead ignorance is surely past,” Obama said in remarks at the GLACIER Conference in Anchorage.

“Those who want to ignore the science, they are increasingly alone. They’re on their own shrinking island,” Obama said.

Members of the Obama administration have repeatedly cast climate change as a top threat facing the U.S. and other countries, even saying it is as big a threat as terrorism.

Obama channeled that sentiment on Monday during his trip, describing climate change as “a challenge that will define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other.”

The Obama administration is hoping to keep a focus on the issue heading into the international conference on climate change in Paris in December.