Gov. Rick Perry wasn't anywhere near Texas on Saturday, but that didn't stop climate scientists and politicians from poking a bit of fun at his position on global warming during an event on the subject at the Pearl Brewery.

Perry, who's seeking the GOP presidential nomination, said on the campaign trail last month that he questions whether humans have caused global warming.

The basis of Moving Planet, the Saturday event that was one of 2,000 across the world, is to push beyond fossil fuels because the atmosphere contains too much carbon dioxide, the product of all combustion, which has caused the temperature on Earth to increase.

One of the first laughs of the day came at Perry's expense when Dr. Gerald North, Texas A&M University's distinguished professor of atmospheric sciences and oceanography, projected on the wall a recent cartoon from the New Yorker magazine.

The drawing depicts a mother polar bear and her cub floating on a tiny chunk of ice, completely surrounded by ocean. The caption reads, “Momma? Is Rick Perry real?”

Gerald North, Texas A&M University's distinguished professor of atmospheric sciences and oceanography, and A&M colleague Gunnar Schade said the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly clear that global warming is occurring.

“The impulse of everyone out there is to kill the messenger,” Schade said. “We have to face the truth.”

There's “overwhelming ... evidence” that man-made global warming is occurring, he said.

Texas, Schade said, is headed for fewer cold nights, longer summers, an increase in average temperatures and at least a doubling of record heat waves in the coming decades.

Based on current trends, he said, within 50 years, Texas will no longer be able to sustain the growth of cotton or corn and desertification will occur.

North warned of more floods and droughts.

“Where it's wet, it's going to get wetter,” he said. “And where it's dry, it's going to get drier.”

Congressman Lloyd Doggett, who's in a primary race for Texas' 35th Congressional District against state Rep. Joaquin Castro, spoke after the two A&M scientists and almost immediately took a swing at the governor.

“If the Aggies get it,” he questioned, “why not Rick Perry?”

State Rep. Mike Villarreal, who also spoke at the event, said “a lot of Texans are still in denial” about global warming, but he tempered it by saying there's been “slow but steady enlightenment” here.

He recounted an incident from the night before when he was at a party where the conversation had turned to the summer heat and climatologist predictions of increasing temperatures to come. Someone responded that another Ice Age would follow, he said.

Villarreal lamented that he didn't seize that moment to impart some facts — and he implored those in attendance to do just that.

“We need to approach them with a loving heart and find an opportunity to share (the facts),” the lawmaker said.