Those seeking to undermine knowledge and respect for science, whether it is those who decry Charles Darwin’s laying out of evolution or fossil-foolish interests attacking Nobel Prize winners, have something to fear when Barack Obama chooses to speak (with or without a teleprompter). While there were many reasons for his election, his ability to speak clearly, in a way that communicates (and communicates his intelligence/knowledge) certainly ranks up there.
President Obama turned that clarity of communication to the basic question of whether DC (or Dallas) snowstorms undermine the science of Global Warming.
First of all, we just got five feet of snow in Washington and so everybody’s like-a lot of the people who are opponents of climate change, they say, “See, look at that. There’s all this snow on the ground, you know, this doesn’t mean anything.”
I want to just be clear that the science of climate change doesn’t mean that every place is getting warmer. It means the planet as a whole is getting warmer. But what it may mean is, for example, Vancouver which supposed to be getting snow during the Olympics, suddenly is at 55 degrees and Dallas suddenly is getting seven inches of snow.
The idea is that as the planet as a whole gets warmer, you start seeing changing weather patterns and that creates more violent storm systems, more unpredictable weather.
So any single place might end up being warmer. Another place might end up being a little bit cooler. There might end up being more precipitation in the air.
More monsoons, more hurricanes, more tornadoes, more drought in some places, floods in other places.
More climate disruption.
Hat tip Wonkroom and Media Matters, which commented:
Rep. Steve King [promotes the] absurd conclusion that snow disproves climate change. Addressing a crowd at the annual CPAC conference, King said “It’s tough to make an argument when the evidence is all around us with a snowy white wonder in a crystal cathedral.” This sort of inane logic is what scores political points among conservative activists. Challenging science seems to be the conservative movement’s equivalent to speaking truth to power. But the conclusion is tragically flawed.
On how Vancouver has a record warm December, with snow being airlifted to an Olympic venue, while Washington, DC, has snow, see: Climate Disruption: Airlifting snow from Washington, DC, to Vancouver, British Columbia
1 response so far ↓
1 sailrick // Feb 19, 2010 at 10:52 pm
Rep King wasn’t the only one making these idiotic statements, Donald Trump, Sean Hannity with a nod of approval from Sen McCain, etc. The Donald even called for Al Gore to be stripped of his Nobel prize because of it. What has Trump ever contributed to society? He’s famous for what, being rich, making deals?
What makes it really odd, is that we just got the report that 2009 was the second warmest year on record and more recently, that January 2010 was the fourth warmest January on record.
More facts to throw out if any of your denier friends repeat this latest bogus claim.
What’s interesting, is that while scientists are loath to attribute any particular storm or patch of bad weather to global warming, they have said that there will be more weather extremes. So what do the deniers do? As soon as there is extreme weather, they claim it’s proof against global warming.
And they wonder why we don’t consider them skeptics, just deniers.