Here in the crock pot they call the East Coast, local news stations are rolling out video from those days last February when we were all snow, all the time. But they keep leaving out the best part — clips showing some of our favorite rants about how two feet of snow proved proved global warming is a hoax. Allow us to take you back …
Whack-a-Gore: Who can forget how the kids and grandkids of that titan of science Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) built an igloo near the Capitol building complete with signs saying, “Honk If You (heart) Global Warming” and “Al Gore’s New Home.” He’s taught them so well. And remember the oh-so-clever gibe tweeted by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.)? “It’s going to keep snowing until Al Gore cries ‘Uncle.'” Sometimes brevity is not the soul of wit.
Snark attack: But for the big yuks you need to turn to those who have made “Fair and Balanced” code words for “Foul and Paranoid.” Let’s start with the gleeful Sean Hannity, who couldn’t wait to whack the Kennedys and — you guessed it — Al Gore. Twice. His insightful analysis:
Clown without pity: Then, of course, there’s Glenn “Only Real Patriots Cry” Beck. The blizzard and its ties to global warming were enough to send him to his blackboard, which is where he’s really able to channel his inner loon:
Snow happens: Rush Limbaugh, moved to proclaim the blizzard a “nail in the coffin” for global warming, was thrown into a tizzy because the media wasn’t chasing down Al Gore to demand an explanation. For what … that it was snowing in February? Listen to Limbaugh.
Busted! Finally, the grand finale: MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow calling out Glenn Beck for denying his denial. Savor the moment:
The silence is deafening: Andrew Leonard, writing in Salon, points out that none of the deniers has weighed in yet on this week’s Roast Fest.
… so far as I can tell, Inhofe and DeMint are keeping mum on the great East Coast heat wave. Their twitter-streams are silent. The joking banter is nowhere to be seen. Maybe they’re suffering heat stroke from too much time out under the sun during July 4th BBQs, or maybe they’re just so confident that climate change legislation is dead in the water that they don’t even feel defensive.
And the heat goes on: Clearly, one heat wave is no more proof of global warming than the snow storms were a repudiation of it. But as Michael Reilly, writing for Discovery News, points out:
First, it’s not just heat. Global warming has weighted the dice in favor of extreme rainfall events, too, including the floods that rocked Tennessee and Kentucky this spring.
Joseph Romm makes a similar case in his Climate Progress post, which features the following quote from Tom Peterson, chief scientist for NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center:
We’re getting a dramatic taste of the kind of weather we are on a course to bequeath to our grandchildren.
Hear that, Sen. Inhofe?
