Oklahoma hits 100° in the dead of winter, because climate change is real

Sen James Inhofe would be hard pressed to
find a snowball anywhere in his home state
doing the weekend just gone.

Two years ago this month, in a well-publicized and much lampooned political stunt, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) brought a snowball to the Senate floor to highlight the “unseasonable” cold and cast doubt on climate change.

The Republican lawmaker would have been hard-pressed to find a snowball anywhere in his home state this past weekend.

Oklahoma just endured a spell of exceptionally hot weather. Mangum, Oklahoma saw temperatures close to 100º F, setting a state record. The average February high in Mangum is 56º F.

Read the ThinkProgress story - “Oklahoma hits 100° in the dead of winter, because climate change is real.”

Three minutes helps us understand the vitriolic behaviour of America's climate change deniers

T

his three minute plus YouTube helps us understand why American climate deniers are so extreme and this time their distressing behaviour is on show at the annual Heartland Institute Conference.

U.S. Senator, Jim Inhofe - infamous
 for tossing a snowball across
the Senate flood to demonstrate
climate change was the greatest hoax
ever perpetrated against
the American people

The United States senator from Oklahoma and a member of the Republican Party, James Inhofe, infamous for tossing a snowball across the Senate floor to demonstrate "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated against the American people," says Pope Francis should "stay with his job."

Sadly, he wasn't alone: Numerous climate deniers at the Heartland Institute's conference in Washington, DC, had scathing criticism for the pope

Watch the short YouTube clip - “American Climate Deniers Are Really, Really, Really Upset With the Pope”.

A 'yes' vote reallys means 'no'

America’s Senator agree, but on nothing.

They have voted “yes” the climate is changing, but “no” it is not because of human influence.

Such a stance is typical of a climate change denier with them agreeing unequivocally that the climate is changing, but tempering that with conditional statements that is has always changed and that what we are seeing is not caused by humans.

The changes, they are referring to and conveniently omit, happened over thousands, if not millions of years, while those troubling the world now are the manifestation of human behaviour since the Industrial Revolution in the late 1800s, a mere blink in geological time.

A story on the ABC headed: “Climate change is real, US Senate agrees; Republican Senator rejectsit is man-made” tells us that US Senate Republicans have joined Democrats on the record acknowledging that climate change is real.

The symbolic amendment, attached to a controversial bill authorising construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, was approved 98-1 after Senator “James Inhofe, seen as the top climate change denier in Congress, announced he was supporting the legislation.

“Mr Inhofe, however, strongly rejected any suggestion that human activity was responsible for climate change,” the ABC reported.