Snowpocalypse vs. Summer Heat Wave: Right-Wing Media Having it Both Ways With Weather
July 07, 2010 2:07 pm ET by Karl Frisch
This past winter the conservative media was absolutely giddy using record-breaking snowfall and chilly temperatures to cast doubt on the scientific concensus surrounding global climate change:
- Say it ain't snow: Media suggest snowstorms cast doubt on global warming
- Brain Freeze: Conservative media still using winter weather to attack global warming
- More after the jump…
Before we go any further, it bears noting that there is a very real difference between weather (“what conditions of the atmosphere are over a short period of time”) and climate (“how the atmosphere ‘behaves’ over relatively long periods of time.”)
Yes, these right-wing media figures and outlets regularly conflate weather and climate to undermine public opinion about the broad and conclusive scientific consensus that climate change is real and exacerbated by human activity.
Now, what if we were to take these science deniers at their word? What if they were simply reporting the weather as it relates to climate change? If cold weather means global warming is a scam, doesn’t warm weather mean global warming is legit?
Media conservatives would finally be consistent if they agreed with both scenarios but they’d still be wrong about both equations.
Again, weather and climate aren’t the same.
If anything shows the shallow political calculations of the conservative media, it’s the games it plays with weather and climate.
So, as much of the country feels the triple-digit temperatures of a summer heat wave, don’t expect Fox News, Drudge, or any of the other right-wing media flat-earthers to step forward and use the summer weather as a political cudgel. That’s a dubious weapon exclusively reserved on the right for snow, cold weather and winter.
Flashback to Snowpocalypse:
- Drudge links Barcelona snowstorm to Gore's "doomsday" global warming "rhetoric"
- Fox graphic: "Blizzards putting the green agenda on ice: Good for the economy?"
- Global warming must be a hoax -- it snowed in Russia!
- Attacking Bill Nye, Beck falsely claims "nobody's saying" that snow in DC disproves climate change
- Say it ain't snow: Media suggest snowstorms cast doubt on global warming
- Bolling: Snow "breaking Al Gore's heart because" it's "burying his global warming theory"
- Limbaugh calls winter snowstorms climate change "nail in the coffin," asks "Where is Al Gore?"
- Beck on D.C.'s snow: "I believe God is just saying, 'I got your global warming here, eh?' "
- Hannity: "Global warming, where are you? We want you back"
- Brain Freeze: Conservative media still using winter weather to attack global warming
- Limbaugh: DC snowstorm more proof that "man-made global warming" is an "ongoing hoax"
- Washington Times: February snow storms "undermin[e] the case for global warming one flake at a time"
- Hannity touts ice sculptors who cited cold temperatures to claim that global warming "hasn't exactly reached Alaska"
- Doocy's weather report: "It's not global warming, I'll tell you that!"
- Fox's Doocy: "I wonder if Al Gore is shivering ... global warming thing is really starting to kick in"
- Doocy on cold weather: "That global warming thing is really kicking into high gear, isn't it?"
If there were any real journalists at FOX, they'd be a little sheepish when talking about the current heat wave. Instead, I saw a clip of a FOXette reporting the record high temperatures as if she were sharing her prom photos. It was amusing and disgusting at the same time.
And they don't think that cold weather and snow means GCC isn't real. They KNOW that there's a difference between weather and climate.
But their listeners don't always know those things, and they know that those listeners/viewers aren't curious enough to learn the whole story! And they know that those same listeners don't have much common sense and can willingly turn off their brains - so that the people who watch/listen to them seemingly aren't aware of the contradictions that are apparent to us thinking people.
If snow and cold temps mean something, then record warmth means something. But the rightwing media knows that their listeners don't care about the logic of that - they ONLY care about hurting/denigrating their current political opponents!
Let's dispense with the righteous indignation.
Emphasis mine. Fail yours.
Emphasis mine, you were saying something about a failure?
Gore said that recent weather events are consistent with what scientists have been predicting.
Want to tell me what your problem is with that statement? Again: Gore didn't say "That proves it!". Gore's remark happens to be true. Maybe it's too true for wingnuts like you and Jeff Poor to deal with, so you just make up sh!t, as usual.
Good one, huh? Too many cowards and hypocrites at FNC to expect reason when shrill lies will do.
Of course they'll be back at it when the first flake of snow falls next winter.