Sen. Jim Inhofe's (R-OK) embarrassing attempt to disprove global warming with a single snowball was rightfully dismissed by the mainstream media -- but it was applauded on Fox News.
The February 28 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends Saturday featured a clip of Sen. Inhofe's recent speech in which he brought a snowball onto the Senate floor to dispute the scientific finding that 2014 was the hottest year on record. The clip preceded an interview with Inhofe, in which co-host Tucker Carlson asked why some people are “trying to shut down debate” on the causes of climate change. Inhofe responded that “there are so many people out there in the extreme community, the far left ... and they're trying to revive this as an issue,” adding that “it's become a religion.” The only other questions Inhofe received during his interview were whether the U.S. should be “nixing” all climate change-related funding, and how he was able put together such a “nicely packed, well-constructed” snowball:
Other media outlets had a different take on the issue.
New York Magazine's Jonathan Chait called Inhofe's argument “breathtakingly devoid of a factual or logical grasp of its subject matter.”
On the March 2 edition of The View, conservative co-host Nicole Wallace described Inhofe's action on the Senate floor as “moronic,” adding: “if we want to get people younger than him to join our party I think it's time to stop denying and just say let's debate the solutions.”
The Washington Post editorial board wrote that the stunt shows how Inhofe's position as chair for the Environment and Public Works Committee is a “national embarrassment,” adding: “The Republican Party should be mortified by the face of their environmental leadership.”
The Los Angeles Times' Michael Hiltzik agreed, stating that Inhofe's stunt was “cause for a national face-palm,” and that Inhofe should be “condemned, not encouraged.”
Vox called it “the dumbest thing that happened on the Senate floor” that day.
It doesn't take long to show how a single episode of cold weather does not contradict the long-term trend of human-caused global warming. A look at the global temperatures beyond the United States' East Coast shows how the world, as a whole, has recently experienced warmer-than-average temperatures, including the second-warmest January on record:
But Fox's segment celebrating Inhofe's climate denial should come as no surprise; "snow-trolling" of the sort Inhofe engaged in often finds a welcome home on Fox News. In fact, the network has found a way to claim just about any amount of snow debunks global warming. Even Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch recently got in on the act, tweeting a picture of North Atlantic ice and writing, “Global Warming!”
