Despite the fact that the Senate recently voted 98-1 that climate change is real and not a hoax, Sen. Jim Inhofe, who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, was back on the floor mocking the notion of climate change this week. Inhofe voted for the earlier resolution but insists that man is not responsible for the changes. Those pushing for measures to combat climate change bring the overwhelming majority of scientists around the world to such debates as well as dozens of studies. Inhofe brought a snowball.
Inhofe tossed a snowball in the Senate chambers to mock the notion of climate change. He also showed pictures of an igloo his daughter’s family built during the snowstorm five years ago and noted that was the same tie that all “the hysteria on global warming” began. Addressing Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy from Louisiana, Inhofe said “Do you know what this is? It’s a snowball. It’s just from outside here, so it’s very, very cold out, … very unseasonable.” He then said “Mr. President, Catch this” and threw the snowball. Wisely not trusting the coordination of his colleagues, he threw it to a page who caught the snowball with the skill of Ernie Banks.
As we have discussed, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said last month that 2014 was the warmest year on record. However, climate change does not mean that you do not get extremely cold weather. Indeed, you can have wild fluctuations in weather patterns. Many scientists have documents not just colder temperatures over all but such intensifying patterns. It certainly does not mean that you will not get snow in Washington, D.C.
Yet, Inhofe insisted “We hear the perpetual headline that 2014 has been the warmest year on record, but now the script has flipped.
Of course, even before the GOP took over the Senate, there was little action on climate change. If history is any measure, any substantive legislation has about the changes of a snowball in . . . the Senate.
