Tag: Global Warming

As usual, Ken Cuccinelli isn't just wrong, he's wildly, crazily, dangerously, insanely wrong.  Check this out.

It was the hottest April on record in the NASA dataset.  More significantly, following fast on the heels of the hottest March and hottest Jan-Feb-March on record, it's also the hottest Jan-Feb-March-April on record [click on figure to enlarge].

The record temperatures we're seeing now are especially impressive because we've been in "the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century." It now appears to be over. It's just hard to stop the march of manmade global warming, well, other than by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, that is.

Most significantly, NASA's March prediction has come true:  "It is nearly certain that a new record 12-month global temperature will be set in 2010."

But don't worry; as the planet heats up and threatens life as we know it, Ken Kook-inelli has sprung into action, investigating the causes of global warming what we can do about this dire situation the scientists studying this phenomenon! And, of course, Bob McDonnell is standing up to Cuccinelli defending academic freedom at UVA not uttering a peep of protest.  This should tell you everything you need to know about Ken Kook-inelli and Bob McDonnell, on this and on pretty much everything else as well.  Oh, and for those who claimed that a couple of snowstorms in the middle of the winter (shocker, I know!) was evidence against global warming science, you might try staring at this image for a while.

On Wednesday night's edition of "The O'Reilly Factor," Bill played a new VoteVets.org ad for guest Dennis Miller. The ad points out that the money we pay to import polluting oil ends up in the hands of terrorists who targets our troops in Iraq & Afghanistan. It closes with a call for clean energy & climate legislation. Watch as Miller, a hardcore conservative & self-described global warming denier, refuses to say one bad word about it:

You really have to wonder -- if Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's legal case against climate action is really as watertight as he claims, why can't he talk about it without lying repeatedly?

In an interview with the Roanoke Free Press, Cuccinelli repeats an old Republican lie about the results of an MIT study on the costs of clean energy & climate legislation. Strangely, Cuccinelli repeats the lie even though the MIT professor behind the study asked Republicans to stop lying about his research over a year ago.

How much would a bill like the American Clean Energy & Security Act that passed the House last year cost the average family? According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, about a postage stamp a day -- $175 a year. And low-income families would actually save $40 a year thanks to energy rebates. Pretty cheap for a bill that would create 1.7 million new jobs & curb the worst effects of global warming.

Showing that he must get his climate news from Rush Limbaugh, Cuccinelli also cites illegally hacked climate scientist emails as proof the Environmental Protection Agency should throw out decades of scientific research. Does Cuccinelli know the Associated Press had a team of 5 reporters comb through every word of those emails & found "none of the emails" changed the fact that "global warming is man-made and a threat"? Or is he happy to keep ignoring reality & instead live in a science-denying bubble?

Read much more at ClimateProgress.org:

Here he goes again. Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli vows once more to sue the federal government. Now, he is challenging  the Obama administration and Environmental Protection Agency's new fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks.

Cuccinelli has already filed suit against the EPA's determination that it can regulate greenhouse gases because they cause global warming and are harmful to human health. A Cuccinelli  spokesman said the EPA's announcement of fuel efficiency standards amounts to a "tacit denial" of Cooch's insistence that the EPA reconsider its greenhouse gases determination.

Well, duh...Of course it does.

This past winter, global warming deniers busted a collective gut laughing about how snow (gasp!) in winter (double gasp!!) meant there was no global warming.  That's right, everyone, there was snow in winter, so global warming was proven to be a hoax! Yeah, they really got all those crazy scientists with all their crazy "facts" with that one. Snow in winter. Hahahahahahahaha. Ha.

Anyway, it's spring now, and if I were a global warming denier, I'd be vewwwwwwy quiet. Why should they be quiet?  Three reasons.

1. It turned out that this past heating season turned out warmer than normal. Today's Washington Post reports that "heating degree days"  ("an index of fuel consumption indicating how many degrees the average temperature fell below 65 for the day") this season are 3,622, compared to a normal of 3,711 and last season's 3,874.  Fewer degree days, of course, mean it's been warmer than normal this heating season. For global warming deniers, that's a big, forehead slapping "d'oh!!!"

2. Yesterday's high temperature at Reagan National Airport was 74 degrees, compared to a normal high of 61 degrees. Today and tomorrow, it's supposed to be 80 degrees, or 19 degrees above normal. This past winter, we had several days where temperatures were on the order of 19 degrees below normal, and global warming deniers were claiming that was proof there was no global warming. Should they now be citing near-record warmth as proof that global warming exists? The answer is, "of course not," because that would be just as assinine as claiming snow in winter disproved global warming. Still, it would be nice if they'd be consistent in their utter illogic.

3. Finally, we have a story which hasn't gotten much attention on Drudge, Glenn, or Rush: "A parliamentary panel investigating allegations that scientists at one of the world's leading climate research centers misrepresented data related to global warming announced Wednesday that it had found no evidence to support that charge."  What's that, you say?  What about that huge! SCANDAL!!! all the global warming deniers - our fine Attorney General, included - were talking about?  You mean it turns out that "nothing in the more than 1,000 stolen e-mail messages or in the ensuing controversy challenged the scientific consensus that 'global warming is happening and that it is induced by human activity?'"  

But, but, but, but, but, but, but, but....GlennRushDrudgeCooch please tell us what to think, make those cognitive dissonance-causing facts go away!!! Yeah, it's sad, but if I were a global warming denier right now, by all rights my head should have just exploded.