Liberal pundits and journalists went ballistic after President Donald Trump tweeted the U.S. East Coast could use “a little bit of that good old global warming.”
Trump’s tweet was not only aimed at the frigid, snowy weather hitting most of the country, but also poked fun at the Paris climate accord, which he promised to withdraw from earlier this year. The liberal media couldn’t handle it.
In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 29, 2017
The Thursday tweet sparked vitriolic responses and a wave of articles distinguishing between “climate” and “weather.” The New York Times reported that Trump “appeared unaware of the distinction between weather and climate.”
“Climate refers to how the atmosphere acts over a long period of time, while weather describes what’s happening on a much shorter time scale,” NYT reporters wrote in response to Trump’s tweet.
Millions of Americans have been dealing with frigid weather and snow for the past few days. Temperatures in the Midwest and Great Plains regions hit record lows after Christmas Day, and Northeasterners living near the Great Lakes have been buried in snow.
Quite a few writers took the time to put out articles on why the recent cold spell didn’t “disprove” man-made global warming. Social media went wild when Trump’s tweet seemed to confirm their worries.
Washington Post’s weather reporters yesterday vs Donald Trump today. pic.twitter.com/hhI9xcc1V7
— Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) December 29, 2017
This is what happens when you try to run the country without a science advisor.
The worst part of it is, as twisted and wrong as this tweet is, it’s exactly what resonates with his base. Poking fun at existential global problems in the sickest, most selfish way possible. https://t.co/OX9Xd77TD4— Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) December 29, 2017
The president does not know the difference between climate and weather.
Fortunately, NASA can explain it to him: https://t.co/oTreyyYYT8 https://t.co/8fWOzTikOR
— Emily Atkin (@emorwee) December 29, 2017
Yes, climate is not the same as weather. But many of the same journalists and pundits criticizing Trump’s tweet routinely use weather events to bolster their own views on global warming. Either that, or they’re absent from critiquing politicians who make similar claims about heatwaves, hurricanes and other events.
Grist’s Eric Holthaus, for example, argued that hurricanes Harvey and Irma were “climate change disasters.” Holthaus wrote that “[t]hese storms weren’t natural.”
“A warmer, more violent atmosphere — heated up by our collective desire to ignore the fact that we live on a planet where such devastation is possible — juiced Harvey and Irma’s destruction,” Holthaus wrote in September.
That’s not Holthaus’s only example. He also wrote an article for Rolling Stone declaring recent wildfires as part of “California’s Climate Emergency.” Again, using seasonal weather conditions to argue that global warming is an existential threat to humanity.
The New York Times often publishes articles linking individual weather events to man-made global warming. The Times recently published an article on how global warming “fueled” five individual extreme weather events.
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