It’s snowing in the District of Columbia. A foot of snow is on the ground and it’s not even winter yet. President Obama couldn’t even use his helicopter after returning from the failed Copenhagen climate change summit. He traveled from Andrews Air Force Base to the White House by car.
Climate change denial is a growth industry among those who don’t believe in evolution, either. Global Warming skeptics see a massive conspiracy involving UN black helicopters or Hollywood Jews, little green men, or mad scientists. Those with a vested interest in the status quo are glad to support them. Many who deny anthropogenic global warming are funded by huge corporations that grow rich by generating greenhouse gasses (more here).
Thanks to the decline of science education in the USA and the end of objective journalism, Americans cannot distinguish between “weather” and “climate” and are unaware of (or uninterested in) overwhelming climatological consensus and the Scientific Method. The media welcome corporate disinformation, since transportation and energy interest front groups buy prime-time commercials and full-page ads drowning out those boring established scientific facts.
Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
Tags: Barack Obama, Climate Change, Exxon-Mobil, Global Warming, Global Warming deniers, Obama, snow, Washington DC
NotionsCapital 
December 19, 2009 at 9:27 pm
You are kidding right?
December 19, 2009 at 10:08 pm
I think you are an idiot. Let’s see:
“and it’s not even winter yet” – wtf? Christmas week and not even winter?
December 19, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Joe: Um … yeah.
December 19, 2009 at 10:17 pm
totya wrote: “and it’s not even winter yet” – wtf?
Winter starts on Monday, the Winter Solstice.
Christmas week and not even winter?
No, it’s still Advent. Christmas starts on December 25th.
Facts. Learn some.
December 20, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Wake up America.
December 20, 2009 at 3:33 pm
… anthropogenic global warming is just a scientific theory, an idea that seems to have some evidence to support it. This, in contrast to a LAW, which is actually indisputable.
December 20, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Tony wrote: anthropogenic global warming is just a scientific theory
Tony fails Basic Science 101. “Theory” has a specialized meaning in science, which recognizes the on-going and collective nature of the scientific enterprise. Look it up.
December 21, 2009 at 1:07 am
Well, it was a significant weather event.
December 21, 2009 at 2:22 am
S.P. Gass wrote: Well, it was a significant weather event.
Yup.
December 21, 2009 at 6:54 am
Hello there,
I’ m from Poland. We also don’ t believe in this giant lie. Note, that anthropogenic emission of CO2 is just (max) 5% of all natural emission (oceans and so on). So NOTHING depends on us.
This is just an excuse to impose a new global tax on all of us.
Even if all case with CO2 was true, we should emit as much CO2 as possible. Plants need CO2! And I want to have a warmer climate in Poland!
Besides: all greens are simply immature REDS.
Best,
Andrew
December 21, 2009 at 9:34 am
… but I’m pretty sure it rains in the desert. Snow in D.C. (which has been known to happen) doesn’t disprove global warming theories. I’m also unaware of any natural law that states that snow is forbidden to occur before Winter Solstice (my hometown typically gets a first snow on Halloween), but maybe that’s one of those “facts” that need a-learnin’, right Mike?
I agree with Totya.
December 21, 2009 at 11:28 am
Not a Climatologist: Actually, you don’t agree with Totya, who denies the Winter Solstice as well as well Global Warming. And you seem to have a sense of humor.
December 21, 2009 at 11:39 am
Andrew: While I sympathize with your desire to make Poland the new Riviera, those CO2-loving plants are disappearing with clear-cutting of forests, notably in the Amazon and Philippines. As to the oceans, they soak up CO2, but not as much as the once did, thanks to human actions. That means the planet loses the ability to absorb the increased production of this gas. And CO2 is not the only greenhouse gas.
Science is a cumulative and collective enterprise (hope that doesn’t make me sound like a “Red”) and the science overwhelmingly supports the existence of anthropogenic climate change.
December 21, 2009 at 2:37 pm
funny thing is before people started burning any fossil fuels the Earth was much warmer than it is now, and was also once much cooler than it is now.
Around 1,000 years ago when the Vikings were living in Greenland it was actually Green why was the Earth so much warmer then, than it is now?
Could it be that the climate is always changing? 10,000-20,000 years ago there were huge glaciers that covered much of the North American Continent yet they all melted. Why did the Earth warm up back then? Were the Cavemen burning to much coal? Or Gas?
December 21, 2009 at 3:50 pm
wallacebillingham wrote: before people started burning any fossil fuels the Earth was much warmer than it is now, and was also once much cooler than it is now
Yes. Climate change preceded human existence. So? Our current situation is exacerbated by human action, and the difference is enough to endanger the lives of billions. Coastal areas will be lost; high-altitude areas will be drought-stricken.
Around 1,000 years ago when the Vikings were living in Greenland it was actually Green
No. The name is advertising hype devised by a real estate developer, the Viking huckster Eric the Red (only his hair was red — what a character).
Here’s your 2000-year sequence. Where’s the analomous steep curve? Yikes. Glaciers? Even worse.
Please folks. No more uninformed Climate Change denial comments. Send them elsewhere.
December 21, 2009 at 6:05 pm
This weather is ridiculous! [But] Chinese culture has these crazy traditions to deal with the amount of snow they get.
[Folk architecture in Heilongjiang Province – ml]
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Last-Voices/213978194896
December 22, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Mike,
I have to commend you for being so patient with global warming deniers. If they would actually listen and read other material than what Fox News and Rush suggest, they might realize that unusual winter and spring storms are a by-product of global warming. Here is some useful information for deniers who are willing to read.
December 22, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Lawrence E. Rafferty: Climate deniers won’t read government reports. Like other Teabaggers, they regard government documents — even those which merely aggregate independently-generated data — as automatically suspect. The disgruntled are easily manipulated by disinformation campaigns funded by vested interests.
The latest muddy-the-water tactic is the willful misrepresentation of the CRU personal email hack as a matter of significance. It is not.