January 2, 2014 by David K. Sutton
Yes Uncle Bob, Despite Winter, Global Warming Is Still Real
Well, it’s that time of year again. The time when Fox News viewers and your Uncle Bob dispense the usual liberal goading climate change denialism. You know, it’s snowing, it’s cold, therefore global warming is a hoax. There’s a blizzard, so time to make fun of Al Gore. It’s winter, hence no greenhouse effect.
But despite short-term cold accompanied by long-term ignorance, global warming is still real.
Never mind that any particular snow storm only impacts a relatively small portion of the planet. Never mind that it was in the 80s today in southern Florida. Never mind that it’s actually summer in the southern hemisphere, and Australia is experiencing a record-breaking heatwave. Nope, conservatives are used to extending their viewpoints only as far as they can reach, so why would they show any willingness to expand their horizon and raise their level of consciousness when it comes to facts backed up by overwhelming scientific consensus? Instead, conservatives will continue to deny climate change is real because, well, that’s what works for them. And they see no conflict with their utter lack of knowledge on the subject. For conservatives, their uninformed opinion has at least as much weight as decades of climate science observation, tests, and studies, conducted by experts who went to school and actually learned something.
To say global warming isn’t real because winter still happens is to show just how dense conservatives “choose” to be on a topic when they know it’s a good way to annoy a liberal or two. And if that’s how you decide what you will believe, basing your ideology on the level of agitation you can elicit from a perceived enemy, then anti-science, climate change denialist conservatives are some of the most trivial and hollow people you might have the “privilege” to encounter during the course of your day.