Hume-idity & snow jobs

My friend Richard, in a phone chat Saturday, was complaining about snow, ice and zero temps in Akron, Ohio. I hated to tell him I had my central air running here in South Carolina.

We were talking about the “weather.”

The right-wing and particularly Fox News are trying desperately to convince folks that “global warming” is a tree-hugger hoax.

Fox anchor Brit Hume just can’t get enough of those “it’s snowing, there’s global warming” jokes. On a recent show, he reported that a theater had canceled the showing of Al Gore’s “An Inconventient Truth” due to snow, then reacted to his own joke with a hee, hee and a yuck, yuck.

Hume was talking about the “weather.”

These naysayers neglect to tell their followers and/or audiences that there is a difference between “weather” and “climate.”

The 14 February 2007 edition of the Progress Report, Center for American Progess, explains the two terms:

“To understand why the current cold snap across the United States is occurring during a global warming trend, one must first understand the distinction between climate and weather.

“Climate is the ‘composite or generally prevailing weather conditions of a region, as temperature, air pressure, humidity, precipitation, sunshine, cloudiness and winds, throughout the year, averaged over a series of years.’ LINK In other words, climate refers to recorded history.

“Weather, on the hand, is current events; it refers to the ‘state of the atmosphere at a given time and place.’ LINK Weather is a snapshot of the climate at any one instant. Although the two are related, their relationship is indirect. ‘The chaotic nature of weather means that no conclusion about climate can ever be drawn from a single data point, hot or cold. The temperature of one place at one time ... says nothing about climate, much less climate change, much less global climate change.’” LINK

Read the entire Progress Report: “Global Warming: Pouring Cold Water on Skeptics’ Claims:” LINK

Postscript:

In my opintion, the Progress Report is one of the best political newsletters on the Web – informative, well researched and thoroughly documented.

To “Sign Up” for the Pregress Report via email or read online: LINK