Competition for oily petro-dollars seems to have driven two conservative willful ignoramuses into a tailspin of stupidity, each trying to outdo the other. First up was Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), channeling a prized chestnut of conservative misinformation, saying that ”the Earth is no longer warming. And has not for about the past 13 years. It has begun to cool.”
Ahh yes, the global cooling zombie lie. Then Rep. Ron Johnson (R-WI) stepped in the same trap with more golden oldies:
First of all the climate hasn’t warmed in quite a few years, that is proven scientifically. So, that’s why they changed the terminology from “global warming” to “climate change.” That covers everything. Climate has always changed, it always will.
Haha, proven scientifically! What Blackburn and Johnson are trying to do, clumsily, is convey a now discredited talking point used by fossil fuel apologists. See this graph with the big spike around 1998? It was a really warm year. So, if you used that single year as your baseline it was possible to downplay subsequent warming for a few years. Until recently, when global temperature caught up and have now solidly passed that outlier. But Blackburn and Johnson apparently didn’t get the memo; someone might want to clue them in, that saying the Earth is cooling is so 2010.