Please. Make them stop.
It seemed that every conservative talk show host today was getting yuks from the irony of the Obama Commerce Department announcing the launch of a new government climate change service in the middle of unprecedented snowfall in Washington, D.C. Underlying the hilarity was the persistent implication, and sometimes outright assertion, that the snowfall itself actually undermined the prevailing scientific findings of climate change research. If Hannity, Limbaugh and others who did this (and have done it before) really believe that one snowstorm, or twenty, can have any probative value at all in determining the accuracy of climate change science, then they are too ignorant to participate in policy debates about the issue. If, on the other hand, the talk show pundits are deliberately pandering to the many science-illiterates among their listeners—and I think that is exactly what they are doing—then they are being dishonest and unfair.
It is one thing to point out when the predictions of extreme weather made by global warming advocates go awry, as they did regarding last year’s hurricane season. It was one of the mildest in years despite earlier claims by some scientists that global warming would make it a season of unprecedented destruction. Highlighting failed forecasts is fair and appropriate, because the weakness of climate change science is and will always be the inherent complexity of climate factors, making even short-term predictions difficult, and, some say, impossible. But using individual weather events to prove or disprove the existance of global warming is, not to put too fine a point on it, idiotic. Climate change involves measuring trends and conditions over decades and centuries. Arguing that an unusual series of snow storms undermines global warming claims is like deciding that your five-year-old is going to be a dwarf because he didn’t get any bigger between Monday and Tuesday.
The argument for using the snowstorms in this fashion appears to be a variation of the “Everybody does it” rationalization. After all, Al Gore blamed Hurricane Katrina on global warming. Nancy Pelosi, after being shown a melting glacier last year, fatuously said that she “witnessed” climate change. Never mind that such a statement is like saying you have “witnessed” evolution: the global warmists are playing this game. Why shouldn’t Sean and Rush and the rest?
The answer is simple: it is either intellectually dishonest, or inexcusably stupid. Ignorance and skepticism are not the same. Make fun of Pelosi’s foolishness if you want, but don’t replicate it. “Everybody does it” is no excuse for unethical conduct, and “Everybody’s stupid” is not a justification to spread ignorance.
I just spent a couple of hours fighting the snow here. I don’t need to listen to snow jobs too.
Ethics Alarms 
If Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity would tone down their rhetoric, stick to the facts a bit more, and not take such glee from others’ mistakes, lies, and those caught in lies, they would taken more seriously. I listen to them fairly regularly, and
(1) I would like it if Limbaugh would stop asserting that he’s the smartest man in the world, and present the facts he has without demeaning completely everyone he disagrees with. True, many of those he disagrees with should be demeaned for their knee-jerk, partisan idiocy, but a little more intellect and a little less arrogance would go a long way to making him more credible with those who are extremely disappointed with Obama and looking for other answers and another way. Limbaugh isn’t providing that avenue.
(2) Sean Hannity’s obeisance to Limbaugh is pathetic, as is his insistence on talking on and on with morons. Sean, you won’t change their minds and you CAN’T improve their IQs. So bag that and get on with different stuff. Go beyond the Tea Party reports, and do what you do well: interview people who have something real to say and get some facts out there. Also, stop the stupid segues from your real show to your advertising. It is insulting. You, too, could broaden your base if you refined your approach.
Both Limbaugh and Hannity should take a lesson from Laura Ingraham. Her show is much more fact based, even though it is very clear where she’s coming from and makes no bones about it.
Are you sure that they were not using the standards set by those calling for massive restructuring of the economy to fight climate change in order to “prove” that climate change does not exist, thus demonstrating the fallacy of their whole campaign?
The advocates of these policies sowed the dragon’s teeth, and Limbauigh and Hannity are merely ensuring that they reap the harvest.
No. Both sides do it, The climate change whores are worse, to be sure, since they are fully capable of arguing that any weather event, hot or cold, or natural disaster “proves” that we a re doomed. But the counter argument is equally dumb, and plays on the scientific ignorance of the public. Long term climate change is neither proven or disproven by any one event or series of events, no matter how extreme.
The fact that the “other side” started it first is significant in this case. They sowed the dragon’s teeth by predicting extreme weather events, and using individual events to “prove” global warming.