While the President spends the remainder of 2017 at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, he has been tweeting up a storm about everything from Vanity Fair to the cold snap encroaching onto the Eastern seaboard this New Year’s Eve.
In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 29, 2017
“In the East,” the president tweeted early Friday, “it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that gold old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!”
While it seems like the idea that global warming means everything only gets hotter, which is what the president seems to be saying in his tweet, global warming actually can create unseasonable lows as well as highs, so extreme cold in the winter is actually a fact of life in a global warming scenario.
In many parts of the US (and for our neighbors in Canada too), temperatures have been shockingly cold. In fact, we’re living in the coldest part of the world right now. And although it’s surprisingly cold here (and is only going to get colder through the weekend), the rest of the world is still warmer than it should be for this time of year. As Voxpoints out, climate change and weather are separate but interconnected phenomena and any extremes up or down can be tied to environmental damage.
Besides the forecast, the president’s climate tweet also mentions the “TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS” that he believes was part of a payment into the Paris Climate Accord, which the GOP-led administration backed out of earlier this year. The US is the only nation that refuses to participate in the agreement.
Unfortunately, this number isn’t only slightly off — it’s completely wrong, as one Virginia state Rep pointed out to the president via Twitter (we were actually paying about $3 billion per year into an internationally shared fund to help clean up the environment before backing out of the agreement).
1: This isn’t how climate change works.
2: We weren’t paying trillions of dollars. You didn’t understand the Paris Agreement in June and you still don’t.
3: Climate Change is real. It is a serious threat to our children. You need people on your team who can explain this to you. https://t.co/SQG9cMGOGe
— Rep. Don Beyer (@RepDonBeyer) December 29, 2017
Many others also took the president to task about his tweet, explaining the *actual* science at hand.
If you're actually curious about the facts though, you should read this: "Why Global Warming Can Mean Harsher Winter Weather" https://t.co/CA9k1IqSrQ
— Simon Hedlin (@simonhedlin) December 29, 2017
— Kal Penn (@kalpenn) December 29, 2017
Others just clapped back at President Trump.
We have a President who categorically doesn’t believe in Science. America is entering into a new Dark Age, because it’s cold in Chicago this week.
— Josh Gad (@joshgad) December 29, 2017
Hey dumbass, global warming doesn’t only mean extreme heat; it means extreme weather. Hot and cold. Maybe buy a thermometer and shove it up your ass. https://t.co/wdO0t0nPiY
— Chelsea Handler (@chelseahandler) December 29, 2017
Of course, the president remains in Florida where global warming is having its own effect — the state remains unseasonably warm for late December.
Will you be bundling up this New Year’s Eve? Let us know @BritandCo!
(Photo via Kevin Dietsch-Pool/Getty)
