GOP senator’s family builds igloo to mock global warming

By Sahil Kapur
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 -- 1:04 pm
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inhofeigloo GOP senators family builds igloo to mock global warmingWASHINGTON -- The apple doesn't seem to fall far from the tree in Sen. Jim Inhofe's (R-OK) family. The rabid climate change denier's loved ones have joined together for the common purpose of poking fun at global warming and Al Gore.

Members of Inhofe's family braved the historic snow storms crippling the nation's capital and other northeastern cities to build a sizable igloo near the Washington National Mall in honor of the outspoken climate activist and former vice president.

Atop lies a sign at reads "AL GORE'S NEW HOME!" on one side and "HONK IF YOU [HEART] GLOBAL WARMING" on the other.

21952 290684064421 55018309421 3595937 73431 n GOP senators family builds igloo to mock global warmingCentral to the pretext behind Inhofe's family excursion is the notion that heavy snow storms challenge, if not refute, the science behind global warming. In fact, Inhofe, the ranking member of the senate environment committee, makes no secret of his aims.

He posted photos of the igloo on his Facebook fan page, describing them as, "Senator Inhofe and his family were in Washington DC this weekend as the blizzard hit the DC area. The Inhofe family had a little fun at the expense of Al Gore and global warming.

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Climate policy wonk Brad Johnson of Think Progress countered his point by noting that global climate change has long been expected to polarize weather patterns.

"In reality, winter snows do not invalidate the reality that the planet just experienced the hottest decade on record," Johnson said. "Scientists have been warning for decades that global warming would increase the severity of winter storms."

So resolute is Inhofe's stance against taking steps to cut carbon emissions that he said this summer there's no conceivable way he'll support climate change legislation.

In anticipation of the historic snow storm that has crippled Washington, D.C. since this weekend, the Virginia Republican Party last Friday released an advertisement mocking global warming and urging their constituents to oppose cap and trade energy legislation.

21952 290684074421 55018309421 3595938 1238863 n GOP senators family builds igloo to mock global warming
21952 292000124421 55018309421 3601353 2240867 n GOP senators family builds igloo to mock global warming

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Story comments are below...

  • bunsinspace
    Poor tiny-brained Senator Inhofe. He cannot make the distinction between a petty personal inconvenience and a global disaster. Oh he is freezing his buns off, poor Senator! It is inconceivable to his tiny mind that his miniscule city can become temporarily buried in snow while the Earth gradually boils away its oceans, melts its polar ice and starves its current larger life-forms of oxygen. Sometimes I wonder if the founding fathers intended for ignorant rabble like Senator Inhofe to be permitted to participate in national governance. But I guess a nation built on genocide cannot but help to destroy itself and the world around it in its hubris. Senator Inhofe demonstrates that this nation is too stupid to continue to exist and his avowed actions will surely hasten our demise.
  • Karen
    Anyone who believes in so-called "Global Warming" also probably believe that Al Gore invented the internet. What a bunch of mind-numb robots you are! Talk about junk science!
  • McLean, Virginia -- God may forgive this greedy lying politician. Many will not.

    Inhofe promotes willful ignorance for his own greedy reasons.

    Paul Matthews
  • Matt
    Those who have been on the Global Warming bandwagon are finding themselves in a tough spot. It's becoming very entertaining to watch you people twist yourselves in pretzels trying to explain your judgment that led you to becoming a useful idiots in the first place. Lesson: Never buy into a new trend too quickly.
  • StiffMittens
    What I find entertaining is watching you people demand evidence of global warming and then when you are presented with it you say: "oh, it's too subtle and complex to understand and therefore not true." I guess that makes you a useless idiot.
  • rebeltoady
    Jimmy Inhofe, by the way comes from an oil state and his Senate campaigns are largely sponsored by the oil industry. What a surprise!
  • rebeltoady
    Useful idiots....hmmmm.....like those who repeat propaganda cooked up and disseminated to them by oil, gas, and coal interests. Lesson: Look carefully at companies making vast fortunes and expect them to lie when necessary.
  • ANU
    Which one is Inhofe ; dumb or dumber? Maybe his real name is "Inbred".
  • Hiawatha
    Inhofe is Dumberer:
    http://www.cyber-cinema.com/original/dumbdumbOr...

    Jimmy went to college.
    Jimmy liked college, except the study part. Oh, and tests.
    Jimmy graduated at age 38.
    Jimmy doesn't like Science.
    Jimmy made a speech before the U.S. Senate that included the explicit suggestion that the 9/11 attacks were a form of divine retribution against the U.S. for failing to defend Israel.

    Jimmy is a fucking moron.
  • McLean, Virginia -- These people pander to the ignorant, uneducated. Their greed suffices to excuse any offense to common sense and comity. God may forgive them . . . Many of us will never forget.

    Paul Matthews
  • p@chinko
    Something else people dont understand is that it is proposed that ultimately global warming will cause a several degree decrease in ocean water temp. via melting of glaciers. This could potentially shut down the Gulf Stream, throwing us into a mini ice age. So yeah global warming could make it snow.
  • bordway
    Thank you Senator, for again proving that you think of global ecology from day to day. How evangelical of you.
  • Dan
    Warming will put more water in the atmosphere through higher evaporation rates. That's what will increase snow in some areas. Increased snow is not as much about cold weather as about wet atmosphere. Meanwhile, the areas where water vapor is evaporating at higher rates can become increasingly subject to drought. The water cycle engine is cranked up by warming.
  • bigeark
    Is it just coincidence that the same ignorant people that voted for Obama, believe in "global warming"? If it isn't coincidence, then what is it? Pure ignorance? Maybe it's something in the tofu?
  • Mooftown
    wow you are a hardcore idiot
  • rebeltoady
    So, you're a climatologist? Or just a conspiracy theory buff? Oil company kissyface? Or just another conservative moron. Ah....thought so.
  • Mooftown
    I need a sandwich, Jom Inhoaf is a total idiot
  • iamtodd
    weather does not equal climate. fu-king retards. ooops, sorry sarah. nope, no i am not sorry.
  • bigeark
    No, you were right the first time, you are sorry. Now, if you would like to apologize for your lacking of vocabulary, so be it.
  • iamtodd
    not even a little bit, bigeark. if king pig rush can say it, so can i! i will, on the other hand, apologize to the rawstory readers for you and having to glance over your nonsense. why must the willfully ignorant first attack vocabulary and grammar usage before throwing up their fear-mongering anti-science and research talking points? it's counterproductive and you're wasting my time. next...
  • bigeark
    It's called balance. You people have fallen for the biggest scam in the history of mankind. And , we regret what is going on now with the Dems in charge. How long will it be before you decide we are on the verge of an ice age? Are you going to wake up when you finally realize the Capitalism that you all hate is driving the hoax of "Global Warming"? Yes, call it what you started with, global warming. Calling it climate change is more ignorant. The climate changes, it always has, and it always will. Do you not understand you have been duped into thinking the weather changing is something that man can control? If your still not convinced, guess what, we are all going to die! My gosh, let's have a World Summit about it.
  • Hiawatha
    Did you squeak through college at age 38 also ?

    People like you and Jimmy just embarrass yourself when you try to talk about global warming. At least *you* can slink off into the shadows when the planetary warming reaches a few thresholds that send the morons off to buy "Global Warming for Dummies" books.

    Jimmy Inhofe will be in the history books as an example of a clueless Republican, once again screaming to do the exact wrong thing.

    It's called Reality. Try to deal with it when you grow up.
  • PeteWa
    maybe these morons can explain why the winter olympics are occuring sans snow this year...
  • bigeark
    maybe some moron can explain why there is record snow fall in the south. It's called a weather pattern.
  • rebeltoady
    Maybe some moron can explain that despite the snow this is one of the warmest winters on record. Oh, it's been one of the warmest winters on record? Well, never let facts get in the way of your rants.
  • Terrible
    Never in my 50 years have I sen such hatred towards America as from this "Senator". When on millions of square miles where people once lived in Igloos year round for hundreds of thousands of years there is no snow in the summer months now. This "family" sounds more like a terrorist cell to me. I'd like to see these lame ass scum build an igloo here in central VT where typically we'd have 4 - 6 feet of snow or more now but have bare ground instead!
  • I guess there's no such thing as global warming...because he built an igloo.
  • fiftysomething
    Yeah Inhofe knows more about climate than the multitude of scientists that have studied it their entire life, or he's in the pocket of the major polluters. I know which one is more likely and it's not about his intellect, it's about his greed.
  • genep34
    Inbreeding
  • airjackie
    Jim is a true American who did less then a year in the Military and has been using his job get take bribes. He's do very well and made billions so joking is just another slap in the face to the voters. Ever wonder how such evil people do things that hurt others and what will happen to them? Well God teaches us in ways we never expect and Jim will learn that lesson first hand.
  • michaelvalentine
    Horses' asses.
  • basher72
    Here in Southeast Michigan, we've only received about 7 inches of total snowfall this year up to today. The nation's midsection has received five times that much and then some.

    Massive citrus crop destruction in Florida due to unusually cold weather in the Southland.

    Climate Change, anyone? These are the extremes that Al Gore spoke of.

    Maybe the Inhofe's would like to build their next igloo on the Antarctic ice shelf, about this time next year.

    Best politician (and family) oil money can buy.
  • turnip
    This isn't a GOP, DEM thing. This is a money, no money thing. A Us-Them thing.

    Global Warming is the mechanism that will ultimately bring the entire planet together to cheer and pay for it's own enslavement or death.
    This has been in the works, and spoken about *(on the record) for over a half century. Where have yall been?
  • davewtf
    It seems to me that people who see black/white get more accomplished than those who see shades of gray.

    Therefore, the republicans, who have made both an art-form of black/white and a very good living at it, will continue to prosper (WIN).

    Democrats, who will *always* see the gray, will say "well, you have a point" without saying "but your point is only anecdotally significant", will continue to be the adults in the conversation, and LOSE.
  • Mentalist
    I agree for the most part. Corporate Republicans are only interested in power and draining wealth from the middle class into their own coffers--which, thanks to the recent Supreme Court decisions, they can do that much more easily. The is no Constitutional requirement for them to tell the truth, so therefor they are comfortable in LYING ALL THE TIME, and Climate Change skeptics are among those they support.

    Bottom Line is that they have convinced a bunch of "pet goats" aka Teabaggers, through sloganeering, that their interests are the same as the corporations, and since they also OWN the MCMC (Military Corporate Media Complex), brainwashing will continue to increase as predicted by Orwell.
  • davewtf
    Gonna ignore the dumbass comments by devilboy.

    I disagree that "Corporate Republicans are only interested in power and draining wealth from the middle class into their own coffers". I don't think they care who they get their money from, as long as they get it.

    And I do not believe that the Teabagger movement has enough followers. Although I agree that Teabaggers are doing corporations dirty work for them, as most of the sponsorship for the Teabaggers IS corporations.

    More than just Teabaggers believe the whole "Dealth Panel" lie. Most republicans seem to believe it.

    And the fact that democrats couldn't/can't get shit done with majorities in both the senate and the house just indicates how weak democrats actually are.

    So sad, Democratic voters got exactly what they wanted, control of the oval office, senate, and house, yet still we cannot get what we need - real and positive change in our government.
  • Mentalist
    The Democrats couldn't change anything because they were afraid to impeach Bush and Cheney when they obtained the majority in 2006, even though they might have been initially inclined to do so. IMO, a visit from a "man-in-black" or equally convincing omen, like a severed horse's head, is what probably gave them the required "attitude adjustment" not to impeach.

    Until the truth about what really happened on 9/11 is revealed, we will continue down the Orwellian pathway. Won't occur in the US, but maybe the rest of the world will figure it out in time to explode the myth and end the bogus "war on terror" once and for all.
  • plaguepuppy
    The lies go back at least to the JFK assassination, and until we come to terms with truth of that we have no hope of reclaiming our democracy. That was the beginning of the slow-motion coup that culminated in 9-11 and the Patriot (sic) Act, involving many of the same players.
  • DevilBoy
    Yeah in your world, only moveon.org and George Soros can support political free speech advertising and campaigns. Cry baby. You hate a fair fight.
  • MemphisBill
    I'd like to point out that funding is appropriated to scientists with expectation of results, but not a specific result. Example: Suppose I got a grant to measure glacier melt. It would be expected that I would measure the glaciers if I got the money to do so. It would not be expected that I would show that the glaciers had either a net loss or gain of mass. My funding would not be pulled if I didn't show a loss, nor would I get more if I did so. No one is getting rich off climate science.
  • rebeltoady
    On the other hand, the oil, gas, and coal companies are getting rich funding the anti-climate propaganda. Whom should we distrust, a climate researcher or an oil propagandist?
  • Cabsarefab
    That's not much of an igloo. Real igloos are made by cutting blocks of dense snow and stacking them in a well defined and large structure. This was just a pile of snow dug out from the inside, the kind we used to make in Brooklyn. What an asshole!
  • DanM
    There's a huge difference between climate and weather. It can be 105 in Cleveland in July and Georgia can and does get snow in January. However, the midwestern climate overall is colder than the climate in the deep south.

    I guess that's a little too much for GOPers to chew on, however.
  • james
    Astonishing ignorance. What else can one say about this sort of thing?
  • Mentalist
    This controversy is a good opportunity for the interested to become more knowledgeable on Climate Science. For starters, I suggest--

    http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2...

    I also recommend consulting the Glossary there for further explanations about climate change.
  • jwmcsame
    i once worked for a bank in northeast tennessee. a loan apllicant there told me about how his emaculate church of holy rollers sent a group of tongue speakers and snake handlers to russia on a mission. being in the hand of god and all, they saw no need to pack winter clothing for the trip. the heathen russians set them up in an unheated cabin with little firewood for the winter. so of course the folks back home prayed and prayed for the good lords miraculous warmth to spare the missionaries. luckily, the prayers worked and the weather got warmer, sparing the lives of the missionaries. in may. i am reminded of this tale every time i hear a tennessee teabagger deny global warming.
  • Obi-jonKenobi
    Um, excuse me, Senator Inhofe, you're having fun at YOUR OWN expense, not Al Gore's. You're once again the butt of the joke. Kind of like your press conference when you made your grand-standing trip to the Copenhagen Climate Summit when one of the few members of the press that bothered to show up for your press conference called you a slobbering idiot or something like that.

    Too bad the U.S. press doesn't have the sense to tell you to your face what a knuckle-dragging troglodyte you are.
  • DevilBoy
    You are pumping out a ton of co2 right now with all your bluster. Why don't you just off yourself to save the planet?
  • Obi-jonKenobi
    Somebody needs a hug!!

    Too bad no one wants to hug someone that's foaming at the mouth. No love for the clueless, huh?
  • alverant
    Someone needs to learn the difference between weather and climate. Scientific illiteracy is pretty pathetic. Maybe it's too complex for his simple mind to understand.
  • John Chalmers
    ok explain it to me, enlightened one.
  • alverant
    There's a book called a "dictionary" that has the definitions of words inside of it. I suggest getting one and using it before getting snarky.
  • John Chalmers
    Which scientists? Show me the predictions made by these so-called "scientists"?

    Everytime they try to prove their so-called statements about global warming it's always an "unnamed source", "told me off the record", "I've been told" or in this case "climate scientists predicted".
  • alverant
    Why don't you try looking for them? They're out there if you put forth an ounce of effort. And yes, they are named sources by actual scientists and not paid spokespeople for the polluters.
  • John Chalmers
    I'm studying global warming for a debating league and i have yet to find any prophecies from any scientists stateing that global cooling will be a part of global warming.
  • Mother Nature
    Not global cooling, but weather extremes. Record high temperatures. Record low temperatures. Record snowfalls. Bigger hurricanes. Bigger rainstorms. More flooding.
  • alverant
    I seriously believe you never looked. There's a saying that even a mirror won't show a man what he refuses to see. Even if I did provide a list I doubt you would believe it.

    http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_an...
  • hmmm
    the IPCC is the official gospel. they say warmer winters not colder winters.

    http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg2/index.htm
  • icenine
    I believe the term is "global" warming. Not "this week in February in the U.S." warming. We've just had the warmest decade on record.
  • stratdude
    Hard to flunk an IQ test.
  • eldurado
    As usual GOP ignorance is Bliss!
  • Tyroanee
    It's nice to see ignorance alive and breeding in the South... Umm see ya guys this summer eh?
    Should be an eye opener as the years pass.
  • John Chalmers
    So the cold tempatures are showing how warm the planet is getting! get real! i want evidence of these claims could someone show me them. correct me if i'm wrong. you start of with global warming but then you have to switch to "climate change" because the weather isn't cooperating with you theories! people please!
  • tootiredoftheright
    Climate change was adopted because of people such as weathermen who feel asleep when it was discussed by real scientists that when the climate gets warmer one sees unusuall phenemonem. Also in the day to day weather reporting classes warm weather in one region will cause cold weather in another region.

    Do you know what the terms thermocline, thermohaline mean? Then the evidence would mean jack to you.

    Sorry cold weather doesn't disprove global warming at all. Climate isn't weather in one region it's all across the world.

    http://www.cracked.com/article_18403_6-tiny-thi...
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa#The_1883_... that caused the global temp to fall by 1.2 degrees and caused unusual weather that didn't return to normal until 1888.

    http://www.cracked.com/article_18387_5-ways-wor...
    in mind that when hot air melts a glacier, the hunks of ice break off and cool the water they melt into.
  • idiots are disgusting
    You are SUCH an idiot. Why would anyone try to explain something scientific to a fool?
    If you haven't been able to figure it out in the 15-20 years it's been in the news, you aren't gonna ever get it.
    Go back to sleep, child.
  • James
    The term global warming was created by the press. Climate change has always been the term used by scientists and others with greater than a room temperature IQ to refer to the macro climate effects of mans' use of fossil fuels, deforestation, dispersion of chlorofluorocarbons and other ozone destroying chemicals into the upper atmosphere, and the combined effects of other human interventions on the long range climate of the planet. How do you seriously expect anyone to provide you with "proof" when you obviously have not even the most basic comprehension of the science involved?
  • alverant
    No, it was changed because the nay-sayers were being too literal and thinking too short term. They say, "It's cold today so global warming is a hoax." The phrase "climate change" is more accurate. In any case, the concept is in line with available data and there is a difference between weather and climate.
  • intelligent citizen
    Perhaps you should go back to junior high and learn how snow is formed. We all know who in 10years when the poor red states are being devastated which people will be whining the loudest. Just so you know, the end of days are not coming any time soon, so be prepared to sleep in your bed of stupidity.

    Did god give man a way to think? Then why does half the country ignore such a gift?
  • John Chalmers
    thank you very much!
  • Mentalist
    John--this was a record snowfall event, not one of cold temperatures.

    Talk about switching the facts to conform to theories!
  • John Chalmers
    alright i live in New England and it is much colder than last year! all i'm saying is that it is convenient for these people to all of a sudden say when something doesn't go there way that they have been expecting this! of course you'd say that! your not gonna go "oh i guess we were wrong!" why is it that we can have an ice age and not panick? why can't we have a warm age? (even though it isn't that cool or warm. check out this article by the harvard gazette - http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/04.24/...) Maybe businesses and industry aren't to blame for all the worlds problems! Maybe its just normal.
  • Obi-jonKenobi
    You could be the poster boy for the ill-informed Americans that the conservatives and their business cronies are so successfully misleading on this issue.

    If you bothered to look into this at all, you would see that the last decade has a whole cluster of the warmest average temperatures recorded in modern times. You don't even need to look at the charts, just look at the melting ice at the poles and the disappearing glaciers all over the world. So, dumbo, warming is a fact, not a theory.

    The theory involved is the supposition that the warming is being caused by human activity - specifically the burning of fossil fuels that creates carbon dioxide which creates a "blanket" around the earth which sets off a chain reaction that leads to warming. Most of the scientists in the world agree with this theory. Of the few that don't, most or all are doing "studies" funded by the industries most threatened by possible government regulation to stem warming.

    One of the predicted results of this warming is climate instability leading to extreme weather. That, too, is being documented in abundance all over the world. Just ask the insurance industry which has been one of the earliest business lobbies involved in warning of the dangers because they're PAYING THE PRICE RIGHT NOW! I was at a conference at least 10 years ago that predicted the exact things that are happening with the weather in the Pacific Northwest right now.

    Where the science has been wrong is that this phenomenon is happening much faster than they predicted only a few years ago. And, thanks to people like you, the U.S. - which produces more carbon dioxide per person than any other country - is mired in inaction in the fact of one of the greatest challenges to ever face humanity.
  • StiffMittens
    Also there is the old "confusing weather with climate" canard here. Even if John Chalmers' personal observations about the difference in temperature in new England between this year and last were accurate (which they probably aren't), that would still in no way disprove the theory of anthropogenic global warming. Short term observations of weather changes in one limited region do not compare with long term observations across many regions around the globe. It simply doesn't provide any meaningful comparison. However, that record snowfalls have been observed in various parts of the US this year is consistent with global warming (granted it does not prove global warming, but it certainly doesn't disprove it). I predict massive flooding this Spring. End Of The World As We Know It Safety Tip: Always wear a life vest or carry an inflated inner tube with you in springtime.
  • hmmm
    "However, that record snowfalls have been observed in various parts of the US this year is consistent with global warming (granted it does not prove global warming, but it certainly doesn't disprove it)."

    Please provide proof any IPCC scientist in a per reviewed journal ever said record snowfals is consistent with global warming.
  • StiffMittens
  • Obi-jonKenobi
    Extreme weather - which would include record snowfall - IS predicted and HAS been predicted for some time now. I'm sure you can find reference to this by simply Googling a few times. PLEASE, this isn't that hard to find. It's in the body of peer-reviewed studies on climate change, I've heard it at conferences as far back as 10-12 years ago, it's in the press. Just FREAKING look, Ok???

    Call the insurance companies industry group representatives and ask them if you're too lazy to find it yourself. They've been paying the price for increasingly extreme weather for a number of years now.
  • hmmm
    No it has not been predicted. Here is the IPCC report, they say the exact opposite. Do not call me lazy because you choose to make up bull which contradicts what the IPCC claims as what is going on.

    http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg2/index.htm
  • StiffMittens
    Yeah if you dig a little deeper into the link you provided you will find this:

    http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg2/index.ph...
    "Flood magnitude and frequency could increase in many regions as a consequence of increased frequency of heavy precipitation events, which can increase runoff in most areas as well as groundwater recharge in some floodplains. "
  • Obi-jonKenobi
    And, that is EXACTLY what has happened in the Pacific Northwest with greater frequency. We, as well as others, are seeing 100-year floods every 10 years.

    We will have serious water shortages in the not-too-distant future that will put strains on water for irrigation, salmon returns, and municipal systems. The costs to address these problems will make the ounce of prevention that we aren't taking now pale in comparison.
  • DevilBoy
    Can you explain to me why the percentage of the earth's atmosphere that is CO2 has remained the same? Where has all this massive CO2 gone? Why is the earth's atmosphere still the same 19.99% O2 and 79.99% N? you are arguing about the 1% misc gases like Helium and other noble gases. You are a moron. If your statement was accurate the % of N or O2 would have to decrease to support your theory! Looser!
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