Inhofe's Igloo (or, A Worthless Whiteout?)

I think you can just make out the sign here: "Al Gore's New Home." You know, you let Capitol Hill staffers out into the free world and this is what you get.

Actually, this "igloo" isn't officially the work of Jim Inhofe's Senate staff members. But either way, the point is clear. The recent deluge of snow in Washington is now giving fuel to the fire, if you will, for Global Warming Deniers. And here on The Hill that invariably translates into Conservatives, partisanship being what it is today.

Regardless of whether the push by Inhofe, the American Energy Alliance, and some Virginia Republicans is really just hot air (here's the Clean Skies News story), we're seeing a genuine defensive effort from the Left/Enviros to validate climate change. And, interestingly, they're pointing to the very same weather phenomenon as the Deniers.

On a day DC and the Federal Gov were shut down, buried under the latest 18", The Center for American Progress pulled together a press call with CAP climate blogger Joe Romm and a meteorologist from the Weather Underground. Their main points?

1. The definition of "climate" goes well beyond any individual/anecdotal weather.
2. Global Warming doesn't mean uniformly less snow or colder temperatures.
3. Climate Change results in more frequent extreme weather events.

Without taking sides here I will say that, as a DC-native, two snowstorms in one week that pour 3' of snow on top of Washington in February qualify as an extreme weather event.