Politicizing The Weather

Is It Hot in Here? Must Be Global Warming.

By Tom Zeller Jr., New York Times

In any debate over climate change, conventional wisdom holds that there is no reflex more absurd than invoking the local weather.

And yet this year's wild weather fluctuations seem to have motivated people on both sides of the issue to stick a finger in the air and declare the matter resolved -- in their favor.

"Within psychology, it's called motivated reasoning, or the confirmation bias," explained Anthony Leiserowitz, the director of the Project on Climate Change Communication at Yale University's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. "People are looking for evidence of any kind that validates or reinforces or justifies what they already believe."

Last February, for example, as a freak winter storm paralyzed much of the East Coast, relatives of Senator James M. Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who is a skeptic of climate change, came to Washington and erected an igloo.

They topped it with a cheeky sign asking passers-by to "Honk if you ♥ global warming." Another sign, added later, christened the ice dome "Al Gore's new home."

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