Political Quotes

“I think the Senator is exactly right. In some ways that is a more dangerous argument than some of the other denier arguments, because it sounds like science. It is not, but it sounds like science. But the most recent, and in my view most absurd, and we have now I think seen it for three or four winters, is every time there is snow-- and at first I thought it was sort of a little jab, a little rhetorical joke--but they are actually saying that because it was snowing last week there must not be climate change. That is an argument they are relying upon. I think because in the face of actual evidence they are now having to rely on anecdotes, on the fact that it is icy in Antarctica or there was a snowstorm in DC, or it was unseasonably cold for a weekend in Georgia or whatever it may be, but to rely on individual anecdotes about the weather I think is pretty tough stuff to take and I want to make sure we don't let that stand; that the idea you get to look out the window and understand what is happening with the climate is a lack of understanding about the climate. Climate is long-term patterns over large swaths of land or ocean. The weather is you get to check it on your iPhone app tomorrow morning. That is the weather. It is not the climate. It may or may not be hot or cold tomorrow. That doesn't tell you a thing about what is happening to climate change.…”