Rush Limbaugh has made plenty of ridiculous and outrageous claims regarding climate change, as erika's recent post on Rush Limbaugh Talk blaming air conditioning illustrates. Unfortunately for all of us that desire policy and practice changes to avert some of climate change's worst-case scenarios, deniers have one very played-out card that is difficult to refute: the fact the climate change is global and it's very difficult to point to any one piece of evidence and say, "there, that proves it." However, if there was one recent climatic event that would seem to point to climate change's validity, it would be a recent record-breaking heat wave that swept the country in the last two weeks. For exactly that reason, Rush Limbaugh stated on his show, "almost no temperate records were broken," which flies in the face of every meteorologist, climate scientist, news outlet, and historian.

     He said that not only were no records broken in the heat wave, but that it was just "a bunch of lies" by "mainstream drive-by media" to "advance a political agenda of liberalism". Frankly, any time that Limbaugh or any of the other more radicalized conservative pundits decide that hard data doesn't support their agenda they make an ad hominem attack against "liberal media". True to form, Fox News picked up Limbaugh's outrageous claims, denying the weather that has perpetuated historic droughts and heat waves across the country. Fox Nation picked up a study by the National Climate Data Center. "There were only 34 new all-time daily temperature records set during last week's 'record-breaking heat'." Only 34...in one week; evidence that Fox News adheres to the idea that it's only 10% what you say, and 90% how you say it. Limbaugh has even gone as far as claiming that the heat index (heat + humidity = what it feels like) is a government conspiracy perpetuated by Al Gore and climatologists.

     The truth is that extreme heat records have been increasing for years, not just the last week. Capital Climate  reports that new records in the last year in highs have outmatched the new record setting lows by a ratio of 8:1. In other words, seasonal record high temperatures month to month are outpacing record seasonal lows. In fact, just in the month of June, 2011, the ratio was closet to 11:1. In the last 17 months, only December 2010 had more low records than high records by a margin of 1.5 to 1. There's no question that the planet is warming, and though this point seems to be even more hotly debated, there's little evidence to show that mankind is not primarily responsible. For pundits and politicians with the same misguided ideologies as the Limbuagh and Fox News networks to continually deny it is irresponsible. We are already experiencing climate extremes, increasing weather instability, and effects on populations, economies, and governments. To erode public support for industrial emissions controls, green energy, cap and trade, and other reforms that will help ot offset our enormous environmental footprint.