His State In Record Heat Wave, Inhofe Bails On Climate Denier Conference: ‘I Am Under The Weather’

Via: Think Progress

As record-shattering heat cripples Oklahoma, Sen. Jim “global warming is a hoax” Inhofe (R-OK) failed to show for an fossil-industry-funded climate denial conference. A shrinking band of far-right economists, lawyers, and a few scientists have gathered in Washington, DC, for the Heartland Institute’s sixth International Conference on Climate Change, funded, like Inhofe himself, by Koch Industries and Exxon Mobil.

Inhofe was scheduled to be the denier conference’s keynote speaker, but he bailed out, explaining appropriately that he is “under the weather“.

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The “drought’s impacts have been enormous,” and “very little relief is in sight,” Oklahoma’s state climatologist, Gary McManus writes.

The average high temperature in Oklahoma City in June 2011 was 10 degrees above normal, 97 degrees instead of 87 degrees. “Any way you slice it, it has been hot,” Oklahoma City’s Stephen Mullins explains:

– Today marks the 29th consecutive day over 90. That is a record.

– Today is forecast to be the 10th day above 100 in June. That is a record

– Today marks the 34th consecutive day above normal

– June 2011 set or tied single-day record high temperatures on the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 27th. Those record temperatures were 103, 104, 101, and 103 degrees, respectively.

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UPDATE:

“Yes, I know, it’s just coincidence, not a karmic backlash,” Joe Romm writes at Climate Progress.

“But then again, climate science projects a permanent dust bowl for the Southwest if we keep listening to Inhofe.

It also projects that by century’s end, the state will be above 90°F for 135 days a year!”

http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/06/30/258416/his-state-in-record-heat-wave-inhofe-bails-on-climate-denier-conference-i-am-under-the-weather/

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1936 – Cimerron County, Oklahoma

photo by: Arthur Rostein

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