The House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology shared on Twitter an article from Breitbart News that suggests 2016 high temperatures are due to El Niño and not to greenhouse emissions.
The account is run by the committee’s Republican majority, and it is supervised by its Chairman Lamar Smith of Texas, who has written for Breitbart News in the past. After sharing the mediocre article that did not correctly based its ideas on scientific work nor educated people about the current global warming crisis, the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology were strongly criticized for misinforming Americans with incorrect facts.
Senator Bernie Sanders answered the committee’s tweet asking if the person that shared the characterless article get a Ph.D. at Trump University. Rep. Katherine Clark, a Democrat who sits on the committee, condemned Breitbart News as a platform for white supremacist, anti-Semitic and sexist trolls that it was being used because acute science did not support Republicans views regarding climate change.
Clark stated that the tweet is “a dangerous, partisan and highly cynical way to be conducting the committee’s business.” Breitbart News is an “alt-right” website, which means it supports racism, nationalism, and populism from a conservative point of view.
The tweet was posted Thursday afternoon where the article titled “Global Temperatures Plunge. Icy Silence from Climate Alarmists” was shared. The report first appeared in the British tabloid The Daily Mail and was summarized by Breitbart News.
When you can't win on actual science, so you turn to a platform for white supremacist, anti-Semitic, sexist trolls to back you up… https://t.co/YKkd7VGcUC
— Katherine Clark (@RepKClark) December 2, 2016
Sharing that article showed that the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology could be another source of misinformation for Americans
The alt-right platform cited incomplete data from which they drew incorrect conclusions saying that the recent record-high global temperatures were unrelated to global warming.
The Daily Mail stated that El Niño, a weather phenomenon, provoked a recent decline in temperatures over land and was responsible for warmer temperatures, excluding climate change as a cause for the hottest year in 139 years.
Scientists took the internet and made it clear that El Niño was indeed contributing to warmer temperatures but not by itself since greenhouse gasses have been affecting our planet long before the weather phenomenon.
Where'd you get your PhD? Trump University? https://t.co/P5Ez5fVEwD
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) December 1, 2016
The chief of the climate monitoring at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information, Deke Arndt, denied the veracity of the article shared by the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. “You can have both climate change and a goose from El Niño,” he said adding that El Niño is just an addition to the damage humans have done to Earth, The New York Times reported.
Experts on the topic pointed out that the article only cited temperatures over land, which account for less than half of the earth’s surface. Using incomplete data to draw conclusions will result in questionable conclusions.
The Daily Mail report was written by David Rose, who has been sharply criticized online after the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology shared his report. The committee currently has 22 Republican members and 16 Democratic members.
The tweet raised concerns regarding Trump’s administration since the president-elected does not believe in climate change.
Source: The Daily Mail