On Monday, less than 24 hours after a devastating tornado ripped through Joplin, Missouri - killing at least 116 people [1] - an MSNBC anchor was busy putting a political spin on the tragedy.
Tamron Hall wondered aloud on News Nation whether climate
change was to blame for the rash of hurricanes and tornadoes that
ravaged several states, including Missouri, over the last few months.
"What
about climate change?" speculated Hall, interviewing Dr. Howard
Bluestein. "You have many people who see these severe storms, and not
just the tornadoes, but the strength of hurricanes and even severe
storms, we're getting hail and high winds right now from Texas, I
believe, all the way through the Midwest. Is this a result of climate
change or an effect of climate change?"
Bluestein, a meteorology professor at the University of Oklahoma,
dismissed Hall's baseless conjecture: "I don't think we can prove
whether or not the occurrence of all these bad events this year are due
to global warming whatsoever. They could be simply due to natural
variability."
Hall began the interview with an open-ended question about the
potential causes of these severe weather events, but after Bluestein
suggested "random chance" could be the culprit, the daytime anchor
pressed the climate change issue.
Monday night: "Diane Sawyer on Tornadoes: 'This Is the Evidence of a Kind of Preview of Life Under Global Warming? [2]'"
A transcript of the segment can be found below:
MSNBC
News Nation
May 23, 2011
2:34 p.m. EDT
TAMRON HALL: What about climate change? You have many people who see these severe storms, and not just the tornados, but the strength of hurricanes and even severe storms, we're getting hail and high winds right now from Texas, I believe, all the way through the Midwest. Is this a result of climate change or an effect of climate change?
Dr. HOWARD BLUESTEIN, University of Oklahoma: Well I can't speak for hurricanes, but for tornadoes and supercells, I don't think we can prove whether or not the occurrence of all these bad events this year are due to global warming whatsoever. They could be simply due to natural variability. After all, when you think back to some of the other historic events, like April 30 1974, the tornadoes in Missouri in 1953, the tri-state tornadoes back in 1925. If you through the records, you'll see that every 20, 30, 40 years there are these tremendous widespread outbreaks and some of them occurred long before we were talking about global warming.
HALL: Alright, Dr. Howard Bluestein, of the University of Oklahoma, where they certainly see their share of tornadoes in that state. Thank you so much, sir.
- Alex Fitzsimmons is a News Analysis intern at the Media Research Center. Click here [3] to follow him on Twitter.