On Thursday afternoon, MSNBC fill-in host Cori Coffin gave environmental alarmist Michael Mann a forum to blame "human-caused" global warming for extreme weather events from 2022, including the blizzard that just hit the U.S.
While the segment mentioned record high temperatures that occurred in some parts of the world, the recent record low temperatures were not addressed.
At 1:49 p.m. Eastern, introducing a pre-recorded report by NBC weathercaster Dylan Dreyer, Coffin recalled:
The deadly Christmas storm that has the city of Buffalo still reeling was only the latest example in a year of extreme climate events here at home and across the globe. From record flooding and heat to wildfires, snowstorms and hurricanes, 2022 had it all. NBC's Dylan Dreyer takes a look at how climate change made a wild year for us, and the swings this year as well.
Dreyer recounted some of the extreme weather events from the year, and then tied "climate change" to record high temperatures:
Climate change causing the atmosphere to be warmer and wetter, making conditions ripe for these types of events. ... This summer was a story of extremes. Europe had its most intense heat wave in recorded history. London set a historic all-time high of 104 degrees.
After asserting that there were six "thousand-year floods" in the U.S., Dreyer concluded by also tying in the recent blizzard without specifying that some places had temperatures at a record low:
Then, a historic and deadly bomb cyclone crippled half the country over the holidays, bringing with it plummeting temperatures, blizzard conditions lasting nearly 40 hours, and 50 inches of snow. The storm pushed the city of Buffalo into the record books. It's the city's snowiest start to the season ever -- at least 100 inches and counting...
After Mann was brought in live to comment, he also blamed global warming for the blizzard without mentioning just how cold it got: "Some people think that it's somehow inconsistent that we see these bigger snow falls as a result of climate change and global warming, but it is entirely consistent with the underlying physics."
The leftist scientist from Pennsylvania State University went on to praise the environmental regulations recently passed by the Democrat-controlled Congress:
It can be possible that we're seeing substantial progress while there isn't enough progress. ... in the most recent U.N. climate conference in Sharm-el-Sheikh ... more than a month ago where we didn't see the sorts of commitments that we might have wanted to see to rapidly phasing out coal and other fossil fuels.
Mann loved the "aggressive" action pushed in Biden's so-called Inflation Reduction Act:
At the same time, we saw substantial progress when it comes to dealing with the, you know, the assistance to the developing world and countries that don't have the sort of infrastructure that we have in dealing with the impacts that they're already feeling. And we saw the most aggressive climate bill ever signed into law here in the United States ... the climate provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act -- which are going to make a real difference and bring the United States back to the lead when it comes to global climate action.
This segment was sponsored in part by Subway. Their contact information is linked.
Transcript follows:
MSNBC Reports
December 29, 2022
1:49 p.m. Eastern
CORI COFFIN: The deadly Christmas storm that has the city of Buffalo still reeling was only the latest example in a year of extreme climate events here at home and across the globe. From record flooding and heat to wildfires, snow storms and hurricanes, 2022 had it all. NBC's Dylan Dreyer takes a look at how climate change made a wild year for us, and the swings this year as well.
DYLAN DREYER: 2022, a violent year of climate and weather extremes. From heat waves and drought to catastrophic flooding and hurricanes. The impacts reverberating around the globe. So far this year, 15 billion-dollar weather disasters hit the U.S., according to NOAA -- the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
(...)
Climate change causing the atmosphere to be warmer and wetter, making conditions ripe for these types of events. ... This summer was a story of extremes. Europe had its most intense heat wave in recorded history. London set a historic all-time high of 104 degrees. Back in the U.S., six thousand-year floods occurred in the span of five weeks in July and August -- places like St. Louis, Dallas and eastern Kentucky deluged with eight to 15 inches of rain in just 25 hours.
Death Valley received its entire year's worth of rain in just three hours. The footprint of climate change leaving its footprint across nearly the entire U.S. Parts of the West baked in the most severe heat ever recorded in the month of September. ... Nearly 300 weather stations hitting their hottest temperatures in places like Salt Lake City, Reno and Sacramento.
(...)
The December twisters part of a massive weeklong cross-country storm that dropped four feet of snow in the West and brought blinding blizzard conditions to the Upper Midwest and dozens of tornadoes to the South. Then, a historic and deadly bomb cyclone crippled half the country over the holidays, bringing with it plummeting temperatures, blizzard conditions lasting nearly 40 hours, and 50 inches of snow. The storm pushed the city of Buffalo into the record books. It's the city's snowiest start to the season ever -- at least 100 inches and counting, Dylan Dreyer, NBC News.
COFFIN: Our thanks to NBC's Dylan Dreyer for that reporting. Let's bring in Michael Mann. He's the director of the University of Pennsylvania Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media; and he's also the author of The New Climate War. Michael, welcome in. In a year that featured so many extreme climate events, what stood out to you as being the most significant?
MICHAEL MANN, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA: Yeah, thanks. It's great to be with you, and, you know, we saw a little bit of everything. This past year, we saw pretty much everything that climate change has to throw at us in the form of these amplified extreme weather events -- whether it's the heat and the drought and the wildfires that we've seen out West -- the unprecedented flooding events that we've seen around the country, and even these winter storms. Some people think that it's somehow inconsistent that we see these bigger snow falls as a result of climate change and global warming, but it is entirely consistent with the underlying physics.
When you warm up the oceans and the lakes like the Great Lakes, that means that when these storms travel over them, they're able to evaporate more moisture into the atmosphere. And that moisture is available to produce those record snow falls that we've seen with Nor'easter events along the East Coast of the U.S. that impact, you know, the state of Philadelphia where I live, and especially in the Great Lakes where we see these massive lake effect snows that are enhanced by human-caused warming by climate change.
COFFIN: I want to point out a Time magazine headline that struck me this week. I'm going to read it here. It's lengthy. "'2022 Was Almost a Disaster for Climate Change Action. Instead, There Was Hope.'" That refers to the passage of the climate provisions contained in the Inflation Reduction Act, which "opened up billions of dollars in funding to help the country turn away from CO2-emitting fossil fuels and toward renewable energy, battery-powered vehicles, heat pumps and other climate-friendly technologies."
So even though we see a lot of these disasters, is there a reason to be hopeful in 2023?
MANN: Yes. Like I like to say, there is urgency -- we see the urgency in the form of these devastating and deadly and costly extreme weather events and inundation of our coasts from sea level rise and melting ice. There is urgency, but there's also agency. There is still time to avert the worst impacts of climate change. And we have to be able to hold two seemingly incongruous thoughts in our minds at the same time.
It can be possible that we're seeing substantial progress while there isn't enough progress. And that's what we saw, for example, in the most recent U.N. climate conference in Sharm el Sheikh just a little -- more than a month ago where we didn't see the sorts of commitments that we might have wanted to see to rapidly phasing out coal and other fossil fuels.
At the same time, we saw substantial progress when it comes to dealing with the, you know, the assistance to the developing world and countries that don't have the sort of infrastructure that we have in dealing with the impacts that they're already feeling. And we saw the most aggressive climate bill ever signed into law here in the United States -- the, you know, the climate provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act -- which are going to make a real difference and bring the United States back to the lead when it comes to global climate action.
