Obamateurism of the Day

Vancouver residents scratched their heads after hearing Barack Obama try to make global-warming hay over the weather during the Winter Olympics:

First of all, we just got five feet of snow in Washington and so everybody is like — a lot of the people who are opponents of climate change, they say, see, look at that, there’s all this snow on the ground, this doesn’t mean anything.  I want to just be clear that the science of climate change doesn’t mean that every place is getting warmer; it means the planet as a whole is getting warmer.  But what it may mean is, for example, Vancouver, which is supposed to be getting snow during the Olympics, suddenly is at 55 degrees, and Dallas suddenly is getting seven inches of snow.

Donna Laframboise, a Canadian blogger, retorts with amazement at Obama’s ignorance:

Excuse me, but I happen to not only live here in Canada, but to have had family and friends who resided for years in or near the breathtakingly gorgeous (not to mention murderously expensive) city of Vancouver.

I know, therefore, that they don’t own many winter coats in that part of our vast country – and that mowing their lawns is a perfectly ordinary February activity. Vancouver’s weather is much like Seattle’s and, as a friend of mine who lives in the American city mentioned this week, her daffodils have begun to bloom.

One of the issues surrounding Vancouver’s application for the Olympics was the question of whether they would have enough snow on the ground for the outdoor sports that rely on it.   Why is that?  A check of both AccuWeather and Weather.com websites shows that the average high temperature for Vancouver in late February is 48 degrees, only seven degrees lower than the temperature Obama noted in his little speech on global warming.  The latter site allows users to check average for up to nine days previous to the current date — and the average temperature for February 22nd, roughly the middle of the Games, is 47 degrees.  Vancouver’s official tourist site lists the average high temperature for the entire month of February as 44 degrees, well above snow maintenance levels.

In other words, 55 degrees is just a normal weather variation, not evidence of global warming — which Obama might have discovered had he checked his facts before opening his mouth.  (h/t Bill L)

Got an Obamateurism of the Day? If you see a foul-up by Barack Obama, e-mail it to me at obamaisms@edmorrissey.com with the quote and the link to the Obamateurism. I’ll post the best Obamateurisms on a daily basis, depending on how many I receive. Include a link to your blog, and I’ll give some link love as well. And unlike Slate, I promise to end the feature when Barack Obama leaves office.

Illustrations by Chris Muir of Day by Day. Be sure to read the adventures of Sam, Zed, Damon, and Jan every day!

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