Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) assured everyone the climate crisis is not a thing because it was pretty cold on Halloween, prompting a collective eye-roll on social media.
“You know, we may have had a hot summer, but I just went trick or treating with my kids and it was like, you know, the low that evening was 29 degrees, so temperatures change, alright? Temperatures have been changing for the millennia,” Ogles said during a House debate on the 2024 Interior-Environment spending bill.
He made the remark after criticizing “climate alarmism” and the “burden” it puts on the fossil fuel industry, prompting a Democrat, Rep. Chellie Pingree (Maine), to note that “we just had the hottest summer on record.”
Republicans have repeatedly conflated climate with the weather and seasons to dispute global warming.
In September, Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) said that “farmers in my district recognize climate change as summer, winter, spring, and fall.” Her colleague, Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.), quipped a week earlier that the climate was changing to “autumn” during a debate about carbon emissions.
Seasons, of course, are part of the yearly cycle affected by the Earth’s position in relation to the sun.
Climate change refers to large-scale, long-term shifts in weather patterns and temperatures across the globe. Human industrialization and greenhouse gas emissions have led to a rise in the Earth’s surface temperature, prompting side effects like increasingly frequent extreme weather events, drought and rising sea levels.
Ogles’ remark had critics heated on social media:
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