Late Night Comics School Trump on Climate Science

The hosts of three major late night talk shows found President Donald Trump‘s most recent tweet on climate change so laughable that they devoted bits to it on their shows Tuesday night.

With temperatures in the Midwest predicted to plunge to life-threatening lows, Trump repeated his favorite cold-weather tradition early Tuesday morning by tweeting climate denial.

“What the hell is going on with Global Waming? Please come back fast, we need you!” he wrote.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/statuses/1090074254010404864

While scientists and journalists jumped in to point out his mistake, Trump also got a schooling from a less traditional group: comedians. On Jimmy Kimmel Live! Tuesday, the talk show host invited two children to explain the basics of climate science to the president.

Eight-year old Apollo and ten-year-old Kaitlynn broke down the workings of the greenhouse effect with helpful illustrations.

“And even though it’s cold where you are, that doesn’t mean the globe isn’t heating up,” Apollo said. “What you are experiencing is weather. Weather is what happens today. Climate is what happens over the long run.”

You can watch the full segment here:

Kids Explain Climate Change to Donald Trump

www.youtube.com

Not to be left out, Seth Meyers also addressed the president’s remarks on the Late Night with Seth Meyers by using Trump’s confrontational temperament as an object lesson in the difference between weather and climate, The Huffington Post reported.

To demonstrate weather, he showed a one-off clip of Trump saying he respected Hillary Clinton, his opponent in the 2016 election, for her persistence.

“See that was weather. A quick, one-time thing,” Meyers said.

“Now this is climate,” Meyers continued, introducing a montage of some of Trump’s most offensive remarks. “And that’s what’s going to get us all killed,” the comedian concluded.

From tonight’s #LNSM: Seth explains global warming in terms Trump can understand. pic.twitter.com/YZRNLc9hW5

— Late Night with Seth Meyers (@LateNightSeth) January 30, 2019

Stephen Colbert, meanwhile, addressed the fact that climate change might actually be the cause of the extreme cold threatening the Midwest this week.

“These temperatures are actually caused by ‘global waming,’ sir,” the host of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert said in his opening monologue, mocking the president’s typo. “Polar vortex breaks up and dips south, it’s all predicted.”

What The Hell Is Going On With ‘Global Waming?’

www.youtube.com

Indeed, the Union of Concerned Scientists explained that a weaker polar vortex, the name for the cold air that usually circulates around the poles, means colder temperatures in Northern Eurasia and the Eastern U.S. That vortex has been weakened by accelerated Arctic warming and the melting of Arctic sea ice. Temperatures in some Midwest cities are colder now than parts of Antarctica, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

But perhaps the most elegant, though unintentional, takedown of the president’s climate ignorance came earlier in the day from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). On Tuesday morning, NOAA Climate.gov tweeted a cartoon showing how warmer oceans can add more moisture to the atmosphere, actually increasing snowfall.

“Winter storms don’t prove that global warming isn’t happening,” the tweet read.

Winter storms don't prove that global warming isn't happening. https://t.co/LDqfq4JH9n pic.twitter.com/ndmLD637Cb

— NOAA Climate.gov (@NOAAClimate) January 29, 2019

NOAA spokeswoman Monica Allen told The Hill that the tweet was not a veiled dig at the president.

“With the blast of severe winter weather affecting the US, we often get asked about the relationship between cold weather and climate change. We routinely put this story out at these times,” Allen said. “Our scientists weren’t responding to a tweet.”

Colbert: Trump Should Get the Ocean to Pay for Wall to Save Tangier Island https://t.co/fP8eGeCFBL #renewable #solar #wind #PV pic.twitter.com/E8TESSOjST

— Tom DeRosa (@RenewableSearch) June 20, 2017