{"id":868,"date":"2009-03-17T19:13:41","date_gmt":"2009-03-18T02:13:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/truthsquad\/2009\/03\/17\/we-are-cooling-we-are-not-warming\/"},"modified":"2025-06-18T10:35:55","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T15:35:55","slug":"we-are-cooling-we-are-not-warming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2009\/03\/17\/we-are-cooling-we-are-not-warming\/","title":{"rendered":"We are cooling. We are not warming."},"content":{"rendered":"

Claim:<\/h3>\n

“We are cooling. We are not warming. The warming you see out there, the supposed warming, and I am using my finger quotation marks here, is part of the cooling process. Greenland, which is now covered in ice, it was once called Greenland for a reason, right? Iceland, which is now green. Oh I love this. Like we know what this planet is all about. How long have we been here? How long? Not very long.”<\/p>\n

– RNC Chairman Michael Steele, guest-hosting Bill Bennett’s Morning in America radio show<\/em>, March 6, 2009<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Truth:<\/h3>\n

If you looked up “Train Wreck” in the dictionary, do you think this quote would appear?<\/p>\n

Hard to know where to begin with this.<\/p>\n

As we’ve posted before<\/a>, the planet is not cooling. Yes, 2008 was cooler than 2007, but it was still one of the top ten warmest years on record. And, the warmest decade on record is the last ten years.<\/p>\n

Here is a graphic from our Climate 411 blog<\/a> that shows the extent of the current warming trend:<\/p>\n

\"global<\/p>\n

Folks who claim that the planet is cooling simply don’t know what they’re talking about.<\/p>\n

Oh, and as for\u00a0why Greenland is called Greenland when it’s mostly covered in ice, it’s an interesting historical story. It turns out that Viking settlers used the inviting name to entice more settlers to\u00a0join them. In reality, Greenland’s ice cap is hundreds of thousands of years old and covers more than 4\/5 of the land.<\/p>\n

The rest of Steele’s quote kind of loses, um, focus. Not sure how to politely respond.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Claim: “We are cooling. We are not warming. The warming you see out there, the supposed warming, and I am using my finger quotation marks here, is part of the cooling process. Greenland, which is now covered in ice, it was once called Greenland for a reason, right? Iceland, which is now green. Oh I …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"coauthors":[108146],"class_list":["post-868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWe are cooling. 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