Brent Budowsky makes an unbelievable claim

Brent Budowsky made this unbelievable claim in his blog post (“Right wing denies facts, ignores science, helps reelect Obama” Jan. 21): “Recently we learned that 2009 was tied for the warmest year in the history of the planet. The last decade was the warmest decade in the history of the planet.”

That is so devoid of facts and science that I can now actually see unicorns prancing around my backyard and dragons flying overhead.

The Earth is 4.54 billion years old. Even ignoring the billions of years prior to life, when the Earth was cooling down from its molten start, most of the rest of the time was still warmer, about 8-15 degrees Celsius warmer. It was warmer during most of the time of the dinosaurs. It was 1 to 2 degrees warmer than today between 5,000 to 3,000 BCE and was warmer during the Global Climate Optimum.

According to National Climate Data Center’s own data, which is used by NASA, 2009 was actually #81 out of #116 (116 being the hottest) for the United States.

But I’m sure Brent can provide factual, scientific evidence to support his assertion, right?

Raleigh, N.C.