Climate every mountain

Mitt Romney got a chuckle at the Republican National Convention when he mocked Barack Obama’s 2008 promise that future generations could look back at his presidency as the time “when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” Obama’s adoring fans weren’t laughing. They turned the remarks back on Romney, oblivious to the fact that candidate Obama’s high-sounding words had no connection to reality.

Nevertheless, Obama promised that the weather would be warmer at his second inaugural than his first. It was. An Associated Press writer took this too seriously — and too subjectively for a news reporter: “While his policies can lessen or worsen future projected global warming in a large scale, they cannot do anything about Washington’s daily temperature on Jan. 21.”

Just how does one affect something that’s not necessarily happening but is “projected” to happen? Does far-reaching government policy change the thing or the projection of the thing? For Obama and his fans, there’s no difference. He said it and that’s all that matters.

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