Mars and the Silly Politician

The Silly Season is Upon Us

Okay, I have been laughing about the Kentucky politician who decided that since Mars and Earth have the same temperature, there’s no proof of global warming. It’s better than crying about the fact that we have a political “leader” who is supposedly educated, living in the 21st century, who doesn’t have a clue about Mars. Or Earth, apparently. And, he thought it would be okay to shoot his mouth off about something he clearly has no knowledge of. If I were living in Kentucky… well, I actually DID live in Kentucky once… I’d wonder what else he doesn’t understand but still shoots his mouth off about.

He lives in a state that makes money from coal mining, so his reasoning is screwed up to start with. And, of course, he’s a right-wing Republican, so you know right there there’s going to be some serious science hatin’ going on. But, to conflate two planets’ temperatures (and get them wrong!) takes some serious ignorance.

And, this guy wants to known as someone to take seriously on climate issues.

No, I don’t think so. And, judging by the reaction his hideous attempt at misusing science, a lot of people (including some of his own constituents), don’t think much of his blunder either.

So, just to clear the record for Brandon Smith, state senator R-KY, (and anybody else who hasn’t quite figured out that science works and we CAN use it to fact-check a politician’s outrageous comments), here are some facts about Mars temperatures.

Mars’s average temperature is -80 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s -60 Celsius.  In the wintertime, the polar regions on Mars get to nearly -200 F (-125 C).  In the summer it might get all the way up to 7oF in a sunny spot on the equator.  The average temp is NOWHERE Earthlike. Earth, by contrast, has an average temperature of nearly 60F (15 C).  That’s about one degree warmer than it was a hundred years ago, and the evidence is that it’s getting warmer due to the burning of fossil fuels. Which, as you now know, are mined in Kentucky (in addition to other places).

Look, the senator from the great state of Kentucky can have any opinion he wants about global warming, and he’s free to have that opinion bought and paid for by the mining interests, if he so desires. But, he doesn’t have the right to his own set of facts that don’t even stand up to scientific scrutiny. Imagine if he blew his mouth off about something else he didn’t understand (like, I dunno, sports or banking laws or something).  He’d have bankers and sports fans all over his sorry hide in two seconds.

Well, here’s one from the science community: we have probes on Mars that are giving us accurate temperatures right now. We can measure temps on Earth darned accurately. The data don’t lie:  temps on Mars are not equal to temps on Earth. So, Senator Smith, go find something else to bolster your argument against global warming. We’ve got your numbers for you, and they aren’t pretty.