AOC Live Tweets the Weather (AKA ‘Climate Crisis’)

“The climate crisis is real y’all. “Guess we’re at casual tornadoes in growing regions of the country?”

Like garbage disposers I guess AOC has never seen a tornado either. Not even on YouTube because there is nothing and I mean nothing “casual” by any definition of that word about tornadoes. Perhaps she meant “causal” tornadoes, as in “there’s a causal relationship between climate change and an increase in tornadoes.” Although the PBS report she’s reading from while livestreaming her horrifying tornado warning experience for her Instagram followers seems to indicate the contrary:

“Tornadoes are challenging to link to climate change links due to their nature (geographically, limited, acute patterns, how they form, etc.,”

Of course that failed to stop either AOC or PBS from making the link anyway. Reading from the article she explained:

“Rather than lie squarely in the Great Plains, America’s tornadoes appear to be sliding into the Midwest and Southeast.”

I’ve lived in the upper Midwest my entire life and let me tell you, Spring/Summer tornado warnings are standard fare, along with the less frequent but far from unusual touchdowns. But I always forget that history doesn’t begin until it effects millennials so here’s a brief glimpse of how things were in the way-way back machine:

In 1954, a tornado with winds up to 300 miles per cut a wide path of destruction just outside Grand Rapids. MI causing 330 injuries and 17 fatalities.

1954!? That’s, like, a really, really long time ago!  Did they have cameras then?

Then there were the Palm Sunday tornadoes of ‘65:

It happened with virtually no warning on April 11, 1965. Killer tornadoes smashed through the Midwest over a 12-hour span, killing 271. Michigan was one of the hardest-hit states with 53 deaths.

I repeat, not casual. Not if you were in the middle of it.

Now many people have been making fun of AOC’s tornado tweeting. She was even chastised by a real meteorologist who tried to relate to her on her own terms:

“The Congresswoman @AOC does not know the difference between weather and climate,” Maue tweeted.

“Let’s try an easy analogy: Weather is what outfit you wear heading out the door. Climate is your closet wardrobe.” – NYPost

But honestly, my favorite part of Sandy’s Instagram Tweet-Storm was this:

“There’s people stuck outside. , this is crazy.”

Not because of the verb/object disagreement, I’ve come to expect that, it’s the “We need to get them out” part. She doesn’t seem to understand you’re supposed to come IN from the rain, not vice versa. Which explains a lot.

“Different parts of the country deal with different climate issues. But ALL of these threats will be increasing in intensity as climate crisis grows and we fail to act appropriately. #GreenNewDeal.”

Bless her heart, you can’t expect a barkeep from the Bronx with just an undergraduate degree in Economics and International Relations from a top-rated university to understand complicated things like garbage disposals and weather. That’s all post-doctoral work.

It’s not till then that they tell you how to make computer models that will firmly establish a link between a line of thunderstorms and global warming. It’s complicated.

It’s, like, the difference between “we’ve only got 12 years!” and “we’ve only got 12 seconds.”