ON FEBRUARY 26th James Inhofe, a senator from Oklahoma, threw a snowball at another senator inside America’s upper chamber. He did it to back up his contention that man-made climate change is not the threat President Barack Obama (and many others) say it is. Mr Inhofe is chairman of the Senate’s environment committee and his argument has a simple and persuasive logic: much of the United States has experienced four unusually freezing winters in succession. Surely that contradicts the notion that the Earth’s climate is warming up?
