Sarah Palin took to Facebook again this weekend, posting about her youngest daughter’s graduation in the Alaskan snow:
One last blast of Alaska winter today, hopefully? This is what “Grad Blast” means in Alaska! We’ll move our graduation b-b-q indoors and watch the mini-blizzard from ’round the fireplace. (Global warming my gluteus maximus.)

When Palin was running for national office, she advocated capping carbon emissions and said man’s activities contribute to global warming. Over the last half decade, she has swung back to rejecting climate science and embracing carbon emissions:
Aug. 2008: Asked about global warming, said “I’m not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.”
Sep. 2008: Told Charlie Gibson: “I believe that man’s activities can certainly be contributing to the issue of global warming, climate change.”
Oct. 2008: Said during the vice presidential debate that she supported capping carbon emissions.
May 2009: Forced to cancel an appearance at White House Correspondents’ dinner because of a flooding disaster caused by an “unusually warm spring thaw in Alaska.”
Nov. 2009: Asked Rush Limbaugh, “Are we warming or are we cooling?”
Dec. 2009: Attacked climate scientists in a Washington Post op-ed, then said she would not debate Al Gore on climate change because “they don’t want to listen to the facts. They don’t want to listen to some reasonable voices in this.”
Feb. 2010: Asserted that climate science is “snake oil” and said “man-made global warming hysteria isn’t based on sound science.”
Apr. 2010: Dismissed “this snake oil science stuff that is based on this global warming, Gore-gate stuff
Jun. 2010: In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon spill, said “I chant, ‘drill, baby, drill,’ because it will help make the country energy independent.”
May 2011: At a motorcycle rally, exclaimed: “I love that smell of the emissions!”
Jan. 2012: In the middle of last winter, took to Facebook to ask, “What global warming?”.
Apr. 2012: Celebrated Earth Day by calling, yet again, to “drill, baby, drill.”
Palin is an entertainer now rather than a public servant and so her opinions alone do not merit much consideration. Yet her joking asides that cold weather means that climate change is not happening are representative of a larger skepticism and confusion about the link between climate and weather.















The Center for American Progress conducted an analysis and found that the federal government—which means taxpayers—spent $136 billion total from fiscal year 2011 to fiscal year 2013 on disaster relief. This adds up to an average of nearly $400 per household per year.




