This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

The White House jumps into the polar vortex on Friday, with a Google+ Hangout to debunk claims that the Arctic blast “proved” climate change does not exist.

The “We the Geeks” discussion with government and independent scientists is the second push back this week from the White House at contrarian claims that cold weather disproved climate change.

The Google+ Hangout gets underway at 2pm EST.

On Wednesday, Obama’s science advisor, John Holdren, took on the climate change deniers in a two-minute video. “If you’ve been hearing that extreme cold spells like the one we’re having in the United States now disprove global warming, don’t believe it,” Holdren said. “The fact is that no single weather episode can either prove or disprove global climate change.”

But he concluded: “I believe the odds are that we can expect as a result of global warming to see more of this pattern of extreme cold in the mid-latitudes and some extreme warm in the far north.”

President Obama's Science and Technology Advisor, Dr. John Holdren, explains the polar vortex and why climate change makes extreme weather more likely going forward

The White House has taken a far more pro-active approach to climate change denial in Barack Obama’s second term.

The president in a milestone climate speech last June rejected the validity of denier arguments, saying: “We don’t have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society.”

Since then, White House officials and outside campaign groups have worked noticeably harder to shore up public support as the Administration moves forward with regulations to cut carbon emissions from power plants.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday published its proposed standards for future power plants.

There was little sign however that the most prominent climate change deniers would alter their views.

On Monday, Senator Jim Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who is the main climate change denier in Congress, took to the floor with a 20-minute rambling speech about snow storms and cold weather.

And it was business as usual for Rush Limbaugh, the radio talk show host.

“In the middle of a hoax, they’re perpetrating a hoax, but they’re relying on their total dominance of the media to lie to you each and every day about climate change,” Limbaugh told his listeners on Monday.