A Right-Wing Pundit Thought He Had an Epiphany About Climate Change, and It’s as Bad as You Think

Before you look at this tweet, please put on the nearest padded helmet you can find. In moments, you will be slapping yourself on the forehead in in frustration and disgust, and we don’t want to be responsible for any concussion-type injuries.

Helmet on?

Here you go:

I’ve often wondered how melting sea ice will raise ocean levels since when water freezes, it assumes a hexagonal shape, thereby taking up MORE volume than water. Therefore, thawing ice should actually lower sea levels as less space is displaced by the thawed water.

— Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) October 15, 2018

Bill Mitchell is a right-wing radio host and Twitter personality, and he gained notoriety online after steadfastly predicting that Trump would win the presidential election despite polling evidence to the contrary. He got that one right, but this…this is really something. Let me do my best to distill Mitchell’s point:

1. Ice takes up more volume than water.

2. Therefore, when it melts, sea levels will go down.

It feels almost degrading to have to refute this, because Mitchell’s inexpert opinion has no place in a topic that has been covered by actual scientists for years. Did he really think he’d come up with some “a-ha!” fact that would completely change the debate, and that scientists hadn’t thought of before? Deeper question: How can people like Mitchell be so arrogant to assume that they might know more than the experts?

But fine, here’s the obvious refutation:

1. Sea levels rise in part because of ice that melts from land masses. It’s not already in the water—it’s coming from glaciers and ice sheets in places like Greenland and the arctic circles. It’s extra water, not just some piece of ice sitting on top of the ocean.

2. The other major cause is thermal expansion due to rising temperatures. In other words, water expands when it’s warm.

It won’t. Sea level is rising due to: (a) the thermal expansion of sea water as it warms, and (b) melting of land-based ice including glaciers and ice sheets. For more, read: https://t.co/5vDBEvppog

— Katharine Hayhoe (@KHayhoe) October 16, 2018

Antarctica is an actual continent. All those massive ice formations aren’t floating icebergs, they’re on land.

You could have Googled this, for heaven’s sake.

— Warren Terra (@warren__terra) October 16, 2018

Again, the problem here isn’t so much that Mitchell had this thought—it’s the kind of thing that could occur to anyone. It’s that he didn’t think about it closely enough to come to the obvious conclusion that it was stupid, and—worse—he is so self-assured that he actually tweeted it in the belief that it would be eye-opening. It’s an amazing window into a certain kind of self-assured American brain; the kind that assumes there is no subject on which they aren’t experts, and that they know better than people who have been studying phenomena like climate change their entire lives. It’s an almost impossible arrogance, and it’s a microcosm of why we’re having such a hard time doing anything about this global disaster. We have too many people like Mitchell who have a political incentive to believe that climate change is overblown, and the sense of intellectual entitlement to believe that they know more than actual scientists.

It’s too enraging to think about any more, so let’s just feature the people who owned him in the aftermath.

The scientists are afraid to tell the public this powerful truth, just because it is so hilariously and obviously untrue.

— David Roth (@david_j_roth) October 15, 2018

I am blinded by science.

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) October 15, 2018

Bill Mitchell apparently graduated from Trump University.

— Christopher Smith (@cheetohman) October 15, 2018

Also, if the Earth is round, why don’t the people at the bottom FALL OFF??????

— Dale Innis (@DaleInnis) October 16, 2018

You are correct that there is no ice on land, sir.

— Jon Spooky-as-heck-t (@JonEHecht) October 15, 2018

pic.twitter.com/F0EKEsOWyc

— Andreas (@Materialspelare) October 16, 2018

I’ve often wondered why we call them fingers. Have you ever seen them fing?

— Spooky Dan Olsonosaurus (@FoldableHuman) October 15, 2018

IS THIS A NEW LEVEL OF WRONG SCIENTISTS ARE JUST DISCOVERING FOR THE FIRST TIME?

NO, IT’S JUST STILL BILL MITCHELL, A MAN WHO CANT UNDERSTAND LANDMASSES AND ICE SHEETS FLOAT ON TOP OF WATER.

— Doctoral Defense (@notcolloquial) October 15, 2018

The thing that gets me about this is that it’s not even a particularly difficult question. This is flat earth level ignorance. To achieve ignorance like this you have to actively run from the information. And then parade it around like stunning, stupefying ignorance is great.

— CarnivorousPlant (@nosferatu_sr) October 16, 2018

Did Mitchell learn anything from this episode? Nooooope.

I can guess better than most scientists can hypothesize. How about this: “30 years from now it will be either warmer or cooler than it is now, but whatever it is, some liberal will find a way to call it an emergency and put a tax on it.”

Now THAT’S settled science.

— Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) October 16, 2018