Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) today urged Republican leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee to hold a hearing on the relationship between climate change and extreme weather.

Waxman and Rush, who are the top Democrats on the full committee and on the Energy and Power Subcommittee, respectively, have written 14 letters to Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) since the GOP took control of the House requesting additional hearings on the science of climate change, an issue that they say Republicans on the panel are ignoring at the country's peril.

"Willful ignorance of the science is irresponsible and it is dangerous," they said in the latest letter. They pointed to a study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released earlier this week that showed the United States had set more than 40,000 high temperature records this year (ClimateWire, July 11).

Waxman and Rush also referenced this summer's heat, wildfires and the Washington-region derecho to further illustrate the need for action on global warming.

"Scientists are increasingly saying that these events are the climate change consequences they have been anticipating," they said.

But Max Boykoff, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder's Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, said in a recent email that while weather can be an entryway into understanding climate change, it is risky for proponents of climate policy to overstate the link between a specific event or season and man-made climatic shifts.

"There is a tendency to take weather as evidence to support claims on a changing climate," he said.

"Many still seek to find resonances through climate communications, and then often overinterpret possible signals, to the detriment of longer-term support for efforts to decarbonize industry and society."

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) demonstrated that risk earlier this week when he took journalists to task on the Senate floor for their coverage of this summer's weather and climate.

"They said that the wildfires and hot temperatures over the past few weeks are likely to convince Americans that global warming is real," he said. "This is kind of a dangerous game to play, because what are they going to say when winter comes?"