Sen Jim Inhofe (R-OK), a staunch opponent of claims that humans have contributed to climate change, took to the Senate floor Thursday to make his case with an unconventional prop.
"You know what this is?" Inhofe asked on the Senate floor, holding a recently-made snowball. "It's a snowball just from outside here. So it's very, very cold out. Very unseasonable."
"So, Mr. President, catch this," Inhofe added before tossing the snowball to an aide.
Inhofe argued that while NOAA scientists had argued that 2014 was the warmest year on record, the harsh winter counters the idea that temperatures are getting warmer.
"We hear the perpetual headline that 2014 has been the warmest year on record," he said. "But now the script has flipped and I think it's important since we hear it over and over and over again on the floor of this Senate."
"As we can see with the snowball out there, this is today, this is reality. Others are printing pictures of a frozen Niagara Falls, 4,700 square miles of ice that formed on the great lakes in one night," he added. "It's never happened before."