This morning I highlighted Dr. Jeff Masters’ blog entry about how 15 nations around the world have set heat records this year.

Much has been written in the mainstream media about heat waves affecting the northeastern U.S. and other parts of the world. Yet very little has been said about the bitter cold temperatures currently impacting South America. Yes, it’s winter down there. But these temps are cold even for winter, having claimed more than 400 lives so far.

There’s no doubt that the globe is very hot right now. This might well go down as the hottest year on record (though I suspect La Nina is going to have something to say about that before we get to the end of December). But can you imagine the response of the MSM if extreme heat had killed 400 people? (Yes, I realize more than 1,000 have died in Russa…but most of those were the result of drinking too much before swimming rather than a result of the heat itself.)

In that same vein, you don’t see nearly as many news reports about the record cool summer temperatures on the West Coast (where meteorologists are beginning to refer to it as “the year without a summer”) as you see about the very warm temperatures in the Northeast.