Extreme weather fuels climate change debate

HOUSTON – From winter coats last week to T-shirt weather this week, our extreme weather is fueling the climate change debate.

The White House is taking a stance and calling climate change a dangerous threat just like terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.

Southeast Texas has seen its share of crazy weather.

The region is in its eighth coldest winter, plus it's been hit by back-to-back winter storms that delivered ice on the roads.

Around the country, the Northeast is still digging out as snowstorm after snowstorm kept swinging through. California is thirsting for drought-saving rain.

Globally, there is record snow in Japan and severe flooding in England.

Some scientists are blaming our wild weather on climate change.

"Climate change is real," said Ronald Sass a fellow of climate change at Baker Institute. "It is changing our weather, and we are the cause."

During a stop in Indonesia, Secretary of State John Kerry sounded off about global climate change, comparing it to world threats like poverty and weapons of mass destruction.

"All challenges that know no borders. The reality is that climate change ranks right up there with every single one of them," said Kerry.

But changing policies will be hard since skeptics of global climate change view it as a theory.

"What we have to look at is the fact that you don't make good laws, sustainable laws, when you're making them on hypotheses or theories or unproven science," explained Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee.

Kerry says the U.S. and China produce 40 percent of the world's greenhouse gases.

He made an agreement with China over the weekend to make efforts towards cutting down on greenhouse emissions.