White Is Black, Up Is Down, Hot Is Cold

If you live pretty much anywhere in the U.S., you've experienced the massive winter storms that have raged across most of the country in recent weeks. We've dug out of two storms that have dumped close to two feet on us just days apart; many parts of the country have been hit even harder.

Naturally, this nasty winter weather is caused by global warming.

What? What's that you say? Ridiculous?? Oh no, my friend, it's not. Just listen to the Inventor Of The Internet, Mr. Almost-President and current High Priest of the Church of Green, Al Gore:

As it turns out, the scientific community has been addressing this particular question for some time now and they say that increased heavy snowfalls are completely consistent with what they have been predicting as a consequence of man-made global warming:

“In fact, scientists have been warning for at least two decades that global warming could make snowstorms more severe. Snow has two simple ingredients: cold and moisture. Warmer air collects moisture like a sponge until it hits a patch of cold air. When temperatures dip below freezing, a lot of moisture creates a lot of snow.”

“A rise in global temperature can create all sorts of havoc, ranging from hotter dry spells to colder winters, along with increasingly violent storms, flooding, forest fires and loss of endangered species.”

Hm. So, according to Gore, pretty much every possible phenomenon that occurs in nature is caused by man-made global warming. Riiiiight...

Unlike Gore's *ahem* science, there's an actual (demonstrable) phenomenon called the Gore Effect that I find immensely hilarious:

“With the UN Climate Change Conference underway in Cancun to discuss the dangers of Global Warming, the resort host location is experiencing its third straight day of record cold temperatures,” says reader Richard Nathan.

Today the mercury fell to 53F in Cancun. The record for this date – 57F – was set in 2000.

And Gore was there. You see, seemingly everywhere that Gore travels to rail against the dangers of man-made global warming, the temperatures drop. It's seriously like God is messing with him, but Gore doggedly insists on peddling his junk science, elevating self-parody to previously unforeseen new heights.

Speaking of vicious cold, let's examine a couple of the environmentalist's favorite props that can supposedly save the planet, wind farms and battery powered cars. While they may have their (small) place in providing energy savings for tens of...well, tens of people, can they really do the heavy lifting when the snow and ice are coming down thick and hard?

Wind farms

Some media groups like to refer to themselves as ‘no spin zones’. But among energy insiders the phrase has been applied to wind farms, given that turbines mostly operate at well below 30 percent of installed capacity. Recently, serious cold weather has badly affected Britain and its much-vaunted ‘wind power experience’ and it turns out that wind farms are, quite literally in deepest winter, no spin zones.

Such is the grip the Big Freeze has had on Britain (as in northern Europe and the eastern U.S.) since early November that leading industrialists have forcibly reiterated last years’ warning about growing over-reliance on wind power. As the latest figures show, just when Britain was in the greatest need from its burgeoning wind farm industry to perform from November through January with temperatures plunging to as much as minus 20 celsius, wind power failed miserably.

Battery powered cars

On Wednesday a snowstorm hit D.C. commuters harder than usual, causing gridlock on the road and dragging a normally 20-minute commute into, in some cases, over six hours as people crowded the roads struggling to get home.

With current technology, electric cars typically have much shorter battery lives, especially in cold weather. In an instance where a regular combustion engine car would keep its occupants safe and warm while idling for hours, an electric car would have left them stranded. In his State of the Union address last week, President Obama expressed his desire to keep the U.S. one step ahead technologically and environmentally by embracing electric vehicles. However, a single snowstorm has shown, once again, that the market has always been and will always be better at spurring innovation and picking product winners and losers than the government could ever be.

But hey, is it really an unacceptable sacrifice to lose a few hardcore environmentalists to the cold when their Priuses die in the middle of a blizzard, just to learn the lesson? I kid, I kid. Seriously, though, these are not small concerns, and only serve to illustrate how foolish and dangerous it is for the government to artificially dictate what forms of electricity should be used.

Make no mistake, that's exactly what they're doing.

In fact, as the EPA is beginning to flex its vast new muscle -- granted by numerous Obama and Congressional moves that detach it from Congressional oversight and thrust it into the position of controlling American energy policy as a whole -- we see dangerous precedents becoming reality, such as:
- gas prices rising
- new regulatory costs killing jobs
- rolling blackouts

Perhaps most disturbingly of all, the EPA appears to be operating without oversight, changing their own rules as they see fit. Remember those waivers that the Obama administration granted to certain preferred unions and companies because the costs of implementing Obamacare would do irreparable damage to those companies? Now energy companies have started getting waivers, too. Ask yourself: if these major pieces of legislation are so destructive and oppressive that the biggest and most profitable companies in the country can't afford to operate by them, are they really doing anyone any good? Outside of the corridors of governmental power and lobbyist money, no. Quite the opposite. On a broader scale, do we really want or need a government that operates via regulatory whim rather than laws that apply equally and fairly to everyone? That's what we've got now, and it's becoming increasingly obvious with each new waiver granted.

When will the new Republican-led Congress start reigning them in? It needs to happen fast, but it won't be easy. For one thing, President Obama has pledged to veto any bill that would limit the EPA's power. You know what? As gas prices rise to $3.50 or $4 per gallon again, I'd love to see him do that. GOP, this is another golden opportunity, just like Obamacare...make him do it, and make him defend it.

But don't worry. We'll always have rich liberals to chastise us for destroying the planet while they conveniently overlook their own massive carbon footprints and personal gain from the very things they condemn in the rest of us:

Coming soon in a future blog post: the almost extinct incandescent light bulb. Because we'd all rather have a curly light bulb that gives off crappy light and is filled with toxic chemicals that costs 5 times as much as what we've got now...