"Should we talk about the weather? Should we talk abut the government?"North America is in a deep freeze and Barack Obama wants to make it colder. Across the country, wherever people huddle from arctic winds, it's become a standard joke to wail "whatever happened to Global Warming?" But Steven Chu, the President-elect's pick for energy secretary told Congress that the Obama administration would "tackle the threat of global warming," using a what amounts to a carbon-use tax.
To be fair, no one says "Global Warming" anymore. Now it's called "Climate Change," which is almost vague enough to be an oxymoron. (Exactly when has the climate not changed?) The name change is a wise one, as current evidence suggests the planet isn't getting warmer. In the short run, anyway, we are having a big cold snap. The world has experienced record-setting cold spells and snowfalls for the last two years. The NOAA counted 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures in October alone. As for the ice caps, according to the Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis, arctic ice is at it's highest levels since 1979.
Yes, indeed. It looks like the earth is entering a new Ice Age. The timing is right. It's been about 12,000 years since the last one. Then again, maybe the recent cold is caused by a lack of sunspots. Yup. Sunspots. Sunspot activity has steadily declined since 2000, and 2008 was historically quiet. In August no sunspot activity was found at all, the first time that's happened since 1913.
Never fear. Even if it is new ice age, the world's carbon emissions (the ones Al Gore hates and Obama will tax) are what will keep us warm. Discovery.com reports on scientists who think "human-induced climate change" began thousands of years ago with the onset of large-scale agriculture. That is, the cumulative effect of thousands of years of human influence on climate is what's keeping the world from freezing over now. Sweet.
Does that make sense to everybody? Does it make sense to anybody? Anyone... Bueller?
It's easy to suspect that none of these experts has the slightest idea what they are talking about. And why would that be a surprise? Since the dawn of time humans have thought they could control, or even predict, the weather and nobody has been right yet. Sometimes, it's hard to avoid thinking that all climate scientists are little more than high priests in a temple, trying to tell the future by looking at the innards of a goat.
The Grind isn't smart enough to know what a carbon use tax will mean or what the weather will brings. We are certainly for using less oil. Oil burns dirty and our dependence is a national security issue. We are just tired of being jerked around by the media/science crisis industry. It's a fair question to ask anyone who want to fight Global Warming: If the world really is melting, than how come it's so freaking cold outside?
