It must be tough to be Al Gore sometimes. We all know that the weather has a habit of not cooperating with his “major addresses” on global warming; how many times have his big pronouncements been accompanied by major snowstorms?
Presumably, it would be better to try doing one of these speeches in the middle of summer, when you’re less likely to be iced out by the weather. But wouldn’t you know it – just when Gore gets his sweltering summertime platform to trumpet the need to act on the basis of the Global Warming Consensus, a big fight breaks out in a scientific organization that makes said Consensus look more like a sham than ever.
First things first: In Washington last Thursday, Al “a modern Jeremiah” Gore delivered a “major address” on global warming where he asserted that “The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk… And even more — if more should be required — the future of human civilization is at stake.”
This assertion is based, of course, on the unshakable scientific consensus that human activities – specifically our carbon emissions – are causing potentially catastrophic climate change to occur. On the basis of that solid foundation of science, Gore went on to explain that we must:
…do away with all carbon-emitting forms of electricity production in the United States within 10 years, replacing them with alternatives like solar, wind and geothermal power, conservation and so-called clean-coal technology in which all carbon emissions from the burning of coal are captured and stored.
It’s entirely possible that Al Gore doesn’t believe what he’s saying here. Goodness knows that he’s not shy at all about taking liberties with the truth in order to advance his agenda. But really, the ridiculousness of this particular bit of puffery is breathtaking. Columnist Vincent Carroll took Gore to task in the Rocky Mountain News thusly:
Gore would subject 300 million people to an experiment in which baseload power that is needed 24 hours a day to keep the economy – and our livelihoods – humming is replaced willy nilly by power sources still susceptible to natural disruption (such as lack of wind or lingering cloud cover), that cost more (at least in the case of solar) and are far less plentiful in some regions than others (Colorado is lucky at least in that regard).
He’d inflict monumental utility price hikes on consumers who’d pay for both the shutdown of old plants and construction of the new – with who knows what economic fallout.
With such a short timetable, we’d have to shred this nation’s federal system of utility regulation in favor of national directives, presumably from Congress or a muscle-flexing Environmental Protection Agency charged with regulating greenhouse gases. Not since World War II have we seen anything remotely comparable in terms of central planning.
[Cue Superfriends announcer voice] Meanwhile, back in the real world… Read more on Global Warming Consensus Alert: Flame On!…
I guess I’ll do the honors for first post of the year 
It has been noted in the past, both in previous PowerBlog posts and elsewhere in the blogosphere, that climate change alarmists are wont to attribute virtually any anomaly in the weather (or, frankly, in any other area of human existence) to global warming. It’s not hard to find examples of this phenomenon, but it is quite impressive to find an individual who has made an effort to catalog all of the examples on a single web page in one giant list.
