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PINE BLUFFS — Almost two weeks ago, the year 2008 wound to a close without much fanfare and with even less regret, as Americans fought valiantly against the onslaught of global warming, which tightened its grip on this nation of 300 million citizens, out there . . . well, you know, clinging to their guns and their religion in a futile attempt to keep cool.
The Christmas week in December 2008 can be a useful example. Many parts of the west were hit hard with snow and ice storms. Winter had barely set in, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had reported 63 record snowfalls, and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month of December. Here's what a few cities experienced that week. But surely, in view of what the experts have been saying, this can't be anything more than an aberration, and even if it is, President-Elect Barack Hussein Obama, who takes office in just a few days, will fix everything.
In Seattle, temperature was at 32° F and snow was falling. To the chagrin of pilots charged with safely flying passengers in and out of Seattle-Tacoma Airport, visibility was down to just three tenths of a mile. Seattle's forecast called for more snow mixed with rain, continuing through Christmas day, adding to the 13 inches of white stuff already on the ground. Seattle? But that city doesn't usually get snow of any magnitude because of its proximity to the warm waters of Puget Sound.
Exasperated Seattle residents told reporters how grateful they were for their wind chill index, devised by the Government some time ago to do more than accurately describe weather conditions; it lets us know how we experience it. "We sure are grateful to the U.S. Weather Bureau for the wind chill index," a shivering, unnamed resident of nearby Tacoma said. "It lets us know exactly how toasty warm we really are. Just now, it feels like a super 22°."
In eastern Washington State, Spokane residents already measured a total snowfall for the month of 46.2 inches, a record for December, according to a Weather Service spokesperson.
Six hundred miles east, in Butte, MT, a winter storm warning was in effect, and the forecast said it would be cloudy and 13°. But were it not for that same wind chill factor, residents would be unaware that "it really feels like 4°." If ignorance is truly bliss, I think Butte residents might like some just about now.
In fact, winter storm warnings were in effect for parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, and the western Dakotas. A blizzard warning covered the mountains of southwest Colorado, while yet another snowstorm closed highways around Reno, NV, the latest in a tiring week of bad weather for that area.
"It's going to be a heck of a storm," said Chris Cuoco, senior forecaster for the National Weather Service in Grand Junction, CO. "[Here] we're expecting significant snowfall in all the mountains of Colorado. Even the valleys are going to see 4-plus inches of snow. The forecast called for up to 20 inches of snow in parts of the Rockies, along with gusts of wind up to 80 mph.
Moving farther eastward, in Chicago, IL, hundreds of holiday travelers spent the Tuesday night before Christmas at the country's second busiest airport, temporarily converted into an upscale motel due to a barrage of ice and snow storms. Some travelers faced the prospect of doing it again on Christmas Eve as airports across the country slowly recovered. Wednesday morning a light rain was falling, and the temperature hovered at a torrid 35° F. Wind chill? Felt like 29° F, but that had not deterred Chicagoans who were attempting to cool off the political situation, especially in the Democrat Governor's office, where it's been extremely warm of late.
Global warming notwithstanding, the Midwest did not escaped winter's wrath that week. Freezing rain glazed streets and highways in the Chicago area. Interstate 290 (The Eisenhower Expressway) was closed for several hours due to ice, and the Town of Lemont blocked off all its major intersections.
And in Denver, CO, the day before Christmas, it was cloudy and 30° F with a wind chill factor of 23° F. Men shoveled piles of snow from the rooftops of homes in the little town of Crested Butte after a heavy storm blanketed that town on Friday.
Next door in Indiana, 150 miles of the Indiana Toll Road was shut down for about two hours because, as a State Trooper said, "It was an entire sheet of ice." Numerous accidents were reported along its length. Indiana also closed a 10-mile stretch of Interstate 69 north of Fort Wayne.
In fact, seven traffic deaths in Indiana were blamed on the ice that Friday, adding to the four weather-related deaths in that state earlier in the week. In Indianapolis, a fire engine was reported to have slid off a road into a tree, and four firefighters were hospitalized with minor injuries.
But Omaha, NE reported the most serious effects of global warming. There, the sun shone brilliantly the day before Christmas, and it was a robust 8° F. That pesky wind chill index suggested that all Omaha residents should feels like it was -8° F. Helpful local media informed one and all that they should not burn coal – clean or otherwise – because of the cumulative effects of carbon monoxide trapped under a layer of warmer air. CBS, NBC and ABC Television news affiliates took pains to ensure that Nebraskans heard that doing so would increase "respiratory aliments" among residents in that city; just one more thing for them to worry about.
Across the country, according to the New York Times, Boston Globe, Baltimore Sun, Washington Post, and other "top" newspapers, people were tightening their belts and going without food and medicine, in order to control the atmospheric interiors of their homes, environmentally. "We need to control the atmospheric interiors of our homes environmentally," LaTonya Washington, an inner city Denver resident told a reporter for the Rocky Mountain News, after its reporter ended a long search for someone in that neighborhood who could speak English, "just like Al Gore does." No doubt this astute observer of the national scene was referring to the Cap and Trade system to reduce carbon emissions advocated by our esteemed former Vice-President, who began making use of such a system at his home in Nashville, TN shortly after recuperating from his exhaustive efforts inventing the Internet. Mr. Gore could not be reached for comment. When pressed, a spokeswoman admitted that her boss was busily flying about the country in his private jet, drumming up support for the Cap and Trade idea. When it was pointed out that the Earth seemed to have been cooling for the past decade despite everything Mr. Gore has been saying, she did admit that his plane carried a supply of extra blankets.
Will somebody please turn up the heat? Planet Earth is freezing. Calls to The Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune for comments about this situation went unanswered. Usually leaders in the fight against global warming, eager to cite supporting statistics – bogus or otherwise – those newspapers recently applied for Chapter 11 bankruptcy due to lack of advertising revenue and readers. It seems their steady diet of political correctness and lowest common denominator pap, dished out daily by leftist-leaning ideologues, was not well received by ordinary citizens in those cities, who would prefer to read at least some opposition arguments about global warming, climate change, and polar ice now accumulating faster than usual at each end of the globe.
We sure are fortunate that President-elect Barack Hussein Obama is up to date on this global warming issue. During a campaign speech delivered in Berlin back on July 24, 2008, ignoring experts who concede that the globe has not warmed since 1995, he confidently stated: "All nations must act to reduce carbon emissions. This is the moment when we come together to save this planet. Let us resolve that we will not leave our children a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands." Err … isn't this what certain pop scientists have been telling us is happening right now? But, I digress.
Undaunted by scientific studies showing that since 1998 annual temperatures around the planet have actually been falling steadily and we may be coming to the end of a 200-year warming trend, Mr. Obama continued, "Let us resolve that all nations - including my own - will act with seriousness of purpose, and reduce the carbon we send into our atmosphere. This is the moment to give our children back their future. This is the moment to stand as one." That said, Obama boarded his jet black, state-of-the art, heavily-armored limousine, and drove off, reducing carbon emissions at every RPM of its 8-cylinder, 500+ horsepower engine.
After he won the election, Mr. Obama demonstrated his support for another means of cleaning up our environment; re-cycling. Setting an example for all of us, he named many of those who served the last Democrat president, Bill Clinton, to positions in his upcoming Administration. "Re-cycling is an important step in cleaning up our environment," our President-elect said. "Coupling this with my belief that everyone in this country deserves a chance to start over? Well, I intend to see that these people get that second chance." When an overeager reporter asked if that meant the same tired old Democrat policies would also be trotted out and re-cycled, the steely-eyed Mr. Obama offered no comment. The young reporter was later seen being escorted out of the hall by heavily armed, riot gear clad police, and into a Paddy Wagon waiting at the curb, its engine and heater running to keep the police officers inside warm.
And in New York City late on December 24th, a jolly old man in a red suit with white trim was stopped as he criss-crossed the icy skies above the city in a sleigh full of toys, pulled by eight tiny reindeer. "That man is a menace to New Yorkers," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly later said in an interview with a reporter from The New York Times. "His reindeer are spewing methane all over our fair city and its residents." The story can be found right under the article describing how that newspaper is mortgaging its office equipment to fund its massive accumulated debt.
That our new leader will make every effort in the future to reduce global warming using the latest technology and methods, while promising that nothing he does will adversely effect the economy of our nation, eliminate jobs, and neither raise our taxes nor the cost of goods and services to any of us, rich or poor, is truly a blessing. Yes, we had a lot to be thankful for this past Christmas!
Anthony J. Sacco, a writer, licensed private investigator, author of two novels; The China Connection, and Little Sister Lost, and a biography, Echoes in the Wind, holds degrees from Loyola College of Maryland and the University of Maryland Law School. His articles have appeared in the Washington Times, Baltimore Sun, Voices for the Unborn, the Catholic Review, WREN Magazine and the Wyoming Catholic Register. E-mail him at AnthonyjSacco@hotmail.com and visit his blog at AnthonyjSaccosr.townhall.com. His work is also available at Triond, an Internet Magazine.