Monday, March 19, 2007
CHILL ON THE HILL
The Gore Effect goes to Washington:
Temperatures are predicted to reach a high of only 43 degrees on Wednesday in Washington, but look for high-heat to come out of Al Gore’s scheduled appearances on The Hill!
And further coldening throughout the land. Daniel F. reports even graver Goring than seen in Maine:
“Here in the mountainous wilds of northern Vermont, the Gore Effect had built the snowpack up to some four-plus feet before the brief ‘Gore Spring’ (ah, finally - an antipodal term to go with the well-known ‘Indian Summer’) last week took that down to about 18 inches - which then refroze into white concrete. But with Big Al back from Europe, a new foot of snow was tossed down on Friday night and Saturday morning. After cleaning that up, this (Sunday) morning showed that the forecast possibility of a couple of inches had turned into another foot:
“It finally did let up later in the day, and the new clean-up produced a rejuvenated ‘Gore Canyon’ leading up to the house:
“Eventually, I excavated my truck:
“Meanwhile, none of this bothered Ismail ...
“ ... who was happy to assume a Gore-like posture-of-no-concern by the woodstove. BTW, what with the big Valentine’s Day blizzard and now the big St. Patrick’s Day storm, the next holiday looming is Easter on April 8th. Does anyone know where Al plans to be that weekend?”
Just follow the snow, my friend. Also in Vermont - Montpelier, to be exact - is Daniel D., who writes:
We had an unusually warm early winter. The local newspaper, the Barre-Montpelier Times-Argus ran scads of the-sky-is-falling global warming articles. Every local pol from our mayor to the Governor started talking about global warming. Of course, “An Inconvenient Truth” was shown countless times.
You can guess what happened. Even though we have not been blessed with the divine presence himself, we nevertheless experienced the Al Gore effect by proxy: round about the middle of January, it got cold. Really cold. And it has stayed that way.
Our mayor organized a forum for the whole city to get together to talk about how to reduce energy use and do our part, blah, blah. It was on one of the coldest nights of the year. The thermometer hit 15F below 0. Somehow, the irony was missed.
February 14th we got 30 inches of snow. It has snowed a few more times since then - most recently on Friday, when we got another 10 inches. To add icing to the cake, the Winooski river which flows through the city has frozen solid.
It’s not unusual for the river to freeze in the winter, but the amount of ice this year is unprecedented. They are now worried that when it does eventually warm up, Gaia willing, the ice will break up all at once, form a jam and flood the downtown.
I know individual weather events aren’t scientifically significant, but try making that argument to a GW true believer when he spouts about Hurricane Katrina (a powerful hurricane, but not exceptional), or an unusual warm spell, or a drought. He will look at you as a heretic, for that is what you are - a non-believer in the church of Gaia.