Pelosi Snowed out of Global Warming rally

[DarrinS]

Sweet irony.


http://cnsnews.com/public/content/ar...x?RsrcID=44320

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had to cancel an appearance Monday at a global warming rally in Washington, D.C., that was hit by a snowstorm because her flight was delayed, her office told CNSNews.com.

Brianna Cayo-Cotter, the spokesman for the Energy Action Coalition that held the rally, told a group of reporters that she had been in contact with Pelosi and that her flight had been delayed because of inclement weather.

A blizzard Sunday night and early Monday morning blanketed the nation’s capital with snow, causing events to be cancelled and delayed across the city.

House Select Energy Independence and Global Warming Chairman Edward Markey (D-Mass.), who was scheduled to speak at the global warming event, also canceled his appearance because of the inclement weather, a spokesman from his committee’s office told CNSNews.com on Monday.

Speaker Pelosi’s office confirmed to CNSNews.com that her flight had been delayed, but they could not say where the flight was coming from or whether she was flying commercial or charter.

According to a press notification released by the Speaker’s office on Friday, both lawmakers were scheduled to appear on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol at 11:30AM Monday.

“In her remarks, the Speaker will discuss the progress made and the next steps to green the House of Representatives through the Green the Capitol initiative,” said the press release.

But at 9.35am on Monday the House Radio TV/Gallery e-mailed reporters noting that, “The Speaker will NOT be participating in the 2009 Power Shift Conference Rally this morning at 11:30am on the West Front.”

“It is unclear if the event is still going on,” said the release.

The event did occur, however, and despite the lawmakers' absence, about 500 protesters braved temperatures in the mid-20s and congregated on the Capitol lawn.

The rally was part of the Energy Action Coalition’s Power Shift 2009 Conference, which occurred in Washington, D.C., over the weekend.

On its website, under a section en led "What We're For," the Energy Action Coalition says: "The partners of Energy Action and the youth who are building this movement have been at the forefront of the movement for bold, just and comprehensive action to stop global warming and create a just and sustainable energy future."

The site also includes a "Youth Climate Pledge" that says in part: "The climate crisis is the most urgent issue facing humanity today. Failure to fully and immediately confront it will condemn my generation to a transformed planet."

[jack sommerset]

Thats is funny. I can't stand her.

[CubanMustGo]

And I can't stand idiots who equate single climate events to a denial of the possibility of trend-based global warming.

[DarrinS]

And I can't stand idiots who equate single climate events to a denial of the possibility of trend-based global warming.

Is the last 10 years a good enough trend for you?

[sook]

[DarrinS]

WASHINGTON -- A corollary of Murphy's Law ("If something can go wrong, it will") is: "Things are worse than they can possibly be." Energy Secretary Steven Chu, an atomic physicist, seems to embrace that corollary but ignores Gregg Easterbrook's "Law of Doomsaying": Predict catastrophe no sooner than five years hence but no later than 10 years away, soon enough to terrify but distant enough that people will forget if you are wrong.


Chu recently told the Los Angeles Times that global warming might melt 90 percent of California's snowpack, which stores much of the water needed for agriculture. This, Chu said, would mean "no more agriculture in California," the nation's leading food producer. Chu added: "I don't actually see how they can keep their cities going."

No more lettuce or Los Angeles? Chu likes predictions, so here is another: Nine decades hence, our great-great-grandchildren will add the disappearance of California artichokes to the list of predicted planetary calamities that did not happen. Global cooling recently joined that lengthening list.

In the 1970s, "a major cooling of the planet" was "widely considered inevitable" because it was "well established" that the Northern Hemisphere's climate "has been getting cooler since about 1950" (The New York Times, May 21, 1975). Although some disputed that the "cooling trend" could result in "a return to another ice age" (the Times, Sept. 14, 1975), others anticipated "a full-blown 10,000-year ice age" involving "extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation" (Science News, March 1, 1975, and Science magazine, Dec. 10, 1976, respectively). The "continued rapid cooling of the Earth" (Global Ecology, 1971) meant that "a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery" (International Wildlife, July 1975). "The world's climatologists are agreed" that we must "prepare for the next ice age" (Science Digest, February 1973). Because of "ominous signs" that "the Earth's climate seems to be cooling down," meteorologists were "almost unanimous" that "the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century," perhaps triggering catastrophic famines (Newsweek cover story, "The Cooling World," April 28, 1975). Armadillos were fleeing south from Nebraska, heat-seeking snails were retreating from central European forests, the North Atlantic was "cooling down about as fast as an ocean can cool," glaciers had "begun to advance" and "growing seasons in England and Scandinavia are getting shorter" (Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 27, 1974).

Speaking of experts, in 1980 Paul Ehrlich, a Stanford scientist and environmental Cassandra who predicted calamitous food shortages by 1990, accepted a bet with economist Julian Simon. When Ehrlich predicted the imminent exhaustion of many nonrenewable natural resources, Simon challenged him: Pick a "basket" of any five such commodities, and I will wager that in a decade the price of the basket will decline, indicating decreased scarcity. Ehrlich picked five metals -- chrome, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten -- that he predicted would become more expensive. Not only did the price of the basket decline, the price of all five declined.

An expert Ehrlich consulted in picking the five was John Holdren, who today is President Obama's science adviser. Credentialed intellectuals, too -- actually, especially -- illustrate Montaigne's axiom: "Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know."

As global levels of sea ice declined last year, many experts said this was evidence of man-made global warming. Since September, however, the increase in sea ice has been the fastest change, either up or down, since 1979, when satellite record-keeping began. According to the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.

An unstated premise of eco-pessimism is that environmental conditions are, or recently were, optimal. The proclaimed faith of eco-pessimists is weirdly optimistic: These optimal conditions must and can be preserved or restored if government will make us minimize our carbon footprints, and if government will "remake" the economy.

Because of today's economy, another law -- call it the Law of Clarifying Calamities -- is being (redundantly) confirmed. On graphs tracking public opinion, two lines are moving in tandem and inversely: The sharply rising line charts public concern about the economy, the plunging line follows concern about the environment. A recent Pew Research Center poll asked which of 20 issues should be the government's top priorities. Climate change ranked 20th.

Real calamities take our minds off hypothetical ones. Besides, according to the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization, there has been no recorded global warming for more than a decade, or one-third of the span since the global cooling scare.

[sook]

[sook]

[LockBeard]

I'm sure Pelosi will get to enjoy high temps at her final destination

[sook]

[DarrinS]

i'm sure pelosi will get to enjoy high temps at her final destination

lol

[sook]

[DarrinS]

Sook, read the rules of the SpursTalk forum. There can be no more than 3 cat fail pictures per thread.

[sook]

is that really a rule?

If it really is and I'm believing it call me stupid

[Wild Cobra]

And I can't stand idiots who equate single climate events to a denial of the possibility of trend-based global warming.

Do you have a clue as to what you just said?

So many Global Warming events have had cold weather of some sort affect them, often, canceling them over the last few years. It's as if God is laughing at them.

It's not just an event. This is a regular occurrence.

[ClingingMars]

HEY GUISE LET'S JUST IGNORE THE POST AND USE CATURDAY PICTURES!!! KK

-Mars

[SnakeBoy]

is that really a rule?

If it really is and I'm believing it call me stupid

Stupid.

[NFGIII]

It was ironic in any case. I thought that was all this thread was about but of course this is SpursTalk and any excuse to fan the particular fires of posters will be excersied.