It was snowing irony in Washington on Monday when global warming activists descended on the District like a storm — but got beaten to the punch by a blast of wintry weather that incapacitated the city.
By Joseph AbramsÂ
Global warming activists stormed Washington Monday for what was billed as the nation’s largest act of civil disobedience to fight climate change — only to see the nation’s capital virtually shut down by a major winter storm.
Schools and businesses were shuttered, lawmakers cancelled numerous appearances and the city came to a virtual standstill as Washington was blasted with its heaviest snowfall of the winter.
It spelled about six inches of trouble for global warming activists who had hoped to swarm the Capitol by the thousands in an effort to force the government to close the Capitol Power Plant, which heats and cools a number of government buildings, including the Supreme Court and the Capitol.
The snowy scene, with temperatures in the mid-20s, was reminiscent of a day in January 2004, when Al Gore made a major address on global warming in New York — on one of the coldest days in the city’s history.
Protest organizers said about 2,500 people braved the blizzard to oppose greenhouse gas emissions, but the shroud of snow wasn’t the only wet blanket in the nation’s capital Monday.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who called on the architect of the Capitol to stop burning coal at the power plant last week, cancelled her appearance at the rally because her flight to Washington was cancelled.
Michelle Obama canned a public “Read Across America” event and HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan canceled a meeting with the Democratic Caucus because the members of Congress couldn’t get to D.C. An honor cordon at the Pentagon for Afghanistan’s defense minister also had to be called off.
Some protesters couldn’t make it as dozens of flights in the area were delayed or called off, and some couldn’t face the dangerous roads or blustery weather, leaving hundreds safe, if sorry, back at home.
One protester named Kat had planned to get arrested and be bailed out Monday but decided to stay put and donate her money to a good cause instead.
“I don’t want to travel in the snow today. However, I am donating my bail money to fight mountaintop removal,” she wrote to the Climate Action Web site.
Mountaintop removal coal mining has been going on since the 70’s. So, why have I never heard about it until now? It actually sounds awful, and what I have just read from a couple of minutes of internet searching, sounds like a REAL environmental disaster.
No, I’m not going Lefty. My point is that while something REAL is going on that I could probably be persuaded to get behind the environmentalists over, they choose to spend their time, energy, and efforts to chase the red herring of climate change. Which with a minimal amount of effort, and intellectual honesty, one can determine that the debate, and the science are far from settled.
It is a shame. If they had put a fraction of their efforts into protesting MTR coal mining that they have put out for AGW, then maybe they could have actually been effective in stopping a real environmental disaster. Instead, they put all of their effort into a theory based on flawed computer modeling, backed by an internatoinal govermental panel that has an obvious agenda, and scientists that would have a cash flow problem were they to refute AGW.
In the meantime, there has been a real disaster going on in the Appalachian Mountains for thirty years, that I just found out about from a story of AGW protesters that got hammered by a snow storm! Forgive me for thinking that there is something wrong with this picture!
It has been said that Conservatives, like me, don’t care about the environment. I hope this shows how untrue that is. I really do care about REAL things that threaten the environment, and MTR coal mining has REAL effects on the environment.
I think it’s time for the environmentalists to stop their Quixotic tilting at windmills, and move on to something REAL. Maybe then I would have a lot less loathing, and disrespect for them.
I think this is far and away, the best article I’ve ever read! =)