Where’s that “Global Warming” everyone keeps talking about?

From NWS Indianapolis:

…WINTER STORM COULD PRODUCE HEAVY SNOWFALL SUNDAY NIGHT THROUGH MONDAY NIGHT…
A STRONG WINTER STORM IS EXPECTED TO MOVE INTO CENTRAL INDIANA ON SUNDAY NIGHT BRINGING A MIX OF PRECIPITATION ACROSS THE FORECAST AREA. THERE IS STILL UNCERTAINTY IN THE TRACK OF THE SYSTEM …AND ANY SHIFT WILL HAVE A SIGNIFICANT IMPACT ON THE PRECIPITATION TYPE. CURRENTLY…TEMPERATURES COULD BE WARM ENOUGH TO SUPPORT A FREEZING RAIN EVENT ACROSS THE SOUTHERN PORTIONS OF CENTRAL INDIANA…A MIX OF SNOW/RAIN ACROSS CENTRAL COUNTIES…AND SNOW OVER THE NORTHERN PORTIONS OF THE FORECAST AREA. SNOWFALL AMOUNTS COULD RANGE BETWEEN 5 TO 8 INCHES. BUT AGAIN…THIS IS DEPENDENT ON THE TRACK OF THE STORM.

THE IMPACTS FROM THIS STORM INCLUDE…HAZARDOUS ROAD CONDITIONS DURING RUSH HOUR ON MONDAY MORNING DUE TO SNOW AND ICE COVERED ROADS.

CHANGES IN THE PATH AND INTENSITY OF THIS SYSTEM WILL HAVE A GREAT IMPACT ON WHAT AREAS RECEIVE THE HIGHER SNOW AMOUNTS. STAY INFORMED OF THE LATEST FORECASTS AND BE PREPARED IF A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IS ISSUED.

Via Politico:

“The House has just canceled votes for the week, meaning the chamber will be out of session through Feb. 22, including next week’s scheduled Presidents Day recess. Across Capitol Hill, virtually every press conference and every committee hearing are also being canceled as a second blizzard approaches.”

I don’t know about you, but I think this might be a terrorist plot.  It looks as if the terrorists have gotten a hold of George Bush’s hurricane machine and retrofitted it to become a blizzard maker.  Instead of blowing up planes to get their point across, they are now blocking legislation through natural phenomena…ingenious.

The Office of Personnel Management has announced that the Federal Government in DC will be closed Tuesday as it was Monday.  Snowpocalypse is doing an excellent job of making sure that nothing gets accomplished in Washington this week.  And personally, I consider the government shutdown and inability to get anything accomplished the best aspect of this snowstorm.

With 10-20 more inches of snow expected Tuesday and Wednesday, I also consider this the death knell of the global warming movement.

I believe the best comment on this situation comes from from Psalms “The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he frustrates the plans of the peoples.” And that my friends, is a beautiful thing.

my pomeranian is also very happy the Federal Government is closed again tomorrow because it means I can stay home with her.

Soooo, the snow has been falling since about 10 am, I got to leave work at 1:30 and it starting sticking around 2.  It is really starting to get deep.  I would say at my house it is about 9 inches deep.  It is very very quiet and there is not a snowplow in sight.

I kid you not, they are forecasting a thunder snow overnight.  I guess this is what happens when Massachusetts sends a Republican to Washington, hell might literally be freezing over.

And I will leave you with a teaser picture, a view from my back porch.

I will post more pictures tomorrow as long as our electricity doesn’t give out. If it does, I will still be Tweeting away from my Blackberry till the battery dies.

As your Hoosier correspondent on location in Washington DC, I feel it is my duty to report on the biggest story of the day. No, not the stock market, no not Toyota, no not even the demon sheep. No, I am talking about the imminent snow storm, or Snopocalypse 2010 as it has been dubbed on Twitter. (p.s. Has anyone seen Al Gore? He is strangely absent in the wake of current weather phenomena.)

I was born and raised in Indiana’s 2nd district, (side note: GO JACKIE! more on that in another post) so if there is one thing I know better than politics, it is snow (can you say Lake Effect?). Anyway, normally I am first in line to make fun of all the drama that occurs in the DC metro area when snow is in the forecast.  But this is a nor’easter aiming to dump close to 2 feet of snow with 50 mile an hour winds.  I would say that is pretty dramatic for even my Midwestern roots.

At the moment, the government is using their “liberal leave” policy, meaning employees can take unscheduled leave, and most places are taking it seriously and shutting down for tomorrow.  But alas, my employer is not one of those intelligent companies.  I fully expect to get to work in time for it to start snowing and absolute chaos to be reigning by the time I leave. Don’t worry, I plan on taking my camera to document the insanity.

Speaking of chaos, the supermarket situation in the entire DC area is a mad house as evidenced here, here and here.  I took my Midwestern level head and went grocery shopping last night thank goodness.  And now for the dumbest thing you have ever heard if you grew up around snow: in Virginia most counties have a policy of not beginning to plow until the snow has stopped.  Since it is supposed to start snowing tomorrow morning and not stop till 10 pm Saturday, I expect to not see blacktop until April.  And while on the subject of snow removal, I also stopped by the Home Depot and every person walking out had a snow shovel (I don’t know if Virginians realize this, but shovels are reusable and can be used for multiple snow falls).

As for the snow storm, I have 3 predictions:

1. I will make it to work, but I will there just in time to be told that we are closing for the day.

2. I will not make it to the Super Bowl party with all my fellow Hoosiers in DC on Sunday, but there will be an awesome Colts themed snow creation in my front yard.

3. DC metro maternity wards will be full in T-9 months.

Catch me on Twitter for up to the minute updates on Snopocalypse 2010 and now back to your regularly scheduled posts on Indiana politics.

John Coleman was the weatherman on Good Morning America in the 1970’s who left and started the Weather Channel. For the last few years his “retirement job” has been the weatherman at a San Diego television station. One of his passions is researching and blogging on global warming. Thursday, January 14th he aired a one hour program on global warming which is excellent in bringing together some of the current significant events regarding this issue. I highly recommend this show.

ALGORE HAS ISSUED A GLOBAL WARMING WATCH…WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM LATE WEDNESDAY NIGHT THROUGH FRIDAY MORNING.

* MAIN IMPACT: ROADS MAY BECOME TREACHEROUS DUE TO GLOBAL WARMING. TRAVEL MAY BECOME VERY HAZARDOUS.

* ACCUMULATIONS: FOUR TO SEVEN INCHES OF GLOBAL WARMING.

* TIMING: BEGINNING LATE WEDNESDAY NIGHT AND LINGERING THROUGH FRIDAY MORNING. THE HEAVIEST GLOBAL WARMING WILL FALL DURING THURSDAY MORNING AND AFTERNOON.

* OTHER IMPACTS: THE HEAVIEST GLOBAL WARMING WILL BEGIN BEFORE THE THURSDAY MORNING RUSH HOUR. ROADS WILL BECOME COVERED IN GLOBAL WARMING.

Now, the real forecast is below the fold:

State Sen. Jim Merritt, chairman of the Senate Utilities and Technology Committee, wants the General Assembly to revisit the issue of “net metering”. Net Metering is an alternative energy installation – such as a windmill or solar cell array – that feeds the excess energy created by the installation back to the power grid for use by other electric customers. The electric meter would in essence “spin backwards” and if the alternative energy device generates more energy than the customer uses it would create a situation where the utility would pay the customer for the electricity generated.

Right now, net metering is only for homes and schools and has a limit of 10 kW per customer (kW or kWh? Electricity is billed in kWh)

From the IndyStar:

That rule allows some customers of investor-owned utilities to send excess electricity produced by wind turbines, solar panels and other renewable sources back into the electric grid and to be charged only for the net amount of power they actually use.

Why only investor owned utilities (ie Duke Energy, IPL, NIPSCO) and not REMC’s? That’s sticking it to rural Hoosiers if I’ve ever seen it. Farms can be a large contributor to alternate energy with windmills.
[Read More Below The Fold]

Today’s guest column on Hoosier Access is from former State Representative and 7th District Congressional Candidate Jon Elrod:

I am not a global warming denier. The science seems clear that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas; i.e. a gas that tends to trap heat in the atmosphere. It seems logical that if humans release enough greenhouse gases, the temperature of the planet will rise. Man-made, or Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW), may or may not be true, but consider the following:

1. The AGW alarmists do not actually base their cataclysmic predictions on CO2 emissions alone. Rather, it is based on “multiplier effects.” Water vapor traps the most heat. The idea is that if CO2 emissions raise temperatures, the polar ice caps will melt a little, and the added water vapor from that ice multiplies the effect. That added vapor will in return melt more ice, resulting in yet more heating and melting. The science on the amount of CO2 necessary to increase temperatures is inconclusive. So is the science on the factor by which it should be multiplied.

[More Below The Fold]

Today Congressman Mike Pence and the House Republican Conference asked tough questions of President Obama that even those on the President’s side of the political aisle are asking when it comes to the President’s travels to Copenhagen for the Climate Change Conference and the Cap and Trade debate.

“The American people deserve to know whether the president is going to enter the United States into a so-called ‘political agreement’ on cap and trade when the Constitution reserves to the Senate the power to ratify legally binding treaties. The president must clarify statements made by officials within his administration that suggest they will attempt an end-run around the Constitution in the name of global cap and trade.

For the Democrats who troll the site, you may think that’s just a partisan remark or attack, but according to Article II Section 2 of the Constitution (and conveniently the Senate’s own website):

Article II, section 2, of the Constitution states that the president “shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur.” These few words are the cornerstone to a major part of our system of divided powers, checks and balances.

According to one scholar of the early Senate, “the Senate power which aroused the gravest and most widespread apprehension was that associated with the making of treaties.” The Constitution’s framers gave the Senate a share of the treaty power in order to check presidential power, to give the president the benefit of the Senate’s advice and counsel, and to safeguard the sovereignty of the states by giving each state an equal vote in the treatymaking process.

But if the Constitution isn’t good enough for liberals (trolls or not…and usually it isn’t) here’s a note to President Obama from Democrat Senator from Virginia Jim Webb who raises a (shockingly) similar concern:

(Read more after the leap)

I really wish that I had time to dig into this and create a detailed review of all of the news associated with ClimateGate.

There is a blog called Watts Up With That? that examines a lot of issues regarding science and climate change. He has established a page with links to all of his ClimateGate articles.

I will try to take some time to digest this a bit and post on it.