John, it would be enough for you to spew a lot of drivel about how global warming or climate change is not real, but you insisted on doing it in a way that is passive-aggressive and rude. I realize that you might be feeling down because the people you had come to count on, like Virgil Goode and George W. Bush, are not in office anymore.
Your editorial in the Bedford Bulletin News was not a shock to me, as it might have been to more sensitive readers. In fact, I had to chuckle as you ran down a laundry list of items that we will face due to this country’s interest in getting off foreign oil and conserving energy, as well as improving the environment. Frankly, I kind of expected you to foreshadow any number of occurrences that might take place if this effort were to go forward. What, you didn’t mention that the sun will be blocked from view? Or that the Earth will stop spinning on it’s axis?
Those things are almost as likely as the laughable scenario put forth in your editorial. It reads more like a bedtime story for Sarah Palin and Sean Hannity, but I digress.
I must quote you, because your words are so vapid and naive, I doubt anyone would believe me if I didn’t reproduce them here, in part:
I happened to meet a fellow from Erie, Pa., shortly after the middle of last month. I was up on the Parkway and we got to talking. He mentioned that he had just lost a job he had had for years when the plant he worked at closed. The company had moved the production line to Asia. He was on a trip visiting his adult children and keeping an eye open for areas that could provide job opportunities.
He also talked about the weather. Even into the middle of June, nights were still dropping down into the 40s. The days were chilly.
A few days later, I was looking on Facebook. Some folks, who live in the northeastern part of the county wrote on a Facebook friend’s wall that, in their part of the country, it still felt like April. In June, it was still raw and wet.
Locally, this has not been a hot summer. In fact, last Friday felt more like late September than early July. Sunday felt more like early fall, complete with an autumn rain, than mid-summer.
All this is quite interesting, seeing as how I love to discuss the weather too, but what does it really have to do with either climate change or my Congressman, Tom Perriello?
See, the thing is John, you blather on about how cold it is in Michigan or wherever, deny that there is a problem with the climate and pollution, and you do it all without presenting any facts.
This part is really priceless:
The climate change “crisis” that this legislation is supposed to address doesn’t exist. Global temperatures have dropped, rather than risen, since the beginning of this decade. Science has also shown that the alleged linkage between warmer sea water and a rise in the frequency and intensity of hurricanes doesn’t exist.
The problem with this is that extraordinary claims such as what you have presented require extraordinary evidence, something which you have failed to do. ‘Science’ hasn’t proven anything, ’scientists’ have. There will always be a scientist that is hungry, and will say or do almost anything for a paycheck. These ’scientists’ you talk about (unknown to all of us since you neglected to refer to them) are in that category. I ask you to consider the ’scientists’ that said tobacco was not deadly all those years as but one example of this phenomenon.
You seem to think that Tom Perriello, my Congressman, is somehow wrong to vote for this and that he has ’stabbed in the back’ the middle class workers of his district. I absolutely stand by your right to hyperbole on this.
The truth is, many in this district were tired of seeing absolutely nothing being done by Virgil Goode about anything concerning people in this district except ‘Muslims are bad’, we need English as the official language of the United States, and bringing a clock tower or two to a few of the places in the district, or a water project to those who have supported him. This is not the support we need in this district, and I would challenge you to tell me what about Tom Perriello you do like.
So, in closing, you may use all the funny ‘Man of La Mancha’ references you want to. As I said, I stand behind your right to make a fool of yourself.
However, I just don’t understand why you think that the weight of overwhelming evidence to the contrary about climate change (which you wrote your editorial around) is bunk and what ever ’science’ you are quoting is more right. Frankly I wouldn’t know, because you didn’t grace us with those facts.
Tom Perriello is doing an exemplary job of representing us in the 5th District, and more people than read your editorial think that. Try impressing us with rational thought next time. You would be surprised where it will get you, maybe even a decent discussion about the issues.
Thanks, John Barnhart.
