As I understand it, global warming now is responsible for the bitterly cold weather that has gripped much of the nation this year.

I gather from the papers that you have been having a severe winter in Michigan. Well, don't get too uppity about it. Down in Arizona, we have had some pretty chilly weather too. The temperature had been below freezing several mornings and the highs have been in the low 50s a number of times.

Now, the people who have been saying that the world is warming up and the ice caps are melting, now claim that all this cold weather is just part of it. Somehow, it is a matter of the world's weather in general being screwed up.

Personally, I blame it on UFOs. We haven't heard much about unidentified flying objects lately and that may be significant. There was a time there when every other week some couple reported being abducted by aliens and held aboard their space ship. During that period, the weather was pretty predictable and nobody talked about global warming.  

After screwing in my first obnoxiously corkscrew-shaped, eco-friendly, fluorescent light bulb, I can't help but feel a little wronged by the well-intentioned, if blindly idealistic, green movement.

Let me clarify. I don't hate the planet, I don't drive a Hummer, and I love the whales. I am, however, a born skeptic and a wannabe history buff, so it's in my nature to approach saving the earth with caution as a watchword.

It seems to me that the only constant that's ever existed in the scientific world is that every couple of years everything we thought we knew gets turned on its head.

After all, wasn't it not too long ago that the now infamous DDT pesticide was touted as the savior of a malaria-ridden world? A few years and a lot few birds later we've come to believe we know better.

So global warming is happening; as an "enhanced greenhouse effect" it's tough to deny. It's natural to want to do something about it too; the problem is that it is easy to jump on board the bandwagon without really being informed.

The bossiest, smuggest, preachiest, most didactic people I know are the ones who are Green, and who want everyone else to go Green, too.  They are the new fundamentalists, the new Sermonizing Class.  They are what so many preachy Christians, by and large, used to be in the culture and in the workplace (and some who still are), always quick to point out what someone’s doing wrong: why regular milk has too many chemicals, why driving your Taurus is bad for the environment, why your clothes could have been made of organic cotton.  They think they’re educating you.  But as soon as you make a joke about the milk, they don’t laugh.  That’s because one problem with all passionate, argumentative fundamentalists is that they cannot laugh at themselves.  Global Warmers and Climate Changers don’t know how to laugh. 

The most sustained joke about the environmentally conscious is the South Park episode “SmugAlert!”, where the “smug” from all the hybrid-car owners in South Park begins to merge with the smug from hybrid-car owners in San Francisco. One character tries to point out that hybrids would be a good thing if people were prepared to drive them without being so self-satisfied about it, but everyone accepts that would be too much to ask-and people go back to driving their SUVs.

A couple of days ago I wrote that people from Titan TV interviewed me, and a slew of others, at the Heartland Climate Conference. Their piece is now on the web and can be found here. I didn’t make the cut, sadly; proving once again I have the perfect face for radio.

I gather, by the selection and arrangement of the sounds bites presented, the Titan TV reporter was attempting irony and humor, which I can tell you ain’t easy. Most who try fail.

Oh—and you’ll get this if you watch the two-minute video—I do not own a car, or motorcycle, or any other form of transportation, not even a bike, and I have not owned any of these for over a decade. I walk most places and I actually do use those miniature fluorescent light bulbs to illuminate my exorbitantly expensive 800 square feet, but only to foil Con Edison’s plan to take as much of my paycheck as the money-besotted Congress does.  Source

NewsBusters has on numerous occasions reported how media are trying to frighten Americans into radically altering their lives or else suffer irreparable harm at the hands of the liberal bogeyman global warming.

At times in the past couple of years, the scare tactics have been akin to a 1950s horror movie, including somewhat hysterically a film being released wherein oil workers in Alaska were actually killed by Mother Nature supposedly rising up to defend herself from climate change.

On Wednesday, USA Today added giant snakes to the equation, using the frightening imagery of Burmese pythons -- which can grow in size to 20 feet and 250 pounds -- roaming America if citizens don't immediately change their wicked carbon dioxide emitting ways (emphasis added by NB):

Senator John McCain took time off from his presidential campaign today to announce the passage of the McCain-Clinton bill to end global warming.

"My friends," said McCain, "it was high time that someone reached across the aisle and brought people together on this important issue. I am proud to announce the beginning of the end to global warming. My friend, Hillary Clinton, and I have tackled this tough issue in the true spirit of bi-partisanship."

The revolutionary new bill includes measures to fine cattle ranchers up to $25,000.00 per incident for excessive cow flatulence, mandatory purchase of florescent light bulbs by everyone in the US by January 2009, and the end of daylight savings time. A addendum by Senator Ted Kennedy to make it illegal for the sun to shine in certain parts of Florida between 12 PM and 2 PM was dropped from the bill to ensure its passage because of fervent opposition by Christian evangelicals who objected on theological grounds.

The bill calls for the creation of The Bureau of Weather Control with an initial cost of 20.3 billion dollars with facilities to be located in Arizona and New York.

"This bill will be revenue neutral," promised McCain. "Initial costs will be recouped by the imposition of fines on dairy farmers and ranchers and people who do not comply with the florescent light bulb provision of the new law. The abolition of daylight savings time will serve to stop global warming by having one less hour of daylight and sunshine for a large part of every year. The economy will flourish because this bill creates 20,000 new government jobs for people to inspect cow anuses and light bulb sockets."

Attempts to contact Senator Clinton concerning the bill were rebuffed by a campaign worker who kept saying, "Who are you and what is the Spoof? No, you can't talk to the Senator.

The story above is a satire or parody. It is entirely fictitious.