The most critical problem we now confront is not global warming or how to tax emissions, but providing enough affordable fuel to avoid severe recession before alternative energy can become reality. The Lucky Country faces a choice between disaster and a unique opportunity.

Oil supply

Over the past two years climate all over the world has inexplicably begun a pronounced cooling. This is contrary to all expectations from global warming theory and growing other evidence is also indicating that the threat has been overestimated. However, the obsession with catastrophic climate change seems to have distracted attention from a much more certain and immanent danger. The oil supply vital to the entire economy is not keeping up with increasing demand while presently all focus is on renewable energy solutions that will require decades to develop and implement.

This Sunday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi again promised to use all her power to prevent the House from voting on any measure that would allow new oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Outer Continental Shelf. A majority of Americans support new oil exploration in these regions. Pelosi has tried to prevent the House from even debating whether or not to increase domestic energy production, but this past Friday a small group of conservatives took over the House floor after Democrats voted to go on a five-week paid vacation.

After the vote to adjourn, 48 conservatives simply refused to leave, continuing to speak from the well of the House floor. The lights were turned off, the microphones were shut off, and the C-SPAN cameras were ordered to go dark, but the remaining members stayed to do the people’s business. Reporters were asked to leave the speaker’s lobby but the remaining conservatives escorted the press one by one to a press gallery directly above it. When Capitol Police closed the tourist galleries, the House members invited the visitors down to the chamber floor. A boy in the visitors gallery asked, “When do you think you’re going to get this vote?” Republican Policy Chairman Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) declared, “This is the People’s House. This is not Pelosi’s Politburo.”

If Barack Obama is in the White House, Democrats win a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and Nancy Pelosi has fewer pesky Republicans to ignore in the House, this will be energy rule No. 1:

Forget more drilling. Offshore. Alaska. Doesn't matter.

Then step two, let slip by an unidentified Democratic aide recently in The Hill newspaper: "Right now, our strategy on gas prices is, 'Drive small cars and wait for the wind.' "

In other words, suck it up, gas-guzzlers. Break out the Carter-era sweaters and hair shirts, turn down the thermostats this winter, and let the drill bits rust. Policies of the 1970s are good enough for the 21st century.

Only when the high priests of sacrifice see true remorse, and combustion engines are offered up on the conservation altar will a mighty wind blow - from top Democrats, not turbines - touting the wonders of alternative energy.

It seems that even ABC's George Stephanopoulos is getting fed up with Congressional Democrats blocking efforts by Republicans to expand offshore oil drilling in order to bring down gas prices.

On Sunday's "This Week," Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Cali.) was asked repeatedly why she refuses to allow this issue to come to a vote.

The look of disgust on Stephanopoulos's face as Pelosi mumbled non sequitur after non sequitur was almost more telling of his sense of frustration than the number of times he asked virtually the same question: "Why won't you permit a straight up or down vote?"

Readers should prepare themselves for an alternate reality, for Madame Speaker was quizzed on Sunday like never before (video available here, rush transcript from closed captioning, photo courtesy ABC News):

IT has been a tough year for the high priests of global warming in the US. First, NASA had to correct its earlier claim that the hottest year on record in the contiguous US had been 1998, which seemed to prove that global warming was on the march. It was actually 1934. Then it turned out the world's oceans have been growing steadily cooler, not hotter, since 2003. Meanwhile, the winter of 2007 was the coldest in the US in decades, after Al Gore warned us that we were about to see the end of winter as we know it.

In a May issue of Nature, evidence about falling global temperatures forced German climatologists to conclude that the transformation of our planet into a permanent sauna is taking a decade-long hiatus, at least. Then this month came former greenhouse gas alarmist David Evans's article in The Australian, stating that since 1999 evidence has been accumulating that man-made carbon emissions can't be the cause of global warming. By now that evidence, Evans said, has become pretty conclusive.

Yet believers in man-made global warming demand more and more money to combat climate change and still more drastic changes in our economic output and lifestyle.

HMS Beagle

Britain's great seafaring tradition is to provide a unique insight into modern climate change, thanks to thousands of Royal Navy logbooks that have survived from the 17th century onwards.

The logbooks kept by every naval ship, ranging from Nelson’s Victory and Cook’s Endeavour down to the humblest frigate, are emerging as one of the world’s best sources for long-term weather data. The discovery has been made by a group of British academics and Met Office scientists who are seeking new ways to plot historic changes in climate.

“This is a treasure trove,” said Dr Sam Willis, a maritime historian and author who is affiliated with Exeter University’s Centre for Maritime Historical Studies.

“Ships’ officers recorded air pressure, wind strength, air and sea temperature and other weather conditions. From those records scientists can build a detailed picture of past weather and climate.”

Yesterday in Florida, Mr. Lower-the-Oceans-Heal-the-Planet Obama distanced himself from Ms. Save-the-Planet Pelosi and other drill-dodging Dems. In fact, he called the speaker rigid.

The Palm Beach Post reports:

"[W]e have to compromise in terms of a careful, well thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage — I don't want to be so rigid that we can't get something done," Obama said.

Ouch. Botox jokes are a little below the belt, aren't they, Barack? But seriously . . .

Tiananmen Square

Don't expect any protests from groups such as Greenpeace in Tiananmen Square as the Olympics open. China doesn't allow open protests, and environmentalists are quietly ignoring China's new status as the world's biggest polluter. But at these Olympics, oxygen tanks will be an essential piece of athletic equipment.

Desperate not to be embarrassed in their golden moment, Chinese authorities have imposed draconian restrictions on Beijing residents. The plan includes suspending production at 105 factories and 56 coal-fired power plants, chemical plants and other industries in nearby Tianjin.

We're heading into the heart of hurricane season, and any day now, a storm will barrel toward the United States, inspiring all the TV weather reporters to find a beach where they can lash themselves to a palm tree. We can be certain of two things: First, we'll be told that the wind is blowing very hard and the surf is up. Second, some expert will tell us that this storm might be a harbinger of global warming.

Somewhere along the line, global warming became the explanation for everything. Right-thinking people are not supposed to discuss any meteorological or geophysical event -- a hurricane, a wildfire, a heat wave, a drought, a flood, a blizzard, a tornado, a lightning strike, an unfamiliar breeze, a strange tingling on the neck -- without immediately invoking the climate crisis. It causes earthquakes, plagues and backyard gardening disappointments. Weird fungus on your tomato plants? Classic sign of global warming.