Massachusetts State Police have a sense of humor.
Expert predictions of the Nor'easter storm call it "historic" and "life-threatening." Meteorologists are saying the Northeast, including Boston, Philadelphia, Providence, and New York City will get two, perhaps three, feet of snow from the storm. Officials are telling people to go home. Or, if they already are, to stay there.
Quite sad for Republicans. Up until last week, large numbers of them were still denying that climate change was happening. And then, in a bit of tricksy voting on an amendment to the bill that would fast track the Keystone XL pipeline, all but one Senate Republican said they accept that climate change is actually occurring. The majority weren't willing to accept that humans are the cause of this change, but they moved off their longtime claims that no change is taking place. Okay, they say, it's happening, but it's not our fault. Because, you know, only God can change the climate. Or so says the chief denier, Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe, who has returned to his chairman's perch on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
By taking this step, the deniers have robbed themselves of one their favorite canards: If it's freezing and snowing, how can there be global warming? It must be a hoax. This partial turnabout in Congress is bound to be confusing to scientifically illiterate and ideologically blinded Americans who themselves have found snowstorms and below-zero temperatures comforting evidence that all the climate experts must be wrong. They could argue that it should be 100 degrees in Duluth in January if global warming is real.
With that argument demolished by deniers themselves, what will they do if they can no longer wave a mitten mockingly at Al Gore and Bill McKibben as they scrape the ice off their windshield and shovel the snow off their sidewalk?