So, uh, the extra carbon dioxide and longer growing seasons made trees grow faster and the bigger trees broke more power cables as they were felled by high winds, right? Had nothing to do with green-leaning Marylanders forcing power companies to leave greenery closer to power lines than is preferable or safe…
Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley on Wednesday attributed the prolonged power outages that left hundreds of thousands of Marylanders in the dark to global warming, saying the state’s electricity grid could not handle stronger storms caused by climate change.
“A grid that was resilient for the weather of [the past] is not resilient enough to withstand violent storms that climate change and global warming in our atmosphere are causing today,” O’Malley said during a Board of Public Works meeting, at which he called for an enhanced power grid but praised the state’s emergency response.
The Maryland governor — and possible Democratic presidential contender — has built much of his political brand on green energy efforts and tighter environmental standards in the liberal-leaning state. O’Malley this year called for wind farms off the Maryland coast and successfully pushed through a higher “flush” tax to help Chesapeake Bay cleanup efforts.
But officer I didn’t hit that electric pole because I was drunk, CO2 made me do it!
Should we blame the government or should we blame ourselves?
No!
Blame CO2. Blame CO2
We must blame them and cause a fuss
Before somebody thinks of blaming us!
The trouble with being old is having seen these levels of storms before. There’s nothing new here in wind speeds, or temperatures, or precipitation levels, just more reporting of “extremes” as though they really are. Any power company that isn’t allowed to properly manage it’s right-of-way will have problems when storms hit. And even if its not storms, any number of other conditions can bring down lines if they’re not properly maintained.