Henny Penny Goes Carbon-Free

Months had passed since we last talked with Ms. Henny-Penny, whose famous declaration -- "the sky is falling!" -- electrified the world. At the time, her barnyard colleagues quickly fell into line with her, save one, Chicken Little, who demurred. When last Ms. H-P and I talked, she scoffed at her former friend as a "denier."

So, the other day I called her to see how she was doing as the recording secretary of what was now the Holy Order of the Sky is Falling, the Hon. Al Gore, pontiff.

"I'm fine," she said, "but more importantly, Mr. Gore pontificated at a recent gathering in Washington and it was thrilling. He said we could switch all of the nation's electricity production to wind, solar and other carbon-free sources within 10 years."

Does he have any experts to back up that assertion, I asked. "Oh yes," she said. "Just the other day Nancy Pelosi at a news conference said the very same thing." [snip]

I reminded her that solar power now provides one-tenth of one percent of our electricity, with wind not much moresome; that 97 percent of carbon dioxide emissions come from nature, not humans; that ice core samples going back better than half-a-million years show that periodic temperature increases preceded changes in CO2 levels; and that gloom-and-doom scenarios offered by Al Gore and others were based on speculative computer models.

"So, Ms. H-P, while you may think the sky is falling and the globe is warming, the facts are otherwise. What do you think of that?"

Her reply was: "Cluck."

READ MORE