Friday, January 21, 2011

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Breaking the wind

How did I miss this?

Joe Barton is the congressman from Texas who apologized last June to BP for how badly we were treating them in the wake of the oil spill. That was enough to bring him out as a bozo, but I expected nothing else from a Tea-Party congressman from Waco, who represents part of the Dallas-Ft Worth area.

Thing is, he chaired the House Energy and Commerce Committee from 2004 through 2006, and has just been given the committee's title of Chair Emeritus, what with the Republicans controlling the House again. And, so, we wonder just what he knows about energy.

That’s when we get to the question of how I missed this, his concern about using wind power, which he voiced early last year:

Wind is God’s way of balancing heat. Wind is the way you shift heat from areas where it’s hotter to areas where it’s cooler. That’s what wind is. Wouldn’t it be ironic if in the interest of global warming we mandated massive switches to energy, which is a finite resource, which slows the winds down, which causes the temperature to go up? Now, I’m not saying that’s going to happen, Mr. Chairman, but that is definitely something on the massive scale. I mean, it does make some sense. You stop something, you can’t transfer that heat, and the heat goes up. It’s just something to think about.

Wind power is a finite resource. Using wind power slows the wind down, which causes the temperature to go up. Presumably only in the areas where it’s hotter; in the areas where it’s cooler, it only makes sense that they’d stay cooler. I guess. So, in other words, we can interfere with God pretty easily, omnipotent being that he is, just by putting up some windmills. Yes, indeed, it’s just something to think about.

I want to leave this country and move someplace sane.

6 comments:

Ray said...

It's quite uncanny how much like Monty Python sketches these people sound. The really troubling thing is that there appear to be large numbers of people who take this stuff seriously. And they're allowed to vote.

Barry Leiba said...

They're allowed to vote and they're allowed to serve as leaders of the country. Joe Barton. Mike Huckabee. James Inhofe. George Dubbleya [mumble]. Sarah P[Whack! Thud.]

Brent said...

My Brain Hurts!.

Katharine said...

When driving north from DC on I-70 last fall, I spotted a billboard that read something to the effect of, "When the sun sets or the wind dies down, renewable energy sources get a lot less reliable."

(sigh)

You'll be unsurprised to learn it was sponsored by the coal industry.

Katharine
http://www.inolongerlikechocolates.com

Brent said...

...and if you get enough coal smoke in the sky, there goes that hopey changey solar energy entirely :-)

scouter573 said...

As long as they keep feeding people like Mr. Barton, there'll be no shortage of hot air to move those windmills.