Will MSM Report Inauguration Day 'Gore Effect?'

Your humble correspondent has a bit of friendly advice for President-elect Barack Obama. On Inauguration Day, drop any mention of "Global Warming." The latest weather forecast predicts that Washington, D.C. will have a high of below freezing at 30 degrees and a low of 20 degrees. It is still unknown how low the wind chill factor will be in discomforting the inaugural onlookers. To chance mentioning "global warming" or even "climate change" risks incurring the wrath of what onlookers have termed the Gore Effect which was noted by Politico:

For several years now, skeptics have amusedly eyed a phenomenon known as “The Gore Effect” to half-seriously argue their case against global warming.

The so-called Gore Effect happens when a global warming-related event, or appearance by the former vice president and climate change crusader, Al Gore, is marked by exceedingly cold weather or unseasonably winter weather.

For instance, in March, 2007, a Capitol Hill media briefing on the Senate’s new climate bill was cancelled due to a snowstorm.

On Oct. 22, Gore’s global warming speech at Harvard University coincided with near 125-year record-breaking low temperatures. And less than a week later, on Oct. 28, the British House of Commons held a marathon debate on global warming during London’s first October snowfall since 1922.

While there’s no scientific proof that The Gore Effect is anything more than a humorous coincidence, some climate skeptics say it may offer a snapshot of proof that the planet isn’t warming as quickly as some climate change advocates say.

“You can’t fool Mother Nature,” said climate skeptic scientist and meteorologist Joseph D’Aleo. “We used to kid in forecasting that whenever we were very certain about a major forecast, it would wind up being so dead wrong that we’d be embarrassed. It certainly makes you think.”

Tracking The Gore Effect “doesn’t contribute much to the actual making of policy,” said House Energy and Commerce Committee Republican spokeswoman Lisa Miller. But it “can be fun.”

Obama has already been a victim earlier today of the Gore Effect  when he talked about Global Warming in freezing Philadelphia as reported by Marc Sheppard of the American Thinker:

In the first speech of his "whistle-stop" tour to Washington, Barack Obama talked global warming to a crowd of shivering Philadelphians who braved 18 degree (sub 10 degree wind-chill) temperatures on their journey to the 30th Street Train Station.

It's hard to believe that, given the arctic-like temperatures the northeast has suffered through this winter, the president-elect didn't instruct his writers to reword this passage from his "historic" speech:

"Only a handful of times in our history has a generation been confronted with challenges so vast. An economy that is faltering. Two wars, one that needs to be ended responsibly, one that needs to be waged wisely. A planet that is warming from our unsustainable dependence on oil."

I know -- severe weather patterns in either direction are not symptomatic of overall climate trends, and I generally resist the temptation to report so-called "Gore Effect" events.  But following a year predicted to be the "hottest in a century" that turned out instead to be the coolest in a decade, you'd think that -- given the extraordinarily glacial locale --  the supposedly brilliant future leader of the free world would have appreciated the hysterical disconnect in his words. Not to mention the tough road ahead in selling his plan to legislate commerce-and-lifestyle-altering sacrifice to confront an unproven crisis with wholly hypothetical remedies to a cash-strapped and freezing populace.

So has Obama learned his lesson from his Philadelphia Gore Effect fiasco? Or will he tempt the fates by again referring to Global Warming this Tuesday? In any event, it will be interesting to see if the mainstream media will report on the irony of Obama warning of Global Warming to a freezing crowd.

Oh, and one final piece of advice, Mr. President-elect. Spare yourself even more humiliation by keeping Al Gore well away from the podium. Should his face appear in the crowd of dignitaries the Gore Effect is sure to send the temperatures plummeting even more than is already predicted.