While we, and nearly the entire East Coast, have been shoveling out from record snowfalls, something extraordinary happened...global warming was declared dead.

While we huddled in our Snuggies dreading to step outside for fear of feeling another blast of winter weather, the television talking heads in D.C. reported that more Americans than ever believe global warming is not man-made. In fact, as 50 percent believe, it's just one of those historic cycles of nature...sometimes it’s a little hot...and sometimes it’s a little cold.

Right now, it's a little (okay a lot) cold. But then again, it is winter.

It's winter. It's cold. It snows.

Because we keep bumping our heads on icicles, should we think the whole global warming issue is a canard, dreamed up by “environmentalist wackos?”

No, because occasionally, facts get in the way.

There is no dispute among climatologists that 2009 was the warmest year since records began being kept over 100 years ago.

And experts have even developed climate models that explain why 2009/2010 is shaping up to be the snowiest winter on record.

The experts are saying that with the earth's higher temperatures, the polar ice caps are melting and releasing water vapor making the earth's upper atmosphere unstable.

That means more and stronger hurricanes, nor'easters, and, yes, snowstorms.

But it you listen to the mouthpieces in D.C., science isn't good enough. Scientists shouldn't be trusted. They have an evil political agenda. The scientists want to U.S. to abandon efforts curb carbon emissions. The reasonable idea establishing a policy known as “cap and trade” has been called a “job killer.”

For those unfamiliar with the idea of “cap and trade” it is a flexible environmental regulation mechanism that sets an overall limit on the emission of a certain pollutant, but allows companies that can easily reduce emissions to sell credits to other companies for which such reduction would be difficult.

Those of us in the foothills are somewhat familiar with this type of environmental policy. It was used in the late 1980s and early 1990s to reduce the amount of acid rain that was killing large stands of trees at our higher elevations. It worked. The trees stopped dying.

What's remarkable while watching the debate is how the arguments are framed...”cutting greenhouse gases bad...saving jobs good.” There can be no compromise. Compromise is weakness. Weakness is failure.

For our country to succeed, to overcome potential failure, we must address a fact that is incontrovertible. There is a day coming when this planet will have exhausted its fossil fuels. The countries that have developed their own self-sustaining forms of energy will determine their destiny.

It can be tough to see a “greener” pasture while shuffling through the snow.

But should that lead us to declare global warming dead, killed by the winter of 2010?

We hope not. But if the talking heads want a clearer picture of what's happening to our planet, perhaps they can go north and take a look.

They might see the polar bears drowning because the ice in the Arctic Sea is melting.

“But it's not man's fault” they would chatter. “The bears should do a better job of swimming.”

CC