Solving the Crisis, One Drum Circle at a Time

I’m dreaming of a white…climate change protest. As you might have seen on the Drudge Report, a demonstration in support of cap-and-trade legislation in Annapolis ended up covered in chilly snow yesterday. Where’s your global warming, now?

morewarming-005_rs.jpg

That’s amusing enough, of course, but even better is the description of what actually went on while the inconvenient snow was falling:

As supporters waved signs, chanted and banged drums, 18 legislators walked down a symbolic green carpet to sign up as co-sponsors to a bill that would mandate that all businesses in Maryland cut emissions of global warming pollution by 25 percent by 2020 and 90 percent by 2050.

[…]

Many of the protesters who endured the cold to chant “Stop Global Warming!” said they didn’t think the snowfall conflicted with their message. Davey Rogner, a 22 year old student at the University of Maryland College Park, beat on an African Djembe drum to rev up the crowd. He said the snow was a “gift” to remind eveyone [sic] about how rarely Maryland has been blanketed with beautiful white in recent years as temperatures have increased.

“It’s only the second snow of the year, which is very sad,” said Rogner, from Silver Spring. “Global warming is the most important issue of our generation. The state of Maryland should be taking a leadership role in it, because of our vulerability [sic] with all our shoreline.”

[…]

Dr. Cindy Parker of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health said: “I’m a physician, why am I here for a rally for an environmental bill? It’s not an environmental bill, that’s why. It’s a health bill. This is the biggest threat to our health of anything going on right now, and anything we expect this century. We have to pass this bill for our health and for the health of everybody in the world and our children and their children.”

I hope Dr. Parker isn’t one of my PPO providers. I’d hate to have to pay to go out of network just to avoid her particular brand of eco-crazy. Then again, maybe it’s just my lack of offspring that’s making me callous to the prospect of slightly fewer snow days in Maryland. Think of the children!

One more interesting note – this story started out as a post on the Baltimore Sun’s environment blog. When Drudge linked to it, the result was the now familiar Drudge-a-lanche of mostly like-minded readers. It seems that those readers left so many comments calling the protesters idiots that the Sun felt the need to add a disclaimer at the end of the post: “(Note: this story was featured on the Drudge Report soon after it went online this evening, and so many of the comments you’ll see below are from readers who came to this blog from that web page).” Thanks for the warning – we wouldn’t want anyone to think that real people were leaving those comments. Just Drudge Report readers.