If Pigs Could Fly

Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch

In Durham, N.C. our state Blue Cross and Blue Shield is boasting about the groundbreaking of a new "100,000-square-foot building that will use 65 percent less energy and half the water per square foot of typical office space." Good for them, if it improves their bottom line, efficiency, service to customers, whatever.

But the director of our State Energy Office, Larry Shirley, was excited as well, although for different reasons:

"If North Carolina were a country, it would be the 24th biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world," he said. "If we just have a one-foot level rise in sea level, it would devastate eastern North Carolina. We're very vulnerable. The only state more vulnerable is Florida."

It's not clear whether Shirley was even asked about global warming, but as we often see, in many instances it doesn't matter what the question is, because the answer will always be global warming.

I'm always amused by the alarmists' "if (insert state name) were a country…" argument and the computer-modelized "if we have (insert disastrous measurement)" argument. Why can't we ask the reverse questions, like "what if the EU countries, or even China and India, were states?" Where would North Carolina rank then?

What if Spartacus had a Piper Cub? What if Superman grew up in Germany?

Hat tip to my colleague Paul Messino.