How anyone in this supposedly enlightened day and age can actually find a “good side” to the nagging problem of global warming seems at once to be quite beyond the pale. With all the scientific evidence backing the issue's devastating effects on our battered Earth, it is simply absurd that anyone could be that stupid.
But stupid is as stupid does, as a wise character once said, and so Maine Governor Paul LePage has, in an astounding and shameless display of bare-faced folly, reached far and wide and come up with a crackpot theory about global warming that goes against all evidence to the contrary.
“Everybody looks at the negative effects of global warming, but with the ice melting, the Northern Passage has opened up,” LePage said recently at a transportation conference. “So maybe, instead of being at the end of the pipeline, we’re now at the beginning of a new pipeline.”
Sure, Gov. LePage, a new pipeline ... a pipeline to Hell on Earth.
Of course, LePage's screwball theory would have nothing to do with the possibility of financial gain, now would it? According to Daily Kos, perhaps LePage's special arrangement with an Icelandic shipping company whose president feels much the same brings to light their mutual belief that utilizing a Northern Passage route to ship goods into Maine is a simply grand idea.
A ludicrous idea guaranteed to line a few greedy, fat cat pockets with cash, that is, all at the expense of the apparently insignificant rest of us.
Shipping goods through the Northern Passage has unfortunately become not only a possibility but a stark reality due to the melting ice cap, but it is used mainly for cutting 40 percent off the distance traveled between Asia and the East Coast, rather than using the traditional Panama Canal route or by looping south around Tierra del Fuego.
So, Maine residents, get ready for a flood of cheap, possibly dangerous goods coming your way. Of course, you may have to wade your way into your local stores to get in on those sweet deals, as most of your state will be underwater if things continue unabated as they are now.
Oddly enough, LePage does believe in global warming, yet he's become quite the Spin Doctor who has managed, at least in his own mind, to turn a negative into a positive. And just to prove how serious he is about all of this, LePage earlier this year vetoed a study that would have braced residents and businesses in Maine for the risks they will face from climate change.
Thinking of moving to Maine? Bring a life raft and plenty of raincoats.
Image: AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, ASSOCIATED PRESS
