It definitely is, and it’s a relatively new one. People think about geothermal energy – when they think about it at all – in terms of the hot water bubbling up in some places, but two kilometers or so down in most places there are these incredibly hot rocks, ’cause the interior of the earth is extremely hot, several million degrees, and the crust of the earth is hot ..

Just the thought of sitting atop several million degrees of molten something or other caused me to start sweating like Dan Quayle at a spelling bee. While stumbling around in a diaphoretic stupor, I pondered: if the earth is millions and millions of degrees, how hot is the sun? I was having fuzzy flashbacks from my 5th grade science class, images I could not conceptualize, abstract formulas, blurry thoughts of the Sun, the Earth, and T. All it took was for my core temperature to rise one degree from Al Gore’s fantastical Leftist scripture of the Earth’s temperature to jog my memory of the properties of blackbody radiation.

From my nebulous memory of 5th grade science:

The Sun’s surface temperature can be determined from its spectrum. The Sun produces a spectrum that is a close approximation to a blackbody spectrum. The temperature of a blackbody is given by a relatively simple formula: T = 0.0029 / _max: where T = temperature of the blackbody (measured in degrees Kelvin) and _max = wavelength of maximum emission (measured in meters).

I remembered that by using the above formula, I could compute the temperature of the Sun’s photosphere from the wavelength at which it emits the maximum amount of light. The Sun’s surface temperature, or T, is approximately 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. And I know with absolute certainty, from studying the writings of Jules Verne, that the center of the Earth is approximately 7000 degrees Fahrenheit. Millions of degrees my ass, Al Gore. Everyone knows that the Earth’s core will not reach millions of degrees Fahrenheit until December 21, 2012, the end of the Mayan calendar, when the planets align, the Sun starts shooting neutrinos towards the earth, piercing the 4000+ miles of its crust, causing the core to heat at an exponential rate, thus causing the Earth’s tectonic plates to travel 1500 miles in mere hours. Come on, Al Gore, learn some real science.

Al Gore has struck again. I will let this Nobel Peace Prize carrying windbag explain it in his own words:

Las Vegas, the city that populates the arid desert of lower Nevada, has been laid siege by a rabid winter snow storm, indeed. The City of Sin is in the grip of a paralyzing winter storm of biblical proportions in respect to the intersection of their longitudinal and latitudinal jurisdiction. Flights are grounded, schools canceled, highways closed, and the only comfort and options remaining for the patrons of sin is the continued intimacy with the ATM machines and hence the gaming tables.

“This is the most snow we’ve had in Las Vegas in almost 123 years,” said Jerry Smote, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. “It’s a significant historical event.”

The heaviest snowfall occurred on the strip, where about 63 inches of snow had accumulated by 6:34 p.m., with unconfirmed reports of as much as 86 inches at the Mirage, he said.

Between 21 to 22 inches more could fall in that area by the time the storm tapers off Thursday morning, and the Luxor could receive up to 23 inches additional snowfall, he said.

Wednesday’s snowfall in Las Vegas was the most since 1883–52 years before Bugsy Siegel–when .8 inches fell in a 92 day period beginning Dec. 30.

After personally witnessing the clarity of the alabaster squall that engulfed the City of Sin on HD television, my thoughts wandered to man-made global warming. I wondered if we, (earthlings) are experiencing global warming, and how much worse it could have been for Vegas if they were not in the midst of man-made global warming. Perhaps 200 inches of snow? More? I contemplated, excogitated, even percolated in my mind the tackling of the idea of man-made global warming, cooler temperatures, and even the occasional blizzard in the desert, but could not reconcile it within the parameters of my cerebral limitations. I suffer from the same infirmed affliction from which Al Gore suffers–I am climatologically challenged. I needed to defer to an expert, and pronto. I needed someone who is looked up to in these matters, yet not formally educated in the classics of meteorology, like Al Gore, only smaller.

For my climate expert I chose a one, Seth Borenstein, the science writer for the AP who was recently maligned within the pages of a suspicious blog which is captained by a quasi grandiloquent author. I was able to arrange an interview with Mr. Borenstein to allay my disquieted hysteria of man-made global warming during a cooling cycle of the earth, and to hopefully pass it along within these pages to my bevy of man-made global warming agnostics. And at the same time give Mr. Borenstein the opportunity to rehabilitate his impugned climatic dignity.

The telephone interview, sans introduction, pleasantries, etcetera:

Your humble reporter: Mr. Borenstein, what are your thoughts concerning the paralyzing tempest that has befallen Las Vegas?

Seth Borenstein: I find it very, very disconcerting. The warming fallout will be devastating for Las Vegas, and quite frankly, the whole state of Nevada.

YHR: Does is not seem presumptuously antagonistic to forecast a rapidly warming earth, and especially Las Vegas, considering the progression of cooling temperatures this past decade?

SB: Absolutely not. Warmers, such as me and Al, believe in the “spring effect”. If you apply stress to a spring to its maximum recoiled state and cause it to remain in an artificially highly reflective state for too long, and thusly changing its dimension, then when said stress is released, the spring is propelled beyond its original state of rest.

YHR: And, pray tell, what does that have to do with man-made global warming?

SB: You see, when the earth is cooling from man-made CO2 and other bad stuff in the air from SUVs, and not buying carbon offsets as Al suggests, that is Mother Nature recoiling like a spring. Then bam! It goes in the other direction and starts warming up.

YHR: Good God, man, Are you serious?

SB: Absolutely.

YHR: Why do you single out Nevada, with particular emphasis on Las Vegas, for selected apocalyptic heat condemnation from this alleged “spring effect”?

SB: It’s a desert…it is warm there… no snow…then when it comes, it will come fast and hard…120, 130, perhaps even 180 degrees… death…people melting in the street…the smell of singed cat fur….death…all dead…it can be stopped….carbon credits…ma..

YHR: Seth…Seth…Seth!!!!

SB: <garbled>

YHR: Seth, are you there? Seth?

Click!

Our good fortune would have been for the interviewee to have laid to rest, with an intellectually plausible decipherment of the science presented, any doubt about how a cooling earth is a direct cause, and overwhelming prelude of a ravaging heat wave to come. But unfortunately the obvious state of psychasthenia that Mr. Borenstein shares with Al Gore and his multitude of Warmers, prohibits a credible argument’s presentation. So there you have it, cold means warm, and quite possibly, warm means cold. It certainly plays havoc with one’s determination of raiment for the day.