Global freezing in Detroit

At Monday’s inaugural, President Obama announced global warming mitigation as a priority in his second term. On Tuesday, a deadly arctic blast reminded America how frivolous that pursuit is.

Saving polars is fashionable among rich elites, but Detroit’s jammed shelters this week are evidence that cold weather is a more serious threat to the poor among us. City shelters reported they were at capacity as the homeless took refuge from the cold. Across the Midwest, exposure to sub-zero temperatures was blamed for four deaths.

Government’s primary role is to provide public safety, reliable infrastructure, and a safety net for the poor. Yet, the Obama Administration’s global warming obsession shows how far Washington has strayed from core services.

While Detroit’s needy freeze, millions of federal dollars are going to the decidedly less needy. Inside Cobo Hall at the Detroit Auto Show, for example, billionaire Elon Musk – one of America’s richest men – is displaying his latest Tesla electric SUV for the well-to-do, financed by a half-billion dollars in federal loans.

In Lansing, a Michigan State professor has received a $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to study the impact of global warming on the state’s farming industry – though the industry has weathered inevitable climate swings just fine according to news reports.

And in Metro Detroit, hundreds of DTE utility workers work around the clock to restore power to freezing customers – even as the state of Michigan forces utilities to divert monies to inefficient wind farm projects in the name of fighting global warming.

Adding insult to frostbite, scientific studies show that – even if Obama and other world leaders achieve their goal of cutting greenhouse gases by 80 percent by 2050 (a reduction that would devastate the global economy) - it would only cut expected warming by an infinitesimal 7 percent. Washington pols may get good press for preening green – but the real climate victims are freezing on our streets.