The immense snowfall the East Coast received this winter has managed at least one ominous accomplishment – the cowards in Congress have set global warming legislation aside.

No matter how many times people are told that snowfall and low temperatures are not a barometer of the climate at large but an indicator of local conditions, if the temperature drops below freezing the naysayers begin showcasing their ignorance.

I think we all can agree that the planet regulates its climate on a grand and timeless scale. Much of what we call global warming is a natural occurrence. The planet heats up, the planet cools down.

It's the cooling part that we might not like – in the past it was known as the Ice Age. I don't know if heat waves bother you but hundreds of feet of snow makes the cooling part one heckuva powder day – one that will bury the entire Northern Hemisphere for several hundred years.

No, you won't live through it.

The people who have decided that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by the evil Al Gore base their opinions on the ranting of talking heads, talk radio mouthpieces or scientific papers bought and paid for by oil and coal companies. Like the health care debate, the emotions run high.

These people seem to think that controlling emissions is somehow a step toward slavery. I've got news. Listening to and believing these partisan sources is slavery.

In the meantime, the air in our cities reeks of automobile emissions. Brown clouds blow around these population centers, causing asthma and other bronchial diseases. Coal plants spew yellow poison, leaving our western views marred, our lakes filled with acid and our fish full of mercury. Every lodgepole pine between here and the Yukon is dead.

We live like pigs in our own slop and the energy corporations cheer us on as they fight any regulations to clean up their act that could cause them short-term losses or long-term investment.

This is the weirdest society ever to have existed. This dinosaur thinking is why this country is in such a mess.

When this whole global warming thing came about, the scientists were telling us how species and diseases would migrate north into zones where they couldn't survive before. I grew up in the Ozarks, of Missouri and had never seen an armadillo in my life.

These days when I return to the Ozarks the highways are full of crushed little roly-polys. My friends, who live close to the land, tell me that their winters are milder and they don't have to cut ice on the ponds for the cattle. I would rather believe someone that observes the weather closely than Rush Limbaugh, who lives in a 25,000–square– foot mansion in West Palm Beach.

Locally, Auden Schendler has been attacked for criticizing Congressman John Salazar for getting into bed with the coal industry. While attacking the Skico execs is local sport, in this case Schendler is right, if not slightly hypocritical. Hypocritical because of the anti-environmental actions the Skico is guilty of. Correct because spewing more coal into the atmosphere is a losing proposition, no matter how you look at it.

Rep. Salazar probably feels the coal industry has been ignored in national politics for too long. As the climate debate heats up, Salazar and the coal caucus will be tireless fighters to assure the coal industry does nothing to clean up its act. Let's just hope he doesn't support mountain-top-removal mining in Colorado.

March in Aspen has become nearly as warm as June. The snow has become a sticky mess. Don't get me wrong — I love to ski slush but recent years have gone beyond slush to glue.

If we have a dry year, March may be about all we can handle before we close the mountain. It doesn't take much to destroy the profits of the Skico if the season starts later and ends earlier. Schendler is only fighting for the survival of his company and the industry that supports us all. I hope he continues, despite the nasty letters he receives from the naysayers.

If we continue to think the solution to our energy needs is more of the same pollution, we are doomed to follow China and India into a bleak future. Coal might have its place today but tomorrow we had better be ready for change.

Living in our own filth on the only planet we will ever be lucky enough to have is a prescription for disaster. An intelligent race would be doing all possible to move toward new, clean technologies. And it would turn out to pasture any “leader” taking us backward for the sake of political contributions.

The blizzards on the East Coast might have shot down any chances we had of passing climate legislation this year – not to mention all the congressmen in the pocket of the coal industry – but sooner or later we have to apply modern thinking to our problems.

In the meantime, the city of Rio de Janeiro, where it's now summer, has been recording the highest temperatures in its history. At 115 degrees, Rio is hotter than the Sahara Desert.

Of course, you can't measure global warming by local conditions. Just saying.

Johnny's children's book, “First Tracks,” depicts children skiing. Get it while they still know what snow is. Sundance Gifts, Resort Works, Gene Taylor's and Short Sport are great stores to shop for it. E-mail: snomasokist@msn.com