Al Gore claims global warming caused last week's historic blizzard

Listening to Al Gore explain that the current round of turbulent winter weather is really an off-shoot of global warming brings a grin to the faces of many while others just shake their heads in disbelief.

Consisting of ice, record snow fall, bitter temperatures, and blizzard conditions of historic proportions, one-third of America was affected this week in a 2,000-mile swath of Old Man Winter's fury as frigid and deadly conditions stretched south into Mexico and north to Maine. How could global warming be real with all this winter weather?

Fox News reported that Gore had an explanation:

"As it turns out, the scientific community has been addressing this particular question for some time now, and they say increased heavy snowfalls are completely consistent with what they have been predicting as a consequence of man-made global warming," Gore write in a blog post. The Nobel Prize-winning former vice president was responding to a question posed by Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, who wondered on air why global warming was such an urgent science policy priority when the New York City area had become a “tundra” this winter.

Now comes word that a Greenpeace member fears Gore may have done untold damage to the environmental movement. Fred Pearce at Short Sharp Science attended a three-day conference in Portugal last week consisting of 28 bloggers, climate scientists, and what he called "professional contrarians" who gnawed over the looming issue of climate. He revealed:

The meeting was the brainchild of University of Oxford science philosopher Jerry Ravetz, an 81-year-old Greenpeace member who fears Al Gore may have done as much damage to environmentalism as Joseph Stalin did to socialism.

Interestingly enough, no meeting of the minds was made at the conference as it was decided that the make-up of those attending was "too lopsided in favour of the sceptical camp."

Meanwhile, Fox News reported that meteorologist Art Horn noted a long history of devastating weather over the generations that had nothing to do with global warming:

“The last 2,000 years is full of incredible weather events that dwarf what we see today,” said Horn. “Nature isn't cooperating with the global warming camp and theory.”

He points to a New York Times story from the 1970s, which said the planet was getting so cold that humanity was in danger of starving to death. The article argued that the world’s weather would soon be so frigid that it could no longer permit the cultivation of crops for food. The Times’ headline on August 8, 1974, was simple enough: “Climate changes Endanger World’s Food Output.”

“First we were told the world was cooling. Then it was getting hotter,” Dan Gainor, a spokesman for the Media Research Center, tells FoxNews.com. “Then cooling again. Then hotter. Now it’s just climate change -- so they can’t be wrong no matter what change occurs.”

Is all that evidence enough to change Gore's mind as the winter of 2011 continues and he moves forward with selling his idea of global warming by its new name, climate change?

Cross-posted at the Washington Examiner