Global Warming Red Alert

Russians Brace For The Big Chill
January 16, 2008 8:18 p.m. EST
Jupiter Kalambakal - AHN News Writer
Moscow, Russia (AHN) - Russians are bracing for temperatures of as low as minus 55 degrees Celsius (minus 67 degrees Fahrenheit) in Siberia as Russia's emergencies ministry warns on Wednesday of its impending dangers in the coming weeks.
Government agencies were placed on high alert, reports AFP. The ministry ordered local administration officials to prepare for the extreme chill expected to last until Jan. 21.
The ministry warned that the unusually cold weather could kill, cause frost-bite, conk heaters and cut electricity to homes, disrupt transport, increase the rate of car accidents and even destroy buildings across Siberia.
The freezing temperatures have already caused overloading of electricity grids and power interruptions in the regions of Irkutsk and Tomsk because of overused heaters in homes. Two people have already died and more than 30 others hospitalized with forst-bite in Irkutsk, reports AFP citing state media.
Bloomberg reports that worst hit will be the Siberian region of Evenkiya, while neighbor Georgia, whose climate is subtropical, already plunged to as low as minus 35 degrees Celsius. Lake Paliastomi in the western Georgia froze for the first time in 50 years, reports Rustavi-2 television.
Average temperatures in large Siberian cities in January usually range between minus 15 degrees Celsius and minus 39 degrees Celsius, according to data from weatherbase.com. Schools have been closed down in at least four regions because of the cold.
Al Gore held an emergency news conference to reassure all his global warming supporters that the temperatures in Russia are further proof that the Bush Administration has a secret project to alter temperatures in the region to discredit his movie and he encouraged the Congress to hold committee meetings to investigate thoroughly this unAmerican activity of the failed Bush administration. "We want and expect this investigation to uncover this climate cooling as a neo-con Republican plot. We want the warming of the planet to proceed as we projected. Our DVD sales of "An Inconvenient Truth" must not be diminished just so the planet can be saved."