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Placing Blame for Queens Power Outage

Hundreds of thousands of Con Edison customers in the borough of Queens, in New York City, recently entered their sixth full day without power, or with power that has flickered on and off. The power outage has been an embarrassment for the administration of Michael Bloomberg, and Con Edison, but considering that the power outage was caused by the sort of weather extremes and situations beyond the control and capabilities of City Hall to deal with, does the fault really lie with the Mayor?s Office and Con Ed?

The Northeastern United States has been suffering under oppressive weather conditions recently, and while many might be apt to blame President Bush?s disbelief in global warming, the warming trend is believed by many to merely be part of a natural cycle of warming that not only has caused sweltering temperatures across the 48 contiguous states, but also is widely predicted to lead to more powerful, and more frequent, hurricanes such as the type that Hurricane Katrina was. Since the Mayor of New York, a powerful figure yet no president and no deity, did not cause the weather, he can?t be blamed except in the case of a sluggish response.

But Con Ed has been working around the clock to restore power to northern Queens, and the utility has pledged to replace the hundreds of dollars worth of foodstuffs bought by many families which lost food when they lost power, and then lost more when they thought they?d seen their power restored and did a bit more shopping. Considering that Con Ed is doing its best, and Mayor Bloomberg what he can, blame Mother Nature instead. Or, unlike the President, blame global warming.