Maryland Gov. O'Malley blames global warming for power outages

Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley on Wednesday attributed the prolonged power outages that left hundreds of thousands of Marylanders in the dark to global warming, saying the state’s electricity grid could not handle stronger storms caused by climate change.

“A grid that was resilient for the weather of [the past] is not resilient enough to withstand violent storms that climate change and global warming in our atmosphere are causing today,” O’Malley said during a Board of Public Works meeting, at which he called for an enhanced power grid but praised the state’s emergency response.