CAMBRIDGE, MA (AP) – While studying renewable energy efficiencies, researchers at MIT discovered that the increasing use of wind turbines to produce electricity has a previously unconsidered side effect – it’s slowing down the rotation of the earth.

MIT climate professor Herbert West explained how his research may cause a rethinking of global energy production.

“I blame Newton for inventing the third law of motion,” said West. “If he didn’t make it so that things had equal and opposite reactions, we wouldn’t be in this bind. However, the fact is that when the wind blows across the turbine blade, it is actually pushing on the tower, which in turn pushes against the earth. This acts very much like how a ship’s propeller pushes a boat through the water. For any given wind turbine, the effect is negligible. However, there are millions of these ‘propellers’ working all over the planet every day, each doing its tiny part to put on the brakes. The effect is cumulative, and dangerous. If this trend continues – and we have no reason to believe it won’t – the Earth will eventually become tidally locked and always keep the same face to the sun, just as the moon always keeps the same face to the Earth.”

“The bad news,” West said, “is that one side of the earth will be boiling and the other side will be freezing, and most life on the planet will die out. There will only be a thin habitable ring at the twilit penumbral edge of where daylight meets darkness.”

“The good news is that AVERAGE global temperature will still be the same, which should solve our climate change problem.”

Nancy Pelosi – doing her best to act concerned despite being too botoxed to force her eyebrows down into an actual “I’m worried” look – said that she and her fellow Democrats have already come up with a plan to fight “global slowing”.

“Although nobody knows exactly what form the final solution will take,” said Pelosi, “we envision a massive government spending program to build giant fans next to each and every wind turbine. These fans will blow in the opposite direction of the turbines, and will thus counterbalance the force they exert on the planet, leaving us both carbon- AND thrust-neutral. The best part is that we can run the fans by hooking them up directly to the power from the wind turbines, so this will all basically be free.”

President Trump had little to say on the topic, other than a single tweet aimed at Pelosi’s proposal: “Friend of mine runs a pig farm outside of Vegas. Very successful. He calls me & says his pigs are filthy and he needs a million gallons of hogwash. I told him ‘I know where to find some’. Thanks, Nancy!”