People from all walks of life are beginning to realize that the AGW scare is mostly hype, and not based on solid science. American politicians are a bit behind the curve, and are beginning to attempt draconian action to increase government power just as people are beginning to realize that there is no urgency. The American political system produces some really lame leaders. Here is a sportswriters take on the situation. I like the Thomas Paine quote at the end of this article:



What price liberty
Dan Sernoffsky

What price liberty?

Apparently a lot more than most are willing to pay. Although Al Gore lost the presidential election of 2000, it is beginning to look more and more like he won thanks to the incessant drumbeat of one of the greatest hoaxes perpetrated upon the American public.

The hoax is man-made climate change, nee global warming, which is now threatening to destroy what has become the last bastion of freedom in the world.

According to the global warmists who vehementally contend that their unproven hypothesis is "proven science," there is no need for debate. They, after all, know best, and from their elitist position, they and their followers will dictate to the masses what they will drive, where they will live, what they can eat, where they can go, what they can do. Those who question that hypothesis are quickly, and summarily, denigrated, castigated as being the "willing tools" of the energy industry. Overlooked, of course, is the fact that many of the "climatologists" who have signed on to the hypothesis are, in fact, being funded by organizations that are simply using the global warming hoax as a means of further establishing their control of society.

Recently, some 31,000-plus scientists, 9,000 of whom hold doctorates in scientific fields, signed a petition noting "There is no convincing evidence that human release of CO2, methane or other greenhouse gases is causing or will cause, in the foreseeable future, catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate." A considerably small number, 2,500, was used to claim the "scientific consensus" by the U.N.'s famed climate change panel.

Even the global warmists, in the face of evidence they seek to ignore, that "natural variations" occur in the climate, are doing their best to hedge their bets, suggesting that global warming may stop for the next 10-12 years before resuming. In other words, when facts stand in the way of a predetermined conclusion, revise the conclusion to better escape the facts. It is becoming increasingly apparent that the highly-touted computer models that the global warmists so desperately cling to as their evidence are based on the faulty information entered into those computers. It is perhaps for that reason that the global warmists choose to ignore the historic evidence of the natural variations in climate that about 1200 years ago led to a thriving colony in Greenland and advanced mining operations along the Alps, enterprises that came to an end with what is now called the Medieval glaciation period.

There has finally emerged a major voice not only questioning, but condemning, the environmentalist attack on the free world. That voice belongs to Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic. In a recent address to a U.N. committee, he rhetorically asked "Can we allow certain political movements that want something other than liberty to profit from a hysteria which has been born?"

Klaus understands the totalitarianism inherent in the enviromentalist agenda. It was the same totalitarianism under which he grew up, when Eastern Europe was under the control of the old Soviet Union and Josef Stalin. Klaus has also expressed a complete willingness to debate Gore. Gore, not surprisingly, has ignored that offer, and every other offer put forth by anyone who might credibly question his hypothesis.

The irony in the man-made global warming hoax is that the agenda behind the environmentalist movement is becoming increasingly more transparent, a transparency that is creating concern. The environmentalists who for years promoted higher prices -- and higher taxes -- on commodities like food and fuel are finding their agenda coming under closer scrutiny, and being rejected. In England, a growing revolt against the environmentalist tyranny is being played out by voters, who are rejecting the policies that are creating record energy and food prices, and are destroying the economy.

Still, thanks to Al Gore and the pseudo-science he has been able to promote because of his high profile, the totalitarianists have been able to use the drumbeat of environmentalism to mask their true motives, a further separation of government from the governed in an effort to establish their version of the kind of controlled society that existed for a dozen years in Germany, and for the better part of the 20th century in the Soviet Union. The pseudo-science the global warmists have espoused is no different that the pseudo-science of their predecessors, like Rachel Carson, who led the fight to ban DDT, which in turn has led to the deaths of millions, like Paul Ehrlich, who predicted mass starvation and other disasters by the end of the 20th century while actively supporting genocidal policies to prevent it.

That climate change exists is fact. That man has anything to do with it, or can stop it, is not. Although some of the global warmists may, indeed, have only the best of intentions, the very concept is little more than hubris, and the real impetus behind the movement has nothing to do with environment and everything to do with control. As Thomas Paine so succinctly put it, "The greatest tyrannies are always perpetuated in the name of the noblest causes."

And at the cost of liberty.

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Dan Sernoffsky is an award-winning sportswriter and political columnist for The Lebanon Daily News in Lebanon, Pa. A career journalist, he is a graduate of Ottawa University, Ottawa, Ks., and attended graduate school at Central Michigan University. The father of four grown children, he and his wife reside in Lebanon.

dsernoffsky@yahoo.com