When Christopher Columbus sailed into this part of the world for the first time in 1492, Europe was in the fierce and none-too-pleasant grip of a weather phenomenon that the historians have labeled “The Little Ice Age.” Of course, we all know that this damnably cold era ended. What caused it to end might today be called “Global Warming.” Only problem is, no one these days suggests that this warming trend was caused by human activity on the planet.

So what caused the end of The Little Ice Age? For sure, it was not Toyota Corollas or Ford Escorts. And the scientific community cannot agree on a definitive answer to that question. But yet, everyone in our world today is supposed to sign on to the theory that the earth is warming now because people are using carbon energy for heat, cooking, light, transport and so on.

Indeed, the liberal left today, led by President Barack Obama – he says it is the biggest problem facing the world – and his Democrat party colleagues in Congress, expect us all to be true believers in the new liberal orthodoxy – the religion of Climate Change (i.e. humans are causing the weather to change). If you are a skeptic look out. You are targeted for the 21st century equivalent of being burned at the stake like heretics of old. I might add here that the coalition behind this new religion includes the worthy folks at the United Nations – which may incline sensible people like you to run for the nearest exit.

"So who cares?" you might say. Well, the implications of this new religion are costly and far-reaching for us all, but most especially for poor people in America today. We are all savoring low energy prices right now with oil and gas at relatively rock-bottom levels compared to recent decades. But, if the liberal elite in America’s Democratic Party get their way on their climate change agenda we had all better look out. Check out electricity prices in California where the liberals on the Left Coast are way ahead of the curve with their environmentalist climate agenda mandating energy production from all sorts of high-priced exotic wind and other renewable sources. California residential electricity rates are the highest in the nation — by far.

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Liberals want to end the debate about whether human activity is causing the climate to change. If you disagree you are branded a climate change ‘denier.’ In their eyes, you get to put on the cap with the big “D” for dunce on it and go sit in the corner. The evidence is overwhelming, they say. You must believe the likes of Al Gore and his gloomy prognostications. Brings to mind the Emperor’s new clothes.

So, is the temperature on the planet really rising? Well, most of the world’s temperature data had been held at a university in England – the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit. Management of this process had been entrusted to a small group of scientists, who, it turns out, have been fabricating and fiddling with the temperature data. This same Birkenstock Brigade has long been highly-influential in driving the worldwide alarm over global warming, not least through the role they play at the heart of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

This group is also part of a closely-knit circle of American and British scientists responsible for promoting that picture of world temperatures conveyed by Michael Mann's "hockey stick" graph, which some years ago turned climate history on its head by showing that, after 1,000 years of decline, global temperatures had shot up to their highest level in recorded history. The graph became the central icon of the man-made global warming movement. As many of you will know, this iconic hockey-stick theory has been thoroughly discredited as flawed and inaccurate.

Thus, far from being “settled science” there are now serious doubts about these predictions that the world will warm to catastrophic levels unless trillions of dollars are spent to avert it. I will spare you the chapter-and-verse details of the malfeasance of these “true believer” scientists – you can Google it to satisfy yourself that what I say is correct.

So, if the temperature data has been adulterated to prove a certain point of view, what are we to believe? Last week, Patrick J. Michaels, a climatologist and Director of the Center for Study of Science at the Cato Institute, wrote an interesting opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal that was headlined:

“The Climate Snow Job – A blizzard! The hottest year ever! More signs that global warming and its extreme effects are beyond debate, right? Not even close.” His bottom line – as I perceived it – the climate alarmists need to be reined in.

Lastly, a word or two about the alternative energy sources that are being foisted on us as a community by these liberal elites. You will not read this in the liberal mainstream media: wind energy slaughters birds – many of them endangered species – in untold numbers. Wind farms are sited at locations where natural wind tunnels can provide the power to run those big ugly turbine blades.

The wind energy engineers discovered these locations long after our avian co-inhabitants of this planet discovered them. The birds fly through these areas and get chopped up by the blades – bird eyes cannot see the rotating turbines. Also, solar energy farms kill birds in big numbers by frying them alive as they pass over the deadly reflective solar arrays. Can you imagine the outrage, hullabaloo and big stink liberals would kick up if traditional electricity plants were responsible for such wholesale killing of birds like this?

The Emperor’s new clothes sure look really grand, don’t you think?

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