Global warming--an inconvenient truth?

The “lame-duck” congress met for the last time this week, passing legislation extending certain tax laws and authorizing offshore drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, who lost in her own party’s primary (just like Joe Schwartz lost to Tim Walberg), introduced articles of impeachment against President Bush. The Senate approved the nomination of Robert Gates as Defense Secretary, replacing Donald Rumsfeld. A lot of political jockeying for the new session of congress took place as well, with the Democrats eager to press their agenda after 12 years in the minority.

For example, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California) is about to become the chairperson of the Senate Environmental Committee. She announced this week that the anti-environment policies of the Republican Congress (like her predecessor, Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe, who called global warming "the worst of environmental scares") were a thing of the pass, and she intends to advance more legislation to control greenhouse gases.

Recently, both Adrian High School and Madison High offered their students a chance to view and discuss the movie featuring Al Gore entitled “An Inconvenient Truth.” This showing was not without criticism, however. Some parents objected to what some identify as a blatant bit of political propaganda (remember Samuel Adams?) being used to promote a green agenda in their schools. Administrators at both schools responded that viewing of the film was optional and occurred outside of school hours.

During the Clinton Administration (1997), the Kyoto protocol was rejected by the US Senate by a 95-0 vote. How often do you see that kind of unanimity in our Congress? The Kyoto protocols tried to compel western industrialized nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions but exempted “developing economies” such as that of India from complying. Our Congress refused to accept the treaty because it would have no effect on the world’s climate and would be devastating to the US economy. And yet Boxer, Gore, the European Union and other Green favorites continue to portray the Bush administration as caring only about exploiting the environment and not in preserving the world for future generations.

For those who are extremely interested in Climate Change and the EPA’s findings and policy, here is a link to everything you might possibly want to know. Personally, I am with Jonah Goldberg and others who point out that 30 years ago the Greens were talking about a new ice age coming, so what makes us think that now they are any more believable? There may be some indications of “global warming,” but there is not scientific evidence to connect human behavior or pollution with the phenomenon.

Once in earth’s history, global warming meant the end of an ice age, the retreat of polar glaciers, and the formation of beautiful lakes in places like Michigan. Another period of global warming led the Vikings to stop raiding England and the rest of northern Europe because their own countries were more easily farmed. Cyclical climate change appears to be the pattern for most of recorded history. Now, however, it appears to have become a tool in the hands of those with a decidedly liberal political agenda.