Darned Global Warming!

As I sit here at the beginning of December, it is 32 F outside (should be in the mid 50s), and -459.67 F here in the house. I am cold...absolutely cold.

I don't know whether it is that I'm trying to get a cold, or if the 45 pounds I dropped under threat of great bodily harm has slowed my metabolism to the point where I can't generate enough heat to keep myself from freezing.

Regardless, I am a Global Warming Skeptic. I do not believe that carbon dioxide is a pollutant, or that the activities of man can have more than a local effect on the weather. (I'm thinking of a LOD campfire.) I do not believe that Oil is bad. I do not believe that we all have to drive dinky little cars and live like third world serfs to save the planet.

What I do believe is that if there is a climate problem, there will be a concerted effort to correct it without "help" from our "exalted leaders" in that swamp between Maryland and Virginia. I believe that the motivation of a free market will create opportunities to solve the problem at a profit, and the market will find a way to solve whatever is wrong. If there is a demand for something, some entrepreneur will find a way to supply it without some corrupt politicians telling him how to build his solution.

I believe that we can correct our errors. I have seen it. I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio when the Cuyahoga River was prone to catch fire. I remember having to be in the suburbs to tell that the sky was blue. I remember the landfill that is now Burke Lakefront Airport as a smoldering dump. I remember smokestacks belching black carbon where Cleveland Electric Illuminating generated electricity right next to that dump. I remember only carp in Lake Erie where walleye, bass, trout, and salmon now thrive.

All of that is gone, partly because people cared enough to do something about it. Unfortunately, the agency set up to make sure we no longer fouled the nest and the movement that spawned it, have become home to some of the most raving anti-capitalist whackos that the world has ever seen.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not anti-earth. I'm a conservationist at heart, and love the wild places in our country with a passion that is hard to describe. I feel closer to our Creator in the back country than anywhere else, and work with several organizations to preserve it. I am, also, pro-progress and pro-civilization. I like technology, and the benefits it brings to us. I would not leave the house without my cell phone. When I travel, my laptop travels, too. But there are some in the environmental movement that would have us dress in hemp, eat roots, and travel by foot everywhere we go, not because it is good for us, but because it would lower our standard of living to the level of the rest of the world.

America is (still) the greatest country on the face of this planet. Our poor people have a higher standard of living than the average European. Those who exploit the differences in earnings in this country or exploit our guilt at our supposed "destruction" of the planet, do so to increase their own power over the people who produce the jobs, the goods, and the services that we all desire and need.

I'm sure that the solution to our problems lies between a return to the middle ages, and relinquishing our freedoms to those who are out to "save" us. Our planet is a living organism with all of the ability to cleanse itself of poisons that our own bodies posses. Our people are smart enough to see through the charlatans that are selling themselves as saviors. As Abraham Lincoln said, "You can fool all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." We just need remember to be gentle with Mother Earth and carefully scrutinize those who would be our masters in the guise of solving our problems. We are not the problem, we are the solution.

Sorry. This got a little heavier than I intended, but I'm not cold any longer. :-)

Stay well, and stay warm.