Cal Thomas: Belief in climate change like faith in Santa

If representatives of the nearly 200 nations who gathered in Paris for the United Nations Conference on Climate Change had instead formed a coalition to fight a real threat – Islamic terrorism – they might have accomplished something useful. Instead, what they came up with is a document that even Secretary of State John Kerry suggested was pointless.

Here’s Kerry: “The fact is that even if every American citizen biked to work, carpooled to school, used only solar panels to power their homes, if we each planted a dozen trees, if we somehow eliminated all of our domestic greenhouse gas emissions, guess what? That still wouldn’t be enough to offset the carbon pollution coming from the rest of the world.”

Kerry added, “If all the industrial nations went down to zero emissions – remember what I just said, all the industrial emissions went down to zero emissions – it wouldn’t be enough, not when more than 65 percent of the world’s carbon pollution comes from the developing world.”

Liberalism, it appears, has always been about intentions and feelings, not results. Fighting “climate change” makes liberals feel good.

Not that facts matter to the major media and others who have embraced the doctrines of this new religion, but here are some anyway, because, in my opinion, belief in “climate change” is on a par with childhood faith in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy.

Remote Sensing Systems is a scientific research company located in Northern California specializing in satellite microwave remote sensing of the Earth. According to RSS, the Earth’s temperature has not increased in the past 18 years and nine months, a record.

Predictions of global warming have been based on imperfect computer models. That those models do not reflect reality has not affected the minds or policies of people who worship at the altar of government and wish to impose additional regulations on already overburdened corporations and individuals.

As the Daily Caller website reported last June, “Data from America’s most advanced climate monitoring system shows the U.S. has undergone a cooling trend over the last decade, despite recent claims by government scientists that warming has accelerated worldwide during that time.”

This reflects a pattern we have seen. In the 1970s, scientists and the media were promoting “global cooling” to advance their Chicken Little fantasy that life as we know it on Earth was about to end. They were wrong then and they are wrong now. But there are money and political power associated with climate change orthodoxy.

If you are a climate change disciple, or confused, visit climatedepot.org and see the film “Climate Hustle,” which premiered in Paris during the U.N. gathering. The film attracted protesters largely because global warming cultists want to suppress any information that runs counter to their beliefs.

There is nothing wrong and much right about the goal of reducing pollution, especially in China, the world’s worst polluter, but “global warming” shouldn’t be the reason.

If Kerry is right – and the evidence suggests he is – why would the U.S. and other developed countries stifle their growth potential by embracing a false doctrine that could lead to predictable and even unforeseen economic consequences?

This story was originally published December 15, 2015 at 6:01 PM with the headline "Cal Thomas: Belief in climate change like faith in Santa."