Green, I’ve heard people say, is the new Red. That is to say that the modern environmentalist movement is the latest manifestation of Communism and extreme Leftist political thought. Such statements are indicative of the fact that the Green movement fails to resonate with the thinking side of the political spectrum: the Right. Modern environmentalism is regarded by the right as nothing more than a tyrannical component of Left-wing political thought whose purpose is to impose more and more control on the proletariat, which is the goal of the Left. The debate about climate change, global warming, or whatever it’s being called today is an example of why the Right has these feelings.

That’s not to say that conservatives are “anti-environment” as the Left proposes. No one supports allowing people to litter, or businesses to pollute heavily. The effects of these are apparent to anyone who pays attention. Certain chemicals also need to be regulated so that their release into the environment is controlled or prevented. There aren’t many who dispute that.

The problem isn’t pro- or anti-environment, it’s how the extremists handle themselves, primarily by trying to scare us into believing in the impending doom that is inevitable if we don’t radically change course. The problem is their credibility suffers with those who employ even a token amount of critical thinking, and here are some examples as to why:

• Because every natural disaster anymore is associated with Global Warming.
  Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. posited that Hurricane Katrina was not only the result of Global Warming, but that its landfall near New Orleans was nature retaliating against the US for President Bush’s refusal to send the Kyoto Treaty to Congress. Someone attributed the 2004 Tsunami to Global Warming. (Finding that reference is very difficult anymore, partly because even the mainstream extremists realize how ridiculous a proposition that is). Environmentalists even tried to attribute the relatively minor Hurricane Isabel to Global Warming.
• Because even most weather anomalies are attributed to Global Warming.
  Hot summers, cold winters, floods, droughts, more hurricanes than normal (2005, including Katrina), fewer hurricanes than normal (2006), all of these are examples of things that have been caused by Global Warming. If you pay attention to the news, any time there’s some unusual pattern to the weather, Global Warming is usually the culprit.
• Because they keep changing their story.
  This is a big one. In the ‘70s it was global cooling. Soot was going to collect in the atmosphere and block out the sun. They posited this because temperatures were falling at the time. Nowadays, the story is consistent about what’shappening, but not so much on when, or how much. If we were to believe the people who first posited Global Warming in the late ‘80s, we would already have seen 20-foot rises in sea level and millions of dead humans because of it. The catastrophe gets pushed back and the temperature curve gets adjusted to fit whatever is most politically expedient. 
• Because they ignore historical climate changes.
  Earth has been warmer in the past than now. Some estimates put the average temperature during the Jurassic period at something like 96° F. Much more recently, we had the Ice Age 10,000 years ago, and a “Little Ice Age” that ended somewhere around 1850. Furthermore there was a general warming trend before the early 1400s. Were these fluctuations the result of human activity? Of course not. Why, then, must any current warming be the result of human activity?
• Because the most vocal proponents of Global Warming are not scientists but politicians and entertainers.
  For all the scientific “consensus” it’s amusing that scientists rarely go in public touting Global Warming theory. The vast majority of those who support the theory in public are left-wing politicians and actors. None of these people are credible on such ventures because (a) they are not scientists, and (b) they have a political motive for wanting Global Warming to be fact. If it’s true then the politicians can increase the power of the government to intrude on the lives of the people. Furthermore, the ones who support the Global Warming notion the loudest are the ones who travel from one gigantic mansion to another in their private jet and take their Hummer limousine to and from the airport.
• Because the only solutions offered are politically motivated band-aids, at best.
   The Kyoto Accords, which would have affected the US disproportionately to its contribution to the problem, exempted third-world countries, and was rejected by the other two of the top three polluters (China and India), would, had they been put into full effect, have merely delayed the catastrophe something like 10 years past the 100 years it was expected to take. Moving extinction from 100 years to 110 years away is hardly worth wrecking the global economy, particularly since, within 100 years, the economy might be able to solve the problem, and without the economy running as it does now (even in its current recessed state) innovation and science will suffer greatly. On the other hand, economic disaster is often followed by more serious problems, like war, famine, and pestilence. What is needed is not some politically motivated “solution” intended to make the US economy worse and allow our adversaries to improve dramatically. What we need, if Global Warming is, in fact, true, is a real, permanent solution. It would probably be good to reduce fossil fuels even if Global Warming doesn’t exist. But taxes on energy, restrictions on energy usage, and other government mandates won’t help. Things like Water and Nuclear power (which don’t spit out “greenhouse gasses”) or workable solar and wind power (which don’t exist yet for large-scale applications) will help.
• Because they come up with some of the most idiotic theories on “How You Can Help.”
  So far, I know we’ve heard “inflate your tires to use less gas” and “Paint your roofs white to reflect the sun’s rays back into space.” That such ideas are patently ridiculous is obvious.

None of this is to say definitively that Global Warming doesn’t exist or that the Trifecta ((A) It exists, (B) it’s man-made, and (C) it’s inevitably catastrophic) is without merit. All I’m saying is that the presentation lends itself to people disbelieving it. If you want global warming to be solved, start offering real solutions, not just ways to move carbon emissions from one place to another.