CARBON CREDIBILITY

Probably everyone can remember at least a few of the major disaster predictions in our lifetime. Overpopulation, global cooling, radioactive fallout, ozone depletion, nuclear winter, silent spring, SARS and Y2K, just off the top of my head. These panics run their course - people get bored waiting for the end of the world, theories fall apart and we move on. But there's a huge difference with the latest one - the global warming scare comes with a big fat price tag.

It has gone from an environmental issue to a political issue, and inevitably to a financial one. Fueled by propaganda like "An Inconvenient Truth", climate hysteria has spread world-wide like a giant international case of the clap. There are now an awful lot of pigs feeding at the carbon trough and they're not going to pull their snouts out without a fight. Al Gore is just loving it - he flies to his save-the-planet rallies in jets that puke out thousands of pounds of co2, but that's ok, because he's filthy rich and can purchase carbon credits to "offset" it. From himself.

And while he's onstage congratulating himself as the new environmental messiah, he's got his limo running outside so he can ride in air-conditioned comfort back to the airport. What a hypocrite. He probably has shoes that cost more than my annual hydro bill, but I'm supposed to keep my nasty little carbon footprint off Big Brother's nice clean rug. I don't think so.

Now that government and big business have become involved, it is politically incorrect to even question the theory of man-made climate change. Scientists who do so are criticized, ostracized and ridiculed. They endure job discrimination and funding cuts - as with any political issue, the big research and development money goes to the people who produce the right answers. The media tells us what to think as usual, slanting our views in the accepted direction with biased reporting and misinformation, right down to the language that they use: people who disagree are "deniers", and have been equated with Holocaust deniers (a cheap shot in lieu of honest debate). Environmental extremists like David Suzuki have even advocated throwing people in jail for having the wrong opinion.

The whole thing has become an embarrassment to many legitimate scientists, who realize that the credibility of their profession is being undermined by this insistence that co2 is a major problem despite evidence to the contrary. Why pick on poor old carbon dioxide? It makes up less than .04% of the atmosphere. How about a breathing tax - we exhale it. It is not a pollutant, it's a naturally occurring substance that is necessary for life. In fact, higher atmospheric levels in the past have produced beneficial effects on humanity due to increased plant growth.

Right now there are scientists and economists all over the world protesting this "consensus" that the debate is over, but the politicians don't want to wait until all the facts are in. Oh, no: it's a crisis, a catastrophe, a state of emergency - we must ACT NOW or we are all doomed. Yeah, yeah, I know the routine - grab your wallet and bend over. Once the controls and restrictions are in place, the facts won't matter anyway.

It won't matter that co2 is not wreaking havoc on our planet. Or that this monumental waste of time, money and energy could be put to far better use helping people develop resources and improve their standard of living. The global warming fanatics will never admit this, because the carbon credit scam is one of the biggest cash grabs ever to come down the pike. With what some see as the potential for global enforcement of carbon regulation, new laws are going to be making a lot of rich people even richer. And we'll be paying for it.