By Ron Smith, Baltimore Sun
Let us begin today with full disclosure: For those who don’t know my position on global warming alarmism and its insidious uses, it is that this phenomenon is the greatest hoax in modern times and is being used to achieve things – bad things – quite apart from its ostensible goal of “saving the planet.” Al Gore wanders the spheroid he is determined to save, spouting increasingly inane observations as his bank account grows and his “carbon footprint” becomes ever more Godzilla-like, considering all the jet fuel burned as he hurtles from appearance to appearance. I have read that his speaking fee is now $175,000 a pop, a fee for which his audiences are fed what seems to me to be an amazing concoction of lies, distortions and flights of fancy. The other day, in a speech given in Oxford before the Smith School World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment, the former American vice president, Nobel Peace Prize recipient and Oscar winner likened the battle against what he now calls climate change (perhaps because the globe is no longer warming and lots of people are aware of that) to the fight decades ago against the Nazis. No, I’m not kidding: The man stood there and said his cause is one that can rightly be compared to fighting Nazism and its systematic extermination of Europe’s Jews and other untermenschen. He urged British leaders to heed the example of Winston Churchill, who “aroused this nation in heroic fashion to save civilization in World War Two.” Ah, to fight so heroically for all of humanity is such an admirable thing, eh? Think about it. Here’s a man who is founder and chairman of the Alliance for Climate Protection, which is so devoted to its mission that it is spending a reported $300 million in advertising to pressure politicians into doing right by the greenies. At the same time, Mr. Gore is also chairman of something called Generation Investment Management, which stands to profit mightily from the actions of governments that succumb to the pressure from the other group he heads. Nice work there. One hand washes the other, and those in the in-crowd divvy up lots of money. Overseas, climate change was the top issue at the opening of the Group of 8 summit in Italy this week, while here at home the Obama administration, the Democratic Congress and their news media propagandists are prepping us for a huge and regressive tax increase masquerading as an environmental measure. It’s the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, aka the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which passed the House late last month. If we’re lucky, the miserable legislation will be killed in the Senate, but it’s more likely that some version of it will spring into life to do its damage to us under the guise of saving the planet and making us energy independent – which, in case you don’t know, isn’t possible in the real world. On Tuesday, I talked with California Republican Rep. Tom McClintock, who stood on the floor of the House June 26 and warned us all of what lies ahead if this measure makes it into law. “I had a strange sense of déjà vu as I watched the self-congratulatory rhetoric on the house floor tonight,” he said. “Three years ago, I stood on the floor of the California Senate and watched a similar celebration over a similar bill. … And I have spent the last three years watching as the law has dangerously deepened California’s recession.” (To get the details of his warning from the left coast, you can listen to my interview with Mr. McClintock by going to my page at wbal.com.) I mentioned that the ostensible purposes of climate change alarmism are quite apart from the actual goals, which are increasing the power of global government over the masses by implementing international socialism, resulting in what writer Brendan O’Neill calls “the new Green-Industrial Complex,” which would control the world economy. This is power beyond compare – and we all know what happens when an elite seizes total power, don’t we?