We are all hypocritical sometimes, but the ongoing hypocrisy of people with an "agenda" really bugs me. Former Vice President Al Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," is up for two Oscars now, one for best documentary and the other for best song. Whoop-de-doo. I haven't seen this movie about global warming, and I don't intend to.

I watched a documentary today which included an interview with VP Gore about his movie and its subject matter, and he discussed the causes of global warming and the massive consequences of it, involving scenarios with the possibilities of a sea level 40 feet higher than it is at present. I'm supposed to take advice from the man whose gift for political and factual exaggeration is unparalleled? The man who said, "I took the initiative in creating the Internet." and then helped Bill Clinton decimate the high tech industry in the late nineties, causing a costly stock market reaction?

I'm sorry, but with all due respect, former Vice President Al Gore's credibility as a spokesman for environmental issues suffers from a major credibility deficit. The list of his exaggerated claims is just far too long. In addition, his global warming "estimates" are based on computer models, and who knows how flawed those are or aren't? And let's not forget that VP Al Gore would probably still like someday, to be President Al Gore. Who knows if that is the underlying factor here in what he presents so passionately?

There were a number of scientists interviewed on the show too, and all of them said that major climate change (the new phrase, because the public is getting tired of hearing 'global warming') is already under way. One said that each year for the past several has been hotter than the one before, and another said that hurricanes have gotten progressively worse each year too.

Really? Hmmm. Strange that she would remark so when not a single hurricane made landfall in the United States in 2006. In fact, the 2006 hurricane season was fairly mild. For the entire month of October, not a single tropical cyclone formed in the Atlantic Basin, and that hasn't happened since 1994. Her facts are way off. She should get them straight.

Back in the 1970s, scientists were actually worried about global "cooling," not global warming. I still read articles that say we could easily have another "ice age." Does that come after warmer global climate change? You have scientists who say that CO2 accumulation in our atmosphere is not the problem at all, and that if we completely got rid of fossil fuel consumption and stopped commercial companies the world over from spewing CO2 into the atmosphere, that it would make a whopping one-one-millionth of one percent of a difference in the current estimated growth rate of global warming. So I suppose that every one of the scientists who think this way are all being paid under the table by the oil companies and other big business, or they are all just liars. Probably conservative evangelical Christians too. (laughing here)

The truth is, we know that the world and its weather patterns are cyclical and unpredictable. We don't even know for sure what all the mechanisms of the "greenhouse effect" actually are. It's also true that that we do not have reliable records going back far enough to make meaningful comparisons. Geologists and meteorologists can only estimate when semi-recent historical volcanic eruptions took place, what their severity was, and how far-reaching and long-lasting their effect was on the global climate. I mean, truly, I get the Weather Channel and they do a pretty good job with the information they have at hand, but they also make a lot of miscalculations that miss the mark by more than a little bit.

Incidentally, Heidi Cullen, who hosts the Weather Channel's weekly global warming show (yes, they have one) called, "The Climate Code," says that any meteorologist who doesn't agree with the concept of global warming should be busted, and tossed out of the American Meteorological Society. OUTCASTS! (laughing here) I'm laughing because she is so totalitarian about her views. She can't abide anyone who doesn't agree with her. I have tons of people who disagree with me, but some of them are my friends. People need to grow up and realize that they can be disagreed with. This is still America, and we are allowed to disagree.

You don't have to be a genius to figure out that our ecological system is being abused by big business mass polluters who have been skirting laws, paying nominal fines and generally thumbing their nose at the environment and those concerned about it for many decades now. You read about it every year. A major spill here, a major dump there. I don't live that far from a paper mill and a nuclear power plant and I know they've had their problems.

The trouble is, even though our President (and I was very surprised by it) called last night called for a fossil fuel reduction of 20% by 2017 (I think it was) and said that climate change is a "serious challenge," the accuracy of claims by those like former VP Gore and others is in serious question. If VP Gore and his adherents are correct, we could be looking at beachfront property in Nevada before then. I'm kidding around ( a little bit) but it strikes me that while all of the Democrats were busy accusing Vice President Cheney of using scare tactics to garner support for the war against terrorism, they were and are doing the very same thing by jumping on the bandwagon of global warming.

The difference is, terrorism is a reality. The 9/11 planes, bombs going off every day, plots foiled and threats being made by terrorist leaders, angry national leaders around the globe threatening peaceful nations with nuclear weapons, these are all facts that we can speak to. We can't really say that global warming is a reality, because there are scientists on both sides of that issue who have what they are saying are observable facts and credible theories, and we have had cold and hot weather trends before. Increased measurable amounts of CO2 in our atmosphere is obviously not a good thing and should be reduced, but whether or not that means "climate change" is a fact is far from being established by anything other than faith.