Letting Truth Stand on the Environment

James Lewis worries that the incoming administration will sign the United States on with what he characterizes as a sort of eco-Inquisition, in the continued politicization of science:

The world's Green politicians are gathering in Poznan, Poland, to split the loot through a new Kyoto II Treaty. They blame the failure of the last Kyoto Accords on the United States, and now that America has seen the light by electing Obama, by golly, they are going to collect but good. Sugar plum fairies? How about power and riches through a worldwide carbon trading scheme? How about a centralized international planning bureaucracy for all the smokestack industries in the world (except in China and India, which have wisely exempted themselves). How about selling Papal indulgences to make all the dirty sinners living off coal and cars and cow meat beg for forgiveness for their transgressions against Mother Gaia?

From a political viewpoint it's better not to have any evidence on global warming. If we had facts, we might find out that warming, if it existed, might actually go away. It's not much good to tax a sin that can be absolved. Much better to tax that pervasive feeling of guilt directly. Leave it to the popular media to spread free-floating guilt, and to the political experts in the new administration, who know in their very bones, like Danny the Red, that "You can believe what you want, I don't believe, I know that global warming is a reality."

Bow down, ye sinners. The time has come for you to pay through the nose.