I have always been sceptical of the science behind global warming, but I have always thought it was a science issue; either the science supports human induced warming or it doesn’t. However, having recently become more involved in the warming debate, it has been made obvious to me that climate change is really a political issue.

This partly explains why solid, peer reviewed science is ignored by the alarmists. A scientist acting in the true spirit of science would recognise when their theory has proven unfounded. However, a politically (or financially) motivated scientist will instead ignore the new evidence, or attempt to discredit the new evidence, or adapt his theory to fit around the new evidence, or some combination of all of these things.

I am probably quite politically naive. To me it seems odd that the Left would be almost universally in favour of human induced climate change theory while the Right would reject it outright. Are all Left wing people incapable of understanding science? It seems unlikely, just as it seems unlikely that the Right are scientific puritans. In fact, especially in American politics, it often seems that the Right are anti-science with, for example, their desire to teach creationism in the classroom as a science subject.

The answer seems to be that it is actually about freedom versus government control. The left has finally won over the masses in the political centre by convincing them that there is a real threat to the planet; such a big threat that the middle ground people are thinking that maybe they should give up their hard won economic and political freedom. The far left has always been anti-industry, anti-trade and anti-globalisation (ironically, not anti-global government, just anti-global commerce). Governments are always keen on controlling things, and raising taxes when the people are in favour of it; well, that’s a politician’s dream scenario. The United Nations sees the chance to significantly enhance itself as a world government, taking control away from individual countries’ governments.

It’s easy to see then, why the Right are generally so against the climate change cause. The Right doesn’t want to give up its economic freedoms and it certainly doesn’t want to cede sovereignty to the United Nations.

The climate change movement, fighting a non-existent enemy, could potentially cause far more damage to western civilisation than Osama bin Laden could ever hope to achieve. I fact, if I were Osama, I would be supporting the global warming cause with everything I had.

In conclusion, it seems to me that climate change for the average man and woman in the street is about science, but for Greenpeace and the global warming alarmists, it’s about politics. Therefore, the ability of the sceptics to bring this political battle to the public’s attention is as critical, if not more so, than the battle to see the legitimate science prevail.