Soap Box

There is little disagreement that our planet warms and cools and certain changes occur as the result, and that it has done so since man has had the capacity to record it, is not a point of contention with me.

The fact that there have been innumerable geological periods, ice ages when most of the planet froze solid and hot spells when much of the earth's surface became like a humid jungle, I have no problem with.

The fact that man has made an ecological mess in much of the world, the danger of destroying the rain forest, the dire consequences of pouring toxic fumes into the air and toxic waste into the oceans and streams are not lost on me and I am for expending every effort to put an end to it.

But is it necessary to destroy the economy in whole sections of the country like the coal mining regions of West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio? Wouldn�t it be worth the investment to find technologies that will enable clean coal energy and preserve a vital industry and a way of life that has existed in America for over two centuries?

Where the rub comes with me is the arrogance of thinking that human beings can control the climate or reverse the natural warming and cooling cycles that have been mandated and maintained by the Creator since He formed the solar system all those eons ago.

There is no doubt that man can make this world a better place to live, that there are things within our power and purvey, sensible measures that can be taken to clean up our water ways, to preserve our forests, to cleanse our air and purify our food supply.

But it's going to take an international effort and as much as the Global Warming, Climate Change or whatever the title du jour is, crowd would like to have you believe that America is one of the worst offenders, nothing could be farther from the truth.

China's recent burst of pseudo-capitalism has brought a period of unparalleled growth in manufacturing and the production of marketable goods in that nation and while China has embraced the trade and prosperity, they have done a sorry job when it comes to taking care of the environment.

China's, and much of the rest of Asia's, air resembles a permanent gray fog with industrial pollution so thick that it seriously limits vision and one can only imagine what it does to the lungs of people who are exposed to it on a daily basis.

I've never been to India but from what I understand the situation there is not much better.

The North Koreans, living under the thumb of power crazy dictators for decades and reduced to eating anything they can chew to keep body and soul together have been forced to cut practically all the trees in the country for warmth and cooking, leaving a huge, deforested, bald spot on the face of the earth.

Much the same is true in the war torn backward nations of Africa and over the years the pillaged land has become a modern day dust bowl where the wind blows the topsoil away and nothing grows.

In his State of the Union Address President Obama cited Climate Change as being one of the most clear and present dangers facing the planet, a strange stance to take when the people of the nation he leads are much more worried about terrorism than Climate Change. 

If you'll pay attention to what the Climate Change apologists say, the only way to reverse this dire danger to the planet is for the United States of America to pony up vast sums of money and turn much of our sovereignty over to some corrupt, inefficient, bumbling bunch of America haters like the United Nations.

Why not a more practical approach like, OK we're well on the way to cleaning up our air and water so when the rest of you guys get your act together let us know and we'll talk. And insofar as the third world nations are concerned you can't do anything for them without changing their politics and I think we've had our fingers burned enough to stay out of that.

The reason is that although there are some true believers in the movement when it reaches the upper levels it's not about Global Warming at all, it's about control, the international kind where the United Nations can tell the citizens of this country what they can and cannot do with land that has been tended by their families for generations.

It's about taking the power of the individual away and putting everybody under the control of an international bureaucracy, it's about taking your personally owned fire arms, telling you what crops you can grow, off limits "wetlands" and outlawed gardens and food animal production.

And please don't take my word for it, get yourself a copy of United Nations Agenda 21 and just do a little reading between the lines.

The movement should actually be called the Global Warming-Global Cooling Association because it has been around for over a century and has vacillated between catastrophic warming and an ice age, another fact that is easily verifiable.

The bottom line is folks, I sincerely believe that we have much more pressing and immediate problems to deal with and the president knows it. He uses scare tactics and disputed science to drive home his point, knowing full well that there are many greater dangers to our nation and that he is ill equipped to deal with them.

Don't let him scare you; this planet has exponentially more to fear from Iran getting nuclear capability than we do from �climate change.�

What do you think?

Pray for our troops and the peace of Jerusalem.

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels