At the risk of coming across as a disruptive student, I respectfully request a class discussion about global warming, climate change, or whatever the nomenclature du jour may be.

In a recent article published by The Salisbury Post (Optimistic Futurist: Climate Change Offers Us a Stark Choice. Sept. 27), the author offers some outlandish claims, unverifiable stats, an insulting attempt at marginalization and some insight into what lurks behind the curtain of the man-made climate change movement.

Normally, it should not take this long to respond to an op-ed piece, but I had to spend some time in a hyperbolic chamber trying to decompress from such overstatements as, “…two decades to save life on Earth as we know it,” and, “…worst drought in more than a thousand years.” Even if tree ring testimony or more advanced methods were infallible, we would need scores of thousand-year-old trees or other sources of data somewhat evenly spaced throughout the United States to verify this rather unscientific assertion.

The author informs us that warmer ocean waters have caused increased rainfall along coastal areas, while admitting that violent downpours also occur elsewhere, leading one to infer that no matter where heavy rains hit, mankind is to blame. Then we are told that California (a coastal state) is experiencing its worst drought since about 477 years before Columbus, employing environmentally friendly wind-driven vessels, started it all by bringing disease, Eurocentric greed and, apparently, instruments for measuring climate change to our hemisphere.

I understand snarky; I totally get sarcasm, but, “Teaching what they have found is difficult enough, made worse because there are a number of disruptive students in the global classroom…” is arrogant, dismissive, and condescending. Unfettered by truth, logic, and reason, the man-made global warming Sanhedrin seems intent on using belittlement to discredit the heretics. They control the gathering of raw data, research protocols, interpretation of findings, funneling of grant money, and what is deemed to be “settled science,” which one finds just a little unsettling.

Is there any reason to believe that the University of East Anglia is the only entity guilty of data manipulation to further the cause? Of course not, because The Movement is not driven by a quest for knowledge; it is driven by a desperate need for self-preservation as well as a bitter, irrational resentment toward a successful private-sector industry. At its core, The Movement is inspired by globalism and socialism, with the United Nations as a money-funneling front for climate change extortionists, well-dressed thugs bent on shaking down prosperous nations and corporations.

Seemingly undaunted by the fact that we cannot accurately predict the weather ten days out, or that we are unable to create rain when and where and how much we need, climatologists claim to know what Earth’s climate was like 200,000 years ago (we only started keeping good records around 1850), as well as how human activity influences weather, including rain. Both sides of the debate tout facts and evidence that are unknowable. The world, especially nations wishing to maintain their hard-earned sovereignties, will be better served if we stick to that which can be known, beginning with that on which we can agree.

Can we agree that the number one influence on climate is the Sun? Swell. Can we further agree that the Sun is so great a factor that it is the only car on the lead lap? Can we also agree that we have no control over the Sun, our capabilities limited to adaptation? Super.

How about cyclical ocean current temperatures? Before climate change became a battering ram for global collectivism, scientists attributed much of the fluctuation in weather and climate to cyclical ocean current temperatures. Can we agree that this factor is beyond our control? Can we throw in geothermal activity? Groovy. Scientists and world leaders know this, so why are they so adamant in their crusade?

At least one faction within The Movement clearly resents Big Oil in particular and capitalism in general. This lot is fairly transparent, repeatedly showing its hand by stressing removal of subsidies, taxation of profits, and limiting campaign contributions, implementation of which will not reduce carbon emissions by one milligram.

In a couple of weeks there will be a global summit on climate change. Participants will travel to and from Paris aboard large aircraft with engines spewing carbon-based chemical compounds into the upper atmosphere at elevations difficult to achieve for ground-based emissions due to the challenges of gravity, rain, cold air, and dispersal. They will be driven around in limousines and equipment will be brought in by soot-belching, nine mile-per-gallon Diesel rigs. If only we could produce clean energy from hypocrisy and deceit.

Please resume teaching us now.

Bruce La Rue lives in Mt. Ulla.