Three words for Alabama's Congressional Delegation.

Are. You. Sure?

Are you willing to bet the future of your kids and mine? Are you sure enough to risk the planet on the word of a few status quo-backed scientists? Are you willing to go down in history - if there is to be such a thing -- as leaders who had power to save so much, but instead turned away?

Turned away, as the story will be told, to count pieces of silver from energy interests?

Are you sure?

A group that monitors the politics of climate change - the Center for American Progress Action Fund - this year created a list of 182 "climate change deniers" in Congress. Alabama Sens. Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby were on the list. So were Reps. Robert Aderholt, Mo Brooks and Gary Palmer. That's 55 percent of the state's delegation.

I wanted to know what they really thought, so I asked the whole delegation to explain their positions on climate change. Only the named "deniers" got back to me. Only Brooks got back in person.

Brooks said he does not deny that climate changes, because earth has always changed. He said there are many factors, and humans are one. But he questions past data, argues that public opinion is tainted by faulty "climate scares," and recommends more study because action must be balanced against cost.

Does he worry that he could be - dare I say it -- wrong?

"I worry about a lot of public policy issues," he said. "The climate change issue is on the list. But it's a long list."

Aderholt's office referred me to an op-ed the congressman wrote for the Jasper Daily Mountain Eagle - a newspaper in coal country - way back in 2010.

"I fall into the second group of people who believe, as do many very credible scientists, that the earth is currently in a natural warming cycle rather than a man-made climate change," he wrote.

Denier.

Congressman Gary Palmer's office issued this statement: "I am a firm believer in sound science. There have been new findings that clearly show the science is not settled on climate change."

U.S. Capitol. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Equivocator.

Shelby's office said "the Senator's position is that any action on this topic must follow a robust economic analysis and have the consent of Congress to ensure the appropriate balance between protecting our environment and the effects on our economy."

I don't even know.

And Sessions' office referred me to his statements in the Congressional Record from 2015, which questioned models used by "global climate change advocates."

The models "predict not only increasing temperatures but increasing droughts, increasing flux - droughts and flux - increasing severe weather events such as hurricanes and tornadoes," Sessions said then. "These models have long predicted this. ... A critical measure of the validity of any model is how well it compares to actual data. So the actual weather data, I tell my colleagues, is proving that the models have not been accurate."

Which might sound better if we weren't in the throes of the second hundred year drought in a decade, if the world weren't in a wash of fires and storms that many scientists believe were triggered by climate change.

Temperature is objectively rising, carbon dioxide is definitively increasing in the atmosphere, trapping warmer temperature on the planet, and we produce the carbon dioxide by burning all the fuels we burn.

Scientists overwhelmingly agree that climate change is caused in part by humans, yet - according to that "Climate change denier" study - some 60 percent of Americans are represented by politicians with their heads stuck in the sand.

Because the science is "not settled."

What is settled is where Alabama's congressional delegation's bread is buttered.

The Southern Co., the parent company of Alabama Power, is by far the leading contributor to Alabama campaigns for Congress, having given $825,458 to current senators and representatives, according to Opensecrets.org. Add other energy interests - and lawyers who represent them -- and the number tops $2 million.

Alabama Power Spokesman Michael Sznajderman said his company has worked to reduce greenhouse emissions, lowered its use of coal and is embracing more use of solar power. But he defended the political contributions.

"We believe it is important to be involved and engage with our public officials when there are issues on the table that can affect our customers, potentially affect the energy prices our customers pay, or affect Alabama's economy," Sznajderman said.

Which is all well and good.

As long as Alabama's public officials can forget about the cash when they look at their children. As long as they can look their grandchildren in the eye and honestly say to themselves:

"I'm sure."

Are you sure?