The totalitarian tendencies of American liberals have long been evident. Liberals have pretty much given up on trying to convince those who disagree with them–that happens, I suppose, when you consistently lose arguments. Now they want to have us arrested. The latest case in point comes from 20 climate alarmists who have written to President Obama, recommending that the realists who poke holes in their theories be charged with federal crimes. The letter begins:

As you know, an overwhelming majority of climate scientists are convinced about the potentially serious adverse effects of human-induced climate change on human health, agriculture, and biodiversity.

Note that the alarmists can’t get through a single sentence without weaseling. “Potentially serious adverse effects” means that there may or may not be serious effects. Not a promising beginning for a letter that calls for those who question the “potentially serious effects” to be jailed. It is notable that the most prominent signer of the letter is Kevin Trenberth, who wrote in one of the Climategate emails: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.” Now Trenberth wants those who agree that it is a travesty to be criminally prosecuted.

The stability of the Earth’s climate over the past ten thousand years contributed to the growth of agriculture and therefore, a thriving human civilization.

The “stability of the Earth’s climate” is another way of saying that we are currently between ice ages. In the current geologic era, the Earth is usually in a deep freeze. The next Ice Age will come, probably relatively soon; that is something truly worth worrying about.

We appreciate that you are making aggressive and imaginative use of the limited tools available to you in the face of a recalcitrant Congress.

That darn Congress! Ever since the Senate voted 98-0 for a resolution disapproving the Kyoto protocol, Congressmen who want to be re-elected have been leery of impoverishing the United States for no good reason.

One additional tool – recently proposed by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse – is a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) investigation of corporations and other organizations that have knowingly deceived the American people about the risks of climate change, as a means to forestall America’s response to climate change.

Actually, if you are looking for intentional deceit, check out the alarmists. Their favorite trick is surreptitiously changing temperature records to make the past appear cooler, and the present warmer by comparison. Well, the hockey stick was a favorite trick, too. But here’s the difference: the realists didn’t try to throw Michael Mann in jail, they just made a fool out of him by disproving his “science.” The liberals would do that if they could, but they can’t.

The methods of these organizations are quite similar to those used earlier by the tobacco industry. A RICO investigation (1999 to 2006) played an important role in stopping the tobacco industry from continuing to deceive the American people about the dangers of smoking. If corporations in the fossil fuel industry and their supporters are guilty of the misdeeds that have been documented in books and journal articles, it is imperative that these misdeeds be stopped as soon as possible so that America and the world can get on with the critically important business of finding effective ways to restabilize the Earth’s climate, before even more lasting damage is done.

The idea that the fossil fuel industry has something to do with the collapse of the global warming theory is a self-serving fantasy. Two factors account for the hysterics’ demise: the good work done by realist scientists, and the fact that every prediction generated by the alarmists’ models has been wrong. You don’t have to be a climate scientist to understand that wrong predictions invalidate models.

I don’t think there is any serious danger that realist scientists (let alone oil company executives who have nothing to do with the debate) will be criminally prosecuted, but the fact that liberals are so anxious to shut up their opponents, with prison terms if necessary, is the ultimate proof of the bankruptcy of their ideas.