Developed countries, deep in debt, are no longer chomping at the bit to pay $100 billion a year in climate reparation and adaptation penalties. Fast-growing nations like China and India refuse to curb the hydrocarbon use that is fueling their development, thereby ensuring that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels will continue to rise.

Wikileaks reveal that U.S. diplomacy under President Obama has been geared towards bribing and bullying countries to support climate deals. These countries are not buying the global warming scare on the merits (or lack thereof). It takes cash and arm twisting to keep them in line.

What to do? Why, ramp up the rhetoric and fear-mongering, of course.

“Highly respected” climate campaigners Oxfam told Cancun attendees that “more than twice” as many people died from natural disasters in 2010 than in 2009 because of global warming. Almost immediately, another “prestigious” group of scientists waded in with a new “peer-reviewed” report predicting that climate change will cause a million deaths a year by 2020, $157 billion in annual damages, and indescribable misery for the world’s poorest countries.

Before the ink is even dry on that story, revised estimates from the same “renowned” experts offer even “more sobering” data. We are “already” enduring “350,000 climate-related deaths per year,” they now say, and that number will double by 2030.

How can this be happening? Average planetary temperatures increased by a “net” of 0.7 degrees C (1.3 F) between 1900 and 2000, as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continued to rise – but not in a straight line: they rose 1900-1940, cooled 1940-1975 and warmed 1975-1995. Since 1995, average global temperatures have been stable. Even veteran “manmade climate disaster” alarmists Phil Jones and Kevin Trenberth admit that they “can’t account for the lack of warming,” which they call “a travesty.”

During the winter of 2007-2008, North America had the most snow cover it had experienced in 50 years, and places like Wisconsin measured the highest levels since recordkeeping began. Just last month, Wales recorded the coldest November night since record keeping began.

Hurricanes have been few and far between for two years, with not a single one reaching US shores during that period – the first time that’s happened in decades. Experts have repeatedly shown there have been no statistically significant increases in storm, flood or drought frequency or intensity; these are cyclical phenomena, they say, tied to a number of complex and interrelated natural forces and events.

So where are these deaths coming from? Well, as they say in the Hollywood special effects business, if you can imagine something, we can create it. And so they have. It’s really quite simple, actually.

First, blame every death from floods and mudslides, droughts and fires, hurricanes and typhoons, tornadoes and lightning – maybe even volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis – on “dangerous manmade climate change.” Pretend there were no similar cataclysms in the past: no floods in China, India or Bangladesh; no droughts in Africa, the Yucatan or American Southwest; no fiery infernos in Australia or Peshtigo, Wisconsin.

Second, ignore the inconsistencies, and just assume those pesky CO2 molecules are so clever that they can change the trajectory of planetary temperature trends every few decades, from warming to cooling, back to warming, then just “flatline” for fifteen years or so.

Third, get out those climate models, to gin up scary, headline-grabbing catastrophe and mortality numbers. The computer models are all based on the assumption that CO2 drives dangerous warming and climate change. So “researchers” merely have to plug in estimates of future atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and, presto, out come 3-8 degrees of dangerous warming and climate change, and a host of “scenarios” for climate catastrophes, vanished species and dead people. Garbage in, garbage out, or as some wit recently put it, “garbage in, gospel out.”

How do alarmists get away with this? That’s really quite simple, too. The normally inquisitive and skeptical news media, “watchdog” groups, universities and government investigators all support the climate armageddon thesis and the brave new world of renewable energy. Vast sums of money are at stake, so they and their bosses have a devout self-interest in propagating and perpetuating this.

Traditional peer review has been replaced by “pal-review,” conducted by like-minded folks who want to sustain hypotheses, careers and cash flows. Everyone knows how to play the game of marketing climate crisis activists as “prestigious” researchers, “leading humanitarian organizations” and alliances of “vulnerable” countries that “are experiencing the most direct impacts of climate change.” Feminists have even told us that global warming is worse for women.

In this context, honesty, integrity, transparency, accountability and corporate social responsibility are of little concern. The real objective is career advancement, research grants and foreign aid. For those who covet power, gaining control of economic growth, living standards, access to energy and technology, and the dreams and aspirations of people in developed and developing countries alike makes their dream come true.

It’s time to end the charade. Address diseases and disasters the same way humans always have: by preparing for and dealing with them. Do everything possible to ensure that poor countries get the enery and technologies they need to improve and safeguard the lives of their people.

If the Cancun summit can take some small steps in that constructive direction, its attendees can feel a justified sense of accomplishment. Otherwise, they should be ashamed of themselves.