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The end is near, we’re all going to die. Unless, that is, we empower government to control more of the economy and our lives. It’s a standard trick of the left – predict doom and gloom in the future in an attempt to scare the Hell out of people while promising to avoid it if we let them get their way. While this could apply to nearly anything Democrats are pushing on any given day, this week it’s about global cooling. I mean, global warming. Er, scratch that, climate change…for now, at least.

The government issued another climate report on Friday, as required by law, and it is full of…well, let’s just call it hyperventilating about how we’re destroying the planet. The report “is based on more than 1,000 previous research studies,” according to the Associated Press. That means two things – it’s based on the work of others, mainly people whose job is dependent on perpetuating the climate change myth, and it’s not new. But hey, it’s on official letterhead this time, so “STOP THE PRESSES,” or something.

The problem with these sorts of “studies” is the main conclusion is already made before the actual work begins. These academics aren’t studying to see if the changing climate is caused by man or nature, it’s simply accepted as faith that it’s man’s fault. So these studies are done to reinforce preconceived notions and justify jobs. These academics who conduct them have to justify their jobs and bring in grant money, government grant money; our money.

Yet this is nothing new. Liberals have been pushing the “we’re all going to die because we’re destroying the planet” idea for decades. Long before the famous “global cooling” episode in the 1970s, they were pushing this narrative for control.

As I found in researching my book, in 1958, none other than liberal icon Betty Friedan wrote in Harper’s magazine that scientists were certain “the glacial thermostat, the present interglacial stage is well advanced; the earth is now heading into another Ice Age.”

That was the “consensus” thinking until the 1980s. Then it became the opposite – global warming. Weirdly, the solution remained the same, more government power. When the nominal “warming” stopped and the 10-year predictions of calamity didn’t come to pass, they changed the cries to “climate change.”

This deception was brilliant marketing, no matter what happened in any given year, at any given time, it could be attributed to climate change.

But when you say New York or Miami will be under water in 10 years, and 10 years passes without the flood, a normal person might rethink their claims. A doomsday cult leader who predicts the end of the world on Monday will have some explaining to do on Tuesday. The climate cult isn’t burdened by realities like that.

After 30 years of 10-year predictions of destruction not coming to pass, they didn’t reassess, they changed the unit of measure. The old 10-year window has become a 100-year window.

I write in my book, Scientific American reported “It is fair to say that citizens and politicians intend for Miami, and indeed the whole State of Florida, to exist well beyond 2100. Same for New York City, Boston, Washington D.C., London, Shanghai, Amsterdam, Mumbai and so on. Yet the same people discount staggering losses these places face beyond 2100.”

This is but one example of the rush of new 100-year predictions of destruction. This was done because by the time 100 years comes to pass, everyone alive now to hear them will be dead. No explaining in the morning. They can’t be proven, but more importantly they can’t be disproven. That’s a lot of things, and none of them are science.

In the 1970s, when the fear was the coming ice age, Newsweek reported, “Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even allay its effects.” Sound familiar?

One “solution” proposed then, I found, was “’melting the arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers,’ though it conceded that doing so ‘might create problems far greater than those they solve.’”

As crazy and, frankly, primeval, as that sounds, they’re still at it. This week, researchers from Harvard and Yale proposed “dimming the Sun” by “using a technique known as stratospheric aerosol injection, which they say could cut the rate of global warming in half.”

So a problem they’ve declared with barely 50 years’ worth of reliable data, and have redefined in both directions before claiming all directions prove their point, warrants literally playing God with the atmosphere? Am I the only one who thinks that’s insane?

We’ve only had satellites able to measure atmospheric temperatures for about 50 years. That’s not even half a blink of an eye in the planet’s history. Yet we’re supposed to be governed by an ever-changing “consensus” of people with the prediction success rate of the average MegaMillions player? Hell no.

There is, of course, much more none of these cultists want to talk about – the medieval warm period, the little ice age, etc. – and we must talk about all of them. Newly empowered liberals are looking to enact a “green new deal,” another massive power grab by the government every bit as dangerous to our liberty as anything to government has ever tried. While it won’t go anywhere now, Democrats only control the House, the left never quits. It’s been more than 60 years since they’ve wanted to control the health care system in the country and, thanks to their patience and Republican ineptitude, they’re almost completely there.

We need to be on guard and ready to stand up this cult everywhere it rears its ugly head, every billionaire looking to impose their religion on us for their profit must be defeated. Their devotion seems laughable now, but it really only matters who has the last laugh.

Derek Hunter is a columnist at Townhall. He also hosts a daily podcast which is free to subscribe to, so you totally should. If you don’t like it you’ll get double your money back.