Mark Crowley's most recent Letter to editor -- ran in Trib

Mark Crowley wrote:

I had a LTE today (2/13/2007) in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review about a hot topic -- global warming. It was in response to a Bill Steigerwald Q&A interview with a climatologist who is skeptical that global warming is a man-made phenomenon. I offered some libertarian reinforcement to an astute political observation noting how well it fits the standard big government template.

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Global foolery, Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Climatologist Timothy Ball made an astute observation about the strategy shift that sunspot-deniers are applying to global warming ("The politics of global warming," Q&A, Feb. 10 and PghTrib.com).

He noticed they "switched from talking about global warming to talking about climate change." That's chillingly familiar.

Remember how Osama bin Laden morphed into Saddam Hussein? Or how the mission switched from finding WMDs to freeing Iraq? Or when border security became citizen surveillance?

Next, politicians will put carbon dioxide on the altar of unending wars alongside terrorism, drugs, smoking, trans fat, etc. Expect a new Cabinet-level Department of Hot Air.

Also expect the Department of Education to require that "Greenland" be renamed "Glacierland" to rewrite an inconvenient history about that island's more moderate climate around 1000 A.D.

If the temperature cools rapidly over the next decade, government will proclaim "Mission Accomplished." Do you think, however, that dismantling misguided government programs stands a snowball's chance?

While global warming deserves debate, there's no debate why big government supporters are hot for global warming.

Mark Crowley, Plum