The global-warming movement is taking on all of the features of a Christian crusade – complete with its self-appointed pope, Al Gore.

Alas, I remain a Doubting Thomas. In fact, I have challenged, if not defied, the gospel of global warming in such open and notorious fashion that, if Gore’s judgment day were tomorrow, I would go straight to hell.

Nevertheless, after the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a report a week ago today, which zealous environmentalists are now touting as “the final word on global warming”, I felt obliged to respond.

And if you know what a Faustian proposition it is to critique the Bible, then you’ll appreciate why this article is a bit long, though hopefully not long-winded.

Frankly, the looming catastrophes outlined in this report make the apocalyptic prophecies in the Book of Revelations seem relatively harmless. And this, notwithstanding complaints by global-warming prophets about the political pressure that forced IPCC panelists to water down the portentous perils in their scientific report.

Here, in essence, are their findings and warnings, which, appropriately enough, are rendered not only anticlimactic but also irrelevant by His Holiness Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth:

“The world faces a terrifying apocalypse of hunger, thirst and extreme weather disasters due to climate change... By 2080, between 1.1 billion and 3.2 billion people will face water shortages, and between 200 million and 600 million will face the prospect of extreme hunger. Without urgent measures the Earth will face increasing heatwaves, floods, storm, fires and droughts, causing deaths and the displacement of hundreds of millions of people. There must be swift action on carbon dioxide emissions to prevent catastrophes all over the world.”

But, as indicated above, the way this report is being proselytized makes references to the Bible inescapable. And the irony is not lost on me that many renowned members of the scientific community (including Dr Tim Ball, Chairman of the Natural Resources Stewardship, and Dr Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) are dismissing it with the same intellectual derision with which IPCC panelists probably dismiss the Holy Bible.

In fact, it is doubly ironic that the leading critic of this report is Dr William Gray. Because even though Gray is widely known as America’s most reliable hurricane forecaster and the man environmentalists invariably cite when preaching their gospel, here’s how he condemned Gore’s crusade after the IPCC report was published: “Al Gore is a gross alarmist. He’s one of these guys that preaches the end of the world type of things. I think he’s doing a great disservice and he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

However, it should be particularly instructive to those of us in the Caribbean that Gray issued this condemnation during a keynote speech at the National Hurricane Conference in New Orleans. After all, global-warming scientists predicate much of their findings on predictions about the rise in ocean temperatures and increasing ferocity of hurricanes. But here’s how the Associated Press reported Gray’s scientific pronouncements in these respects: “Gray believes a recent uptick in strong hurricanes is part of a multi-decade trend of alternating busy and slow periods related to ocean circulation patterns. Contrary to mainstream thinking, Gray believes ocean temperatures are going to drop in the next five to 10 years.”

But never mind Gray, because I am just as qualified as Gore is to preach about global warming. After all, despite convincing appearances, he’s not a climatologist; he just plays one in his movie. And for years now I’ve been proffering a positivistic interpretation of global-warming data as an antidote to Gore’s holier-than-thou message.

For example, here’s a sample of what I’ve written over the years that informs my own derision of this IPCC report today: “Eminent scientists doubt that the Kyoto Protocol [intended to limit emission of green house gases (CO2) that allegedly cause global warming] is worth the paper it’s written on; not because few countries will actually comply, but because the science that gave rise to it is so patently flawed. Global warming and cooling are natural phenomena that have occurred in (30 to 40 thousand-year) cycles since the beginning of time... believers in global warming uninformed, fad-obsessed herds being led by a cadre of myopic media and political elite.” [February 2005]

“I am convinced that most of the preaching about global warming is just hot air. Moreover, I have no doubt that the planet is getting warmer; that humans (particularly Americans) are marginally to blame; and that it’s going to get even warmer. But I also have no doubt that this warming is simply due to natural climate variations (i.e. a cyclical phenomenon).” [August 2006]

“What I suspect will prove even more inconvenient for [the prophets of global-warming doom], however, is the documentary being aired tonight in London on Channel 4, which features “leading scientists” debunking the myth that carbon dioxide (CO2) released by human activity is the primary cause of global warming.” [March 2007]

Nevertheless, if Gray’s informed condemnation and my uppity cynicism are not sufficient enough to imbue you with reasonable doubt about the presumptive gospel of global warming, perhaps Mother Nature’s own rebuke of this UN decree might suffice.

After all, nothing exposes the utter fatuousness of global-warming prophecies quite like the sight of snow blanketing spring flowers in such perennially warm places as Georgia and Texas – as was the case on Friday.

Moreover, I suspect the hundreds of thousands who made the pilgrimage to Washington, DC last weekend for the annual Cherry Blossom Festival — only to be greeted by trees sprouting icicles — may now give global-warming preachers a chilly reception.

But this might seem devotional compared to the reception they’re likely to get from the multitudes who flocked to see the rites of spring played out on baseball fields all over America — only to be greeted by fields sprouting snowflakes.

Ultimately, though, that Mother Nature made a mockery of the IPCC report in such chilling and phenomenal fashion, and on the very day it was released, is divinely inspired and makes global warming seem like a flaming hoax.

That said, it behooves us in the Caribbean to appreciate that we are God’s “Chosen People” when it comes to preaching about global warming. And, moreover, that the privileges we enjoy from living in this “Promised Land” comes with the responsibility to harmonize economic development with our stewardship of the most precious natural resources on planet earth. Indeed, no one has been more vigilant over the years than I have been in admonishing our regional leaders against despoiling of our beaches with strips of condos and resort hotels for short-sighted and short-term gain.

But I take umbrage at rich Americans and Europeans lecturing us about the uses of what little energy resources we (and others throughout the developing world) have to fuel our economic growth. Because try as we might, even the most profligate amongst us cannot emit as much CO2 in a year as Al Gore emits in a week from fueling everything from his Tennessee mansion to the private jets he travels in to spread his inconvenient truth all over the world.

And, incidentally, I could not be more indignant at rich environmentalists who seek absolution for their environmental sins by “purchasing carbon credits or offsets” in the same spirit with which Catholics once sought absolution for their moral sins by purchasing Papal indulgences.

And their hypocrisy in this respect is only compounded by the fact that these rich environmentalists are getting even richer from investments in China and India — where the amount of CO2 emissions being spewed from coal burned for electricity and coal-fired or natural-gas power plants is rapidly approaching the levels emitted by the world’s worst polluter, the United States. (Talk about the pot calling the kettle black…Never mind the almost-criminal aversion these self-righteous environmentalists have to the cleanest and most efficient source of energy known to mankind: nuclear energy!)

Meanwhile, Christians especially should find the threat that high seas will flood our islands if we do not heed this global-warming gospel not only vacuous but also blasphemous.

After all, with His “Rainbow Covenant”, God promised that He shall never destroy us by water again, because it will be by fire next time.

Therefore, instead of parroting Gore’s hot air about the pollution industrial companies emit in the air, regional environmentalists should join me in complaining about the waste cruise ships dump in our Caribbean Sea.

(Reproduced form Caribbean Net News – www.caribbeannetnews.com)

Anthony L. Hall, a descendant of the Turks & Caicos Islands, is an international lawyer and political consultant, based in Washington D.C., who publishes his own weblog, The iPINIONS_Journal at http://ipjn.com, offering commentaries on current events from a Caribbean perspective.