Paul Watson, co-founder of Green-peace, told a re-porter for Forbes Magazine: "It does not matter what is true. It only matters what people believe is true." People believe global warming is occurring because Greenpeace says it is. They believe it because Vice President Al Gore and even the President of the United States say it is true. It must be true; all these people wouldn’t lie.

Unfortunately, the policy makers of the world also believe it is true, and are busily constructing global policies to remedy the problem – whether or not the problem truly exists.

Most of the climate scientists of the world readily admit that they simply do not yet know what effect, if any, man-made carbon dioxide emissions may have on global climate. A report published in the United Nation’s Climate Change Bulletin, said that of 400 climate scientists surveyed in Germany, Canada, and the U.S., the vast majority could not say that "global warming" is a process that is already underway.

The Clinton-Gore Administration wants you to believe it is occurring. In 1990, when the UN issued its first report – which fanned the spark that produced the 1992 treaty – the claim was that the planet would warm between three and eight degrees by 2050. In 1992, the UN scientists issued a revised report that said ... excuse me, we didn’t take the clouds into account – we now think that the planet will warm between two and six degrees before the end of the century. Then, another report in the Spring of 1996, said further refinements in our computer models now lead us to believe that the climate will warm about one degree over the next 100 years.

Perhaps in another seven years of refining the models, the computers will predict about a half-degree change over the next century, which is what the actual scientific record reflects for the last century – which many scientists agree is well within the range of normal variability.

To put this global warming foolishness into perspective, Dr. Robert Stevenson, an oceanographer and former scientific liaison officer for the Office of Naval Research, says that the mean high temperature in the Antarctic is minus fifty-five degrees Celsius. If the temperature could rise by 55 degrees, it would have to stay at zero degrees for a thousand years to melt the ice. And since 97% of all the ice is already in the water, if it did melt, sea levels would actually go down.

The allegation of global warming is not supported by the science, nor are the wild, exaggerated claims of catastrophic consequences. On the other hand, however, the consequences of the remedies now being fashioned will be catastrophic for America – and it does not take a scientist or a Philadelphia lawyer to understand it. Man-made carbon dioxide emissions are primarily the result of burning fossil fuels. Virtually all transport is powered by fossil fuels. Eighty-five percent of all electricity in America is produced from fossil fuels. The only way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is to reduce the consumption of fossil fuel energy. The most effective way to reduce the consumption of energy is to increase the price by taxing fossil fuel products beyond affordability.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy’s own studies, the economic impact of the emission reduction proposals will adversely impact 70 percent of the American economy, affecting 1.8 million jobs. It is estimated that 20 to 30 percent of the basic chemical industry would move to developing countries. All primary aluminum smelters would close by 2010. The steel industry would lose 100,000 jobs. Domestic paper production would be displaced by imports. Petroleum refiners would see a 20 percent reduction in output. And between 23 and 35 percent of the cement industry would shut down. This – according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

As bad as the economic impact is certain to be, it is not the worst consequence of the protocol scheduled for adoption in Kyoto, Japan this December. Most environmental organizations and UN bureaucrats lust after control of vast stretches of vegetation that are not molested by human activity known as "carbon sinks." Since carbon sinks play a critical role in sequestering carbon dioxide, many policy makers believe it is necessary to regulate human activity on them – whether publicly or privately owned.

These lustful fantasies are simply another excuse to gain public control over private lands. But the threat is very real. Discussions among the negotiators have included linking the Climate Change Treaty to the Convention on Biological Diversity expressly to control the activity on large tracts of land.

There is still another consequence worse than the known economic devastation and the potential loss of private property rights - the further erosion of our national sovereignty. What our President and Vice President are asking this country to do, is to place into the hands of the United Nations, the authority to determine our domestic energy policy. They can dictate how much carbon dioxide America can emit and how much fossil fuel America can consume. America’s energy policy must remain exclusively in the hands of the United States Congress.

National sovereignty will be further eroded by making the protocol "legally binding," a condition already agreed to by the Clinton-Gore Administration. The UN will have the authority to monitor America’s industries for compliance, and the authority to enforce its policies.

In two years of negotiations, very little has been said publicly about how the UN intends to monitor carbon dioxide emissions in the 34 countries regulated by the protocol. The Chemical Weapons Treaty may serve as an example. Under that recently ratified treaty, an agency of the UN has the authority to appoint an international committee that has the authority to visit any site in America, examine records, and even confiscate materials, without a search warrant and without the permission of the owner. And the American government is treaty-bound to enforce such monitoring. What an excellent opportunity for industrial espionage.

What is to be done about the nation, or the industries within a nation, found to be in violation of the UN regulations? One idea advanced by the World Wide Fund for Nature is the creation of an enforcement mechanism within the Conference of the Parties, empowered to levy a $50 tax per ton/year of excess emission, with the proceeds used by the UN to promote development in the 131 countries not covered by the protocol. This is nothing less than an unabashed effort to redistribute wealth.

A recent unnoticed, but extremely significant announcement was made by the UN Secretary-General to present a treaty to create the International Criminal Court. This new UN entity has been under development since 1994 – mostly behind closed doors – and was included in the 1995 UN-funded Commission on Global Governance report entitled Our Global Neighborhood. According to that report, the new International Criminal Court will have a panel of prosecutors authorized to investigate violations of international law inside the borders of sovereign nations – without interference from national governments.

The Commission on Global Governance clearly sees the new court as a necessary way to enforce all international law. The report says explicitly, "The very essence of global governance is the capacity of the international community to ensure compliance with the rules of society."

However the protocol is enforced, the result will further erode our national sovereignty and further strengthen global governance.

The protocol to the Climate Change Treaty will be finalized during the last negotiating session in Bonn, Germany next month. It will be adopted by the Third Conference of the Parties meeting in Kyoto, Japan in December. The Clinton-Gore Administration has mounted a traveling dog-and-pony show in cities across America to make Americans believe that global warming is a "real and imminent" threat – when the truth is, that global warming is neither real, nor a threat.

Mr. Gore will travel to Kyoto where he is expected to give America’s full support to the protocol. Millions of Americans will see 60-second sound bites and applaud America’s leadership in saving the planet from a problem that doesn’t exist.

It doesn’t matter what’s true; what matters is what people think is true. Global warming is not real – but people think it is. Global governance is very real – but people think it is not.

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