With all the problems the country is having ‘- both in the beleaguered financial markets and in the unprecedented cold streak that the country has been going through in the past weeks ‘- why is Al Gore, former Democratic presidential nominee and vice president under Bill Clinton, going before the U.S. Senate and World Economic Forum to tell them that these and all the countries’ worries are just distractions from the true horror of global warming?

Make no mistake about it. If what Mr. Gore says is true, and we are causing a problem that will cause the destruction of civilization, then we should be worried.

The U.N. Environmental Program even concluded that ‘more than half of resorts in France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Austria could be forced out of business over the next five decades as the snow line rises.’

While many believe that the majority of the scientific community has been bought on the idea of global warming ‘- along with much of the U.S. government ‘- the reality is that the United States’ and United Nations’ environmental programs are run by ‘- and have their policy written by ‘- politicians who readily ignore the words of their own environmental consultants and scientists.

There isn’t even consensus in the United Nations though and the Czech president, Vaclav Klaus, told Mr. Gore last week in Davos that he doesn’t ‘think that there is any global warming,’ adding ‘I don’t see the statistical data for that.’

While the majority of lawmakers seem to tend to agree with Mr. Gore, 30,000 scientists ‘- including 9,000 Ph.D. holders ‘- have lined up with the founder of the Weather Channel, John Coleman ‘- so that they may attempt to put together a lawsuit against Mr. Gore for fraud. Some have even threatened to sue unless Mr. Gore took their names off his list of scientists who support his claims about global warming.

A court case in the United Kingdom even ruled in 2007 over whether or not Mr. Gore’s acclaimed movie, ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ should be showed in classrooms. It was even ruled as political indoctrination and not suitable for public schools and that it had less to do with science and more with his own personal agenda.

No one can deny that the globe is warming. I even went camping over this past weekend and some of the record snowfall felt a little crispier than usual. It has been warmer and colder in the past centuries and at no point has there been more oil burning than now. Polar bears didn’t go extinct then, either.

The consensus of much of the world has seemed to be with Mr. Gore. However, that has changed within the past couple of years. Distinguished scientists ‘- including scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other top universities have produced documentaries ‘- including one called ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle,’ ‘- in which they explain in easily understood methods how much of a joke the worry over climate change really is.

The scientists in the documentary describe some of the natural occurrences they feel do cause climate change, though ‘- whether it be volcanic or even solar activity causing shifts. To these scientists, global warming is occurring, but humans are having less of an effect on the Earth than natural, prolonged cycles of warming and cooling.

This all comes at a time when the country is in a most alarming state. Millions of homes across the country, many in New Hampshire and neighboring states, have been without power due to severe ice and snow storms. Billions of dollars are being spent to research bio-fuels that have been caused the prices of corn and other vegetables to go way up, while showing to be very inefficient. People are getting less hours from work and they can’t afford the expense.

Governments can’t afford to spend what they could in better times on such frivolous things. It now seems silly to think that it would be a good idea to try to cut our carbon dioxide emissions by 80 percent, wasting trillions of dollars even as figures from ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ show CO2 rises to lag behind temperature jumps by 800-2000 years.

In other business and politics, politicians, the media and corporate bodies like Shell ‘-who always loves a good crisis ‘- are all too willing to join with the environmentalist movement. This makes it that much easier to call out as fringe wackos all those who deny global warming.

The difference is that there is now a consensus of scientists ‘- an international financial crisis and a fledgling new administration ‘- as well as a lack of evidence to back up the outrageous claims of people like Mr. Gore. Everyone does agree that the Earth has risen a degree in the past century. What we hear a lot about these days is the belief in change ‘- we just have to learn to be wary of it when it comes in terms of our climate.

Jon Petersen is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].