BERLIN - JANUARY 23: A snowman is pictured with a poster reading 'I'm hot' on January 23, 2010 in Berlin, Germany. According to the motto 'Rescue the snowmen' environmentalists protest against global warming and invite strollers to build snowmen next to the berlin cathedral themselfs. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

Global warming is a hoax, and climate change is just a lot of liberal gobbledygook is one of the most memorable statements that I’ve heard regarding this ever changing thing we call weather, and the conservative brand has gotten some prime traction off of this line of thinking. The statement was made by a conservative, Southern Baptist preacher from the Bible Belt of the East Arkansas area to express conservative disdain for former presidential nominee Al Gore of the 2000 presidential campaign. And despite this current helping of so much extreme weather around the country, this conservative laden, balderdash approach to climate change remains stronger than ever.

And yes, we are talking about Al Gore—the man who might singlehandedly be the catalyst for the delegitimization of the scientific possibilities of global warming/climate change at the hands of hecklers from the religious world, the conservative world, the business world, and the media. From outlets such as Fox News to the show South Park, heckling non-believers have all taken aim at the idea of global warming and used Gore as the San Diego Chicken-like mascot of the cause, which has cost Gore and the ideology of global warming a significant amount of credibility, as science is turned into a non-provable, fictional myth—sometimes through many of the religious conservative’s tendency to cling to what has also been described by some as another non-provable, fictional myth!

Well forget about the fictional myth part, and try telling that to the people in the Washington D.C. area, who have been baked relentlessly by sweltering heat, battered by destructive thunderstorms, and are now forced to bake again in the sweltering heat without power. Maybe the myth is not so fictional.

Tell it to the people in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, New Jersey, Texas and even here in my home state of Arkansas, who have battled wildfires as many, especially in Colorado, have been forced to run for their lives at a moment’s notice as a towering inferno barrels down on them destroying everything in its path. Could this be more than just a coincidence?

Tell it to the farmers across the country whose parched crops continue to beg for rain in 2012. And, this is not new. Texas baked in an unrelenting drought throughout most of 2011  as well, as it continues to face even more drought now. In fact, the Dallas-Fort Worth area had at least 70 days of triple-digit heat, while Wichita Falls faced 100 days of triple-digit temperatures, and this was all in 2011.

So as most of the nation continues to fry in the heat of 2012 from Texas to Chicago to Maryland, maybe it’s time to re-examine the liberal gobbledygook,
and there is not a better place to start than with the conservative trumpet known as Fox News, because the Southern Baptist preacher was not revealing an original thought with his global warming, gobbledygook talk. His statement came straight from the talking points of Fox News and other conservative pundits—especially from conservatives who refer to global warming as ‘climate gate.’

So for those who staunchly believe that global warming is a hoax, especially conservatives,  allow me to shed some light on the rationale of the conservative mindset regarding tough, discomforting complexities like race, homosexuality or global warming. There is a line in an old rap song by the rapper Ice T called Colors where he says “Any problem I got, I’ll just put my fist in!” Now even though hip-hop is arguably the least credible means on the planet, teachable moments have a tendency of turning up almost anywhere—even in a rap song. The ideology of the line ‘Any problem I got, I’ll just put my fist in’ is totally representative of a limited means attempting to corral an unlimited force, whether it’s with one’s fist or one’s philosophical beliefs.
For instance, intellectual conservatives will sum up the seriousness of climate change by characterizing it as a trend in the weather, while southern, religious conservatives have often explained it along the lines of God leaving his clothes in the dryer too long to teach all of us a lesson, because the country has become too secularized!

First of all, a trend in the weather is a lot different than a trend to you or to me. A trend for us could last for days, weeks, or some years, but a trend in the weather could last for a few centuries. There are some who consider the Ice Age to be a trend. So, the idea of just a trend could have dire consequences!

But it is the fable-like rationalization of God leaving his clothes in the dryer for too long or leaving Black people in the oven for too long that is right in line with the whole gobbledygook, global warming is a myth thing, because it attempts to dumb down a feared or misunderstood complexity into a suitable, digestible level for simpleton consumption, and this too is nothing new. It’s cut from the same pacifying rationale that would suggest that the sound of thunder is God bowling in the sky.

So when a person declares that global warming is a hoax, what that person is really saying is: I like my cultivated opinion much more than I like the world’s fact-driven reality, and I’m going to cling to my guns, my religion, and my non-ethnic condition no matter what, because Rush Limbaugh doesn’t know if global warming is a hoax anymore than you or me! But it doesn’t matter, because the possibilities of the real truth take a backseat to the reassuring, agreeable truths that so many seem to be looking for.

This is why when people, especially conservatives, revel so nonchalantly in the belief that global warming is a hoax, it’s not because they have proof that global is a hoax. It’s just people who have made a conscious or unconscious decision—depending on how you want to look at it, not to deal with the issue of climate change realistically. And, Texas Governor Rick Perry’s pray for rain dance rally back in 2011 is a classic example of it.

Now it is very possible that no one has the single undisputed trigger to what causes global warming, and no one seems to have the undisputed, smoking gun that will convince the entire world that global warming or climate change is even real. But maybe a smoking gun or a deadly trigger is not needed to see that something extreme is going on with our weather, and it doesn’t seem to be a coincidence, and it most certainly is not gobbledygook!

Instead of turning Al Gore into a scientific, circus clown in a liberal tent to try and justify why he deserved to be robbed of the presidential election in 2000, naysaying liberals, the few that there are, and the hordes of ‘don’t confuse me with the facts’ conservatives should seriously reconsider the possibility of climate change.

Because even though believing it is a hoax makes you one cool conservative, what if you’re wrong? What if it’s not a hoax? How cool will you look when rising sea levels threaten the coastlines of every continent on the planet? How cool will you look when it’s 105 degrees in Alaska, as Sarah Palin tries to convince you that it’s just God baking a cake, because he’s offended by too much snake oil science being popularized?