It seems clear that the world's political and cultural and financial elite are determined to do whatever is necessary in their minds to lower the temperature of the planet.

When you cut through all the climate change hysteria, that's what is being proposed.

Taxes will be raised, carbon dioxide production will be punished, income will be redistributed, people will be told what they can do with their lives and what they cannot do, and life-enhancing development will be curtailed. And all of this coercion will be directed by those who know best: the global elite who collectively knows less about science than the average American high-school student in the 1950s.

I suspect most of them don't even believe their dire predictions about global warming. I'm quite certain they understand the riffraff simply need a rationalization for how they are about to be exploited in ways that would have been shocking during the days of feudalism. But put all that aside for a moment.

Let's pretend there really is irreversible global warming taking place because of man's activity on the planet. Let's further pretend the advocates of these radical policies to remake the world in their own image actually could reduce the world's temperatures.

Would it be worth it? Would it be the right thing to do? Would it benefit mankind in any way? Would the result be worth trading off the last vestiges of freedom throughout the world?

Surprisingly, I haven't seen anyone else ask these fundamental questions. And that illustrates the utter absurdity of the global warming frenzy.

These international oligarchs are selling the world's population a make-believe crisis to justify their globalist power grab without the slightest ability to have any impact on the planet's weather patterns or temperatures.

But again, let's imagine they could regulate the weather effectively. Would that be good? Would you trust these people to control the temperature of the world? Would you trust anyone other than God to do that?

Yet that is precisely more of the hot air the global warming chorus is trying to sell us. It would place something as sacred as the world's climate in the hands of men — if indeed they could.

What surprises me a little is that so many average Americans would be willing to hand over that power to a clique of politicians and their shadowy, unaccountable, unelected puppeteers.

Think about this. Would you really want your weather controlled or regulated — even in part — by men with whom you have little or no influence?

The question is so preposterous I can't imagine anyone would answer it affirmatively. But that is one of the monstrous, totalitarian, Big Brother ideas you have to accept to jump on the climate change bandwagon.

There's more to think about, too, in this hypothetical scenario. If indeed men really could change the weather and control temperatures, why do we assume those changes and those controls would be positive?

Lowering temperatures might be attractive if you live in the tropics. But I can't understand why so many Canadians, for instance, would think a colder climate would be beneficial.

Again, if the high priests of global warming actually could make an impact on the weather through their Draconian plans to steal our freedom and our prosperity, their goal of lowering temperatures would be, at best, a net plus for some and a net negative for others. It almost certainly would result in less food production, for example. Consider that fact as we begin to see food shortages and rationing around the globe because of much less significant central planning efforts already under way.

To review and summarize, then, what we're left with when it comes to the global warming agenda is a fraudulent crisis cooked up to control and enslave the world's population under the guise of benevolent global socialism and an equally fraudulent solution to that crisis — one that would be a bad idea even if it could work, which it can't!

Do I have this about right?

To find out more about Joseph Farah and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.