One of my highest aspirations is to train up my two sons to be productive, useful members of society, and to share the goals and values my wife and I have tried to instill in their young minds.  My youngest turns 4 today, and my oldest is just 5.

In the year 2031, they’ll both be about done with college and ready to enter “life” as the rest of us old folks know it.  I’m worried about the kind of world they’ll live in.  Not to worry their little minds over such big issues as global warming today, I decided to write them a letter, which they can open in 2031.  I do plan to be around to see them open it, but I’ll have slept since now so I doubt I’ll remember what I wrote.  No doubt it will be interesting for all of us to read it together.

Dear Sons,

It’s 2031, and you’ve both either graduated college, or are preparing to soon.  If you’re living on my dime, don’t stretch college out too long, because I want to be able to eat in my old age, and from what I see in 2014 both food and college probably cost $1,000 a day in 2031.  I wonder who’s on the thousand dollar bill?  (Wikipedia says it’s Grover Cleveland but in 2031, it might be Barack Obama)

Let’s get to the point.  I’m sure you’re fine and upstanding men.  Your mother and I have taught you our values, and our faith in God.  Before you head out into the wide world, I want to tell you about another religion.  This one is growing in popularity and adding to its number daily.  Children are taught its principles in our schools, and we are all paying tithes to it in so many ways.

I want to tell you about this religion because you very likely are a follower of it by now, and don’t even realize it.  It’s the religion of Climate Change.  In 2014, the Prophets of Climate Change are telling us that the world will suck eggs in 2031.  It will be a teeming, wet, parched, poisonous, starving world.  A bad movie world.  Waterworld, without the mercy of rolling the credits at the end (you’ll have to look that up yourself, sons).  They’re telling us the world will be this way because of Climate Change, or Global Warming.  Maybe in 2031 they have another name for it.  I personally like to call it #OhCrap.  (Do you use #hashtags in 2031?)

My boys, tell me, is the world like the Prophets of Climate Change prophesied in 2014?  Or did we repent?

To be sure, Global Warming is a religion.  It’s got a gospel, commandments, saints, apostles, evangelists, apologists, and even scammer televangelists who want your money.  If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the same as Christianity, just without the worship music.  I kind of like the worship music.  Maybe in 2031, the Church of Global Warming has worship music.  Orcas rapping and stuff.  I never liked rap anyway—I hope it went the way of disco (you’ll have to look that up too, unless disco has made a comeback, in which case, kill me please, really, I’m serious).

The Gospel of Climate Change:  Earth is a jealous Earth, and punishes mankind who harms her (assuming she’s a she, or at least identifies as a she, but Earth doesn’t need a transgender bathroom, because she is the bathroom—rabbit hole there, sorry).  Man has sinned against Earth by using up the hydrocarbons she crushed from millions of years of leaves and bones and worms.  Man burned the hydrocarbons and made CO2 and evil VOCs.  Man cut down Earth’s trees, and built homes.  Man subdued Earth to his own desires.  Man is bad, and must repent.

This gospel was not arrived at through divine revelation, or anything so weird or supernatural.  It was given to man in the form of a Data Model.  Given directly by Earth to man.  Man published the Data Model and created commandments from it.  You might know them already, but in case you don’t, I’ve preserved them for you here.

1. Global Warming (or Climate Change) is Science.
2. You shall have no other Science except Global Warming Science.
3. You shall not make for yourself a data model, a likeness of the Earth, the heaven above, the earth beneath, or the water; other than the Data Model used by Science.
4. You shall not bow down or support other data models, for they are not Science, and will bring ruin upon the Earth.
5. You shall not take the name of Climate Change or Global Warming in vain, or make a mockery of its followers.
6. Remember the Hockey Stick graph, and keep it holy.

The rest are pretty much like the Bible:  don’t murder, don’t take other people’s research, don’t steal, don’t lie about your fellow researchers (unless they are heretics), and don’t covet your fellow researcher’s data or grant money.

Did your schools teach you about the saints and apostles of Climate Change?  Michael Mann, Keeper of the Hockey Stick is one of them.  And Myles Allen, Praetor of Data Models is another.  Whole denominations like the Union of Concerned Scientists dedicate themselves to the evangelism and defense of Climate Change.  They urgently tell us:  repent now, not tomorrow, for the end is at hand.

To me, that’s a familiar message, since I read it in the Bible.  Climate Change has its own eschatology.  It has its own hucksters too.  Al Gore, who you might have learned is the Holy Father of Climate Change, shows up in public at every gathering, flying in his greenhouse-gas-spewing private jet, burning thousands of pounds of fossil fuel an hour.  He lives in a house where 500 Chinese or Indians could live, but doesn’t share it with them.  Al Gore is an A-list hypocrite.  He’s no different than the scammers who sell fake carbon scrubbers made from “Exotic Hydrogen” (that’s hydrogen harvested from the mouth of a volcano in the Azores).

Anyone who deviates from the Canon of Science or thinks there’s Science other than Global Warming is a heretic.   Sons, I must admit to you, I’m a heretic of the first order.  I know, it’s shocking.  But I just don’t see the prophecy.  I haven’t been shown the light.

First of all, I think that man is indeed a steward of the Earth.  We should take care of it, and ourselves.  I am thinking that in 2031 we have quite a different world than the prophets of climate doom prophesied.  I’m also thinking that we didn’t repent like they want us to.

I’m not the only heretic.  Some Scientists like John Christy in Alabama also don’t believe.  True believers won’t even shake his hand in fellowship; you know the rule.  Don’t be unequally yoked with nonbelievers.  It’s one thing for a non-Scientist like me (do they call us Muggles?) to not believe, but a Scientist of Christy’s renown is a major apostate and should be shunned.

Of course, by now in 2031 we know the answer…did the world repent, is the planet a steaming hunk of death and halitosis, or is there a different future?

Here’s why I think we have a different future.

The Church of Climate Change is in basic disharmony with human nature.  They want us to become raw vegan, urban dwellers who believe in socialism and community property.  People just aren’t like that.  We want to have things.  We want to eat meat.  Some like being vegans, and that’s fine, but it’s silly to think we all should do it.  We want our TV’s, internet, music, cars, and our stuff.  The Climate Change people want us to give up our stuff, because to them, that’s repentance.

Stop burning fuel, stop making new stuff, stop eating meat, stop driving, stop living in the suburbs, and all of us in 2014 are saying, no way.  Billions of people in countries like India and China haven’t even had the chance to get their own stuff yet, like Americans, so why would they want to stop making more?  Repentance to the Gospel of Global Warming just isn’t happening.  I think if the prophets are right (but they’re not), Waterworld might be unavoidable, but we’ll party right up to the last day.

The Global Warming Church doesn’t put a whole lot of faith in man.  In fact, they hate mankind.  They’re a church of self-hating, Earth worshiping busybodies who believe their Data Model is the answer to life, the universe, and everything (it’s 42, I hope you’ve read why that’s the answer).  A blue-haired bunch of self-righteous church ladies has nothing on the Climate Change crowd.

I think when we read this letter in 2031, the world will be much better than we believe it will be in 2014.  I don’t mean some kind of Jetsons (look that up) or Meet The Robinsons (look that up too) future, I mean a real future because mankind is pretty clever, and the only thing separating us from a great future is technology.  Here’s a few I’m betting on.

• Fuel cells.  We’ve had them for decades in 2014.  I hope we are using them, better, cheaper, safer and all over the place, in cars, homes and every possible device.  Hydrogen and oxygen are pretty plentiful and cheap.

• Graphene.  A simple matrix of carbon, a very abundant element on Earth.  It is stronger than steel, makes an excellent antenna, transmits heat and current very efficiently, and overall it’s a wonder material.  In 2031, the next Microsoft, Google, and Apple might be the world’s biggest producer of graphene.  The term “cooling fan” is hopefully a thing of the past in 2031.  Graphene doesn’t rust, it doesn’t leech chemicals, and it’s not rare, like copper.  Use it.

• Solar.  We’re getting better at it.  They Climate Change Church wants to shove it down our throats, in 2014, when the technology is not perfected.  It will get there, and we’ve even got some crazy people talking about using them on roadways (why not?).  In 2031, I think solar will be big, especially in growing third world countries (will we have a third world in 2031?  Probably, but I hope it’s not America).

One technology I’m on the fence about is Fusion.  It’s pretty much science fiction in 2014.  We haven’t gotten a tokamak (fusion reactor) to produce any useful power yet, maybe in 2031 we’ve come up with a better way to do it.  There’s a few serious scientists working on other fusion solutions (notably the Lockheed skunkworks).  Will technology catch up to provide unlimited fusion power in 2031?  I’m not betting on it, but hey, we didn’t see the iPod coming in 1978 either.

There are a few technologies which I’m not so hot on, some of which the Climate Change Church loves and I hate, and one on which we sort of agree.

• Nuclear fission.  Anything that produces radioactive waste which must be stored for thousands of years doesn’t sound too enticing.  Plutonium is the most poisonous element I know of; it’s just nasty stuff.  I really hate to pass more of that poison on to your world.  Reactors in 2014 create about 20 metric tons of spent fuel a year plus a huge load of “low-level” waste that needs to be stored for about 100 years.  You’ll be dealing with that in 2031 (I’ll be retiring).  If the prophets are right and it comes down to destroying the planet by burning fossil fuels or creating a few football fields full of awful poisonous crap for you to manage, I’m sorry but the football fields win.  It’s within our power to manage that waste, or eventually launch it into the sun or something, versus living in Waterworld.

• Wind.  To catch the wind, you have to build structures that stand in the wind.  They blot out the sun, have blades that create resonant frequency noise which makes people sick to their stomachs, kill birds, and ruin perfectly good views of pastoral hilltops.  In short, they’re a bloody nuisance.  I don’t have much use for wind power on a large scale.  I hope we don’t have too much of it in 2031.

• Tidal.  There’s a great idea, put huge undersea devices in tidal areas to convert the mechanical energy of moving water to electricity.  Salt water + moving parts + generators + cables = maintenance nightmare.  I’ll take a football field full of nuclear waste over ten thousand square meters of nightmare at the bottom of the sea.  Tidal power will become a monument to humans’ capability to create ruins where none existed—great, hulking, rusting ruins forever marring our coasts.  They can keep it.

• Geothermal.  The center of the earth is really hot.  If you drill down far enough, the hot comes up the hole.  This is the theory at least.  It really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to drill thousands and thousands of deep holes in the earth, so the idea is limited to, say, Iceland and G.W. Bush’s ranch (G.W. Bush used to be president of the US; do they still teach that?) in Midland, Texas.  Fail.

There you go, my sons: the rantings of a heretic of the Church of Climate Change in a nutshell.  I and heretics like me subscribe to a higher power:  common sense.  Every generation, people say the world is going to hell in a hand basket.  Most of these the-end-is-coming people are religious in nature.  Jesus is coming,  The twelfth Imam is coming.  Climate Change is coming.  There might not be a lot of science behind Jesus coming, but I believe that.  It’s one of the few non-scientific things that makes complete and total sense:  we are here for a purpose, and the purpose has a fulfillment, an end to match our means.

Climate change may be coming, but we’ll just put on warmer jackets, or cooler T-shirts.  If the seas rise, we will adapt like we always do.  We are not here to serve the Earth, but to use our God-given common sense, imagination, and powerful minds to better ourselves and our world.

I want you both to use your minds to serve God and to serve your fellow man.  You don’t have to bow down to the Earth worshipers.  You don’t have to submit yourselves to the Church of Climate Change.  You don’t have to think like they do.  You don’t have to hate mankind.  You just don’t.  If I’ve taught you properly, you know all this.

But just in case you don’t know it:  if you take nothing else from this letter, hold on to this:  beware the Church of Climate Change.  They are just trying to subjugate you by mind control, and they’re just after your money.  Stay away from those crazies.

Love,  Dad.