Tomorrow is the 47th installment of Earth Day, the annual tribute to latter day Chicken Little’s, who use the occasion each year to predict the end of the world.   They have been doing just that since 1970.  The so-called environmentalists take pride in caring about ecology.  They are dedicated to the salvation of the planet.  And they’re “experts” who know all about this stuff, right?  “You better listen to him, he’s premed.”  The fact that they have been completely and consistently wrong all these years simply doesn’t seem to matter.  Their hearts are in the right place.  You ever hear what they say about good intentions paving the road to Hell?  The Green nuts go even one better, they’re predicting Hell on Earth from global warming.  Mind you, these are the same people who said that, by the year 1980 (or was it 2000?), the world would end due to, take your pick, mass starvation, excess levels of nitrogen blocking the Sun, or the depletion of all fossil fuels.  None of those things happened, but it didn’t deter the “experts.”  Now it’s global warming, or, because the warming actually stopped for 17 years, climate change.  They tell us that every year is the hottest year ever recorded.  CO2 is building up in the atmosphere.  They tell us CO2 is a poison, whose concentration must be reduced by closing down industries, or else we’ll all die.  CO2 is carbon dioxide, a gas that we emit every time we exhale.  It’s an essential part of the atmosphere.  Without CO2, plants cannot grow, you know, that kind of poison.  According to the Green “experts,” human beings are causing increased CO2 in the atmosphere, because of all of those nasty industries that employ human beings, and due to so much, well, breathing.  Il Duce Obama told us, time and time again, that the fact of man made climate change was “settled science” as to which there was no dispute; the signatures of 30,000 scientists who say they are unconvinced notwithstanding.  It’s hip to be Green, it’s progressive.  And like every other liberal cause, the facts don’t matter, only the agenda.  What’s driving this madness?  Two things, ideology and arrogance.  Ideology, because the Green movement expanded when the Berlin Wall came down.  In essence, Marxism was falling out of fashion, and the red diaper babies needed someplace to go, so they became environmentalists.  The Reds simply turned Green.  It wasn’t a big change for them, the current anti-growth movement in Europe and elsewhere gives them an opportunity to oppose capitalism for environmental reasons.  The arrogance comes from the willingness of so-called scientists to use data from a historically insignificant period of time, the time during which we have been recording temperatures, to predict the future.  Yes, it has been warmer of late, and yes, CO2 levels have increased, and yes, those two things are indisputable.  The dispute is over causation.  The Earth has been around over 4 billion years, during which time its climate has alternated between what has been called a frigid “Ice House” and a steaming “Hot House.” Some 10 million years ago, palm trees and alligators were common in Northern Europe.  The climate changed.  I’m in New Jersey.  About 18,000 years ago, the place where I’m sitting was under about 100 feet of ice, a period called the glacial maximum, a/k/a the Ice Age.  There have been five global warmings and four Ice Ages in the past 400,000 years, a period of less than 0.1% of the lifetime of the Earth.  From 16,000 BC on, it got warmer.  The glaciers melted, and people had nothing to do with it.  2016 was the hottest year ever, right?  Wrong!  The hottest period in human history was the Holocene Maximum, 7500 to 4000 years ago.  No smokestacks then, so don’t blame Man.  More recently, 800 years ago, pronounced warming allowed the Norse to colonize and raise animals in Greenland.  But after the year 1200 it got colder and the ice came back.  The period from the 1500’s to the early 1800’s was so cold it was called “the Little Ice Age.”  There were widespread crop failures and famines.  Remember how Washington’s troops suffered at Valley Forge in 1777?  If Washington had an EPA back then, I guess it would have outlawed open campfires to reduce CO2.  Then one of two things would have happened.  Either we would have lost the Revolution, or they would have shot the EPA man and thrown his body on the fire.  From 1900 to 1945, there was serous global warming.  An abrupt cooling in 1975 caused scientists to predict a new Ice Age.  Then warming. You get the picture?  The climate has changed and will continue to change, no matter what we poor, benighted humans do.  It was changing before we got here, and it will change after we’re long gone.  Simply put, forget about saving the planet, and worry about saving your own ass.  The planet isn’t going anywhere.  The notion that Man can alter what the inevitable global climate will be is the height of arrogance.  Reduce CO2?  Humans are responsible for less than 3% of the CO2 in the atmosphere.  What that means is that, if the current 400 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere is too high, removing all humans from the Earth, would drop the level to 399 parts per million.  Sound like a good deal to you?  In any case, let’s not be so quick to try to stop the climate from warming.   Professor Valentina Zharkova of North Umbria University has just completed a study which suggests that solar activity is about to fall by 60 per cent during the 2030s, an occurrence last seen during the “Little Ice Age,” in the 17th and 18th Centuries.   It’s a phenomenon known as a “Maunder minimum.”  If she’s right, we’re going to need all the CO2 in the atmosphere that we can get, just to try to keep warm.  Maybe the Green scientists will recommend heavy breathing.