Climate change is a hallmark cause for President Barack Obama., evidenced by his relentless drive to convince the world that global warming is a bigger threat than ISIS. The question is why? The answer is in plain sight. One need only apply the old journalistic axiom: "Follow the money."

Why did former Vice-President Al Gore repeatedly declare that he was going to become "the first global warming billionaire" -- did that not pique any journalist's curiosity as to what was behind the curtain? After losing his bid for the presidency, becoming the first global warming billionaire was Gore's road not only to extraordinary wealth, but a guarantee of his return to global influence.

Set up to unfold was a "golden parachute" scheme that would line the pockets of a cadre of elitists and global-warming advocates long after they were displaced from their seats of power. This scheme used deceptive means to a profitable end.

Few realize that the “green movement” is about building large personal fortunes for an elite few. President Barack Obama laid out his threat to bypass Congress and ignore the American people during his 2013 State of the Union address by exerting his authority under Executive Orders:

“I will direct my Cabinet to come up with executive actions we can take, now and in the future, to reduce pollution, prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy.”

Obama's green energy plan put the coal industry on life-support, targeted oil and gas as the enemy and sought to impose restrictions on power plants that generate electricity to homes and businesses. What the president reportedly hides behind the curtain is his alliances with international green elites, a select group of political and Wall Street cronies, and energy regulatory czars who have orchestrated a CO2 carbon-taxing scheme that would put billions of dollars into their own pockets. A regulatory structure is being assembled through federal agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Long in the designing, the elements were close to being in full play. The plans were drawn, the carbon-credit trading exchange, registered as the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), was established and set to transfer cash. A privately-owned Chicago bank was ready as a depository and for routing money transfers.

The June 16, 2009 Bloomberg article, “Sandor Got Obama’s Nod for Chicago-Style Climate Law” by Jim Efstathiou Jr., reported that a carbon-capping bill set to be imposed on American businesses was the cornerstone of Obama’s environmental agenda. Bloomberg quotes CCX founder Richard Sandor as saying that the bill began "...way, way to the left with provisions to push U.S. utilities into bankruptcy.” The article further reads: “Sandor launched the Chicago Climate Exchange, or CCX, in 2003 after getting two research grants from the Chicago-based Joyce Foundation. Obama was on the foundation that gave us the grant, Sandor said. We know him well.” CCX reportedly is now under the auspices of Environmental Financial Products which lists its Chairman and CEO as Richard Sandor.

With CCX officials lamenting the sidelining of a carbon-credit trading exchange (similarly structured to the stock exchange with transaction fees), Nathaniel Gronewold of ClimateWire published the following on January 3, 2011:

"Meanwhile, CCX's sister institutions, the European Climate Exchange and the Chicago Climate Futures Exchange, will continue as long as there is corporate and state government interest in fighting climate change, even with the failure of cap and trade in the U.S. Congress, CCX officials insist."

During the recent 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, Mr. Obama made another high-stakes play to push through his green agenda despite the high cost to even the poorest of Americans. A list of powerful global titans from politics to banking to Wall Street remain on the ready to engage in a revived carbon-emissions trading program. They do so despite the evidence that weighs against any such necessity.

A new report by Dr. Indur Goklany, an international authority on climate change, was published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Dr, Goklany states:

"The academies claim that fossil-fuel use has reduced the world’s sustainability and resilience. But despite record human numbers and carbon-dioxide emissions, human wellbeing has never been higher, by virtually any measure whether climate-sensitive or     not. The average person has never lived longer or been healthier or wealthier. Living standards are at their highest ever; poverty, hunger, malnutrition, and mortality from vector-borne diseases and extreme events are at record lows. There is no indication that these trends are being reversed."

Publicized reversals by such global-warming heavyweights as the United Nation’s Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, head of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and NASA’s James Hansen now state that global temperatures have not substantially risen for nearly two decades. Yet, Obama gears up to invest billions of America’s tax dollars in the green abyss, even while other countries across the globe are backing away. European nations have already experienced a severe hit to their economies and negative blowback from their citizens.

Scientific facts that Mr. Obama and his assemblage of global elitists prefer that you not know come from Edmund Contoski, an environmental consultant for more than 40 countries. In Liberty Unbound, Contoski writes: “The overwhelming majority (97%) of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere comes from nature, not from man.” Based on scientific data, “Not only are worms contributing to the CO2 in the atmosphere,” Contoski further notes that, “volcanoes, swamps, rice paddies, fallen leaves, and even insects and bacteria alone emit ten times more carbon dioxide than all the factories and automobiles in the world. Even natural wetlands emit more greenhouse gases than all human activities combined.” Nature itself foils the environmentalists as The U.S. Department of Energy admits that once emitted that 98% of all the carbon dioxide emissions are again absorbed by nature. Contosky then queries, “Termites emit ten time more CO2 than humans, should we cap-and-tax them?”

The media neglect the real reason Barack Obama wants your hard-earned dollars to flow into a global green machine. Barack Obama continues to push, at the expense of America and beyond all logic and recent scientific data, for a long-term and massive financial commitment to global warming.

You control the world's energy distribution, you control the world. Now, if only they can get the little people to "believe" that global warming is a bigger threat than ISIS, the global elites of the future will have the ultimate golden parachute.

CCX now comes up as Page Not Found. The Chicago Climate Exchange reportedly changed names. While ultimately drowning the carbon-trading scheme and not shorelines, nature turned on the CCX planners when the Himalayas did not melt, the polar bear population grew, and carbon dioxide output revived and increased farming yields that today feed millions more people across the globe as a result.

Sharon Sebastian, author of “AGING: WARNING– Navigating Life’s Medical, Mental & Financial Minefields," is a columnist, commentator, and contributor in print and on nationwide broadcasts. Website: www.AgingWarning.com