This coming Sunday, India is to ratify the 2015 Paris climate accord.  Earlier this month, in Hangzhou, China, President Obama accepted on behalf of all Americans--without the official approval of the people’s duly elected representatives in Congress--the international climate agreement aimed at greatly reducing “greenhouse gas” emissions.  The airy decree is more likely to greatly reduce American sovereignty and economic growth.

Poll after poll shows that potentially dangerous climate change is not high on the list of concerns by U.S. citizens.  Instead, people fear lack of good jobs and recurring terrorist attacks.

The president, on the other hand, apparently fears not having yet another lasting legacy of his choosing, as if being president is about personal legacies rather than simply doing right by the electorate and let that be your legacy.

World powers like India, China, and Russia see the tremendous benefit in a climate agreement.  Such agreement would further help hobble American influence on the world stage by misdirecting our efforts to ethereal problems rather than real-world challenges like international trade imbalance.  While we chase dubious “carbon pollution” at home, polluting factories overseas can work overtime for their governments to amass their own global wealth and dominance.

What is needed is a refocusing and redoubling of efforts to strengthen America’s commitment for good in the world.  But, that’s hard to do when so many of the decisions of the current administration look to be based on leftist elitist arrogance.  Such arrogance seems to permeate so much of society--in academia, entertainment, media, and certainly politics.

And, a high level of condescension has overtaken, to a large extent, climate science.

The dominance of science from an ideological/political perch, whether from the right or from the left, is wrong.  Such control emboldens strong intimidation and suppression of reasonable exploration of the real state of the planet.

A scientist must be free to explore any hypothesis or doubt.  Great discoveries and theories are made by those who think outside the box--less so by those trapped inside.  Furthermore, the truth is not the winner of a popularity contest or consensus-view pageant; nor is science so fragile that it cannot withstand sharp criticism, vigorous debate, and fiercely independent research.

Good scientists practice humility, understanding that arrogance leads to errors.  They know that the purpose of science is to discover facts--not invent them.

Long-range, catastrophic climate change from increased “carbon pollution” is not a fact, it’s a prediction based on a hypothesis.  The prediction is a convenient one that is far enough out (the permanent sweltering of mid-latitude cities by mid-century, for example), that the hyping and embellishing of outrageous prognostications can only be endured not refuted.

In the meantime, lots of research grants and global power are to be reaped.  And academic climate researchers and politicians worldwide are harvesting the ripened crop.  As the saying goes, “Make hay while the sun is shining.”

And as the sun shines, the world governments are certainly making hay of the profitable business of cataclysmic global warming.

Anthony J. Sadar is a Certified Consulting Meteorologist and author of In Global Warming We Trust: Too Big to Fail (Stairway Press, 2016).