Here's a question we need answered by the GOP candidates. "What are you going to do about global warming?" I know. I know. It's now "climate change." And, yes, the Climate Research Unit's (CRU) hockey stick graph has been pulled from the IPCC reports. And, sure, sunspots have been given a (tiny) bit of scientific credence to explain the "anomaly" of the steady -- or perhaps even slightly decreasing -- temperature of the planet over the last few years. And, after the "fudge factor" fiasco at the CRU, atmospheric scientists at least seem to be checking their arithmetic.

Still, someone needs to ask the GOP candidates running for President of the United States...straight up: "What are you going to do about global warming?" Not a scientific question like: how quickly is the atmosphere heating?  None of them would know the answer to that question because no one knows the answer. Certainly not a faith-based question like "Do you believe in man-made global warming?" Who cares what they believe? What matters is what they will do if elected.

Remember, the initial theory was that the planet was warming exponentially. That's what was so scary about the hockey stick graph:

The theory used to be that the atmosphere's temperature was going to keep going up -- relentlessly. The prediction was that the world would get hotter and hotter, faster and faster. I've been writing about global warming on American Thinker since 2008. I would love to show you the links to the scientific websites that assert the earth is heating exponentially. The links are still there in my old articles -- but the claims have disappeared.

The website that contends the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is rising exponentially is still up and running. So is the warning: "Do the math. Time is running out faster now." Well, maybe time is running out and maybe it isn't. If the increase in temperature really were exponential, the earth would be almost 3 degrees warmer today than it was in 1990 -- if I have read the tiny print on the hockey stick graph correctly. That hasn't happened.

Al Gore has been proclaiming, for almost ten years, that extreme political measures must be taken to save the planet. As I write this piece, Gore's website's # 1 claim is: "Climate change is projected to shrink the world's chocolate supply." It could be worse, I suppose: "Climate change raises average time for pizza deliveries." (Worldwide, of course.)

One supposes that the Obama administration agrees that global warming is a dire situation, perhaps calamitous enough to shrink the global chocolate output. But surely the stability of the world's supply of Snickers does not justify the EPA declaring CO2 a hazard to human health and welfare.

Getting back to the question. It doesn't matter if the GOP candidate is asked to raise a hand if he or she believes in global warming. (It does matter that they are naïve enough to act like a third grader and respond to the moderator's request. And what's up with all this "raise your hand if..." nonsense anyway? How mature are these candidates? More important, was, does the GOP allow the debates to be moderated by people intent on making the candidates look silly?) It doesn't even matter if a candidate believes that human emissions of CO2 have caused the climate to warm. Maybe they have. Not very much -- and certainly not exponentially. But maybe -- a little.

So, the question is, "What are you going to do about global warming?" The candidate who answers "Nothing" gets my vote.