Controlling our climate is a big deal for some constituencies.  Despite claims of "global warming," "climate change," or whatever this week's terminology is, increased CO2 from burning fossil fuels has served as a crop fertilizer, diminishes plants' need for water, and caused entire regions like the Sahel in North Africa to green up.

But look at this from the perspective of a guy in Michigan.  The place where I'm sitting right now was at the bottom of 300 feet of ice 12,000 years ago.  Thankfully, it all melted due to unaccountable but very welcome global warming.  Some "scientists" assert that the globe warmed up by 16 degrees F since the last (of many) ice age(s).  We have mixed opinions on whether this welcome warming is continuing.  The 3 degrees (maybe) due to man-made industrial pollution is small compared to the 16 degrees ascribed to the latest ice age cycle – think of an unimpressive wave on a vast tide of the ocean sloshing around as the globe turns.  And we have no idea whether the ice-age warming is continuing to wax or whether it is waning.  We could be staring at another ice age for all that climate "scientists" know.

We in Michigan live in a harsh climate, a relatively short growing season, and freeze-thaw cycles that bust up our roads; make cars careen out of control with every freeze; and, as I'm reminded of daily in my FB and email feeds, inspire retirees who can afford it to migrate to Florida in the fall. 

Portside politicians want to deny us the sun-splashed environs every Michigander fantasizes about.  I'd guess most of us would be happy if only our winters were milder and snow-free – say, like those in North Carolina or Georgia.  Yet the same doctrinaire politicians and environmental fanatics decree that we not build cheap and cost-effective gas-fired electric power plants and factories here lest we melt ice somewhere else.  They want to deny us the tools to prosper in our own state.

Why should we in the north worry about slight warming?  The leftist politicians and "scientists" who promise us near-term doom have not accurately predicted our climate in the last 40 years.  (One of our sons is an engineer working at Goddard on weather satellites and knows a bit about Microwave Sensing Units, polar orbits, and the rest.)  They ignore the ice age because it clouds their narrative.  They predict the future by inventing it.  Why let them ruin our lives?  

And why should we vote for people who concoct a future to augment their political power over productive elements here in Michigan, all the while irresponsibly condemning us to their globalist-inspired poverty?

Erwin Haas is a former flight surgeon in Vietnam, Kentwood city commissioner, and assistant clinical professor of medicine at Michigan State.  He is running as a Libertarian for Michigan's 26th state Senate district.  His blog is here.