A sorry collection of 212 Democrats and eight shameless Republicans in the United States House of Representatives sought to inflict serious economic damage upon the American people when they voted for a bill designed to combat a fantasy, global warming — a figment of their inflamed imaginations.

As the debate on the infamous cap-and-trade bill droned on, member after member of Congress rose to describe the horrors global warming is allegedly inflicting upon helpless humanity.

What horrors? What global warming?

Republicans who dared to question the holy writ of anthropological global warming (AGW) were hooted down by the apostles of doom, their arguments based on solid science and good old fashioned common sense greeted with the kind of derision usually reserved for those who believe the moon is made of green cheese and the earth is flat.

That the opponents of this ruinous legislation had the facts at their fingertips and could provide ample proof if any is needed that the planet is not warming but instead is rapidly cooling, made not a scintilla of difference. Mr. Gore's disciples know better. Al told them so.

Al told them a lot of things and most of them are demonstrably untrue, but Al told them and therefore they must be true. After all, Al has made $100 million out of the global warming panic and stands to pocket $1 billion if the Senate votes for cap-and-trade, and anyone who can pile up that much money must be right.

Right?

There are big bucks to be made out of global warming. General Electric, for example, stands to pocket billions out of the cap-and-trade scam if the Senate is stupid enough to pass the bill, and most of that bonanza will come directly out of the pockets of America's families who will pay more for energy and taxes. But hey, isn't it worth it if it will save the planet?

The bill seeks to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide, but top scientists such as Canada's Dr. Tim Ball, for 32 years a professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg, say it's nonsense:

"Global Warming, as we think we know it, doesn't exist," he wrote. "Global Warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). This in fact is the greatest deception in the history of science. We are wasting time, energy and trillions of dollars while creating unnecessary fear and consternation over an issue with no scientific justification."

Meanwhile, out in the real world, it's getting colder. Here it is the end of June and around the Northern Hemisphere it has been more like winter in some areas.

As I wrote last week, it snowed in England early this month. Arizona has seen its coolest June weather since 1913, summer in Utah is coming a month late and there were record low maximum temperatures in 41 states and a total of 593 new records according to iceagenow.com.

It is becoming clear to more and more climate experts that something is happening and it is not global warming. Those who study the sun and its demonstrable effect on climate — it does warm the earth and make it habitable after all — are expressing alarm over the near-disappearance of sun spots that many experts insist portends global cooling of at least 30 or more years.

A research paper published in February in the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics and reported in iceagenow forecasts another Dalton Minimum (little ice age).

According to that paper, solar variability is controlled by the internal dynamo. "We base our findings on the generally accepted mechanisms of the dynamo and on recently found systematic properties of the long-term solar variability. These findings enable us to forecast solar activity," the authors wrote.

“We find that the system is presently undergoing a transition from the recent Grand Maximum to another regime. This transition started in 2000 and it is expected to end around the maximum of cycle 24, foreseen for 2014, with a maximum sunspot number Rmax = 68 ± 17. At that time a period of lower solar activity will start. That period will be one of regular oscillations, as occurred between 1730 and 1923. The first of these oscillations may even turn out to be as strongly negative as around 1810, in which case a short Grand Minimum similar to the Dalton one might develop. This moderate to low-activity episode is expected to last for at least one Gleissberg cycle (60 - 100)."

Some climatologists say the lack of the usual number of sun spots will lead to a new little ice age as it did in the last little ice age, which lasted from 1300 until 1850. And it could be worse.

Consider this: For the past five million years the earth has undergone periods of glaciations, each lasting about 90 thousand years and followed by a period of about 10,000 to 12,000 years of temperate interglaciation. The last ice age ended about 12,000 years ago. That should warn us that our time is about up. An ice age may be upon us.

What's amusing about all of this folderol about global warming and the incredible deceit that mankind can somehow legislate the behavior of the earth's climate is our long-demonstrated inability to accurately forecast next week's weather.

Senators, please take notice.

Phil Brennan writes for Newsmax.com. He is editor and publisher of Wednesday on the Web (http://www.pvbr.com) and was Washington columnist (Cato) for National Review magazine in the 1960s. He is a trustee of the Lincoln Heritage Institute and a member of the Association For Intelligence Officers.

He can be reached at pvb@pvbr.com.

www.newsmax.com/brennan/Senate_global_warming_/2009/06/30/230546.html