“DEAR EDITOR: I am 48 years old.
“Some of my conservative friends say there is no Global Warming.
“The UN says, ‘If you see it in a peer reviewed journal it’s so.’
“Please tell me the truth; is there Global Warming?
“VIRGINIA O’HANLON.
“115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET.”
VIRGINIA, your conservative friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their rational minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are rational. That is why we have public schools! To reduce these rational minds of ours to the level of a mere insect, an ant, in our intellect, as compared with the boundless world about us, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, VIRGINIA, there is Global Warming. It exists as certainly as an effective United Nations and a peaceful Iranian nuclear program and a million jobs saved exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Global Warming. It would be as dreary as if there were no political correctness! There would be faith then, poetry, romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would not be extinguished.
Not believe in Global Warming! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your government to hire scientists to watch in all the weather stations in the world to catch Global Warming, but even if they did see temperatures coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Global Warming, but that is no sign that there is no Global Warming. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see conservative ‘potential terrorists’ dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You may tear apart the baby’s body and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only a lack of faith, fancy, individualism, love, and commitment to the Constitution, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Global Warming! Thank any deity but God! it lives, and it lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, it will continue to make glad the hearts of all unethical scientists seeking government grants.