When you listen to those who say that human-caused global-warming is a fact, you will hear statements like “The science is settled,” and “We should defer to what the scientists say.”

So, the question is, is it science, or cult science?

First, let me explain why a writer whose column is titled “Populist Economics” is musing about climate science.

The reason is The-Mother-of-All-Environmental-Laws  -- climate-change legislation --  is coming.

Every time an environmental law is passed, politicians affect the choices of your life and opportunities you have to get a job, make money to support yourself and your family.

Frankly, to this observer, the most of the environmental laws passed are detrimental to those ends, and ironically, do little to protect the environment or people, and, in fact, may actually harm them.

One recent example was the forced introduction of MTBE additive to gasoline by Angus King during his governorship. He eventually made the correct decision to withdraw the order, but not before wells and aquifers were poisoned.

The same may be true of wind-powered electricity today. King may realize that before Maine’s mountains, coastlines and economy are gutted. But don’t count on it. He stands to make too much money.

Let’s go back to the premise behind climate-change legislation and wind-powered electricity: global-warming.

Is it science?

Next time someone says global warming is human-caused, ask them to cite their source.

Usually they’ll say something like, "Everyone says it’s true,’" or "Didn’t you watch Al Gore’s movie?: or some other vapid reason.

After that, they’ll cite some governmental report like the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or a report by NASA or NOAA that says the last 10 years were “the warmest in history.”

Well, the studies may have been done by scientists, but aren’t very scientific.

The scientists who did the IPCC study can’t produce the original data they based their work on, just the adjusted data. Kind of like the kid who says “the dog ate my homework.”

A report issued on April 14 by The Center for Science and Public Policy found the NASA/NOAA study to be faulty. These scientists, the report claims,  reduced the number of temperature stations over the period of the study from 6,000 to less than 1,500. They systematically removed the colder rural, mountain, and northern weather stations, but they left in the warmer urban, airport and coastal stations, the report asserts.

This skewed the average temperature data upward.

As Joe d’Aleo, one of the authors of the study wrote, “Also, most of the stations did not meet the government's own criteria for siting, which also produced a warm bias.  Had proper adjustments been made to correct for these data source issues, they would have found what we see when we look at well sited rural stations, cyclical changes but no net warming.

This means climate change is real, but natural.

Instead these issues were ignored and the data was manipulated in ways to introduce and enhance a net warming,” d'Aleo said.

Human-induced bias is what forced the temperature averages upward, not CO2 emissions.

That is unscientific.

Are we supposed to trust the "science guys" that can’t find their homework, or people whose pay and jobs are dependent on unscientific methods and manipulated data?

In doing these things, they have destroyed the credibility of climate science.

Yet, all of our congressional representatives believe in this man-made myth.

They and their staffs are all working on passing climate-change legislation.

Such laws will negatively impact the choices you and your family will have and be able to make.

Climate change legislation will change the price, quality and quantity of the food you buy, the clothes you wear, the car you drive, the vacations you take -- everything.

Several thousand high-paying jobs will be lost to better locations overseas.

If such legislation as the Waxman-Markey Bill, supported by  Rep. Michael Michaud (D-Maine) and Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), or the Senate's Clear Act, supported by Sens.  Collin and Snowe, pass, those jobs will go.

The managers and employees of Maine-based high-tech companies have warned our congressional representatives and their staffs of this fact.

Yet, they ignore these real warnings.

Higher unemployment, higher taxes and higher costs will be the result. Fewer quality job opportunities and a dim future await our children, while they and their staffs continue in  high-paying tax-payer funded jobs that offer fully paid health care and lavish retirements, with all the perks and trappings of wealth and power. Our representatives would seem to prefer to play games with our lives and our children’s lives to seemingly satisfy their greedy penchant for power and prestige.

Is this is their version of "social justice?"

They act like the fortune tellers at the fair, intoning concern over "serious dangers" and divine dire doom and disaster caused by global warming.

“We must appease the angry god of global warming for the good of the earth and humanity,” they say.

Look, we all like a good show, but we can choose to not to enter their tent, let them con us out of our money or be alarmed by their dread tales and superstitions.

Suffice to say, when climate scientists and  their political hawkers start acting like soothsayers and three-card monty dealers, it is time to shut down the carnival.

Better yet, vote them out of office and remove their staffs.