In January’s State of the Union Address, Barack Obama declared, “The debate is settled. Climate change is a fact.” In February, John Kerry followed up by saying, “In a sense, climate change can now be considered another weapon of mass destruction, perhaps even the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction.” Hillary Clinton couldn’t be left out, adding, “Climate change is a national security problem, not just an environmental problem.” And that’s not to mention the incessant droning of Al Gore.

The Cato Institute’s Roger Pilon, however, threw cold water on them, saying, “The dirty little secret is that we are now at 17 years and eight months of no global warming. Their models have failed year in year out.” Perhaps that’s why climate alarmists have virtually stopped calling it “global warming” and opt instead for the more vague “climate change.”

Indeed, a new comprehensive report, “Climate Change Reconsidered II,” from the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, concludes that climate change has far more to do with natural temperature cycles than manmade pollutants. Of course, that stands in stark contrast to the “official” UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change global warming report, which concludes, again, that climate change is real and very dangerous. Of course the UN’s IPCC conclusions have more to do with their political agenda than climate change.

The NIPCC report, on the other hand, finds three basic things: Warming from greenhouse gases will be so negligible that discerning it from natural variations will be rather difficult; the effects of rising CO2 levels has been mostly positive for plants, animals and humans; and finally, the exceedingly high cost of “doing something” about all this through heavy-handed government regulation isn’t worth it. Just remember, though, “the debate is settled.”