When liberals said global warming causes crime, no one knew it was because they planned on prosecuting their opponents! Late last week, climate alarmist Lawrence Torcello didn’t do his movement any favors when he lobbied for jailing global warming skeptics (which, after yesterday’s storm, might have included the entire city of Washington). It was a new low for an environmental movement that is already God’s gift to late-night comedy.

Torcello, a professor at New York’s Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), tested the idea in an essay for “The Conversation,” (an ironic name, since that’s exactly what the Left is hoping to end). In particular, the professor takes aim at conservative groups trying to raise awareness about what the science really says about the manufactured crisis of global warming. “Consider cases in which science communication is intentionally undermined for political and financial gain,” Torcello writes. “I submit that this is just what is happening with the current, well-documented funding of global warming denialism… We have good reason to consider the funding of climate denial to be criminally and morally negligent. The charge of criminal and moral negligence ought to extend to all activities of the climate deniers who receive funding as part of a sustained campaign to undermine the public’s understanding of scientific consensus.”

Setting aside the criminal aspect, who are liberals to talk about the funding of a “sustained campaign to undermine the public’s understanding” of science? They don’t call it the “green” movement for nothing! Radical environmentalists have funneled billions of dollars into a global fact-twisting mission to drown out the truth. Torcello’s hypocrisy, though, is just a footnote to the bigger outrage – which is the idea that disbelief with liberals is grounds for imprisonment. Unfortunately for Torcello, there’s no jail big enough to hold the millions of Americans unconvinced by the Left’s “science.”

Adding insult to the environmentalists’ injury, global warming ranked almost dead-last in voters’ political priorities as recently as January, according to Pew Research Center. For years, radical liberals have tried to frighten people into compliance with their agenda. Now that their climate arm-twisting isn’t working, they’re turning to more desperate measures. But to suggest a simple ideological disagreement is enough to throw someone behind bars is shocking even for these extremists.

Torcello acknowledges as much, writing, “My argument probably raises an understandable, if misguided, concern regarding free speech. We must make the critical distinction between the protecting of voicing one’s unpopular beliefs, and the funding of a strategically organized campaign to undermine the public’s ability to develop and voice informed opinion. Protecting the latter as a form of free speech stretches the definition of free speech to a degree that undermines the very concept.”

Once again, this is evidence of just how intolerant and afraid of open debate the Left is. Isn’t the world of academia about fighting censorship and advocating for the free flow of ideas and information? Does it only fight censorship of pornographic, anti-American, anti-religious speech, and is its advocacy only restricted to liberal ideas and teachings?

Believe it or not, this “if-you-can’t-beat-em-jail-em” approach is not all that preposterous for liberals, who last year threatened a Christian baker with potential prison time for refusing to make a same-sex “wedding” cake. Now that environmentalists are losing their grip on public opinion, Americans are starting to see that what’s actually in danger of extinction is civility.

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.