Dear Congress-person / Senator,

I am deeply troubled by the pandering our elected officials do towards the environmentalist alarmists. Not only is the case NOT closed on the veracity of the global warming hysteria, but many notable scientists call it a hoax. I have looked at it closely and am inclined to agree. It is mainly a political movement designed to impact "consumption" - which a word that's predictably synonymous with "capitalism." The movement is first and foremost an anti-capitalist one that's driven by the desire to bring down people "who have too much." Thus, it's just the latest round in the tired, age old class war now that overt socialism is unfashionable...and I think part of the proof is the fact that you don't see anti-capitalist demonstrators in the streets anymore. They don't need to chant that rhetoric anymore because they've found a new, more publicly palatable, way to curb our capitalist prosperity and bring our economy down to lower levels in the name of "global fairness."

Weather changes. It is dynamic, not static. And we have for the last nine years been in a global "cooling" trend. Further proof of the hoax-i-ness of global warming is that the same warming and cooling cycles we see here are happening on the rest of the planets in our solar system too....lending credibility to the oft asserted notion that the cycles have more to do with the sun's fluctuating levels of intensity and solar flares than with "big cars driven by people who - not coincidentally - have big wallets." That makes them the enemy and this is the best way to "get back at them without being challenged. After all, how mean is it to say anything against someone who "just wants to help Mommy Earth?"

Further, it's always suspicious when the government asks anyone to change their lifestyle. Their motives are never without special interest - ideological or lobbyist driven.

Capitalism itself will invent the viable next generation of electrical production.....not government solutions through increased regulations that will only add a burden to the process of innovation....all the while further sapping our wallets and our economy on pet projects - like solar and wind power - that have yet to yield anything remotely resembling efficient or productive power. We are being forced by special interest and flawed ideology into accepting these methods in the name of feel-good "save the Earth" sentimentality that has no basis whatsoever in science.

I ABSOLUTELY WILL be taking names on who votes to tax my family's retirement savings to finance this "Chicken Little" sky-is-falling nonsense....and I will vote against your reelection at every turn....just as I will on the issue of this insane "stimulus" plan. But that's another letter.

Stay out of my wallet! Finance this pie-in-the-sky energy wishful thinking (solar, wind, bunnies on treadmills, etc) through private donation / investment until it shows some chance of being a true and effective alternative to coal....and while you're at it, first at least PROVE with some degree of intellectual veracity that coal is any threat at all to our "fragile" Earth that survives and thrives as an oasis in hostile Space.

It is no coincidence at all that the economic challenges we are facing right now coincide with this environmentalist hysteria. Government intrusion and over-regulation has already destroyed our oil, housing, and banking industries...and I was actually paying attention when King Obama said outright during his campaign that he would "bankrupt the coal industry."

I recently visited a coal fired electricity plant where a friend of mine is in upper management. He told me that they were forced through government regulation (read: "intervention") to spend twenty million dollars on a solar panel field that yielded just 3% of the power generated by the plant, yet cost twice what one of their three diesel electric generators produced - which each cost about the same as the solar field. Insanity. No business can operate that way for long....and no private sector businessman would tolerate that kind of inefficiency....only government would.

Further, on wind power: to generate the electricity the country needs would require that we cover Pennsylvania with windmills....which, for you enviro-nut-cases, are very hard on the bird population. That's called "the law of unintended consequences." Google the term for clarification if you need to. The environment is important, and I love nature and spend a lot of time in it. I hate trash and recycling our waste makes sense. Where I get off the enviro train is when politicians convince well-meaning (but ill-informed) people that the sky is falling so they'll be scared into voting for them to save them from doom. WHEN has a politician ever been a solution to anything. What do they produce or invent? It is the private sector that does this, and the government can only survive by mooching off of that productivity by taxing it and regulating it.

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." [H. L. Mencken]

I know the media has sold the caricature that the only people who benefit from the energy industries are fat cats with cowboy hats and big cigars, but who do you politicians (Obama chief among you now) think will pay more to power and / or heat their homes as he goes on that warpath, if not little old ladies in Nebraska? And are you not aware somehow that over 70% of Americans have retirement investments in the oil industry alone.....to say nothing of other energy production means.

Stop playing us-vs-them games with our society. We are all in this together.. When you guys go after "big business" you are going after the people they employ. That's common sense. And through 401Ks, Roths and other 'everyday person' retirement plans, it should be clear to each of you that Wall Street IS Main Street. They are not at odds with each other unless you are a politician looking for a windmill to tilt against (no pun intended) so you can inspire a vote from someone who doesn't yet know how economies really work. But they will learn....because the downward spiral your regulation is causing will inspire and force them to learn. And I believe they will remember your names the next time they vote. I know I will.

- Marc Heileman. Fayetteville, NC and Atlanta, GA