Who says "global warming is a myth?" Lots of people who have a vested interested in climate change denial, usually for economic or political reasons, or out of blind prejudice.

Scientists, of course, almost universally disagree with these global warming and climate change deniers.

Virtually no one, scientist or well-read non-scientist, denies the average temperature of the air and water that covers the earth has risen at least a degree and a half, Fahrenheit, since the late 1800's. Nearly two thirds of that change has occurred since 1980.

Using data collected by ever more sophisticated instrumentation, analyzed and modeled using tools and techniques unprecedented in human history these same scientists project a further increase of two to six and a half degrees in the next century . . . unless something is done to reduce concentrations of greenhouse gases.

More than nine out of ten of them also agree that human activities (like burning coal, oil and other fossil fuels, and cutting down vast areas of forest) are primarily responsible for this recent radical (and accelerating) change.

Who would try to convince us otherwise?

First and foremost those among the deniers are those with a vested financial interested in continuing to see us burn fossil fuels: oil and coal companies, for example; those whose livelihoods are linked to those and similar interests; and those paid by them to think, write and speak on their behalf. Their approach is similar to those who told us the London fogs were all "natural" and that doctors preferred cigarettes with asbestos filters. Solemn, sincere, well-paid and wrong, all often knowingly so.

Allied to those whose bank accounts and campaign chests benefit from backing fossil fuel company goals are those who fear, for reasons real and imagined, government regulation of any kind. The very notion of mandated fuel efficiencies or simply keeping track of air and water pollution seems to them a violation of fundamental human rights. They're usually convinced the "free market" will solve all such problems. Instead, the free market all too often causes them, and has no vested interest in solving them until something truly disastrous happens. (Google the London fog of 1952 and guess which side the British coal companies were on.)

Finally there are those who are genuinely and adamantly anti-science. These folks, sadly coddled, supported and empowered by the leadership of the Tea-and-G-OP, flock in disproportionate numbers to their ranks, and increasingly control who can and cannot hope to win nomination in their highly gerrymandered electoral subdivisions, congressional, state, and local.

Money, ideology, and ignorance (some willful and some of it cynically promoted) combine to produce gridlock. The world warms. Sea levels rise. Seasons change and worse.

Unless, of course, one has invested in beachfront property on the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge.