Sunday's global warming march displays everything that's wrong with global warming activism

This Sunday, thousands of climate activists will march on the streets of New York, in an effort to rekindle due concern over the environment. While the cause appears noble, the entire effort may be off to a doomed start.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - This Sunday, climate activists will march in New York to reignite flagging interest in the climate change discussion in America. As if the media coverage weren't enough.

Far be it from me to complain about the media coverage, but the march itself is taking on shades of red and black that do not serve the effort to save the planet, and instead will reentrench the perception of climate change believers as "alarmists" who are intent on terrorizing the world into adopting a set of socialist economics at the point of the ballot-or rifle.

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Conservative media have already labeled the event the "People's Climate March" connected the event (allegedly) to billionaire corporate sponsors, and plainly stated that the "mob" would impose virtual communism through "wealth redistribution" and other draconian measures.

The attendees aren't doing much to help their cause either. Naiomi Klein, an author who plans to announce and promote her new book during the march, has made some rather incendiary statements, essentially saying that the movement must demand that "we break every rule in the free-market playbook."

How can people who are so right be so wrong?

Climate change is real. Despite the pop skepticism that simply won't go away, the consensus of the world's scientific community is that global warming is real and it is a danger to the political, economic, and environmental status quo.

According to research of the research itself, as well as the publically stated positions of most climate scientists, a whopping 97 percent of scientists agree that climate change is real and caused by human activity. Really, it isn't much of a stretch. When you understand how powerful CO2 is as a greenhouse gas, and how little of it makes a difference, and how long we've been pumping it into the atmosphere, you understand clearly the problem we face. We are pumping increasing amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere faster than the environment can safely store it. Plants need food, but they can't eat as much as we're offering.

Much of the American public knows, at least deep down, that global warming is both real and dangerous. However many people are conflicted because the movement is also embraced by folks who can easily be dubbed "nutjobs."

Sunday's activities threaten to put the nutjobs on display and this alienate mainstream Americans who also agree this is a concern, but who are wholly disinterested in socialism as a solution.

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The conversation about global warming should belong first and foremost to scientists, then to policy makers who informed by the science should make wise decisions intended to protect the public interest.

Of course, this is not how reality works and oftentimes the wealthy can buy the politicians while the radicals can hijack the coverage.

What the world needs is a direction guided by both science and morality, with the human person at the heart of all consideration.

Sunday's rally does not allow room for the human person. Instead, the rights of individuals are going to be crowded out by ideology -an ideology that says if you disagree or that if you are too successful, then you should pay a steep, personal price, just to bring you down to a mediocre level of being. These same people advocate for population controls and forceful redistribution of wealth. This is intrinsically evil and does nothing to advance the condition of humanity.

There are ways to advance and grow that do not also destroy the environment or diminish the natural rights of people. The Catholic Church is expected to help guide others with Pope Francis' next encyclical, believed to be on the environment. Until then, we do best to listen to the science and keep the radicalism out of the streets and out of the politics.

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