Remember when Al Gore and the rest of the uber-environmentalists finally got the message out to the general masses that climate change would have a doomsday-like impact on the world? Remember when millions of people jumped on the green path because there was “proof” the world was in significant jeopardy in the near future?

Well, a great deal of the educating and informing to motivate the masses is really more fear-mongering than filled with proof. Those nifty flow charts and grand apocalyptic statements from environmentalists and climate specialists claiming they had the “truth” were more props and spin-doctoring for what I consider an impressive public relations campaign.

James Lovelock is a scientist and academic regarded by most involved in green movements as the godfather of global warming thanks to his studies and endorsement of the Gaia Theory: that the Earth operates as a single, living organism.

In a 2006 article in the Independent newspaper, Lovelock said, “Before this century is over, billions of us will die, and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.”

Six years later, in an interview in April, Lovelock said he had been an “alarmist”; and with that understanding, much of the green movement could be seen in the same light.

He said the global climate models crafted since that old fear-mongering date of Y2K have not actually coincided with actual increases to temperatures.

This isn’t to say temperature isn’t very slowly rising across the globe or pollutants being released into the atmosphere don’t need to be monitored and adjustments made to past practices; change needs to happen.

The bogeyman of global warming is being hyped-up a whole lot more than it is actually occurring. Part of the reason it appears global warming is having a grandiose effect all at once is because the PR campaign finally got enough celebrity oomph and regular news coverage to get folks to pay attention.

It is possibly as likely as the rest of the notions out there that temperature change that has been occurring is within natural variations for our planet. We have gained less than 1°C since 1900, and that increase isn’t even consistent across the globe, as some areas have actually cooled, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Lovelock said, “One thing that being a scientist has taught me is that you can never be certain about anything. You never know the truth. You can only approach it and hope to get a bit nearer to it each time. You iterate towards the truth. You don’t know it,” according to the MSNBC.com interview.

The problem is, the awareness of “truth” has been causing the general population to go overboard with all the “completely green is the only way to go” ideas.

A lot of people drinking the green Kool-Aid believe environmentalism in a manner akin to how many blindly follow many of the skewed interpretations of religious books. Just because someone you like says it doesn’t make it any less likely to be an incorrect assessment.

Lovelock said green efforts are guilting people, much like many religions do, into actions that aren’t necessarily needed or that even might be unnecessary all together. Our efforts into sustainable development — such as wind turbines, which Lovelock regards as a poor idea — are knee-jerk reactions; the realities behind much of our green energy efforts are simply inefficient pipe dreams.

Ocean levels are rising, and it is a threat to life as we know it, though not likely an excessively dramatic effect for many, many years. But those changes aren’t necessarily global warming. Much of the recycling flimflam and messages that we must change now as the end is nigh are not backed by fact. It is a domino effect and lacks the numbers to back the claims.

Don’t take my word for it, I’m still learning. However, do start reading and researching more, rather than just believing what talking heads or soundbites from the news toss out.

Take a look back on scientists and society 25, 50 or even 100 years ago to see how incorrect their findings were concerning a great many things; the same will be true 25, 50 and 100 years from now.

Don’t believe the trendy green movement stuff just because someone made a nice argument. Challenge them to prove it with detail; understand that claims are not definitive.

Even if you don’t immediately comprehend it all, take a little bit of time to check and see if you aren’t falling for snake-oil salesmen tactics. Not everything about the need for green ideas are faulty, but a lot are just popularized, guilt-driven bandwagoning.