By now many of us have heard the claim that 2014 was the warmest year on record, according to NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies. Major news stations reported it, magazines and newspaper headlines trumpeted it, and even the United Nations ran with it. Unfortunately, I fear that many people have fallen for this fearmongering.

My first reaction to the news was, “ho-hum”. Records are meant to be broken, right? So why all the fuss? Even if we accept the premise that 2014 was the warmest year on record, why be alarmed? Is there a reason why we must assume mankind is responsible, and that legislative action is necessary to stop it? Why can’t we set records without fear? After all, if we keep records long enough, it’s inevitable that we’ll have a year that qualifies as the warmest on record. And if that record is broken, then another year will have that distinction. But there’s no good reason to panic, unless one simply wants to advance an agenda, and I believe that’s exactly what the global warming alarmists are doing.

But it gets worse. Not only have the alarmists declared that 2014 was the warmest year on record, but we also have the media hyping weather conditions in 2015 with an apparent attempt to cause fear and panic. Recent forecasts even had politicians calling for historic snowstorms that never materialized. New York Mayor, Bill de Blasio said, “This will most likely be one of the largest blizzards in the history of New York City.” And “This could be a storm the likes of which we have never seen before.”

All this alarmism shut down more than 6,500 flights; travel bans were enacted; subways, buses and railroads were shut down. But the historic snowstorm never happened. The embarrassment caused Meteorologist Gary Szatkowski to appologize: “My deepest apologies to many key decision makers and so many members of the general public,” he tweeted. “You made a lot of tough decisions expecting us to get it right, and we didn’t. Once again, I’m sorry.”

But what about Mayor de Blasio? He said, “Better safe than sorry.” And that’s the essence of the global warming alarmist movement. They declare these doomsday predictions and scare the public, but their predictions never materialize. Then they tell us it’s better to be safe than sorry. And if we don’t take action right now, it’s gonna get worse! And that means we’ve gotta enact legislation and tax, tax, tax and tax until we get the climate back on track again… as if it’s possible to control weather conditions and climate. But that’s exactly what they expect us to believe. They’re trying to convince the public that taxing us into submission is our only hope to restore the climate to acceptable levels. But who gets to decide what the optimum climate should be? I suppose it will be the very alarmists who promise us that they can predict the weather and climate far into the future? That’s utter nonsense! They can’t even accurately predict an approaching storm.

So we need to ask ourselves, “Do we really have any reason to fear?” Well, it turns out that the claim that 2014 was the warmest on record is a bunch of hogwash. It was nothing more than typical alarmist hype. NASA backtracked on their claims, admitting that they’re only 38% sure that 2014 was the warmest on record. So there’s no reason to panic.

Obviously, if scientists are only 38% sure, then they’re not very confident. It’s more likely that 2014 was NOT the warmest on record, despite the narrative.

Did you know that the only true global temperature measurements are taken by satellites? And did you know that this data is ignored because it shows that 2014 was NOT the warmest year on record? Or that climate models aren’t accurate and over-forecast past warming by a factor of 2 or 3?

I can’t stress enough how much politics plays into the global warming hysteria. Politics, in fact, plays a larger role than science does. Climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer says, “In the three decades I’ve been in the climate research business, it’s been clear that politics have been driving the global warming movement.” And what does he say about the science? “I will admit,” he continues, “the science has always supported the view that slowly increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere from burning of fossil fuels should cause some warming, but the view that this would in any way be a bad thing for humans or for Nature has been a politically (and even religiously) driven urban legend.”

There’s a desperate need for politicians to connect human carbon dioxide emissions to a warming planet so that they can impose laws, regulations and sanctions upon the guilty parties (while exempting themselves). And that’s why we need to be skeptical when they sound the alarm. Keep in mind that none of the catastrophes predicted by the alarmists have come to fruition. In fact the only predictions that have stood the test of time are from those of us who are skeptics. Yet it’s the alarmists who make the most noise and gain national attention. But that has nothing to do with science, and everything to do with ideology. They tell us that climate change is settled science and that this is the consensus among scientists. Of course that’s not true, but how many folks really understand that science is never settled, and that truth isn’t determined by a consensus?

There are some other important points to consider. One, there hasn’t been any warming for nearly 18 years, and NASA admits this, as does Dr. David Whitehouse of the Global Warming Policy Forum: “There has been no statistically significant warming trend since 1997.”

Second, not only did NASA fail to mention their uncertainty in their original press release, but they also failed to mention that the record supposedly set in 2014 was only two-hundredths of a degree greater than the previous record set in 2010, or that the margin of error is approximately .01C.

The only thing we can be certain of is that we have nothing to be alarmed about. Life goes on, just as it has for thousands of years. There have been periods of warmth in the past (Antarctica was once tropical), and there has been an ice age. Yes, the climate does change, and people adapt. Nobody disagrees with that. But the impact of humans on the climate is negligible. We don’t need any unnecessary laws and regulations designed to infringe upon our freedoms and bring economic harm upon ourselves and citizens all over the world.

The next time you hear hysteria over climate change, employ a healthy dose of skepticism and listen to what those on the other side are saying. You’ll find there are voices of reason that won’t panic over the latest claims of impending doom.

Lastly, I believe we live on a robust planet that has been created for mankind, and we should be good stewards of the environment and care for the planet that God has given us. I think we can all agree that we need to reduce pollution and maintain clean air and water, but this requires common sense solutions, not the drastic action demanded by politicians who know very little about science.