Cults have been around for a long time, and will be around for a long time?as long as there are people who choose not to think for themselves and desperately want someone else to do it for them.

Until recently, my favorite cult of all time was the Zetatalk cult, led by self-proclaimed prophet, and UFO-contactee Nancy Lieder. Zetatalk insisted that a missing twelfth planet from our solar system, Nibiru, was inhabited by aliens who were bringing the planet back in May 2003. Even after Nibiru failed to appear, failed to smash into the earth as predicted, failed to bring about a change in humanity, and failed to reverse the poles, Zetatalk persevered. First they explained they had miscalculated. Then they admitted lying about the arrival date to fool evil governments bent on interfering. Then they just moved the arrival date to 2012.

I used to really enjoy reading all the funny stuff from Zetatalk, and all the raging debates and conspiracy theories on the internet. It's funny stuff. And it clearly illustrates that some people will refuse to admit any possibility they are wrong, no matter what. For some, this refusal might be money related- like, say, selling a book about Nibiru's arrival. Or some might crave the attention?like, say, having thousands of folks worldwide buying into their ideas.

That's when these preachers of doom become cults, when they have followers. Cults don't need facts; they just need followers.

Presently, my new favorite cult is the Church of Gore: Al Chicken Little Gore. The guy who proclaims the sky is melting. Personally, I'm surprised he picked this particular crusade. Since he invented the internet, I would have thought he would be prognosticating its impending, cataclysmic demise, crushed under the virtual weight of too many users and plunging the world into a techno darkness. Instead, he's let that one pass and others have taken up the internet's-end-is-near cry.

The Global Warming proponents, or ?Melters? as I like to call them, have grown in numbers over the years, absorbing all the other eco-alarmists that were once popular, but have since become ?pass鮔 Perhaps you remember them: acid rain, deforestation and ozone depletion, to name a few. Today, scientists, movie stars and politicians are included in their ranks. And they are able to continually recruit more to their ?hot? cause, because they are able to produce ?proof? to back up their outlandish claims.

You see, the Earth really is getting warmer.

Not so long ago, scientists began studying ice from deep below the surface of Antarctica.

The theory being, that snow falling at the South Pole froze, after which it was buried under the next layer of new fallen snow. This cycle repeats itself year after year, preserving traces of the atmosphere from earth?s distant past. By examining this ancient ice, scientists were able to discover what the climate was like, long ago.

And yes, the Earth was once cooler than it is now.

The Melters rubbed this in everyone's faces, declaring this was proof that mankind's pollution had made the Earth as warm as it is now. But recently, their evidence has turned on them.

More recent studies of ice cores have shown something else. That there have been numerous cycles of cooling and heating throughout Earth's history. A pattern, like the changing of the seasons, but over a much longer period of time.

The Melters don't care. In most cases they won't even listen. After all, ocean levels are rising, now, all over the world?in places like Yonaguni Island, near Japan, where ancient ruins were discovered (underwater) that could be 3000 or more years old. Wait a minute. That means that ocean levels were much lower when those structures were built. Did ancient mankind drive SUVs, and have millions of greenhouse-gas-passing cows, thereby melting the ice caps and flooding himself? Are we repeating this ancient calamity?

The Melting Cult doesn't listen to logic like that. They conviently ignore the Little Ice Age of 300 years ago. To acknowledge such things would be to admit they might be wrong. And if they're wrong, who will buy their books? Who will watch their movies?

No, better to just argue louder and keep insisting the sky is melting. That kind of strategy worked really well at keeping dissenters like Galileo quiet.