Global warming hoax!

Of course, we skeptics know that globe warming is a hoax, orchestrated by Jim Hansen and Al Gore to establish the World Socialist Collective. But how did it all come to pass, given that the basic physics of the greenhouse effect have been known for centuries? Now, for the first time, heroic skeptic bloggers led by yours truly have acquired diaries and other documents that allow the story to finally be told. The truth is even darken than you ever imagined:

The year was 1824. Jean Baptiste Fourier sat stooped over in his study, when he felt a thrill of fear at the approach of a rasping, metal-on-metal sound. All too soon, the Grand Wizard appeared before him.

"Sir Newton" Fourier asked with a slight shiver of fear, wondering if he would ever get used to the unnatural steam-powered apparatus that prolonged the life of Isaac, the greatest of the European Illuminata. "How may your humble servant assist you?"

"Fourier, we need you to fabricate something called a "greenhouse effect" saying that CO2 warms the planet."

"CO2!" Fourier was shocked. "But it's a harmless trace gas!"

"I know, Fourier, and of course, all clear-thinking minds know intuitively that a large and important effect cannot proceed from a small cause. To maintain this deception, we will have the falsify vast amount of scientific data for the next two centuries. But we must convince the ignorant that this is so."

"But my master, why?"

"Wheels within wheels, my son. Wheels within wheels."

Flash forward to 1989. James Hansen is in his lab, working on Vensuvian climatology. Steven Hawking enters, making use, far from the prying eyes of the public, of the cybernetic body suit designed for him by Robert Noyce in Atlantis.

"It's time, James. All our work with Fourier, Tyndall, Arrhenius and thousands of lesser scientists in about to bear fruit. You – you will have the honor of unveiling to the public the theory of anthropogenic global warming!"

"I still don't understand, Hawk. Why must we go forward with this deception? What will it achieve?"

"Don't you understand yet, James? All our preparations and planning has been for this – to give the world no choice but to raise taxes!"

"But why?"

"To destroy the Earth! After which I will return to the use of my family name, Darvos, and be free to design a race of pitiless cyborgs to enslave the galaxy! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EX-TER-MIN-ATE! "