The global-warming hysterics increasingly advocate for the idea that their agenda is the perfect excuse to toss aside democracy and impose their desired economic restrictions through supranational bodies. Guardian columnist George “Drown the Airline Executives” Monbiot wrote last month in support of this thesis as set forth in a fellow alarmist’s new book.

The argument is that democratic institutions have failed and frankly are ill-suited to the purpose of limiting greenhouse gas emissions in any effective way. So we need international institutions who are unaccountable to the voters of functioning democracies — in this specific instance, central banks coordinated by a higher power — to do it instead. Of course, this ignores the inconvenient truth that the two-decade warming trend stopped in its tracks almost the moment the U.S. merely signed Kyoto in November 1998 — indicating that democratic societies actually do know when to say hold, enough. Regardless, I believe such smiley-face fascism is very helpful to the climate-realist side, and should be broadcast widely.

Exposing the “too important to be left to democracy” line will certainly by useful on the international front next year, as Europe and the UN renew their pressure to rope the U.S. and its neophyte administration into a post-2012 Kyoto treaty. But it may even have resonance in the current domestic debate: When Americans discover that the UNFCCC’s aim is to arrogate to itself decision-making power over the U.S. economy — which is really the subtext of our current energy policy debate, only with the power-grab happening inside the Beltway rather than in Bonn — they might be far less inclined to vote for the Democrats’ “internationalist” candidates.