Science is full of surprises. My dad had a chemistry professor who began the first class by mixing one part dangerous and caustic hydrochloric acid with one part dangerous and caustic sodium hydroxide and drinking the result (salt water). “We didn’t take our eyes off that guy the entire semester,” he told me.

But some scientific surprises (or perhaps I should say “surprises having some tenuous connection with science”) we can live without. In a bizarre and chilling bit of science history, the Daily Signal reported last week, “the attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands, Claude E. Walker, has served a subpoena on the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) demanding documents related to CEI’s research on global ‘climate change’” as part of Walker’s investigation of Exxon and its role in providing fossil fuels, the great culprits in climate change.

Walker is part of an attorneys general group (all Democrats) calling themselves “AGs United for Clean Power” who want to use federal racketeering law (RICO) — laws written to persecute organized crime — to criminalize calling into question the orthodoxy of catastrophic, man-made global warming.

“Researchers, scientists, think tanks, universities, and anyone else who works or speaks in this area,” reports the Daily Signal, “should be aware that they may soon become a target of these malicious investigations.”

On the federal level, in March, the Daily Signal reported, “U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch told the Senate Judiciary Committee … that not only has she discussed internally the possibility of pursuing civil actions against so-called ‘climate change deniers,’ but she has ‘referred it to the FBI to consider whether or not it meets the criteria for which we could take action.’”

Elsewhere, Bill Nye the not-exactly-a-Science Guy calmly and politely told Climate Depot’s Marc Morano he is in favor of jailing global warming skeptics as war criminals, an idea proposed by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. only less calmly and politely. He’s been insisting for years that such people are guilty of treason and should be treated as such.

Metaphorically (and perhaps not so metaphorically) thumbing their noses at Nye, Kennedy, Walker, Lynch, and the other “AGs United Against Free Speech,” C-FACT and CDR Communications teamed up to make Climate Hustle. And, just to be clear, that’s “hustle” as in “scam, con, rip-off, swindle,” not the best-forgotten dance craze from the late 1970s.

Last Thursday, I had the opportunity to attend the first U. S. showing of the film along with a panel discussion at the House of Representatives.

Lamenting climate alarmists’ refusal to deal honestly with Congress and the American people when it comes to things like sharing the data on which their extremely expensive and intrusive proposals are based, event host Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology said, “C-FACT and the House Science Committee share a common cause: We care about scientific evidence, honestly acquired.”

Instead, he noted, the Obama Administration and the media tell us things that, once you dig around are manifestly untrue. There is, they tell us, an overwhelming consensus among scientists — 97% — that catastrophic man-made global warming is real. The problem is as Rep. Smith and Climate Hustle point out, the 97% number crumbles when you touch it largely because only 77 carefully selected scientists were polled to arrive at that number. The “consensus” is statistically meaningless.

They tell us that extreme weather, droughts, floods, hurricanes, and what-not are getting worse and worse due, of course, to climate change. We have to do something very, very expensive and deleterious to everyone’s freedom NOW!

Yet the scientific evidence indicates that Hurricane Sandy notwithstanding, weather is not more extreme than it has ever been, the ice caps are doing just fine, polar bears are thriving, and catastrophic climate change is the culprit behind nothing.

“For the climate alarmists,” Smith said, “their agenda comes first, facts come second.”

In fact, for most climate alarmists, facts don’t enter into it at all. Global warming, as Climate Hustle capably demonstrates, is about political power propped up with assertions rather than arguments and personal attacks on those who won’t fall into line. This is to be expected since those who don’t have the facts have no other choice.

You don’t believe me? Okay, but here’s what you need to do.

On May 2 theaters across the nation will be showing Climate Hustle. Buy a ticket today, watch the movie, and judge for yourself. Why be a sheep for either side? Consider all the data and decide for yourself.

Ah, you say, but I’m not a scientist. You’re probably not an auto mechanic either, but if your car is working fine and an auto mechanic claims you need $7,500 in engine repairs, you’ve probably got the good sense to get a second opinion.

Here’s your chance. May 2. Be there.