Czech President on Global Warming

Recently, as reported by the Agence France-Presse, the president of the Czech Republic (the current sitting president of the EU), Vaclav Klaus, came out and bashed Al Gore on global warming saying the following:

"I don't think that there is any global warming. I don't see the statistical data for that. I'm very sorry that some people like Al Gore are not ready to listen to the competing theories. I do listen to them. Environmentalism and the global warming alarmism is challenging our freedom. Al Gore is an important person in this movement."

Also, on the current economic disaster:

"I'm afraid that the current crisis will be misused for radically constraining the functioning of the markets and market economy all around the world. I'm more afraid of the consequences of the crisis than the crisis itself.

And this guy is considered a liberal.

Klaus is an awarded economist and has a libertarian streak as he has been published in the Cato Journal. He has often criticized the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as one-sided and as a "smug monopoly". Klaus believes there should be a second IPCC set up to produce competing reports and has often referred to environmentalism as a religion or modern counter-part to communism.

"Environmentalism, not preservation of nature (and of environment), is a leftist ideology... Environmentalism is indeed a vehicle for bringing us socialist government at the global level. Again, my life in communism makes me oversensitive in this respect."