In his book, “The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: The Emotional World of Farm Animals,” Jeffery Moussaieff Masson says he was told by some New Zealand sheep farmers that every once in a while an unusually smart lamb comes along that learns how to unlatch a gate. Naturally, that presents a problem for the sheep farmer, especially if the clever lamb teaches the trick to the other sheep.

Masson asked a group of farmers what they did with such clever sheep who could unlatch a gate. Their answer: “We shoot them so they can’t pass on their knowledge.”

I’m not certain about gun issues in New Zealand but that little story makes me glad I live in the good ol’ American South where there are plenty of guns, yes, but we don’t have to worry about shooting anybody or anything for passing on knowledge since we pretty much filter out all knowledge except a certain kind. That would be the knowledge passed on to us from those who have gone before us, what the Bible calls a great “host,” and that host includes ma and pa, grandma and grandpa, and other assorted ancestors, some of whom can be traced back to colonial times if you live in places like Mobile, Charleston and Savannah and want to go to the trouble of researching them so you can feel good about yourself. The knowledge in question is what we call “tradition” and a part of that tradition is this: hell is hot, so don’t go there.

That said, we don’t put much stock in this business of climate change or global warming. After all, nothing is hotter’n hell, right? Thus there is no need to pull a gun on any climate change advocates since we’re not buying what they’re selling. Our gate is locked on the subject and that’s that!

Nevertheless, what got me to thinking about this subject was something I read recently about Syria. It seems Syria has been in a drought for about 7 years now; crops have failed, food prices have soared and the poverty level has skyrocketed. The guy writing the article in question, Tim McDonnell, was saying the Syrians have been so hot under the collar that it might have contributed to the civil war in that country. Not only that, but McDonnell said that for every one standard deviation toward warmer temperatures in the U.S., that could translate to 56,000 more violent crimes every year on top of the average 1.4 million we currently experience. By 2050 the threat of war in some parts of the earth could increase by 50 percent.

Thank goodness we’re not listening to that hot air. Nope, we’ll stick to the knowledge of the only warming that counts, namely, the hotness of hell. Global warming? Bah! No thanks, Mr. McDonnell. We’ll stay right here in our pen where we belong, but we will pray for you and your misguided notions.

Bob Morgan is a retired, award-winning journalist and an author.