The largest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity, is no longer socialism. It is, instead, the ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous ideology of environmentalism.

I was 25 years old and pursuing my doctorate in economics when I was allowed to spend six months of postgraduate studies in Naples, Italy. I read the Western economic textbooks and also the more general work of people like Hayek. By the time I returned to Czechoslovakia, I had an understanding of the principles of the market. In 1968, I was glad at the political liberalism of the Dubcek Prague Spring, but I was very critical of the Third Way they pursued in economics.

I also helped write the five-page statement of principles that Civic Forum issued in late November. That was the first public expression of what the new government wanted to do.

My main concern is the political dimension of European integration. This is one of the most important issues of all, as far as I'm concerned. It has to do with our past, with our sensitivity, perhaps even our hypersensitivity in this regard.

To reduce the interpretation of the causality of all kinds of climate changes and of global warming to one variable, CO2, or to a small proportion of one variable - human-induced CO2 - is impossible to accept. Elementary rationality and my decades-long experience with econometric modelling and statistical testing of scientific hypotheses tell me that it is impossible to make strong conclusions based on mere correlation of two (or more) time series.

Other top-level politicians do not express their global warming doubts because a whip of political correctness strangles their voice.

Being often with many leading politicians, I feel frustrated that they do not listen. They already know. They fully subscribed to the idea that talking about 'saving the planet' is an effective way to show their 'caring' for humanity and that it is the easiest way to maximize votes irrespective of any relevant activity which would aim at the real needs of people. The global warming dogma has become a very easy form of escapism from the current reality.