A dirty tricks effort by deniers of global warming shouldn’t detract from the hard science behind the need for the Copenhagen summit opening today to act aggressively to stem dangerous human activity.

Norway’s environment minister called the United Nations climate negotiations starting today in Copenhagen “the most difficult talks ever embarked upon by humanity.” They are also probably the most important; at stake in this gathering of 190 nations intended to draft a successor to the Kyoto Protocol are the future of human civilization and the survival of countless plant and animal species threatened by climate change. Yet even at a time when unity of purpose is crucial, global warming deniers have stepped up their dirty tricks campaign and scored their biggest victory to date.

Hackers last month illegally intercepted hundreds of e-mails from scientists at a prominent British climate research center, a few of which show signs of ethical lapses. In some, researchers discuss withholding data or manipulating them in ways that, the deniers claim, show the scientists hyping the threat of global warming. In others, they discuss boycotting journal editors they believe are too accommodating of the work of climate skeptics. The content of many of these messages has been distorted or taken out of context — for example, one of the correspondents, Pennsylvania State University professor Michael E. Mann, has said he was merely criticizing a journal editor who was notorious for publishing studies that didn’t meet minimal scientific standards. Still, some climate scientists appear to have crossed the line that separates objective observers from advocates, undermining their credibility.

None of this comes close to refuting the decades of research by thousands of scientists providing overwhelming evidence that climate change is happening and is being caused by human activity. The future effects of warming are predicted by computer models, but you don’t need a computer to see the damage already being wrought: accelerating species extinction,vanishing glaciers and killer heat waves, among other problems. A recent study by 26 top researchers showed that Arctic sea ice is melting much faster than predicted, raising fears that sea levels could rise by up to 6 1/2 feet by 2100 unless action is taken. So long, Florida.

The intercepted e-mails are adding decibels to a conservative noise machine that has successfully drowned out more responsible voices in the U.S. Senate, which has been unable to move ahead with a crucial climate bill. The Senate’s failure, in turn, has all but ensured that the Copenhagen talks will produce at best a political agreement on emissions targets and aid to developing nations to help them build clean infrastructure, but no binding treaty. If this continues, the United States won’t just be an international pariah; it will be a menace to humanity.

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America has a bad case of the doomsday jitters. You don’t have to be a Glenn Beck follower to know that whenever things go wrong in this country, you can always find all the anger, bitterness and fear-mongering bubbling up and over into our popular culture. As Shakespeare’s witches exulted in “Macbeth,” when things go wrong, it’s time to stir the pot: “double, double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble.”

With Wall Street fat cats still cashing in while the rest of the country still suffers from double-digit unemployment, with partisan bickering at an all-time high and a war in Afghanistan threatening to suck up another 40,000 more troops, the country is in a sour mood, full of nasty, dark suspicions about the future. It’s as good an explanation as any for why Beck is the hottest guy on TV right now, trumpeting his fears of one-world government, assailing corrupt politicians and worrying that Barack Obama, with “his deep-seated hatred for white people,” could be angling to subvert our constitutional government.

Peril is around every corner — even Beck’s Fox News colleague, Shepard Smith, jokingly dubbed Beck’s studio “the fear chamber.” It’s telling that Hollywood also has a batch of scary, post-apocalyptic films coming our way, filled with even more doomsday imagery. Roland Emmerich’s “2012″ takes off this weekend, promising a vivid, special-effects-filled look at the Earth’s possible demise. There are more bad vibes in the air. John Hillcoat’s brooding adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” opens later this month, offering a bleak view of a father and son attempting to survive in an ash-covered America where nothing grows. Denzel Washington returns, “Road Warrior” style, in January, starring in “The Book of Eli,” another stark, days-end vision of the future. Pessimists can also rush out in January to see “Legion,” a Dennis Quaid-starring horror thriller about how God, having lost faith in humanity, sends a legion of angels to wipe out the human race.

But what is surely the strangest film about our doomsday fantasies arrives this Friday. Called “Collapse,” it features a spellbindingly weird one-man monologue by Michael Ruppert, a former LAPD officer and investigative journalist who believes that we are about to run out of oil, an event sure to plunge the world into a state of collapse since Ruppert is convinced that our entire world economy is built on an unsustainable addiction to petrol. If you ever thought it was impossible to top Beck’s over-the-top fantasies, listen to Ruppert, who says that “what I see now is the end of a paradigm that is as cataclysmic as the asteroid event that killed almost all the life on Earth, and certainly the dinosaurs.”

The film is directed by Chris Smith, who has made a number of documentaries about oddball characters pursuing impossible dreams — his 1999 film “American Movie” chronicled the story of a hapless slacker trying to make a $3,000 homemade horror film. But what makes ”Collapse” so sneakily compelling is that we have no inkling of what Smith thinks of his subject. Filmed with one camera over the course of two days in the basement of an abandoned meatpacking plant in downtown L.A., “Collapse” is a hermetically sealed package, open to whatever interpretation we might bring to it. It allows us the same freedom we have in watching Beck’s show — we can take it as gospel, be appalled by its wild, undocumented claims or simply watch bemused, appreciating Ruppert’s gifts as a performer.

“I think there is something quintessentially American about Michael,” says Smith, who financed the film himself, using the money he’s made as a successful commercial director. ”He comes out of the culture of the moment, in the same way that we foster all these high-flying entrepreneurs and self-help gurus. When you look at his upbringing, to have gone from being a police officer to someone who questions authority, it fits into a storyline that could only happen in this country.”

“Collapse” opens Friday in theaters in New York and L.A. while also debuting this weekend on the Film Buff video-on-demand channel. Smith admits that he has “very conflicted feelings” about Ruppert. “A lot of what he says is incredibly thought-provoking, with lots of historical support, but there are things that you’d probably get a lot of criticism for believing,” he says. “So I wanted to give the audience the experience of living inside his world for 85 minutes. Even if you can’t prove all of his ideas, his passion and belief is definitely concrete.”

I got hooked on “Collapse” for much the same reason that millions of viewers have fallen for Beck. Every time I’d start to think that Ruppert was a deluded crackpot, he’d reel me back in, grabbing me by the throat with a burst of seemingly persuasive analysis. He poses his oil-collapse scenario in simple, hard-to-refute logic. “Saudi Arabia has 25% of the oil reserves on the planet,” he explains in a soothing, almost hypnotic voice. “Why, if Saudi Arabia has all these untapped reserves on shore, are they moving heavily into offshore drilling? If it’s 5, 10 or 15 times more expensive to drill offshore than land, doesn’t that tell you that Saudi Arabia knows that they’ve no more oil to find?”

Why are we so fascinated by doomsday theorists like Ruppert and Beck? Keep reading:

To say that Ruppert is Beck’s psychic twin would be an understatement. Beck comes from the right and Ruppert seems to live on the left — he believes, for example, that we invaded Iraq for its oil reserves, arguing that we have no intention of ever leaving the country since “we built an embassy compound in Baghdad that’s bigger than Vatican City.” But both men transcend politics, since no amount of partisan posturing could justify their gloomy certainty about the future.

Asked by Smith at one point in the film if he’s ever been called a conspiracy theorist, Ruppert offers the kind of answer you’d expect from Beck. “Of course,” he says triumphantly. “But I don’t deal in conspiracy theory. I deal in conspiracy fact.” Once you get past his brisk dismissals of every form of alternative energy (“Ethanol is an absolute joke — it takes more energy to make ethanol than you can make burning it”), Ruppert’s view of the future isn’t so different from Beck’s. Neither man is an optimist. If they were optimists, they’d be out of business. What fuels them is a chronic pessimism that is surely born out of years of personal anxieties and career setbacks. Beck is a recovering alcoholic with ADHD while Ruppert, even though Smith offers us little personal biographical information, is clearly a man without family ties who appears to live alone with his dog.

Even though these guys aren’t artists, they share something in common with people who make movies about doomsday events — they are consummate storytellers. And our best storytellers are not naive optimists. In fact, even though it is too soon to understand what today’s films might have to say about our grim times, if you look back to the last era when things were falling part, you can see how in sync filmmakers were with the spirit of the times.

With news of drug-related violence and H1N1 flu in the headlines, tourism to Mexico has plummeted. But the truth is the violence is largely regional and the swine flu is no longer confined to here. Many places in Mexico are inexpensive, kid-friendly and sunny. Here are some of my family’s recent favorites.

Sayulita, Nayarit

Once a fishing village, Sayulita has become a haunt for surfers, bohemians and vacationers who want to avoid the crowds. It’s just an hour’s drive from Puerto Vallarta on Mexico’s west coast. We’ve visited this authentic Mexican town with our two girls three times, starting at age 3.

Although the town has bad dirt roads, legions of skinny dogs and its share of perennially unfinished construction sites, it has no high-rises, no traffic, no strip malls, no rave bars.

It has a lovely beach and great accommodations, and there’s always some fiesta or another. The food is diverse, creative, tasty and safe. Sayulita also has an ideal learner’s surf break. You can rent giant foam boards on the beach for $10 and stand waist-deep in water to push kids into the small waves (then gnash your teeth at how easily they pop up after you went over the falls yourself so many times).

Farther down the two-mile-long beach is a break for more serious surfers, many of whom are Mexican dudes and gringo surf bums like my husband (at least for the week).

The town’s casual vibe means bare feet are accepted anywhere. Although there are a couple of decent hotels, we always rent a house for the privacy and convenience of being able to whip up mac and cheese on demand. Many a norteamericano has come to Sayulita, fallen in love, built a spacious vacation house and then realized extra income would make it even better, so rentals are plentiful.

On our last visit, we rented Casa Magia, a house perched atop the hill behind town. Previously we’ve rented on the beach, but the downside of Sayulita becoming popular with the hipster crowd is that the cost of beachfront pads has skyrocketed.

Because we always rent a car, Magia, a seven-minute drive from town, worked well for us. It’s sleek minimalist, with modern furniture, splendid sunset-over-jungle views and none of the Mexican kitsch that litters so many rentals. It was quiet, remote and, most important, it had wireless and a pool. It’s hot year-round, so the pool is a must for kids. They spend hours in it, and it prevents whining about the heat. And they fall into bed exhausted.

Although Sayulita is not a cultural epicenter, it has surprisingly chic shopping for a town of 2,000 full-time residents. You’ll find, for instance, pricey black pearl jewelry made by the striking Les Gazelles sisters in their chic shop Pachamama and exquisite beadwork sold by traditionally dressed Huichol Indians in the plaza.

What most visitors don’t know about Sayulita is that there are isolated, gorgeous coves a short walk through jungle at the southern end of town. When the main beach gets too crowded on weekends, we run off to Playa de los Muertos (beyond the colorful old cemetery) or even farther to the crashing waves and empty beach of Playa Carricitos.

If you rent a car, spend a day on neighboring San Pancho beach, which is far less popular than Sayulita and has rough waves but is a great place to go for lunch or dinner.

Getting there

Fly into Puerto Vallarta ($280 from LAX), rent a car or catch a shuttle northwest to Sayulita.

Where to stay

Rental houses

Casa Magia: Two bedrooms from $250 a night; www.magiasayulita.com.

Casa Ava: Two bedrooms from $125 a night. We stayed here on a previous trip, and it was great; also has a pool and a large outdoor area; www.sayulitalife.com/ava.

Hotels

Petit Hotel d’Hafa: A small, Morocco-inspired, funky-chic hotel right in the heart of town and a deal to boot. Doubles from $50 a night; www.sayulitalife.com/hafa.

Villa Amor: A boutique hotel at the end of the beach, Villa Amor is the swankiest outfit in town, although not very private. Doubles from $55; www.villaamor.com.

For more information, www.sayulitalife.com.

Where to eat

We’ve always found street food safe to eat in Sayulita. There are carts and canteens everywhere serving fabulous fish tacos for about a buck. There are some terrific outdoor fish restaurants lining the beach; I recommend plain grilled snapper any day. But if you’re leery of those places, here are some brick-and-mortar establishments we like:

Rollie’s: For breakfast, this place near the plaza serves the best pancakes in town.

Choco-Banana: The morning hipster hangout serves snacks and muffins.

Sayulita Fish Taco Restaurant & Tequila Bar: Fish tacos at a slightly higher price with a great view of the plaza happenings.

Don Pedros: Though it has American prices and a touristy beachfront location, it is an excellent stumble-in-off-the-beach spot and serves outstanding margaritas.

Bicyclette: Our favorite kid-friendly fine dining spot in Sayulita is on a back street in an enclosed garden. The owners are French, and the food is terrific.

Mar Plata: An unexpectedly swank restaurant in the town of San Pancho. Possibly a good date-night alternative.