Global Warming?

If you've been paying any attention to any form of media over the past year or so, you've seen your fair share of coverage detailing global warming, how mankind has contributed to it, and how "we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced." (this from the official website for An Inconvenient Truth) From Al Gore's movie, which is now being shown in high school and college classrooms across the country (even in high school English classes - don't ask me why), to various TV shows, to cover stories in magazines including Sports Illustrated and my alma mater's alumni magazine, we're being bombarded with the "science" of global warming.

My biggest problem with this media storm is that it seems like this "science" is not up for further investigation. You've got the Weather Channel's Heidi Cullen advocating, "If a meteorologist can't speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS shouldn't give them a Seal of Approval." Al Gore refuses to debate critics of his view - not even the existence of global warming, but the "fact" that it's a crisis. British climate scientists are demanding that the DVD version of The Great Global Warming Swindle (which can be seen here) be "heavily edited."

Add to that the fact that Time magazine featured a story in their June 24, 1974 issue titled "Another Ice Age?" According to the story:

...the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age.

Among the "telltale signs" of global cooling, the article includes:

• Since the 1940s the mean global temperature has dropped about 2.7° F
• ....the area of the ice and snow cover [in the Northern Hemisphere] had suddenly increased by 12% in 1971 and the increase has persisted ever since. Areas of Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic, for example, were once totally free of any snow in summer; now they are covered year round.
• Man, too, may be somewhat responsible for the cooling trend. The University of Wisconsin's Reid A. Bryson and other climatologists suggest that dust and other particles released into the atmosphere as a result of farming and fuel burning may be blocking more and more sunlight from reaching and heating the surface of the earth.

Why does it seem like global warming proponents are so adamant about silencing any opposing views, and refusing to let their "science" be further investigated? Tonight on his show, Glenn Beck spoke with the director of The Great Global Warming Swindle, Martin Durkin. Wednesday night, Beck will be airing a special entitled "Exposed: The Climate of Fear" on the "other" side of global warming. Beck asked Durkin, "What should I expect after airing a documentary very similar to yours?" Durkin's response? "Oh, welcome to hell."