Is This Being Censored?

I read this article today about global warming, written by Mark Hertsgaard for "The Nation." From this article, it sounds like global warming is imminent so I decided to look into it a little bit. It's one of those things that is always briefly mentioned, but no one really seems to know the details. It made me wonder whether global warming is going to be that serious in the near future and, if so, then why haven't we heard more about it in the news?

First off, the EPA has an entire website dedicated to global warming if you would like to learn a little bit about it. It's simple in its explanations, but it contains quite a bit of information. You can even click on a map to learn about what is being done about global warming where you live. According to the "Climate Change and Arizona" report, the average temperature in Tucson has risen 3.6 degrees just in the last century. That reminded me of some pictures I saw while I was going to school there. One of my classes visited the geological research center located on "A" Mountain and they showed us pictures of what Tucson looked like only about one hundred years ago. The pictures were taken from the same spot we were standing at and the difference was incredible. The original pictures showed lots of plant life and a river (it didn't look at all like the desert we all know), but the river was later dammed and the plant life disappeared.

Also, I remembered hearing people talk about Al Gore's speech about global warming in January 2004, but all I ever heard about it was people laughing because the weather was so cold the day he gave the speech. They didn't seem to take it seriously, but that seems to be the problem with a lot of things (I'm a recycling fanatic and it drives me crazy when people don't recycle at all because they don't think it makes a difference-- you know the excuse: "I'm just one person. It won't make a difference." With that attitude, we won't.) I also found this criticism of his speech which accuses Gore of lying in his speech.

I'm so skeptical about everything I read these days so I decided to check out information that focuses on the controversy. This article was informative, but I wanted to do a little more research. I didn't have the patience to sort through that much more information so this last article isn't at all technical, but I found it quite interesting. Apparently, the Bush administration is changing its position on global warming. We'll see if it leads to anything though... This article summarizes what has been done so far (apparently with little effect) under the Bush administration, .

From what I have read, I'd wager that global warming is more serious than some people would like to admit. My guess is that the issue has been downplayed by the press, especially in articles like this. I especially liked this short article about the interplay between politics and science. I'd like to find something that specifically discusses the role that private interests play in censoring global warming news stories-- if you know of anything credible, please let me know.