We have constantly been bombarded with tales of how global warming is going to eventually cause the ice to melt in the poles and we are going to die in the floods. I think that this is probably the most publicized news story, surpassing even the war in Iraq and at times the campaigning for president. I know that the History channel is constantly putting on shows that are disaster related and many of them cite global warming as causing the end of life. How many times have you heard things like, "if the earth's temperature warms by 4 degrees, all life on earth will cease"? I know that I am tired of hearing this. I think that one has to judge for themselves, if global warming is taking place. I know that where I live, it has been getting warmer every year and the temperatures are far warmer now than when I was a child. This makes me tend to think that things are getting warmer, but I have to remember that just because things are getting warmer here, they may not be getting warmer in other places. That is the crux of what I am about to tell you. Whether the data I have found is reliable or not, I can not prove, but it sounds like it is and I would like to share it with you.

Recently a climatologist decided to test the weather data coming from government weather stations. To his surprise he found that most of the weather stations DO NOT meet the government criteria for accurately predicting the weather. How can this be you say? Well it seems that they are placed entirely wrong for doing this job. For example some are right up against or near other buildings, preventing accurate temperature readings. Others have their instruments near the exhaust of air conditioners and still others are on the top of roofs. Anyone with half a brain knows how hot it gets on the top of a roof in the summer, can you imagine how this effects the reading of the air temperature? The survey was conducted in Pennsylvania and over 500 weather stations were examined with over 70% failing the temperature accuracy test. The government never ceases to amaze me. You have to wonder how incompetent can it be? These are figures that were being used to decide if we were facing global warming or not. This leads me to believe that the temperatures being recorded in other countries are just as inaccurate. Here we are with a bunch of inaccurate temperature readings. I wonder what the History channel has to say about that, this could ruin their programming? Without the global warming disaster, half of their programming might have to be removed.

The story certainly doesn't end with faulty temperature readings. Another scientist has decided to check the thickness of the ice at the North Pole. Guess what he said that he found? He states that the ice in the Arctic is even thicker in some spots than it has been since we started measuring it. Admittedly the key word is "some spots", but this is still a great surprise. How can any ice be getting thicker, if global warming is taking place? This just doesn't make any sense. As if this wasn't enough, a meteorologist in California has stated that January 2008, was the second coldest month ever recorded on the planet. What the heck is going on here? Hardly anyone has said anything about the earth getting colder. Oh well, now the History channel can start to run programs about how we are all going to die from a new ice age. Some scientists now state that this cold spell is an anomaly and it doesn't indicate that global warming is over. Some say that this just shows that the planet is still able to control temperature and that the situation is certainly not hopeless yet.

All through this so called period of global warming, there have been scientists that are insisting that we are getting colder not warmer. You would think that it would be very easy to tell who is right. Cold and heat are two opposites and should be readily detectable. The problem comes in when some places get colder and some get warmer. It is not happening uniformly over the entire planet. You don't see a global heat wave or a global cold wave sweeping over us and this causes confusion. Scientists are forced to analyze data to reach their conclusions and when this happens, some scientists reach different conclusions than others. This is just how things are and have always been. Unfortunately for us, we are put into a position of not knowing who is right or who is wrong. Some scientists claim that the temperature of the earth only rose about one degree from 1850 to 1950. I would love to know why they believe that this is an accurate figure, when they can't even get one for today's temperature? The earth is nowhere as hot as it was millions of years ago. We live on a dynamic planet and as such it probably goes through cycles of heat and cold. We certainly have records of ice ages, so we know that it can get a lot colder and we have evidence of tropical plants covering most of the planet during the time of the dinosaurs, so we also know it can get very warm.

If we go by the geological record, we have to conclude that unless the atmosphere is altered in some inexplicable way, we are just about due for the next ice age. This is easily seen when layers of soil are examined. They show that there are periods between ice ages that last approximately 11,200 years and the period we are in is between ice ages and has lasted for about 11,500 years already. If we go by this fact, we are overdue for an ice age. One scientist stated that the earth goes through cycles and during these cycles things happen. For example during the last ice age, 75% of all the larger animals died out. During cycles of the earth things like volcanic activity increases, magnetic fields may reverse, seas may rise or fall and all sorts of other things might happen.

The question is, is global warming really taking place, are things remaining about the same, or is it getting colder? The very first thing that scientists have to do is to gather more info on the processes taking place. We need a better understanding of how this planet works and how warmer periods and colder periods, in past times, came to be. Without this knowledge how can we truly know anything? There may be some very powerful forces of nature that we don't understand, that are at work even now, altering our climate. An example of this is happening in Africa and some other areas. Fresh water is drying up. Why is this happening? This is probably more of a concern to us than global warming is at the moment. Without water to drink, all life will expire. Even the Great Lakes in the U.S. have dropped to lower levels.

When we talk about cold places, we have to mention Antarctica, which is commonly known as the South Pole. Scientists claim that it is just getting colder and colder there. The theory of global warming states that the ice in Antarctica will melt causing flooding and huge loss of life. When studies were conducted in Antarctica, they revealed that large sections of the ice continent are getting thicker. The ice is growing. Scientists have gone so far as to say that in the last 35 years, the temperature of the air in Antarctica has gone down, not up. We are not talking about a small drop in temperature, but one of about 3 degrees since 1966. Maybe we should worry about a coming ice age rather than global warming, just based on this? Even with this evidence, those that support the global warming theory state that this is just a mere coincidence and that things are really beginning to mostly warm up. Scientists have examined ice cores and used satellite data to determine that Ross ice streams are gaining ice not losing it.

Some scientists now believe that the reason that some of this ice is breaking up is not because of global warming, but because the ice is extending over the ocean and the warmer ocean water is thinning the ice above, causing it to break off. If this is indeed the case, then we have been looking at things from a completely wrong perspective. Most of us thought the ice was breaking off because the air was warmer and melting it. I think that it is about time for the scientific community to get their stories straight. Is the climate getting warmer or colder? I know that I would like to find out for sure, wouldn't you?