FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:
Al Gore called global warming "An Inconvenient Truth"... but suddenly a lot of people are asking what the truth really is. It's been dubbed ClimateGate.
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/12/02/gore.climate.gi.jpg caption="Former Vice President Al Gore gives a speech about climate change."]
A climate scientist at the center of a growing controversy over hacked e-mails is stepping down from a British University's climate research unit under a cloud of suspicion.
Critics point to a thousand pages of leaked e-mails and documents between this scientist and others which they say prove that global warming is not a threat. They say researchers are ignoring data that questions whether global warming is real, and have conspired to discredit those who question the phenomenon.
Here in the U.S., some members of Congress are demanding a hearing into research done by the climate change panel of the U.N. to find out if it "cooked the books" on global warming.
This is all coming to light right ahead of the global climate summit in Copenhagen. What's the old expression? "Timing is everything."
The scientists who believe in global warming say their case is based on "all kinds of evidence," like what's happening to the ice in the Arctic. The White House insists that "climate change is happening," adding they don't think the science is "in dispute anymore" among most people.
But not everyone is convinced.... A recent poll shows the percentage of Americans who believe global warming is happening has dropped from 80 to 72 percent in the past year.
Here’s my question to you: Do you think the scientific community has been honest when it comes to global warming?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?
Keith from Virginia writes:
Jack, No real scientist will say, right now, that climate change we see is due to anything humans are doing or ever did. What they should say is that we still, with all our supercomputers, cannot predict the weather nor our influence on it. What these scientists did is reprehensible and unethical; what Al Gore did is manipulate the facts for his own political gain.
Pamela writes:
Well, migratory animals and insects have changed course and satellites show that the ice in the Arctic is melting. The oceans are heating up as well. Polar bears are drowning... So, I would say: yes, the scientists are being honest. What do independent scientists have to lose? Do they have more to lose than politicians who are in the pockets of Big Oil and Coal?
Guna from Jamesville, New York writes:
Global warming has been taking place ever since the last ice age. Unless the climate remains exactly the same forever (and this is not a possibility) it is bound to warm or cool. We are now in a period of warming and unless you would like another ice age we should just accept it. That is not to say we shouldn't clean up our air, water and trash before we poison ourselves. If we don't do that soon, we will not have to worry about the climate at all.
D. from Massachusetts writes:
Something smells funny. I always thought scientists wanted to find the truth. Naive me. The apparent effort to suppress inconvenient information is disturbing. Hope they look into it, and recheck the reported observations that were the basis for the green revolution.
Ron writes:
Absolutely. The only question is: “how much" is the climate changing? Should we wait until billions are starving, here in the U.S. and around the world, before deciding we should have done something years ago?
David writes:
Man-induced global warming? Don't hold your breath! Americans are supposed to turn themselves into hunter-gatherers and return to the rice paddies while the rest of the planet tries to achieve Al Gore's lifestyle. How inconvenient!