As a columnist, there is nothing that I hate to do more than to admit that I was wrong. Usually, when I write, I like to try my hardest to debunk things and show people the truth behind issues. Often, that includes making jokes and analogies about people in the spotlight and making them look silly.

But this time, the joke is on me.

I come to you a humbled man, and a converted man at that. What is it that has converted me? Climate change.

While looking through Time magazine, I came across facts about climate change that have thoroughly convinced me there is a real danger facing this earth. The article “Another Ice Age?” included the following statements:

 “In Africa, drought continues for the sixth consecutive year, adding terribly to the toll of famine victims. During 1972 record rains in parts of the U.S., Pakistan and Japan caused some of the worst flooding in centuries. In Canada’s wheat belt, a particularly chilly and rainy spring has delayed planting and may well bring a disappointingly small harvest. Rainy Britain, on the other hand, has suffered from uncharacteristic dry spells the past few springs. A series of unusually cold winters has gripped the American Far West, while New England and northern Europe have recently experienced the mildest winters within anyone’s recollection.”

As you can see, my concern is well justified, and it is hard not to be convinced that the climate is changing and putting the earth in peril. The worst part is that humans have their dirty hands in all of this. Yes, humans, with their farming and burning of fuel — according to University of Wisconsin’s Reid A. Bryson and other climatologists — plays their fair share in global cooling.

No, the editors of this paper have not been sleeping on the job and allowed me to make a typo. This doomsday scenario that I have been describing with information from scientists, climatologists, and, just plain brainiacs, is in fact global cooling.

I may have forgotten to mention that the article I got this information from was published June 24, 1974, but that is besides the point. What I am getting at is the fact that this article is chock-full of scientific data and opinions supporting about 30 years of cooling trends. Everything from ice thickness to precipitation levels was argued and accepted as fact regarding this change.

Sounds just like when Al Gore and his trusty Powerpoint slideshow displayed similar facts and data and sent us rushing to find some way to get rid of our “eco-guilt.”

So who is right? Are we cooling or getting warmer? After all, both sides present credible information from reliable sources and have real-life scenarios to back it up. Both can squarely place the blame on man’s shoulders and ask us to change our ways for the sake of the trees.

The global cooling theory argued that burning fuel — and even farming — spewed gases and dust into the air and caused what is known as global dimming, a phenomenon by which the earth could not get the full effect of the sun’s rays, and thus received less surface heating.

Global warming argues that those very same gases stay trapped in the atmosphere, causing what we know as the greenhouse effect.

Why don’t all these crackpot scientists just cut to the chase and say what they are thinking? Cut down on humankind, and you cut down on global heating, or cooling, or whatever the heck is going on.

But getting back to the argument of who is right  — well, technically, both theories can be right.

More and more, global warming has been the “cause” of almost all the weather patterns and natural disasters in our world.

Hurricane Katrina — well, that was global warming plus a little help from George Bush. Floods of Iowa   — well of course, global warming. And heck, why not — George Bush too.

Global warming alarmists have even gone so far as to claim that it may trigger a new ice age. How? Well, I can’t explain. But maybe Dennis Quaid did such a stellar job in “The Day After Tomorrow” that he made that theory plausible by acting talent alone. 

As you can see, whether the globe is getting colder or warmer it can all be traced back to global warming. And George Bush.

Global warming studies have only been done in such a narrow time frame that they can’t be used as any basis for facts. It was just 30 short years ago that we were claiming global cooling, on about 30 years of data collection. Now we have environmentalists using similar data sets to predict the opposite, and frankly it is just ludicrous.

When it comes down to it, scientists, climatologists and even Papa Bear — Al Gore — really don’t know what they are talking about when it comes to predicting climate change. Imagine that.

 — Justan Spaid is a sophomore in history from McCallsburg.