If anything right now, there’s been a massive amplification of one particular view point; anything that differs from that view is rarely or incompletely reported. I assume you’re aware of the hockey stick issue — the center piece of the previous IPCC report and almost all AGW reporting up till two years ago that has mysteriously disappeared without a trace.

There has been political interference and bullying, of course. Here’s a few names: George Taylor, David Legates, Patrick Michaels…

“[Gieg] points out that within his lifetime, there was a three-decade period of unusually low temperatures that culminated in the popular consciousness with the awful winter of 1976-77. Back then, scientists started sounding the alarm about a new ice age.”

Nevertheless, one could question why Washington muted the scientists rather than coming back with the three-decade low trend response.

“Sea level is rising,” Giegengack agrees, switching off the sound. But, he explains, it’s been rising ever since warming set in 18,000 years ago. The rate of rise has been pretty slow — only about 400 feet so far. And recently — meaning in the thousands of years — the rate has slowed even more. The Earth’s global ocean level is only going up 1.8 millimeters per year. That’s less than the thickness of one nickel. For the catastrophe of flooded cities and millions of refugees that Gore envisions, sea levels would have to rise about 20 feet.

“At the present rate of sea-level rise,” Gieg says, “it’s going to take 3,500 years to get up there. So if for some reason this warming process that melts ice is cutting loose and accelerating, sea level doesn’t know it. And sea level, we think, is the best indicator of global warming.”

“Hansen has said that the tipping point (also known as the runaway effect) is upon us, and that if in 10 years the human population is unable to reduce greenhouse gases, that the oceans might rise as much as 10 feet by 2100.”

That 10ft = 3m, which although nothing like Vanity Fair’s dramatisation still encroaches on the coastal regions marked above.