Michael Fumento

If you follow the global warming debate, one thing you "know" is there is no debate. Questioning man-made global warming puts in the same league as Holocaust deniers and proves you're on the take from Big Carbon. Another is that nine of the ten warmest years recorded in the U.S. lower 48 since 1880 have occurred since 1995, with the very hottest being 1998.

But we now know, thanks to the efforts of Canadian mathematician Stephen McIntyre, who revealed and then publicized glitches in data kept by James Hansen's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, that the hottest year was 1934 and that the real 15 hottest years are spread over seven decades. Eight occurred before the chief "greenhouse gas," atmospheric carbon dioxide, began its sharp rise; seven occurred afterwards.

Does this prove everything about global warming is a hoax, as some have claimed? Or is it worthy of nothing more than a mention on the back of a card in Trivial Pursuit, as Hansen claims? Even if you've read about this controversy elsewhere, my findings in The American Spectator Online may surprise you.