Global warming? ... Or global cooling?

National Geographic devotes 74 pages of its September 2004 issue to three related stories warning not only that the Earth is heating up, but that it is doing so at an alarming rate. Twenty-eight years ago, National Geographic stated: "Most scientists agree that today's ice movement may reflect a worldwide cooling trend, but their explanations vary widely."

"From Alaska to the snowy peaks of the Andes the world is heating up right now, and fast," the September issue claims. "Globally, the temperature is up 1[degrees]F over the past century, but some of the coldest, most remote spots have warmed much more. The results aren't pretty. Ice is melting, rivers are running dry, and coasts are eroding, threatening communities."

National Geographic editor-in-chief Bill Allen predicts that this issue will be so controversial that "some readers will even terminate their memberships." "Why would I publish articles that make people angry enough to stop subscribing?" he asks. "That's easy. These three stories cover subjects that are too important to ignore."

Of course, Allen also promises that these stories will "show you the hard truth as scientists see it." "This isn't science fiction or a Hollywood movie," he says. "We're not going to show you waves swamping the Statue of Liberty." No, they don't, but they do quote one scientist as saying: "Things that normally happen in geologic time are happening during the span of a human lifetime. it's like watching the Statue of Liberty melt."

That statement appeared in the magazine's November 1976 issue in an article entitled "What's Happening to Our Climate?" Like the magazine's September 2004 stories, it supposedly reflected the best scientific thinking of the day on the subject of global climate change.

The November 1976 National Geographic story quoted the U.S. National Science Board as reporting in 1974: "During the last 20 to 30 years, world temperature has fallen, irregularly at first but more sharply over the last decade." It also quoted the National Science Board as forecasting two years earlier: "Judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end ... leading into the next glacial age...."

So is the Earth now beating up? In September 2004 National Geographic said yes. And that same month, Dr. John Christy, director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, reported that, for the continental U.S., this past summer was the second coolest in the 26-year satellite temperature record.