All too often you hear the debate over global climate change.

As students, we have the opportunity to learn from professionals. We can choose to take relevant courses, research on our own through our library or attend a lecture on campus.

Ordinary citizens do not have these options. Newspapers, television, Internet blogs – these are the sources by which our public finds their information. You would be hard-pressed to find scientists, professors and other credible individuals through these mediums.

This is why fair media portrayal of the global climate debate is crucial. Unfortunately, it’s anything but fair.

You’ll hear some toy with scientific conspiracy and governmental control as the basis of the warming alarmism, and others have actually accepted the warming aspect but are still skeptical of the anthropogenic reasoning behind it.

While the latter seems to at least progress to a more debatable and reasonable argument, the former is a perfect example of why this issue has found no support.

The debate has been split upon political lines. Typically – and I do stress typically – conservatives sit on the skeptical or denial side of the argument, while the liberal side of the debate follows the notion that the globe is warming and humans are the cause of it.

Now, of course, this is not all-encompassing and I do not expect every right-winger to outright deny global warming and all left-wingers to follow aimlessly. But on the level of the media – newspapers, television and websites – the subject of global warming is undoubtedly a political matter and the mediums typically follow the former pattern.

This is most unfortunate, as the concept of anthropogenic global warming is absolutely not a political debate. It is a social debate.

It’s problematic that the processes by which parties wish to accommodate and act on the issue fall into political boundaries. The drive and will to actually mitigate – or combat, if you will – the increasingly warming climate should be supported, or at least considered, by all concerned citizens no matter the ideology.

Although Al Gore brought the issue to the mainstream through his documentary, I’ve always found it unfortunate that Gore ever stepped into the climate debate, as he may be the one who initially politicized the issue. His reputation as a liberal, his consistently hypocritical statements and actions, not to mention his recent scandals, have significantly decreased his status as a credible source.

Make no mistake, Gore was never qualified to speak on the subject and he did nothing to actually support the cause. He has only brought conservative angst to rally against the cause, despite the truth and evidence behind it all.

It seems as if media personalities have used Gore as an excuse to demean the issue. Supporters of such personalities follow suit, thereby developing a large portion of our citizenship that only sees the negativity that Gore represents.

But these personalities begin to express the same hollow views that Gore continues to rely on: misinformation and alarming claims.

For example, this past winter the northeast U.S. experienced severe snowstorms, many record-breaking and uncharacteristic. In fact, the entire U.S. faced unusual winter weather patterns.

At the time, television personalities would continuously stress how cold the U.S. was. Newspaper editorials and blogs came out crunching temperature statistics to illustrate how severe this winter really was.

The statement was made clear: Since it’s freezing outside and these snowstorms are unconventional, global warming must be a hoax. For the relevant audience, and the general public for that matter, who have no prior knowledge of the issue, this statement makes perfect sense to them.

It’s cold, really cold; how can our planet be warming?

But the common misconception that weather and climate are the same is never explained to the audience or reader. These are ideas that only the educated could explain, not the media.

This is pure alarmism and ignorance. They do exactly what they criticize Gore for doing.

And they have every right to portray the information they are given in whatever way they wish to portray it. It’s only my personal opinion that holds that the popular media should present information from a standpoint of a relevant credible source.

I’m curious if it is the hate for Gore, specific political agendas, or certain people within the field that fuels this anti-warming crusade. Because this sort of reporting is obviously not commonplace, I would expect to see the same sort of alarming misrepresentation of the issue during summer months as I did in winter. But that is not the case.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration states that this past June was the warmest on record. Along with a record low in Arctic sea ice and the lowest first half-year of rainfall in Australia, the concerned media should be all over this.

But anti-warming personalities are not interested in presenting a fair assessment. They state that winter was really cold and therefore global warming is a hoax. Now summer is really hot … but global warming is still a hoax?

These anomalies – winter and summer – provide no long-term insight into our planet’s climate, but since these personalities have relied upon winter exaggerations to defend their argument against warming, they have an obligation to report these record-setting summer temperatures in the same manner.

All in all, these personalities hold no real significance. The only role they hold is acting as idols, statues on which supporting constituents can base ideals and beliefs.

I hope my belief in the more driven and skeptical public holds true. No matter the side you take on the issue, I would hope every citizen develops their own belief based on facts, not opinion. It’s hard not to absorb what you hear without filtering.

And it’s even harder to remain consistent.