Once again, our world is possibly being led blindly by corrupt hands. On Oct. 12, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, along with Al Gore, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for “their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change,” as the Nobel Prize Web site described.

Great, right? Global warming is nipping at our heels, or perhaps even ahead of us as we chase after this problem, so those working to help our environment should be rewarded, right? Right. That’s why when the IPCC won the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. James E. Hansen, head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, cringed.

The IPCC produces regular reports on climate change.

These reports are organized into three parts:

1) What is the problem?
2) Who’s going to suffer from it?
3) What can we do about it?

Consider that there are more than 1,200 authors and more than 2,500 scientific reviewers. Then consider that about 3,700 of these authors and reviewers are appointed by the UN member governments. And, that these reports must be unanimously approved by all 154 governments to be published.

Finally, consider that many of the UN governments are oil-rich, powerful, and definitely not about to admit to the weight of climate change problems.

Just to name a few: Saudi Arabia, China, and the United States, the latter two having the highest carbon dioxide rates in all the world.

These conditions practically ensure conservative reports, downsizing or just ignoring the importance of these issues.

Also, our beloved winners took six whole years to publish their latest report. We’re talking about climate change — we have nowhere near that amount of time. By now, this report has to be extremely outdated.

The IPCC report didn’t even include the melting of the Greenland and Westland Arctic sheets. This isn’t even a spot missed for conditions in the future; the sheets are already melting.

In 2002, a 1,255 square-mile piece of Antarctic ice broke off and melted in only 35 days.

Do you know how large that is? Four times the size of New York City. Can this problem really be ignored?

The IPCC thinks we have some time, for they believe that the ice will melt gradually. Hansen says no, that the ice will melt rapidly, completely out of our control. In a report, Hansen pointed out that 3.5 million years ago sea levels increased by about 115 feet when the temperature increased only by two to three degrees above today’s level.

So how is it that the IPCC estimates that sea levels will rise anywhere from 7 inches to 2 feet in the next century? Hansen says that a rise in 16.5 feet by 2095 is more likely.

If we continue on our current path, we can expect to wake up in 10 years to irreversible, worldwide damage: constant coastal tragedies due to rising sea levels, no Arctic sea ice, and limited fresh water.

Hansen’s arguments prove that we, as the population, being fed facts and heroes, must check our food before we swallow it.