Don’t expect headlines in the major newspapers when scientists are predicting that global warming isn’t going to kill us all. Fortunately, the Richmond Times-Dispatch covers the story:

Global warming by itself cannot be blamed for the increase in severe Atlantic hurricanes, University of Virginia climate researchers report. “It is too simplistic to only implicate sea-surface temperatures in the dramatic increase in the number of major hurricanes,” said the study’s lead author, Patrick J. Michaels. Warm water fuels tropical cyclones. Some hurricane researchers have related warming in the Atlantic basin with greater hurricane severity, pointing to greenhouse-induced atmosphere warming as the cause for the ocean heating. But hurricanes’ ultimate strength is not directly linked to the underlying water temperatures, the Virginia scientists said. “There are more severe hurricanes appearing than are explainable by the rise in sea-surface temperatures since the 1990s,” said Michaels, a professor of environmental sciences and director of the Virginia Climatology Office.

Environmentalists complain that the Bush administration “muzzles” critics of its environmental policies. The media’s muzzle on global warming skeptics is far more pervasive.