Right now - sea levels around the world are rising at a rate faster than any other time in the last 2,000 years. That’s just the latest inconvenient truth coming from the world’s leading environmental scientists.

And it’s clear this is a result of man-made global warming - because for much of the last 2,000 years - sea levels were stable or rose at a fraction of a millimeter each year.

That was until the turn of the 19th century - when we found a way to harness ancient sunlight like coal and oil for energy - and spew billions of tons of dirty greenhouse gases - carbon dioxide - into the atmosphere.

Since then - sea levels have been rising at more than 2 millimeters every year - and speeding up - as this graph shows:

(Different ways to measure sea level over time)

Here it is, right here. This is pretty remarkable. This is zero millimeters a year change. This is a 2,000 year period. 2,000 years. And then the green here is actual observed numbers. The blue is what they were able to calculate from looking at things like ice, you know, charting ice things and tree trunks and however they do this.

So here we are in the last 50 years or so. Boom!

This conclusion comes on the heels of a new report by leading oceanic scientists who warned that thanks to global warming and pollution - the oceans are turning more and more acidic and threatening to wipe out half of all aquatic life around the world - an extinction not seen on the planet in the last 55 million years.

So given all these dire warnings of a rapidly changing planet that could kill or displace billions of people - why are our politicians not doing anything about it?

And more importantly - why is our news media not holding them accountable for their inaction?

Al Gore knows why.

In the most recent edition of Rolling Stone magazine - Gore penned an essay titled, “Climate of Denial” on why it is that global warming is still questioned in America - and not viewed here as a fact of life as in most other nations on the planet.

And the analogy Gore uses is spot on - and it has to do with professional wrestling.

To someone just watching professional wrestling for the first time - it seems real. The guys look like they’re beating the crap out of each other - there’s blood - groans of agony and occasional serious injuries. But one of the tip offs that it’s all fake - that it’s all a show - is how the referee acts.

If wrestling was a real - the referee would be on point and impartial - fulfilling his duty like any other referee in professional sports - be it baseball - basketball - or football. But in wrestling - the referee is just a character - playing an important role in the scripted theatrics inside the ring.

Ever notice that anytime the bad guy is breaking the rules - like smashing his opponent's skull with a metal chair - the referee seems to be distracted?

Or when the good guy finally piledrives the bad guy and lays on top of him for the pin - the referee is nowhere to be found - again distracted?

It’s simple - the referee is there for the drama - for the show. It's a show!

And when it comes to the climate change debate here in the United States - our referee is the news media.

And instead of acting like a legitimate - impartial - and competent referee - Al Gore points out that our news media - using this metaphor - is acting like a referee from professional wrestling.

The media seems unsure if they are supposed to be reporting on the facts of climate change - or if they are just part of the entertainment - refereeing an absurd debate between actual climate scientists who've devoted their lives to studying the issue - and, on the other side, pseudoscientists and pundits who are just saying what their big-oil corporate overlords pay them to say.

As Al Gore writes:

The referee appears not to notice that the Polluters and Ideologues are trampling all over the 'rules' of democratic discourse. They are financing pseudoscientists whose job is to manufacture doubt about what is true and what is false; buying elected officials wholesale with bribes that the politicians themselves have made 'legal' and can now be made in secret; spending hundreds of millions of dollars each year on misleading advertisements in the mass media; hiring four anti-climate lobbyists for every member of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

In other words - climate change deniers are cheating - hitting the legitimate scientific community in the head with the metal chairs - and all the while our news media is looking the other way - when the real story should be this blatant subversion of science in America.

But when it comes to Fox News - the media isn't just distracted while climate scientists get kneecapped with fake science - they're handing the metal chairs directly to the bad guys. As MediaMatters noted last year - Fox News' managing editor Bill Sammons sent a directive to all that network's journalists - instructing them to doubt climate change science.

Salmons' email read:

We should refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question. It is not our place as journalists to assert such notions as facts, especially as this debate intensifies.

In other words, it is not their place as journalists to report on facts.

That's because their job is to be a crooked referee in a sideshow - and as long as the climate change so-called "debate" remains a sideshow in the corporate media - then it will never be taken seriously anywhere else - be it in water cooler debates across America - or debates in Congress.

And the bad guys - the big oil polluters with their phony-science chair-shots - will win match after match after match until the entire arena is under water.

The threat of mass extinction in our oceans is not entertainment.

The threat of American cities like New York - Los Angeles - and Miami - drowning under rising sea levels is not entertainment.

And the threat of billions of people around the world being displaced is not entertainment.

It's real life - it's what we're all facing right now.

And we need a legitimate referee - a news media that knows how to do it's job and can't be bought off by big oil corporate interests - to make sure that Americans are informed about the very real threat of climate change and that our political leaders are held accountable.

Al Gore is so right on this - and told it so clearly in his Rolling Stone op-ed.

It's time to disqualify pseudoscience - and give the world title belt of legitimacy to ACTUAL climate scientists - and start listening to what they have to say.

That's The Big Picture.