In his October, 2009 piece on climate change, George Will and the Washington Post serve up a cornucopia of misinformed and wildly misleading quips and claims.

For example, Will:

By asserting that the absence of significant warming since 1998 is a mere “plateau,” not warming’s apogee, the [NY] Times assures readers who are alarmed about climate change that the paper knows the future and that warming will continue: Do not despair, bad news will resume.

In using the made up fact that 1998 was the apogee of warming to mock scientists’ widespread consensus on climate change (and mock the Times), Will pretends that he is suddenly an expert on the subject; tosses most actual science aside as malarkey; ignores the fact that atmospheric “heat trapping” greenhouse gas concentrations have risen by around 40 percent since the start of the industrial age, and continue to rise, and that heat drives climate; also pretends that ocean current patterns play broad roles in assessing climatechange, but as a cause for shorter term climate variation are otherwise irrelevant; and overall engages in what could only very charitably be called scientific illiteracy.

Will also misses the fact that there can not yet be anything to indicate that 1998 (or any other year) was the apogee, because the effect of increased greenhouse gas concentrations is longer term and — along with most of natural science responses — does not follow a monotonic, or even consistently geometric, curve; tends to lag behind its precipitating cause; its precipitating cause is still ongoing; and at this point its precipitating cause is still increasing. Not to mention, that temperatures have risen since 1998, if anything: In fact, according to the International Panel on Climate Change, the ten warmest years on record have all occurred since 1997 (very likely to soon be eleven) — almost all after Will’s “apogee.”  And 2005 and 2007 are likely the warmest years on record so far.

But to Will, who apparently is to rational, non partisan, objective scientific thought what Ghandi was to violence, it is mock-able for the NY Times to have suggested that 1998 was a plateau (when it wasn’t even that), and not an apogee of warming. Upon that ridiculous assessment, he bases much of the rest of his piece.  

Let’s take another example. Will:

 Charles Moore of the Spectator notes that in July, the prince said that by 2050 the planet will be imperiled by the existence of 9 billion people, a large portion of them consuming as much as Western people now do. Environmental Cassandras must be careful with their predictions lest they commit what climate alarmists consider the unpardonable faux pas of denying that the world is coming to an end.

Will likes to rather purposelessly quote others (often, albeit not necessarily in Moore’s case, extremist ideologues, as if quoting them makes a point any more valid — see here for a classic example on this topic, for instance). But quoting Moore here doesn’t change the basic fact that is a monstrous logical conniption, written, as George Will so typically does, in “clever” appearing prose.

Some scientists are saying that the situation is going to be very dire, and soon, if we don’t start to sensibly address this. This does not mean the world is coming to an end. To make any sense at all, Will’s quote above requires that it does.  But even if these warnings did mean this, Will’s little conniption still has nothing to do with the point that they are making — which is to take action to prevent such worst case scenarios from occurring.

Will’s ”logic” here is akin to claiming that a doctor advising a middle aged male — with very high cholesterol, stress, blood pressure and body fat — to address these problems or face potential catastrophe would be hypocritical to discuss the future with said male because there “is none,” when the whole point of such advisement is to provide one.  And that is just with respect to the three or four “Cassandras” who may actually believe the world is “coming to an end” if we don’t act, rather than the far more prevalent view among so called “alarmists” that we are likely to do potentially phenomenal damage to it if we don’t act, or the even more common scientific view that we are going to encounter great ecological and biological harm to our world if we don’t act, now. Yet in Will’s world he lumps this all in with literally meaning “end of the world.” And even then his analogy is still ridiculous, because the purpose of those warnings is to take action in order to avoid said “end of world.”

Will, nevertheless, does try to dance the dance of total climate change denial avoidance: After nine more years of increasing greenhouse gas buildup, and the appearance of several canary in a coal mine type signs as a result, he has finally managed to spring forward from the throes of complete science denial, to the more rigidly far right and reactionary positions of nine years past. Thus, in this same piece in which he uses false assertions and wildly misleading innuendos to suggest that climate change is probably not a problem (heck, its “past,” 1998 was the apogee, and the NY Times is manipulative for not suggesting these things), Will says that instead of redress, we need a commission to “study” the issue.

Just as we did nine years ago. Here is the scientific consensus from five years ago on the issue. Perhaps we could appoint a commission, stock it with scientists, and study it?

Will also mocks climate scientists, through this idea that those concerned about climate change are disheartened by the seemingly good, but essentially irrelevant, news that a few scientists are predicting short term cooling trends due to ocean patterns.

Aside from providing an incorrect reading of what those scientists are saying, Will also overlooks that these estimated cooling projections are speculative, and that this is just guestimation regarding one variable that goes into shorter term climate trends. He overlooks that any such cooling effect would be short term. He also overlooks the fact that the idea of increased greenhouse gas concentration driven climate change does not and can not mean that underlying shorter term variability in climate, overall changes aside, magically disappears.

He also misses the fact that, supporting data aside, heat drives climate; and that in the long run, with more heat trapped in the atmosphere, climate will change.  And he also misses the fact that this latter effect, with an unpredictable lag time between cause and effect, is likely to increasingly accelerate as greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise. But then this is a guy that tried to convince readers earlier this year that climate change has stopped because 1998 (also see above), was the warmest year on record — which is akin to arguing in late spring that we are heading into winter because last Tuesday was warmer than this Thursday (as well as, in this instance, probably incorrect, as ‘05 and ‘07 are the warmest years on record so far, according to NASA) — while ignoring, also as noted above, that the ten warmest years on record have all occured in the last twelve years.)

And as noted here, Will misses the fact that the evidence of exactly what this experiment is we are conducting on the atmosphere, as sure as the sun rises, will come after its cause has long been implemented, not before.

The idea of this potentially short term cooling period that Will seems to also rely upon for an argument that climate change may have “ended” — comes from the work of German Scientist Mojib Latif; who, as Will at least notes, pushes for policies to address climate change. (Mojib, not being one quarter the scientist that Will is, must not believe that 1998 is the apogee of otherwise increasing greenhouse gas emissions induced climate change.)

According to Joseph Romm — who writes the occassionally hysterical sounding, but always exhaustively researched climateprogress.org (a classic link from which is provided above) – Dr. Latif told him the following shortly after Will’s column appeared:

“We don’t trust our forecast beyond 2015″ and “it is just as likely you’ll see accelerated warming” after then. Indeed, in his published research, rapid warming is all-but-inevitable over the next two decades. [Latif] told me, “you can’t miss the long-term warming trend” in the temperature record, which is “driven by the evolution of greenhouse gases.” Finally, he pointed out “Our work does not allow one to make any inferences about global warming.”

Except it does allow scientist extraordinaire George Will, to do so.

For more on precisely what Latif’s work means, see Romm’s piece on it.  (Note that it also seems speculative to trust Latif’s formulations before 2015.  Again, as noted here (from where many of the ideas for this piece were borrowed), we can’t predict the weather very accurately three days in advance, and there are simply too many variables that interact, and too many magnifying assumptions required, to be able to model anything with much precision beyond basic longer term patterns.)

But the gist of Latif’s work is that ocean currents may have a shorter term cooling effect over the next several years.

This also helps illustrate something else, very basic, that Will also completely misses. But far worse than simply missing it, he then in turn uses this ignorance to otherwise, quite ridiculously, mock everything else.

That is, as noted, climate change does not mean that shorter term variability in climate will suddenly cease. 

Except in Will’s world, where, unlike the actual world that we live in, temperature, weather, and climate, are all monotonic. 
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The real question is this: Does Will recognize how illogical he is being? Apparently the editors on the Washington Post editorial page don’t recognize it, so this seems to be a fair question to ask.  Or is he so driven by blind politically based ideological opposition to the apolitical, scientific notion of potentially severe anthropomorphic induced climate alteration, that he is oblivious to it.

Climateprogress’ Joe Romm, cited above, was in charge of the DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy in the 90s, and is the author of several books on the subject, including two on how businesses can reduce their environmental impact and improve profits. Most fittingly here, his latest, 2006’s “Hell and High Water,” according to Technology Review:

…provides an accurate summary of what is … a sensible agenda for technology and policy, and a primer on how political disinformation has undermined climate science.

The Washington Post’s George Will serves as an excellent caricature of precisely this. That’s the opposite of an informed columnist trying to provoke provocative discussion, and thought. And the same as misleading and manipulative propaganda veiled as part of an otherwise legitimate debate. Making the real question two fold:

First, why does the Washington Post continue to publish Will’s drivel on climate change and science on its editorial pages. And second, why do those who prefer — or believe democracy requires — a legitimate debate and reasonably correct information, put up with it.

One thing is clear. If the hard far right, some (but not all) of which Will here seems to be representing, found a prominent piece or series of pieces so frought with misrepresentation and manipulation by a famous columnist, they sure wouldn’t.