Sunday, April 02, 2006
George Will - about as bad as a high schooler's effort:In a ridiculous column, Let Cooler Heads Prevail, George Will tries to be clever. Exhibit A: Eighty-five percent of Americans say warming is probably happening, and 62 percent say it threatens them personally. The National Academy of Sciences says the rise in the Earth's surface temperature has been about one degree Fahrenheit in the past century. Did 85 percent of Americans notice? Of course not. They got their anxiety from journalism calculated to produce it. Never mind that one degree might be the margin of error when measuring the planet's temperature. To take a person's temperature, you put a thermometer in an orifice or under an arm. Taking the temperature of our churning planet, with its tectonic plates sliding around over a molten core, involves limited precision. In that paragraph, we see several propaganda elements: - That since people didn't personally notice a rise in global temperatures, they believe in it merely because scientists say so. This is anti-intellectualism on full display.
- "Journalism" is calculating to produce anxiety about global warming. George, where's the proof?
- Scientists can't be expected to measure a complex system like the earth. Only small-scale, static systems (like the human body) can evaluated. Another example of anti-intellectualism, in this case, opposed to anything involving complex mathematics.
But the lowlight of Will's column comes at the end: Suppose the Earth is warming and suppose the warming is caused by human activity. Are we sure there will be proportionate benefits from whatever climate change can be purchased at the cost of slowing economic growth and spending trillions? Are we sure the consequences of climate change -- remember, a thick sheet of ice once covered the Midwest -- must be bad? Message to George Will: The entire infrastructure of the planet - ports, dams, canals, roads, coastal cities - are built for the current climate. If substantial changes in global climate take place, enormous amounts of existing infrastructure would become worthless. Entire countries would have to be rebuilt from the ground up, with relocation of cities, plus new transportation and delivery systems to serve them. It would cost plenty. One trillion dollars would look like peanuts by comparison. Final note: Will gets cute by saying that climate change may not be bad, 'cause remember how bad it was when ice covered North America? We're supposed to be reassured that it's warming, not cooling that we're facing. But why stop with a short inter-glacial warming? Go the whole hog, turn the temperature way up, and you'll be looking at a really crazy situation - such as those which were in effect millions of years ago. It was hot, hot, hot!
posted by Quiddity at 4/02/2006 08:43:00 AM
10 comments
Well, and Will begs the real questions, like:
Given the geopolitical situation, and another unpleasant scientific theory of Peak Oil, should be tailor goverment policy away from oil and fossil fuel use, instead of toward them as current policy has for the past century? Are their energy policies that would enhance our security and our balance of trade more than the current mix of tax and indirect subsidy of the oil industry? What energy policies would reduce our exposure to energy market disruptions or Islamic fundamentalism?
Will is a willing tool.
I think George Will is wrong, but you are also playing fast and loose when you ignore his best evidence behind his central thesis -- the 'global cooling' consensus from the 1970s that supports his claim that this is all journalism. It's not, but I would have appreciated seeing you take him on mano a mano rather than tweaking.
Of course, if George Will was an honest man, he would have noted that his partial quote from the Science article ("Variations in the Earth's Orbit: Pacemaker of the Ice Ages" - Science Vol. 194, Dec. 10, 1976) does not accurately convey what the scientists wrote. The actual article very explicit states that 1) the scientists were looking at earth orbital patterns, 2) that their conclusions were based entirely on NATURAL components of climate change, NOT the "anthropogenic effects as those due to the burning of fossil fuels," and 3) that "the results indicate that the long-term trend over the next 20,000 years is toward extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation and cooler climate."
In other words, NO scientists were forecasting an imminent ice age.
While it is true that a number of JOURNALISTS were making such claims, it is not true that scientists were.
Thus, Will's accusation that journalists are conducting a "misinformation campaign" is accurate in so much as he is talking about himself.
hi brainhell,
the big problem with mr. will's argument is its lack of depth. there's plenty of evidence in addition to temperature change to indicate humans are making big changes to the climate. for instance, we're seeing record die off in the world's coral reefs. habits are changing suddenly for all sorts of species. there's a tremendous amount of evidence to indicate we're seeing dangerous C02 build up. we're seeing glaciers disappearing ... the list goes on.
mr. will is really using journalism to persuade folks, not science, which is exactly what he's saying is a flawed way to decide an argument.
I believe that George W. Bush can make America what it once was: A vast wasteland covered by ice.
Apologies to Steve Martin
Why is it that conservatives are never truly business people? Changes to cleanner cooler sources of energy will not hurt any business people - only those that currently harvest dinasours and are in their own way dinasours.....
Reminds me of the fight against airbags.
Dear 'Anonymous' -- Uh, all good but it should have appeared in the blog post. GFW is trying to say that journalists hype global warming the way he says they hyped global cooling ... and to any given reader that looks persuasive. Quiddity's critique is high-school at best by dodging GFW's best evidence.
Brainhell,
So you're saying that this long-discredited urban legend is Will's "best evidence"? That is true, and it's why his column proves Kramer was right about Will.
If it's long-discredited why didn'y Quid say anything about that? To the typical reader it's very compelling.
So your're saying...?
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