George Will is supposedly one of the reality-based conservatives, who eschews the willful know-nothingism of some of his ideological co-travelers. Yet today, as he has many times before, he uses his perch on the Washington Post editorial page to lie to readers and reduce their knowledge of the facts.
It’s hard to believe, but he wheels out the "scientists said there would be global cooling" myth again. See it refuted here in our How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic guide. Or see Brad Plumer for yet another refutation.
But at this point it seems futile to refute it yet again. The question here is not about the facts, but about sociocultural norms. Why is Will permitted to lie to millions of readers every week? At what point do the editors of the Washington Post feel that it’s their job to step in and stop him from misleading people? Is there any such point? Is there anything Will could say that would cross the line?
Addendum: Meanwhile, segregated over in the “green” section of the paper: “Scientists: Pace of Climate Change Exceeds Estimates.” And so it goes.
What to make of the new climate poll
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GonzoDon Posted 8:55 am
15 Feb 2009
Will's primary argument against global warming science seemed to be that (at least some) scientists have made some seriously wrong climate predictions in the past. Therefore we should ignore all scientific predictions.
I kept reading ahead thinking he was gonna cite some compelling CURRENT evidence to counteract the overwhelming data showing our planet is warming. (That trend is undeniable; just ask anybody who lives in northern Alaska.)
Even here in Colorado, water managers are already altering the way they manage water and plan for future facilities, based on the reality that the snowmelt is occuring an average of 1/2 day earlier each year. They are not making these changes because they are 'liberals' or 'tree-huggers' ... but because their asses will get handed to them on a platter if they ignore these trends, and their customer's spigots go dry as a result.
But Mr. Will can't be troubled with citing robust "data" or "evidence" to support his claims. Instead he resorts to ridiculing scientists who've made mistakes in the past.
On that basis I await George Will's tirade next week against Einstein's General Theory of Relativity -- based not on any counter-vailing science, but based on the fact that the young Einstein got C's and D's in his math classes in elementary school. His theories are therefore crap!
Stick to adding to your growing bow-tie collection, Will.
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Sam Wells Posted 9:08 am
15 Feb 2009
One must be careful because (1) 2007 was a fairly warm year and (2) you're only talking about one year where measurable increases did NOT happen, which in no way violates the premis of global warming theory.
In fact, a major tenet of global warming is that cold air might be displaced from the western north pole to the eastern seaboard this winter, which happened EXACTLY as expected due to a dive or kink in the polar jet.
I have ranted, railed, and dissed the concept of a single "average global temperature" as making no sense but people - even the smart ones - still fall for it. Global warming generally means 'crazy weather' where the western parts of the north and south poles can or may start warming, extreme droughts may occur as in Australia, ocean currents could be affected, and other hypotheses that so far have turned out exactly correct - other than the ice melt models (for lack of a better word) really suck.
Finally, last I checked George F. Will is a political journalist with absolutely no scientific background or experience. Forgive and forget, brother?
-sammie
Onward through the fog
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L25kin Posted 10:09 am
15 Feb 2009
It's sad really, that so many, including Will, are so afraid of the physical realities firmly established by the IPCC, the Nat. Academy of Sciences and (finally) NOAA, and/or so afraid of the kind of responsive government that can lead a coordinated and cooperative revision of the way we live. Instead they opt to ignore and deny, and refuse to help meet the challenge of global warming, and even scoff at those who do rise to the challenge.
By their weight of numbers and by the effective perversion of public opinion by the fossil-fuel industry - their wealthy sponsors eager to sell more product in the short term - they are effectively paralyzing needed conversations and dooming all of us to suffer extreme droughts, raging wildfires, starvation, coastal inundation, periodic floods, water scarcity, and mass dislocation. Do they simply lack the courage to imagine it? It can be scary. But scientists rely on what the physical realities tell them.
Steven Chu and James Hanson are among the vast majority of scientists speaking for the unambiguous opinion of the scientific community. George Will is a performer speaking for his sponsors. It's sad that so few can tell the difference.
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Pompey Road Posted 11:44 am
15 Feb 2009
Unfortunately the first amendment guarantee's the right of this corporate media hack to spew the coal bought science taught in special ed classes.
However the same amendment guarantee's our right to counter it, if we ever get the funding necessary to compete in prime time. Or a network to carry it?
It's all about the money!
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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Ted Clayton Posted 12:10 pm
15 Feb 2009
I understand the aim & preference of the AGW-message, to make the global-cooling message of 4 decades ago look like static on the line, but I was there, and the cooling-message was definitely on the line. Even if it was a total load of bull (that we were headed into a new Ice Age), that was the message that was in front of everyone - 'The planet is cooling, and it could be a big problem'!
So no, George Will isn't lying about the message - just pointing out that was the story then - and it was.
George Will - applaud or cringe - has been on the job for a long time, and the odds that Grist is going to flame him off his perch aren't even in the game.
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Pangolin Posted 12:15 pm
15 Feb 2009
How you managed to type this sentence: "George Will is supposedly one of the reality-based conservatives, who eschews the willful know-nothingism of some of his ideological co-travelers" without losing your lunch on your keyboard is beyond me. For at least seven years George Will supported the policies of the Bush administration in defiance of all evidence that it was going to result the the, very predictable, disaster that it did.
The definition of a "reality based conservative" is a "Democrat." The GOP has been spiking the punch at party conventions with something that renders them unable to deal with physical reality. George Will, as a prime GOP pundit, is a perfect example.
Put the Carbon Back
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JMG Posted 12:36 pm
15 Feb 2009
The obvious conclusion is that, if we had any interest in survival, which we apparently don't, we must show that denying the Holocaust and denying that man is destabilizing the climate and chancing climate chaos
(a) uses the same resolute refusal to engage the vast body of evidence;
(b) begins with the desired conclusion and selects only the tiny tidbits of argument that can be spliced to support that desired conclusion;
(c) is very profitable for people like Will, because there are wealthy interests who like the conclusion and will pay big money to have it raised again and again, to maintain a "controversy" where there actually is none in a scientific or historical sense.
Like, holocaust denial, climate change denialism has a purpose -- it's not just an aberration of sick minds. It's a calculated political strategy and, so far, it's working well, in that all "reasonable" strategies that liberals and enviros propose fall far short of what the physics demands. So toads like Will are earning their pay.
The 5% Project
Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay.
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wesrolley Posted 1:08 pm
15 Feb 2009
So, rather than consider that, they deny the facts, they find excuses to do nothing, some may even pray that they are right.
George Will is a good person... just a bit stubborn about facing reality.
Wes Rolley
CoChair - EcoAction Committee
Green Party US
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Steven T Posted 1:35 pm
15 Feb 2009
I've never met the guy, so I don't know what he's like in person. I hear he has a DD kid who he adores, so I suppose that makes him "good."
But that's not what's being debated today. On the table is the proposition that George Will systematically lies to the American public and his corporate masters stand by and do nothing.
That's bad for journalism, bad for American governance and bad for the health of the planet.
Mind you, George Will is not some uneducated turnip who just fell off the truck. He has more education than 99 percent of his readership and has held some pretty high-priced real estate in op-ed sections of newspapers throughout the country.
George Will has real power as a pundit. He has repeatedly used that power in ethically questionable ways. This is not something new, nor is it limited to "environmental" issues.
For example, way back in the 1980 presidential campaign Will acted as a debating coach for Reagan . . . and then went on the air for a major network and acted as a pundit -- without revealing his role with the Reagan campaign.
That violates a pretty basic journalistic tenet. Yet Will never paid a price. He is one of the right's untouchables.
Maybe that's because he's such a good person.
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Ted Clayton Posted 2:17 pm
15 Feb 2009
To make his attack less susceptible to deconstruction, David Roberts will have to abandon some of his assertions. Bad-breath, greasy hair, yellow toe-nails - who knows what-all we might lay on the guy?
... But idiot? Why disable your own argument like that, David?
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:32 pm
15 Feb 2009
"1970's cooling"
http://greyfalcon.net/cooling
http://greyfalcon.net/cooling2
"Downward Trend"
http://greyfalcon.net/lanina
http://greyfalcon.net/elnino
http://greyfalcon.net/rsstemps2.png
"Sea Ice"
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/09/you_cant_make_thi ...
http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/twits-and-ass-a ...
-David Ahlport
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Russ Posted 9:25 pm
15 Feb 2009
The definition of a "reality based conservative" is a "Democrat." The GOP has been spiking the punch at party conventions with something that renders them unable to deal with physical reality. George Will, as a prime GOP pundit, is a perfect example.
Pangolin, I think what that sentence meant was that Will tries to sound more reasonable than the like of Limbaugh or Coulter, even as he pushes the same agenda, but that in this case even the specific argument is just as fraudulent and scabrous as anything Limbaugh would say (though no doubt phrased more primly).
It's like the way the professional deniers have their "moderate" faces like Lomborg or Pielke, who are supposedly more reasonable than the likes of Inhofe, but who really work for the same outcome: no action.
As for the Appeasers, er, Democrats, they're no more "reality-based" in their conservatism than the Republicans. The only difference is that their fantasy is marginally less predatory vis the non-rich than that of the Reps. They still want to slash-and-burn everything in sight. They just want to file off some of the worst razor-edges, that's all.
It is disgusting that the WaPost evidently has no truth standards for its right-wing columnists (they probably do for others).
But that's nothing new - they were on board with most of the neocon agenda throughout the Bush years. (I can't imagine what David Broder will do without them. He must feel lost.)
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Pompey Road Posted 11:23 pm
15 Feb 2009
Point being the trust factor will haunt the neo cons for years to come. No WMD's and the fundamentals of the economy was sound as they proclaimed right up until the day the market crashed. People are just naturally suspicious of people who embellish or fudge on the evidence or facts just to forward their agenda.
I would not trust George Wills assessment of global cooling if he had a priest, a rabbi and an Ayatollah vouching for him and it was 10 below in July.
The man comes off as credible but even if there was a possibility he was right conservatives have been so loose with the truth and so willing to reengineer the evidence it just becomes hard to take them at face value anymore.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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amazingdrx Posted 1:23 am
16 Feb 2009
They long for their cherished "free" market economy to return. That won't change, only the percentage of us who are willing to buy into their fantasies will change.
Right now it's at a low ebb, but as soon as the economy starts recovering they will try to take credit and get their deregulation agenda back on track.
Think about it, has their been any real increase in regulation or enforcement? Other than the Madoff arrest? Granted that he stole 50 billion, compared to Martha Stewart's 20k (politically motivated) stock scam conviction, it looks pretty good. But compared to the 800 trillion in counterfiet dollars floating around the planet, it's ridiculous.
A small army of Madoffs should be in the docket already if actual reform was actually starting. Would you buy a used car from Geitner? Or Summers? Try to find anyone who doesn't feel their skin crawl when watching these guys on camera.
Isn't there one financial expert who is willing to serve in government who can pass the smell test? Maybe the whistleblower who brought the Madoff scam to light way back in 2002?
Barack please put the whistleblowers in charge, the rest of the "bankers" will never inspire respect, trust, or confidence. And please get the investment "banks" and GM board replaced. Make it a condition of bailout money.
Maybe give that hooker addicted ex-NYgovernor, Spitzer, a chance? He would be motivated to rehabilitate his image, and very few people know more about this scamming.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Ted Clayton Posted 1:53 am
16 Feb 2009
The real problem is, doubts about the AGW model are becoming a too-tempting story for the Mainstream Media. This is a trend that has been visible on the edges of the radar for many weeks now.
Major media outlets have for years largely demurred to the Green position on climate questions, but their commitment to such accommodation is never better than superficial. They can easily 'turn' on a cause that has relied upon their cooperation.
The media are always slaves firstly to The Story and to The Audience that seeks them out for it.
While Green outlets work the Australia fires, the MSM have flogged a non-stop parade of neo-Ice Age stories from around the world.
Thanks to the glare of publicity focused on the Arctic Ocean icecap by the AGW movement, the MSM are now figurative camped on the North Pole, waiting to see what actually happens to the ice this year.
That's The Story coming up: How does the Arctic Ocean ice grow through the winter, and hold up in the summer of 2009?
Berating George Will's 'insidious infamy' is ineffective. Attacking WaPo's 'pernicious perfidy' is peurile.
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Jon Rynn Posted 2:12 am
16 Feb 2009
amazin', Obama is apparently considering not having a car czar but giving the job to Geithner and Summers! ouch!
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amazingdrx Posted 2:20 am
16 Feb 2009
I guess it would be for any drudge-respecting media producing corporatist (waste) water carrier. Their respective talking heads will breathlessly report any increase in ice as proof that the climate is cooling! Eureka!
The real story was featured in the Washington Post and commented on right here in this blog. Positive feedback causing exponential climate change.
Now we are waiting for the really big story, how does this all figure into existing climate change scientific data and modeling? We could have already passed the climate change tipping point and not even know it yet.
Science and journalism don't seem to mix well. The drudge vulnerable still think you can look out the window and guage where the global climate is heading. To do that scientists look out "windows" all the way back 10s of thousands of years all over the planet.
There's an ice storm in Ohio! Cancel global climate change theory, quick! Hehey.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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amazingdrx Posted 2:33 am
16 Feb 2009
Remember back in the 90s when the media actually bought into the image of Greenspan as a guru? And sold us all on it. Now we find out that Summers, Grahm, and Greenspan were all busy making sure any oversight or regulation on investment "bank" and hedge fund "derivative" and "credit default swaps" was canceled right around that time.
Setting up this whole mess we are in right now, allowing mortgage bundling "insured" by the likes of AIG to expand our currency by 800 trillion dollars in funny money e-currency.
We've definitely got the wrong guys in gitmo, the real terror squad that helped Osama reach his goal of $140 oil and our economic downfall were these creepy wall street hacks and their neoconman corporatist allies in the bush regime.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Pompey Road Posted 2:53 am
16 Feb 2009
Lets face it, the man will never have the trust of a Walter Cronkite. When he said the Vietnam war was not winnable Johnson said "it was over". He was correct in his assumption because that is when American opinion on the street shifted and support for that fiasco fell away.
Amazing just augmented my limited ability to point out the reasons for the right having a trust problem right now and even the centrist.
You lose the trust of the people and it will not only cost you elections it makes anything you say suspect. This is why Obama may face some problems with the mid term elections. The 60 Minutes report on the whistle blower from World Financial hits into what he was talking about with nobody taking a fall for causing the largest market crash in history. They covered the mechanics of the crime but barely mentioned the owner who sold World to Wachovia for 2 ½ billion just before the sub-prime bubble bust. It looks like this guy walked off with a cool 2.5 billion and when Citi bought Wachovia with part of the 40 billion TARP funds the taxpayers gave them, it makes Madoff look like a choir boy. This jerk was shown as a side show and not even part of the story. He should have been the story but corporate media always seems to give these guys a pass.
The same players from the Wall Street Fed collaboration playing musical chairs with the same people who fleeced the system now in charge of covering up the crime, Excuse me, I mean of course fixing the problem.
I have seen this government lie so much beginning with the Tonkin Gulf resolution I do not take any thing either party says as truth or believable until I get a chance to dissect it for myself.
George Will as a journalist will never be able to attain the credibility of a Cronkite. This country is so jaded right now I doubt that kind of trust will ever be found in any talking head again.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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Ted Clayton Posted 3:28 am
16 Feb 2009
Amazingdrx, ignoring my point - that it ain't George Will and it ain't WaPo that counts - doesn't alter the momentum of the media-juggernaught one iota.
As you both know, we have been watching public acceptance of the AGW-message peak & then decline, for a couple years now. That is a key explanation for the changing posture of the Mainstream Media, with respect to climate-topics: They're goin' where the story is.
"The people" are interested in another side of the climate-story, and in the months ahead we will watch the MSM deliver it.
George Will & WaPo are a red herring.
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Steven T Posted 3:28 am
16 Feb 2009
Pompey Road: George Will isn't a journalist. He's a scholar-turned right-wing columnist/pundit. Unlike, say, Walter Cronkite, he has never abided by basic mainstream journalism standards of factually grounded, objective reporting. Alas, today's news media tends to conflate punditry and journalism to the degree that the public can't distinguish between the two. This is a big reason for the declining ethics of the news media.
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earthscientist Posted 4:12 am
16 Feb 2009
No, we have to figure out how we can fundamentally shift belief systems, and clearly it has to use something other than simple, rational argument. Maybe an ice free summer Arctic, or massive droughts in the US Southwest, Australia and southern Africa would do it. I am beginning to believe that there will literally have to be 'bodies in the streets' before many like Will are willing to shift their libertarian perspective and accept an organized human effort to literally save modern technological society.
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biodiversivist Posted 4:21 am
16 Feb 2009
What George needs is a comment field. He needs to have his face rubbed in what he writes, regularly.
He scrounged around some news databases to collect a few stories about an impending ice age. I remember those stories. They didn't make an impression on me or anyone else for that matter because we have all grown immune to what passes for news in America. It even has a name--infotainment. George should search his database for UFOs. He'd find a million articles, literally.
Anyone could scrounge up that many examples of anything from news databases. George thinks he's being clever but George has no idea how dumb this article makes him look. From just one of David Alport's links above:
Thomas Peterson of the National Climatic Data Center surveyed dozens of peer-reviewed scientific articles from 1965 to 1979 and found that only seven supported global cooling, while 44 predicted warming. Peterson says 20 others were neutral in their assessments of climate trends.
George then brings up Paul Ehrlich's infamous bet about the price of metals (now well over a quarter century old) with Julian Simon, an economist (now deceased). Smart economists are all hiding under rocks right now for failing to predict or prevent our current "economic" crisis. The winner of that bet was determined by random luck. The prices were down the year the bet was called but if you look at the inflation adjusted history of those metals you will understand that had they picked any number of other years when the prices were high, Simon would have lost the bets. The bets were meaningless. More copper reserves have been found, so until we hit peak copper, the prices will continue to jump up and down with supply and demand. Neither party seemed to know what they were talking about.
Simon was an economic advisor promoting Reagan's failed trickle down policies and was also key to the instigation of the gag rule (just overturned by Obama).
As for Will being a liar. I don't agree with that because he believes what he is saying, just as the Pope or Pat Robertson or any number of televangelists do. Once you have given in to self-deception, even though what you say may not be true, you can't be called a liar for spouting bullshit. Will is quite susceptible to self-deception, as most religionists tend to be by definition.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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JMG Posted 4:57 am
16 Feb 2009
http://is.gd/jJ38
The 5% Project
Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay.
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biodiversivist Posted 5:07 am
16 Feb 2009
Many scientists and policymakers are advocating increased incentives for preserving tropical forests, especially in the face of demand for clearing forest to grow biofuel crops such as soy. Promoting biofuels without also creating forest-preservation incentives would be "like weatherizing your house and deliberately keeping your windows open," said Peter Frumhoff, chief of the Union of Concerned Scientists' climate program. "It's just not a smart policy."
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Russ Posted 6:05 am
16 Feb 2009
(For example, I think it's possible Inhofe really does believe AGW is both not true and a "hoax". He's certainly stupid enough.)
If I had to bet I'd say Will either knows exactly what he's doing (just like the professional mercenary deniers), or he doesn't care "what is truth", in which case he's willfully, aggressively ignorant, which still makes him a liar.
(If one remains willfully ignorant regarding a public issue yet still claims the "right to an opinion", one is certainly lying.)
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josullivan58 Posted 7:05 am
16 Feb 2009
In an opinion piece by George Will published on February 15, 2009 in the Washington Post, George Will states "According to the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979."
We do not know where George Will is getting his information, but our data shows that on February 15, 1979, global sea ice area was 16.79 million sq. km and on February 15, 2009, global sea ice area was 15.45 million sq. km. Therefore, global sea ice levels are 1.34 million sq. km less in February 2009 than in February 1979. This decrease in sea ice area is roughly equal to the area of Texas, California, and Oklahoma combined.
It is disturbing that the Washington Post would publish such information without first checking the facts.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
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GonzoDon Posted 1:34 pm
16 Feb 2009
The WashPo though ... WTF is up with that?
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fauxcult Posted 1:47 pm
16 Feb 2009
george will is not an idiot, per se.
what's missing here (or rather there, in the publication of record) is an astute, scientific response.
penned by, you know, someone who actually has a handle on what the fuck is going on, like -- say -- lonnie thompson.
sad fact: most readers (of said publication) are too poorly educated on the issues at hand to grok it, even if it were published in concert with mr. will's unfortunately sloppy and mis-informed commercial journalism product. and a good deal of them are also more worried about making mortgage and credit card debt payments, today.
so take that for what its worth, folks. you/we have a lot of work to do on the ground, still. even at this late hour.
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biodiversivist Posted 12:41 am
17 Feb 2009
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Ted Clayton Posted 2:38 am
17 Feb 2009
You must have missed WaPo's spoof of Al Gore's recent speech to Congress: With Al Due Respect, We're Doomed
Author Dana Milbank begins: "The lawmakers gazed in awe at the figure before them. The Goracle had seen the future, and he had come to tell them about it."
It's just gentle and good-natured mockery, nothing more, nothing less, but considering that: "What the Goracle saw in the future was not good: temperature changes that "would bring a screeching halt to human civilization and threaten the fabric of life everywhere on the Earth -- and this is within this century, if we don't change." ", it certainly wasn't in keeping with the intended gravity Gore intended to communicate.
I'll let you ponder: Doesn't WaPo buy 'The Message'?
I have seen other examples of this sort of thing at WaPo in recent times - articles with a spin that is decidedly not 'properly-Green'.
If you thought Washington Post was hewing to the Environmentalist line, you've been missing the full scope of their socio-political diversity.
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amazingdrx Posted 3:11 am
17 Feb 2009
The internet village has it's own idiots.
Conflating perception with reality? The mark of village idiots down through the ages.
It take a village to raise an idiot.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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josullivan58 Posted 5:23 am
17 Feb 2009
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PurpleOzone Posted 5:51 am
17 Feb 2009
I was 'there' too and the media definitely trumpeted the idea of 'global cooling'. I remember a sentence citing the 'unusual' warm weather 1955-1970 with the words like 'the best weather the world has known may now be over'.
I was also in the halls of science: global warming due to fossil fuels was first explained to me after the temperature of Venus was found by Mariner to be hotter than your oven. From then on, I continued to hear scientific concerns about AGW.
It is a good question why the media trumpeted cooling in spite of then scientific consensus then on AGW (now more firmly established, but not changed in direction). Maybe because the bizarre sells magazines?
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Ted Clayton Posted 7:07 am
17 Feb 2009
===
Yes, I too recall the - startling, at the time - discover that a radically different atmosphere on Venus had led to - not surprisingly - a far different environment from that of Earth. I also knew at the time that geology already knew that throughout it's geological history Earth had been subjected to large numbers of extreme carbon dioxide 'pulse' events, yet each & every time shrugged the effect off and resisted a runaway greenhouse effect such as we thought might explain the newly-discovered conditions on Venus. [Previous to the Mariner mission, it was often thought/hoped that the blanket of clouds that never lifted or broke on Venus represented a steaming tropical jungle - maybe like our own ancient Carboniferous. It was a huge shock to find the planet is a searing rock desert, not only hot enough to fry eggs, but completely incinerate them.]
"Consensus" on AGW at that early date? Maybe it looked that way to you at the time, but I think the predominant dynamic was a lusty diversity of evidentiary lines of investigation, coupled to a basic free-for-all of hypothetical & theoretic constructs.
And basically, it was reports of cooling-indicators, vying to establish their interpretation as dominant, while an array of (typically) non-conformist independent-thinking scientific-types competed to insert their own diverse ¢2 worth onto the info-line.
Also, I suspect you & I both know & understand something that almost universally gets overlooked in this increasingly-recurring discussion: That 40-50-60 years ago, Science & scientists occupied a substantially different social role & status than today ... as did the media, and the science journals (which were much more independent of each other then, than today). [Following it's dramatic successes in WWII, and a long period of ascent preceding the War, science then found itself the object of an intense controversy, focusing on complaints of "elitism", aloofness, arrogance, and a generally superioristic attitude (of which most individual professionals were, I think, largely innocent.]
I do not hold, as some have asserted, that any 'scientific cooling-consensus' was arrived at during the '50s to '70s, but I do hold that of the numerous interesting climate-themes then current in science & the media, that of cooling was 'predominant'. It vied successfully for attention, but no, there was no "consensus".
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mwildfire Posted 3:53 am
20 Feb 2009
So, to address the main thread of discussion here: Is Will stupid, a liar, or does it just not matter? I don't know how smart he is, but he is clearly a liar, whether motivated by what someone described as a sort of religion or by sociopathic self-interest (like a booster of coal liqefaction plants who told a friend of mine "I really don't care what the world is like after I'm gone.")
As to the idea that it's all beside the point and doesn't matter, it DOES matter what a generally respected columnist says in a major newspaper. Addressing the enormous problem of climate change while oil is peaking and the world's economies are in sharp decline will require big lifestyle changes--wrenching changes--at a time when their trust in government has been severely strained. Ordinary people are eager to believe that this is not a real problem. Feeding that desire is extremely irresponsible and makes our job that much harder. Will may be a nice man who pets dogs and is kind to children. Hitler was a vegetarian who probably never killed anyone personally. Bush can be charming.
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