# George Will and the 1970s-Style Global Cooling 'Scare' **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 15, 2009, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-and-the-1970s-style-global-cooling-scare/485944 "2009-02-15T12:36:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-and-the-1970s-style-global-cooling-scare/485944/81 "2009-02-17T00:40:58Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > I’m with Nate Silver on this one: I may often disagree with Will but I’ve usually found him to be smart and honest; his lying now is depressing and frankly puzzling. I spent a few months last summer and fall blogging about the Washington Post op-ed page, which forced me to actually read the damned thing more thoroughly than I had in years. At least during that stretch of time, Will was not smart, not honest, and didn’t even write particularly well. He is frequently prone to inventing his own facts, making abysmally bad arguments, and constructing columns that resembled random mental walks. You may have noticed the surge of paranoia about Fairness Doctrine reinstatement on the right, these past few months. Guess who got the ball rolling on that, in his columns last [August 17](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/15/AR2008081503101.html) and [September 18](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/17/AR2008091702975.html)? In the latter column, Will said, "Unless McCain is president, the government will reinstate the equally misnamed fairness doctrine.’ " In the former, he more or less assumed Congress would try to do so, saying that McCain should promise to veto it if elected. He wrote a column on [September 18](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/17/AR2008091702975.html), weeks after the extent of Palin’s willingness to repeat false ‘facts’ after they’d repeatedly been proven wrong was out there for all to see, saying: “Palin is as bracing as an Arctic breeze and delightfully elicits the condescension of liberals whose enthusiasm for everyday middle-class Americans cannot survive an encounter with one.” As I said at the time: "I guess Will has missed her habitual lying, her running a small town like a martinet, her refusal to cooperate with a governmental investigation, her firing of officials who refused to participate in her personal vendettas against members of her family, and her seeking of hundreds of millions of dollars of Federal handouts for genuinely worthless and idiotic projects. Or maybe those are the sort of small-town American values that Will finds so refreshing. Hard to tell." (Snarky, but true.) In August, Will [had a column](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/20/AR2008082002947.html?hpid=opinionsbox1) about a marvelous little (only 200 students) inner-city charter school, being run by a Native American who made a fortune in real estate, then decided to do Good Works. The teachers, Will tells us, come from “come from places such as Harvard, Dartmouth, Oberlin, Columbia, Berkeley, Brown and Wesleyan.” The school was excellent. The problem with the column was the implication that this was some sort of possible solution to what ails America’s schools (that, of course, Democrats, unions, and liberals were trying to prevent): it doesn’t take but a minute’s thought to realize that there’s a replicability problem here. Will, of course, not only didn’t give the question that particular minute’s thought, but went back to the same well for another column in September. Nothing dishonest, just not too bright. A whole bunch of his columns during this period basically devolved into attempts to snark at Democrats, liberals, etc. on intellectually weak grounds. Anyone who regards George F. Will as _currently_ smart and honest is, IMHO, just not paying close attention. It’s quite possible that that’s the case with Nate Silver; he’s got a different beat, and he’s very good at it, but I doubt he’s given a whole bunch of Will columns a close reading anytime lately. And since Will has this _reputation_ of intelligence and erudition, it isn’t surprising that Silver would give him the benefit of the doubt. Seven months ago, I would have. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-and-the-1970s-style-global-cooling-scare/485944/82 "2009-02-17T00:51:16Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > I found [this](http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=f80a6386-802a-23ad-40c8-3c63dc2d02cb&Issue_id=) on the Senate web site showing 400 scientists who dissented in 2007 updated to 650 in 2008. [The report.](http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=83947f5d-d84a-4a84-ad5d-6e2d71db52d9) “Scientists.” That’s a pretty big word. I reckon I qualify, having this dusty Ph.D. in math lying around. And some of these folks clearly have got about as much game in the climate studies field as I do - that is to say, none. Speaking of ‘none,’ I’ll admit I checked only a smattering of the links on that document, but that’s the number of links I found that went to peer-reviewed articles. And that, of course, is the coin of the realm here. So: how many peer-reviewed articles critical of anthropogenic climate change have these 650 scientists authored? Absent some links to those articles, that list means nothing. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-and-the-1970s-style-global-cooling-scare/485944/83 "2009-02-17T00:51:30Z")
**RTF** , yes I must plead guilty to having not paid much attention to or close reading of Will, instead having caught a column here and there over the years that seemed reasonable. My ignorance as to the extent of his dishonesty and dimbulbedness is now reduced. I do not yet see any of the climate change deniers yet defending his tactic of lying however. A bit of redirection to other red herring discussions, yeah, but at least no denying that Will’s lying is beyond the pale. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-and-the-1970s-style-global-cooling-scare/485944/84 "2009-02-17T02:08:23Z")
To those who think that lists of scientists who don’t agree on AGW such as Inhofe’s are at all convincing, what makes them more convincing than lists like [these](http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-scientists.html)? By the way, there is a mini-industry in the blogosphere investigating some of the names of Inhofe’s list. [Here](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/12/more_on_inhofes_alleged_list_o.php) is one link to such discussion. ```auto ``` ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-and-the-1970s-style-global-cooling-scare/485944/85 "2009-02-17T02:48:31Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > Because that’s not the critical issue. The critical issue is whether CO2 induced warming will cause water vapor levels to increase, causing further warming, causing water vapor levels to increase further, and so on, resulting in warming which will have significant negative effects. > > Contrary to what? The CAGW Hypothesis? Or some other claim? I haven’t done the reading necessary to debate the water vapor issue. I’ve heard of it and don’t know enough. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-and-the-1970s-style-global-cooling-scare/485944/86 "2009-02-17T04:29:47Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > I haven’t done the reading necessary to debate the water vapor issue. I’ve heard of it and don’t know enough. I would strongly encourage you to investigate it. Water vapor feedback (or amplification) is a critical link in the global warming chain. ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-and-the-1970s-style-global-cooling-scare/485944/87 "2009-02-17T05:01:07Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > I would strongly encourage you to investigate it. Water vapor feedback (or amplification) is a critical link in the global warming chain. As it will be. I’m glad to see that you’ve acknowledged that AGW is a real phenomenon and not that “global warming is a hoax” and equivalent to the Nazi “big lie” as attributed to the afore mentioned James Inhofe. Of course you must reject based on the objective data that “satellite data, confirmed by NOAA balloon measurements, confirms that no meaningful warming has occurred over the last century.” Can we agree that statements from Sen. James Inhofe have been shown to be wrong and biased and that any future statements from his or his office should be regarded as likely biased when addressing AGW? ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-and-the-1970s-style-global-cooling-scare/485944/88 "2009-02-17T12:42:54Z")
> [@Lamar\_Mundane](#): > > As it will be. I’m glad to see that you’ve acknowledged that AGW is a real phenomenon and not that “global warming is a hoax” and equivalent to the Nazi “big lie” as attributed to the afore mentioned James Inhofe. I’m not sure what your point is. The phrase “global warming” is ambiguous. I believe that the Hypothesis which I refer to as “CAGW” is essentially a hoax. > [@](#): > > Of course you must reject based on the objective data that “satellite data, confirmed by NOAA balloon measurements, confirms that no meaningful warming has occurred over the last century.” I’m not sure I understand this either, but I do concede that there was measurable warming in roughly the second half of the 20th century. > [@](#): > > Can we agree that statements from Sen. James Inhofe have been shown to be wrong and biased and that any future statements from his or his office should be regarded as likely biased when addressing AGW? You would have to quote some of these wrong and biased statements to me. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-and-the-1970s-style-global-cooling-scare/485944/89 "2009-02-17T13:49:22Z")
Just out of curiosity, for global warming deniers: are there any other areas of allegedly mainstream scientific consensus where you prefer the minority viewpoint, or is it just this one? Serious question. ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-and-the-1970s-style-global-cooling-scare/485944/90 "2009-02-17T15:05:23Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > You would have to quote some of these wrong and biased statements to me. Never mind. You already conceded it in your post. I gave you a direct quote from Inhofe and you agreed that it was false. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-and-the-1970s-style-global-cooling-scare/485944/91 "2009-02-17T15:09:58Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Just out of curiosity, for global warming deniers: I’m not sure what you mean by “global warming deniers.” I reject the CAGW Hypothesis but do not deny that the world warmed in the second half of the 20th century. > [@](#): > > are there any other areas of allegedly mainstream scientific consensus where you prefer the minority viewpoint, or is it just this one? I’m not sure whether my viewpoint is in the minority. It’s not so easy to determine this. Certainly the CAGW Hypothesis can be characterized as a popular view. > [@](#): > > Serious question. I’m not aware of any. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-and-the-1970s-style-global-cooling-scare/485944/92 "2009-02-17T15:25:10Z")
> [@Lamar\_Mundane](#): > > Never mind. You already conceded it in your post. I gave you a direct quote from Inhofe and you agreed that it was false. No I didn’t. Here’s what I said: > [@](#): > > I’m not sure I understand this either, but I do concede that there was measurable warming in roughly the second half of the 20th century. Whether the quote is false or not depends on how you interpret the word “meaningful.” For kicks, I pulled up the speech and it would appear that Inhofe explicitly concedes that warming has taken place: > [@](#): > > Using NOAA satellite readings of temperatures in the lower atmosphere, scientists at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) produced a dataset that shows global atmospheric warming at the rate of about 0.07 degrees C (about 0.13 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade since November 1978. > > “That works out to a global warming trend of about one and a quarter degrees Fahrenheit over 100 years,” said Dr. John Christy, who compiled the comparison data. Christy concedes that such a trend “is probably due in part to human influences,” but adds that “it’s substantially less than the warming forecast by most climate models, and”-here is the key point-“it isn’t entirely out of the range of climate change we might expect from natural causes.” ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-and-the-1970s-style-global-cooling-scare/485944/93 "2009-02-17T15:49:12Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > Whether the quote is false or not depends on how you interpret the word “meaningful.” For kicks, I pulled up the speech and it would appear that Inhofe explicitly concedes that warming has taken place: Don’t know when Inhofe’s speech that included that quote is from but the quotes themseoves on the UAH trend are [from 2003](http://www.uah.edu/News/newsread.php?newsID=96), which is before the latest major correction was made by Christy and Spencer to their data set. The current post-correction trend is 0.13 C / decade, which is still a bit below the trends over that time for the other satellite analysis and the two surface temperature records (all running about 0.16 C / decade, I believe)…but I think all four agree within the uncertainties. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-and-the-1970s-style-global-cooling-scare/485944/94 "2009-02-17T20:04:44Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Just out of curiosity, for global warming deniers: are there any other areas of allegedly mainstream scientific consensus where you prefer the minority viewpoint, or is it just this one? Serious question. Well, I don’t know about the people on this board, but the much-admired Richard Lindzen is also skeptical about the dangers of smoking, including the links to cancer. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-and-the-1970s-style-global-cooling-scare/485944/95 "2009-02-17T20:52:09Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Well, I don’t know about the people on this board, but the much-admired Richard Lindzen is also skeptical about the dangers of smoking, including the links to cancer. And the other “skeptic” mentioned by **brazil84** , Roy Spencer, is [an advocate of Intelligent Design](http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=080805I): > [@Roy Spencer](#): > > Twenty years ago, as a PhD scientist, I intensely studied the evolution versus intelligent design controversy for about two years. And finally, despite my previous acceptance of evolutionary theory as “fact,” I came to the realization that intelligent design, as a theory of origins, is no more religious, and no less scientific, than evolutionism. […] > > True evolution, in the macro-sense, has never been observed, only inferred. A population of moths that changes from light to dark based upon environmental pressures is not evolution – they are still moths. A population of bacteria that become resistant to antibiotics does not illustrate evolution – they are still bacteria. […] While natural selection can indeed preserve the stronger and more resilient members of a gene pool, intelligent design maintains that it cannot explain entirely new kinds of life – and that is what evolution is. […] > > It is already legal to teach intelligent design in public schools. What is not currently legal is to mandate its teaching. The Supreme Court has ruled that this would violate the First Amendment’s establishment of religion clause. > > But I have some questions relating to this: Does not classical evolutionism, based almost entirely upon faith, violate the same clause? More importantly, what about the establishment clause of the First Amendment, which states that Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion? > > […] At the very least, school textbooks should acknowledge that evolution is a theory of origins, it has not been proved, and that many scientists do not accept it. It should certainly be noted that views like this, or Lindzen’s views on the connection between smoking and cancer, have no direct bearing on the quality of their research on climate science. And if a research article on climate science that either of them or any other skeptic writes passes peer review (which, AFAIK, is usually conducted on article drafts with the author name(s) removed, precisely in order to minimize personal bias reactions from reviewers), then it deserves to be published and discussed seriously. However, I think that it’s fair to include such side issues in the overall “track record” assessment that I talked about in my previous post. Very few of us are going to be capable of scrutinizing the entire published output of any climate scientist and precisely evaluating its scientific merit. Consequently, it’s not unreasonable for us to look at the scientist’s general ideas and overall impact on his/her discipline, as a sort of rough “proxy” for the reliability of that scientist’s work. And by that proxy metric, neither Lindzen nor Spencer comes across as the most reliable climate scientist out there. Yes, both of them hold or have held very reputable positions in their field, and have produced much publishable research. But neither of them has been particularly successful in convincing other climate scientists that their hypotheses on global warming have enough merit to substantially challenge the consensus view. And ideologically, both of them seem to be committed “contrarians” who enjoy bucking the scientific mainstream for its own sake. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-and-the-1970s-style-global-cooling-scare/485944/96 "2009-02-17T22:40:23Z")
> [@jshore](#): > > Don’t know when Inhofe’s speech that included that quote is from but the quotes themseoves on the UAH trend are [from 2003](http://www.uah.edu/News/newsread.php?newsID=96), which is before the latest major correction was made by Christy and Spencer to their data set. The current post-correction trend is 0.13 C / decade, which is still a bit below the trends over that time for the other satellite analysis and the two surface temperature records (all running about 0.16 C / decade, I believe)…but I think all four agree within the uncertainties. Apparently the speech was from July 2003: [http://inhofe.senate.gov/pressreleases/climate.htm](http://inhofe.senate.gov/pressreleases/climate.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_Dirx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b77776/32.png) [@Sir\_Dirx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Dirx)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2009, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-and-the-1970s-style-global-cooling-scare/485944/97 "2009-02-18T00:54:20Z")
For those of you curious about geologists and their relevance to the debate, I imagine a main reason many of them are skeptical of AGW is because a graph showing a few thousand years doesn’t really register. Geologists think in terms of millions of years; anything on the thousands scale is like a drop in the bucket, and not very geologically significant. And I do think that–while they’re not climatologists–they can and should be valid contributors to the issue. Paleoclimate is far from a foreign concept to geologists. Granted, many focus on areas (tectonics, igneous petrology, etc) that have little to do paleoclimate, but many others (stratigraphers, paleontologists, etc) are fairly knowledgeable. Disclaimer: I just came in here to answer that. I don’t belong in GD as a participant, and in fact have no dog in the global warming debate. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2009, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-and-the-1970s-style-global-cooling-scare/485944/98 "2009-02-18T12:08:44Z")
> [@Sir\_Dirx](#): > > For those of you curious about geologists and their relevance to the debate, I imagine a main reason many of them are skeptical of AGW is because a graph showing a few thousand years doesn’t really register. I was a geologist, and I don’t agree with this. I don’t think any such bias is inherent to the field. > [@Sir\_Dirx](#): > > Geologists think in terms of millions of years; anything on the thousands scale is like a drop in the bucket, and not very geologically significant. That’s just not true - we study lots of phenomena that are on shorter timescales. Volcanoes, earthquakes, speleology etc. are some examples off the top of my head. > [@Sir\_Dirx](#): > > And I do think that–while they’re not climatologists–they can and should be valid contributors to the issue. This is true. Especially glaciologists - after all, when you consider it, ice is just another mineral, and can be treated as such. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2009, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-and-the-1970s-style-global-cooling-scare/485944/99 "2009-02-21T06:16:41Z")
Fortunately we have modern technology to rely on. Thanks to [satellites](http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=aIe9swvOqwIY) we have information that is plus or minus 193,000 square miles. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2009, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-and-the-1970s-style-global-cooling-scare/485944/100 "2009-02-21T15:04:55Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Fortunately we have modern technology to rely on. Thanks to [satellites](http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=aIe9swvOqwIY) we have information that is plus or minus 193,000 square miles. The point being? I am sure that you are aware that modern technology does suffer from occasionally glitches. Does this cause you to deny all of modern science or just the parts that you don’t like the implications of for political / philosophical reasons? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-and-the-1970s-style-global-cooling-scare/485944.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-and-the-1970s-style-global-cooling-scare/485944.md?page=6)