“A Matter of Fact,” a new report from the Center for American Progress Action Fund, challenges the Washington Post to correct George F. Will’s “Dark Green Doomsayers” column, published February 15th. The report, by CAP’s Brad Johnson, asserts that George Will made three factual errors:
- Current “global sea ice levels” equals those of 1979
- There hasn’t been warming in “more than a decade”
- “Global cooling” joins a list of well publicized “planetary calamities that did not happen.”
Will’s column is not perfect, and Johnson raises some valid questions. For the sake of intellectual honesty, however, Johnson should broaden his fact-checking scope to incorporate misstatements on both sides of the global warming debate—including his own fudging of the truth.
But first, let’s address CAP’s critique of Will’s column.
Error 1. It seems that Will is guilty of delay. On the one hand, the University of Illinois Arctic Climate Research Center, the source of his assertion that global sea ice levels haven’t changed in 30 years, publically disavowed Will’s claims. On the other, ACRC reported on January 1, 2009 that global sea ice levels were “near or slightly lower than those observed in late 1979.” Will’s column appeared 45 days later, during which the discrepancy between current levels and 1979 levels grew by 8%. If anything, this demonstrates the perils of reporting on an ever-changing global climate.
Error 2. CAP and George Will have it wrong. Will wrote that it hasn’t warmed in “more than a decade,” while Brad Johnson claims that “global warming is continuing.” According to data from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, compiled by NASA’s Dr. Roy Spenser, there has been no statistical warming of lower atmosphere temperatures over the past seven years, despite the fact that global greenhouse gas emissions have increased.
Error 3. Will is right and CAP is wrong. Johnson notes that there was never a “scientific consensus” on global cooling, but that’s not what Will claimed. He only wrote that some scientists and media outlets warned of global cooling, which is true.
I am an unabashed global warming “denier,” but I nonetheless applaud Brad Johnson’s efforts. On the topic of global warming, misrepresentations of the science abound, and we in the energy/global warming policy community should root them out and expose them with vigilance.
With that in mind, I have a “Matter of Fact” list of my own:
Fiction: Al Gore claims in his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, that “there is one relationship that is more powerful than all the others and it is this. When there is more carbon dioxide, the temperature gets warmer ….”
Fact: It hasn’t warmed in 7 years, despite a steady increase in global greenhouse gas emissions. Where’s the Warming, Al?
Fiction: Dr. James Hansen, ultra-alarmist, has suggested that a 2-3 degree warming would cause sea levels to rise by 80 feet. Hansen then lowered his estimation to 20 feet. His most recent estimate is “at least” 3.2 to 6.4 feet.
Fact: The preeminent body of climate scientists, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, suggests that a 2-3 degree warming would cause sea levels to rise 7 to 23 inches.
Fiction: In 1986, Dr. John P Holdren, President Barack Obama’s choice to become White House Science Adviser, is quoted as having said that global warming could cause the deaths of 1 billion human beings by 2020. During his confirmation hearing two weeks ago, Holdren was questioned about this claim, and said that “it is still possible.”
Fact: To fulfill Holdren’s alarmist warning, climate change would have to kill twice as many people as died in World War Two, each year, for the next ten years.
Fiction: The Center for American Progress’s Brad Johnson last summer reported that the death of two Boy Scouts in Iowa was “evidence” of “the consequences” of global warming.
Fact: As recently noted on Roger Pielke Jr’s Prometheus, the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters cautions that “justifying the upward trend in hydro-meteorological disaster occurrence and impacts essentially through climate change would be misleading.”
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Thank you for reading the report. Some comments:
1. The substantive error of Will's discussion of sea ice was his claim: "As global levels of sea ice declined last year, many experts said this was evidence of man-made global warming." Rather, as my report indicated, it is Arctic sea ice levels, not global sea ice levels that experts have said is a key indicator of man-made global warming.
2. I did not claim that "global warming is continuing." I reported that is what the U.N. World Meteorological Organization said. Will incorrectly claimed they had said the opposite.
3. Will pretty expressly mischaracterized the Science and Science News articles. Will wasn't arguing that the media was micharacterizing the science; he was arguing that the scientists were wrong.
On sea level rise — the IPCC report explicitly states that their estimates, which are for 2099, are "excluding future rapid dynamical changes in ice flow" Dr. Hansen, based on more recent observations and modelling, is not excluding that factor. The 20-80 feet predictions are long-term (hundreds to thousands of years).
On the Boy Scouts — I did not report that the death of two Boy Scouts in Iowa was evidence of the consequences of global warming. I wrote: "This tragic, deadly, and destructive weather—not to mention the droughts in Georgia, California, Kansas, North Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, North Dakota, and elsewhere across the country—are consistent with the changes scientists predicted would come with global warming."
A question to the author: Do you believe there is a multinational conspiracy involving the universities, scientific organizations, and governments around the world to trick the public into believing in manmade global warming?
Greetings Mr. Johnson.
Thanks for leaving a comment that wasn't snarky. Truth be told, I like reading you posts and although I disagree with much of what you say, I appreciate your tone.
You are right–'A Matter of Fact' reports that Will made two substantive errors on sea ice: (1) confusing arctic sea ice with global sea ice, and (2) claiming that current levels of global sea ice are on par with those of 1979. Bloggers and media types made big hay out of the second, most likely because his claim was repudiated publicly by the source, so I addressed it. If George Will confused arctic ice with global sea ice, then he was wrong. I have no desire to cover for him. Errors and exaggerations on global warming are the whole point of the post.
As for my assertion that you, rather than the WMO, said that global warming is continuing–you are right and I am wrong. That said, why is the WMO using the present continuous verb tense to describe global warming, when it hasn't warmed in 7 years?
Regarding Hansen–come on! He certainly doesn't go out of his way to make the distinction you make. Hundreds of thousand of years from now, human civilization will have endured a few ice ages. All he wants the public to hear is 80 FEET!!! 20 FEET!!!
Lastly, were you an author of "Global Boiling," a CAP post that begins, "The evidence for the consequences of global warming is appearing with alarming frequency,” and then goes on to cite the Boy Scout tragedy as evidence? The version I saw, for which I provided a link, listed you as an author. Again, if I am mistaken, I’ll be the first to concede as much.
Finally, do I believe in a global warming conspiracy? No.
I don’t know climate science from Adam, but I do know poverty, which I have seen up close and very personal. A world away, I lived in a house made of mud with a family that barely survived on $50 a month. Here at home, I washed the underwear of a city’s homeless, and wiped their blood from concrete made cold by the winter.
I also know that the “solution” to global warming is energy poverty, and that translates into a lot of privation and human suffering. To put it another way, human beings who are hurting now alarms me much more than 80 feet of sea level rise 100,000 years into the future.
There is probably not a multinational conspiracy among universities, scientific organizations, and governments–just old-fashioned, pot-lickin' rent-seeking and grantsmanship by those not engaged in commerce; along with a fair amount of toadying by short-sighted business executives.
In other words, its all about money. These folks just want to gain by setting up tollgates in energy markets. Unfortunately, the weather is not cooperating.
What's that again about a "sensor error under counting polar sea ice by an area the size of California? Maybe Will was right after all.
And why is Mr. Hansen allowed to use his NASA sinecure to lobby for radical, costly policy changes? Why can't NASA even get a "global warming" satellite into orbit?
The last person to attempt to use the cry of "huge conspiracy" to wriggle out of the mess that his repeated deceptions had got him into was Bill Clinton. Remember that "huge right wing conspiracy?"
But let's return to the global warming scare. The reason that the global warming scare has gained such traction is that a kind of "back to nature" fundamentalism is the religion of our time. According to this religion, humankind is "raping the planet." "Gaia is calling out to halt the destruction;" We humans are "defiling the oceans and destroying the forests."
According to this religion, drugs made by pharmeceutical companies are "bad." Herbal remedies handed down by Indian "medicine men" and European "wise women" are good. The fact that each generation of young men and women in the West is bigger and taller and more athletic than every preceding generation is overlooked. This religion is unimpressed by the power of scientific medicine to increase lifespans and prevent huge infant mortalities. This religion ignores the reforesting and general environmental renewal of the West.
This religion believes that paradise can be obtained by returning to nature, by achieving the "communion with nature" which, it is imagined, the stone age, pre-technological peoples of the world enjoyed. This religion sees Western, technological society as, in its essence, a form of matricide. Not until this extremist nonsense is refuted can environmental catastrophism, in one form or other, be defeated.
It was the proponents of this green mumbo jumbo who turned a theory that was a minor scientific curiosity into the major scientific preoccupation of out times. And the scientists who, although not green extremists themselves, have nevertheless climbed aboard the "save the world " gravy train should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. They have ignored all the fundamental principles of science to assume the role of saviours of the world. They are bringing science into a dreadful disrepute. They are clearing the way for a totalitarianism that will make communism look like a picnic at beach.
The left political parties that have taken up this green mumbo jumbo have only done it to win votes – they are simply ideological whores. But they could well find that the crazy religious force which they thought they were cynically exploiting will turn out to be stronger than they are.
This monstrous tyranny that is gathering force all over the world. The orthodox religions of the West are powerless before this new age mumbo jumbo. Science generally is in bed with it. Commerce imagines it can be dealt with by means of public relations companies. The arts communities, it goes without saying, are under its spell. The only major forces immune to its ideology are the Chinese and the Muslims. Maybe they will be left to fight, like feral dogs, over the corpse of this once-great civilization.
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