The Washington Post versus George Will

In my latest for The Guardian, I take a look at the insurrection with the ranks of the Washington Post over George Will's repeated mischaracterizations of the scientific evidence for human-caused global warming.

George Will's errors and arrogance

In my latest for the Guardian, I take a look at George Will's error-riddled column on global warming — and at how his arrogance, combined with the Washington Post's defensiveness, succeeded in turning a one-day story into a two-week (and counting) siege.

George Will's uncorrected error

The Washington Post's refusal to correct George Will's error on global-warming data is starting to rise to the level of a scandal. This account at the Washington Monthly shows why.

The cooling of George Will's brain

Syndicated columnist George Will presents only one piece of evidence in his Sunday piece denying global warming — and he gets it wrong. Will writes:

As global levels of sea ice declined last year, many experts said this was evidence of man-made global warming. Since September, however, the increase in sea ice has been the fastest change, either up or down, since 1979, when satellite record-keeping began. According to the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.

To which the research center replies:

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.

Much more from Climate Progress.

Final thought: What does it take for Will and/or the Washington Post to append a correction? As of 6:30 p.m., there was still nothing. Is it because his entire commentary looks ridiculous if he retracts the sole relevant factual nugget he included in his diatribe?

OK, not quite so final: David Bernstein stands at the intersection of Will and Jeff Jacoby.

George Will thrashes McCain

Conservative columnist George Will absolutely goes off on John McCain:

For McCain, politics is always operatic, pitting people who agree with him against those who are "corrupt" or "betray the public's trust," two categories that seem to be exhaustive — there are no other people....

It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?

The proximate cause of Will's dismay is what he calls McCain's "fact-free slander" of Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Christopher Cox.

These are very tough words coming from perhaps our best-known conservative pundit.