A Ceasefire in the War on Science

The federal government's war on science finally coming to an end?

Science nerds returned to the White House Monday, triumphant and ready to tinker. After years of complaining about being shoved into the politics version of their school lockers, smiling scientists crowded into the ornate East Room, took cell phone photos and got a message from President Barack Obama they said was clear: Science, which once propelled men to the moon, again matters in American life.

George Will is No Al Gore

The New York Times ran an article the other day that lumped Former Vice President Al Gore in with conservative columnist George Will in their approach to global warming.  Not surprisingly, I find this claim to be patently absurd. From Revkin's article:

Mr. Gore, addressing a hall filled with scientists in Chicago, showed a slide that illustrated a sharp spike in fires, floods and other calamities around the world and warned the audience that global warming “is creating weather-related disasters that are completely unprecedented.”

Mr. Will, in a column attacking what he said were exaggerated claims about global warming’s risks, chided climate scientists for predicting an ice age three decades ago and asserted that a pause in warming in recent years and the recent expansion of polar sea ice undermined visions of calamity ahead.

Both men, experts said afterward, were guilty of inaccuracies and overstatements.

Now for the important part:

Mr. Gore removed the slide from his presentation after the Belgian research group that assembled the disaster data said he had misrepresented what was driving the upward trend. The group said a host of factors contributed to the trend, with climate change possibly being one of them. A spokeswoman for Mr. Gore said he planned to switch to using data on disasters compiled by insurance companies.

Mr. Will, peppered with complaints from scientists and environmental groups who claimed the column was riddled with errors, has yet to respond. The Post’s ombudsman said Mr. Will’s column had been carefully fact-checked. But the scientists whose research on ice formed the basis for Mr. Will’s statements said their data showed the area of the ice shrinking, not expanding.

So, when Al Gore is brought a legitimate complaint, he remedies the situation within a week.  When George Will's data is shown to be categorically false, he simply digs in his heels and writes another article attacking his critics.  

And how does Will explain the fact that the authority he cited in his article issued a statement saying that he was wrong and selectively chose data from their study to try to make a point?  Well, it's because they are part of the media-environmental complex, of course!  Those silly scientists just don't have the courage to face their oppressors like folk hero George Will.  

Will also adopts a key strategy of climate change deniers by claiming that in the 1970s there was scientific consensus that we were about to engage in a global cooling period.  Unfortunately for conservatives, this "scientific consensus" seems to be nothing more than wishful thinking.

Strangely, it seems that the mistake the New York Times is attacking Al Gore for is a result of him trusting the New York Times.  The slide that Al Gore removed was from an article from the New York Times itself.

A reasonable person, when faced with new information indicating your previous beliefs may be false, will welcome that information and adjust, as Al Gore did.  George Will, and many other climate change deniers, stubbornly stick with their opinions and let the facts be damned.  

Republican War on Science Continues!

Discover Magazine has a great article on George Will's and the Washington Post's failure to perform basic fact checking in his article about global climate change not being a legitimate concern...In his article, Will claimed that:

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.

Unfortunately, the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center said no such thing, issuing a rebuttal on their website:

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.

Rumor has it that Will is coming out with another article in tomorrow's Post where he continues to defend his lack of fact checking... Stay classy, conservatives!