While it is certainly correct that one cannot cite the coolness of 2008 compared to 2007 as proof that global warming has ended, a better question is whether the global temperature rate from 2002-2009 is a statistical anomaly, or whether global temperature rise is slowing down. If you plot data from NASA GISS or NCDC.gov, the least mean squares linear trend from 2002 to February 2009 is flat or even a little negative. Certainly below 75 degrees lattitude the trend is unmistakably cooling. So while there is little question that global average temperature is higher now than in 1900, the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change believes that the rate of warming will accelerate and threaten a climate crisis in the 21st Century. This is the real crux of the matter. Is the recent data skewed because of a few La Nina events? That would be the view of the majority of climatologists. Or is seven years of contrary data long enough to establish a new trend? That would be the minority view. I DON’T THINK EITHER VIEW SHOULD BE RIDICULED. THIS IS TOO IMPORTANT TO TRIVIALIZE.

The second point of fact is the association of polar ice coverage with global warming. If global warming is real, we might very well see a temporary INCREASE in glacier size and extent, because of the increase in snowfall that could occur with warmer temperatures. Snowfall is what feeds glaciers, not colder temperatures. This possibility I think is well understood by the IPCC, but is badly garbled up by many popular commentators. By the same token, the polar ice conditions are influenced by the thermohaline system among other things. If the Arctic ice cap regenerates itself, that does not mean that global warming is over or reversed. People need to listen to the meteorologists on this issue.

Also, Jarrud’s letter doesn’t debunk Will’s statement. Instead it points to data trending over the last century that support the notion of global warming.

Will isn’t a liar. Jarrud seems threatened by his pointed, factual assertions.

Why can’t we discuss the issue for what it is? What is the best course of action for our nation to combat (or ignore) Global Warming?

The responses to Will’s column here are emotional wastes of time.

I read the article in the Times. It’s of a piece with several other anecdote-as-data pieces that have been appearing in the Times lately (not restricted to global warming). What it essentially says is that some folks who’ve bought these bulbs in the past few years have noticed some of them have given out long before their advertised life spans are over, and that manufacturers/retailers have admitted to quality control problems with early versions. This equals “uselessness”?

I saw nothing in the Times article saying CFL bulbs were using nearly as much electricity as the incandescents they replace. Using less energy is the characteristic of CFL bulbs relevant to combating CO2 production and global warming. Thus, Will exaggerates the article’s conclusion (the article never said the bulbs were useless, just that some purchasers, particularly of early versions, were dissatisfied) in support of a point regarding global warming that the article never made. Mr. Will appears to be reaching near-O’Reilly levels of accuracy and journalistic integrity.

It should also be noted that Prof. Singer denied for a long time that cigarette smoking was a cause of lung cancer.

For me, a layman, your explanation of the carbon cycle and how coal is carbon removed from the carbon cycle for 60 million years, till we started putting it back into the cycle in a few hundred years, really put it all in perspective. It fit what I knew intuitively, but not being a scientist, it helped to have it spelled out. I have been using it in blogs because it simply states the problem in a way that cuts through a lot of the denier nonsense, IMO. I don’t think most of the public has even heard of the carbon cycle. It’s old hat to scientists, but maybe should be emphasized more.

How many other newspapers carry these articles by Will? I sometimes see his editorials in the San Francisco Chronicle, including ones calling all environmentalists socialist etc.
He is syndicated, but are these articles in the Post also printed around the country? Last time I read one of his hatchet jobs in the Chronicle, I wanted to call the newspaper and encourage them to drop his column like a stone.

Brian

Scientists have been using the terms climate change and global warming interchangably since the late 70s. Ever hear of the Intergovernmental Panel on CLIMATE CHANGE? It was named 20 years ago. Climate change more accurately describes the effects that will be experienced from global warming. If only 1.4 F change in 100 years or so is causing arctic sea ice to melt, species migration, feeding, breeding schedules to be screwed up, ocean acidification, sea level rise and more, just from 1.4 F change, then climate change is indeed an appropriate name for it.

“You alarmists may be hoodwinking the masses (presently)”

It never ceases to amaze me that people think the entire world scientific community is out to hoodwink them, while they totally ignore or rationalize the fact that the biggest economic enterprise in the history of the world, with the most to lose from a clean energy transition might have the motivation to dispense propaganda and muddy the debate.(correction -continue to make it seem like there still is a debate)

Don’t you understand that some of the same propaganda mills that were created to defend the tobacco industry claims that tobacco was safe are now used to confuse the global warming issue?
Heartland Institute has sections for both on their website still.
The whole strategy of creating phony astro-turf networks of organizations to give the impression of a large movement, was created by the tobacco industry and picked up on by the global warming denier crowd. They even use some of the same scientists, like witness for tobacco, Fred Singer, who also helped the chemical companies claim that CFCs didn’t deplete the ozone layer. That’s well established science, for which three people got Nobel Prizes. Singer clung to his claims even after the Montreal Protocol banned CFCs and the whole in the ozone mostly
closed up. (CFCs haven’t been eliminated entirely and other gases contribute to the problem)

Yes, I think you have been hoodwinked. Or does your political ideology prevent you from accepting anything that threatens it?

I recommend this article:

“Why Climate Denialists are Blind to Facts and Reason: The Role of Ideology” by Johnny Rook

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/12/143145/743/173/513430

Your comment is typical, throw out a whole litany of arguments, as if they are all true. It’s like you think you have thought of all these factors that the thousands of scientists somehow missed in the last 30 years of research. If only they had the benefit of your wisdom. And you believe that?

there’s not always a middle path to take. the “major viewpoints”, i.e., the preponderance of evidence from the people actually doing the science, support the case that our weather has averaged warmer as the 20th century progressed, and secondarily, that human-generated greenhouse gases likely play a significant role. science is *not* a democracy: like it or not, the only voices that matter – moderate or no – are the ones with data backing them up.

There certainly is a plethora of data which could be openly reviewed and discussed. Unfortunately, writers are afraid to take the middle path, to summarize and explain the major viewpoints regarding the earth’s climate.

You alarmists may be hoodwinking the masses (presently) but you cannot tell me that comparing climate data from the time when human beings had just managed to invent the internal combustion gasoline engine and the automobile with climate (temp) data from today and honestly tell me that you can precisely (or accurately?) identify a .73 or 1.33 increase. It is comparing apples to oranges. There simply was not enough precise instrumentation or data back then to make such a comparison. It has to be well within the range of likely error. Moreover, even assuming the increase is correct (a big assumption) it is the height of arrogance (given the reactivity of earth temps to solar activity) to assume that this is not caused by some other influence or cycle (solar or otherwise – but not man-caused). We simply do not know (and likely will not know for a long time) all the influences (other than man) that may effect long term climate changes.

A final point, if you want to be intellectually honest and win the “the world should be alarmed about global climate change” argument on the merits you would do well to treat your task in a manner like a business man seeking an enormous loan from a bank for a new business venture. You are, after all, demanding that society spend a nearly incomprehensible amount of money on a “problem” that has not yet had any obvious cost. Businessmen do not go to the bank and say “prove my business model wrong or lend me the money”. So, first remember that the burden of proof is on you. Second, the more money you want – the higher the burden of proof (the less risk the bank will take that your model is wrong). You want a sh_tload of money – you need to make your case with a very high degree of certainty. So far, your best case really amounts to the argument that “releasing a lot of CO2 into the air has to be having some greenhouse effect”. I don’t think that is nearly enough. Lastly, you have to show that your proposed solutions make the most sense. A bank is not going to give you a loan to make a widget factory if there are others out there who have a plan to make a better/cheaper widget. If you can prove global warming is happening, that that the warming is going to be significant enough to matter, that the results of the warming will be bad for mankind, and that man is causing it, you need to show that reducing CO2 emissions is the best (least expensive and disruptive) way to approach the “problem”. Sometimes the most effective solution is to address the symptoms – rather than addressing the cause.

That claim rests on a Y2K bug in NASA’s climate programs unearthed by Steve McIntyre of Climateaudit.org. The details are here:

http://digg.com/d1BOTG

The short summary:

NASA has now silently released corrected figures, and the changes are truly astounding. The warmest year on record is now 1934. 1998 (long trumpeted by the media as record-breaking) moves to second place. 1921 takes third. In fact, 5 of the 10 warmest years on record now all occur before World War II.

I expect better from this magazine.

[Carl: The warmest year on record for the United States is 1934. Jarraud is referring to global average temperatures. Big difference. More details here]

1. George Will calls the Times, “a trumpet that never sounds retreat in today’s war against warming.” Will’s terms. Not mine.

2. Whether or not the light bulbs are bad affects is irrelevent to the veracity of Will’s statement about the World Meteorological Organization.

3. Since you don’t say who touted warm winters and cool summers as definitive evidence of climate change, I can’t make any particular comment about them. I certainly agree that one warm winter on its own is not evidence of long-term climate change.

4. George Will is entitled to his opinions, but I’m entitled to point out demonstrably false statements he makes–especially after the scientists that he invokes as his authority explain that he’s wrong. That’s not being a “guardian.” That’s basic fact-checking.

[Edited for grammar]

I notice in your commentary about Will’s quoting from the New York Times, you don’t actually REFUTE anything he has to say about the menace of those `climate safe’, crappy light bulbs, only to say that he shouldn’t quote from a newspaper that (you allege) Will believes only publishes `climate propaganda’ (again, this is Carl Zimmer’s term, not Will’s).

But where was the scepticism about `climate variation vs. climate change’ when unusually warm winters and cool summers in the early century were touted as definite evidence of `climate change’?

Before you attack Will’s journalist skills, you need to improve on your own, Mr. Zimmer. Or better, go on with your global-warming hysteria, but don’t attack others who have a different opinion. You’re not the sole guardian of `science.’

We are currently having an Energy Summit with top scientists and policymakers, and someone suggested that we should add a “contrarian” to stir discussion–a certain Republican senator who does not believe in global warming. Our answer was that we are trying to accomplish something substantial in a short time with very knowledgeable scientists, and we did not need a bonehead to “balance” out the group, any more than scientists plotting the course of a shuttle trajectory need someone who doesn’t believe in gravity to “represent the other side”.

I’m sorry, but it’s time to (unapologetically) let the A students take back the classroom. We have had 8 years to experience what happens when we let the smug, anti-intellectual C- bullies-in-the-back run the show. They have delivered disaster on a global scale, driven by “gut-instinct”, mendacity, and Orwellian doublespeak. It’s time for committed, educated, conscientious people, thinking critically and respecting good science, to undo the horrendous damage that has been done. And we don’t have time to entertain the disingenuous calls for “bipartisan” or “even-handed” or “fair and balanced”. They are just attempts to lure us into re-wrestling a pig. And we know what happens there. Hopefully media outlets will tire of presenting fact-free punditry and get back to what used to be called the news.

….but I’m not hopeful.