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Talking Points Memo has been trying to get to the bottom of how George Will's Saturday column made it to print with so much misinformation about climate change. So far, the Washington Post seems to be going into cover-up mode:
[H]ere's what happened when we tried to talk about all this yesterday morning with Will and [editorial page editor Fred] Hiatt:
Will's assistant told us that Will might get back to us later in the day to talk about the column. And Hiatt said he was too busy to talk about it just then, but that he'd try to respond to emailed questions. So we emailed him yesterday's post, with several questions about the editing process, then followed up with another email late yesterday afternoon.
But still nothing from either of them, over twenty-four hours after the first contact was made. Nor has the online version of Will's column been updated, even to reflect the fact that the ACRC has utterly disavowed the claim Will attributes to it.
If the target of a news story stonewalled a Post reporter to this extent, how much would Post editors be flipping out? You can't help but wonder.
"We are basically looking now at a future climate that's beyond anything we've considered seriously in climate model simulations," Christopher Field, founding director of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University, said at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Field, a member of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said emissions from burning fossil fuels since 2000 have largely outpaced the estimates used in the U.N. panel's 2007 reports. The higher emissions are largely the result of the increased burning of coal in developing countries, he said.
Of course, developing countries are only catching up to ours. And America's carbon emissions rose two percent in 2007 at a time when scientists say we need to be cutting our global warming pollution now.
Will Congress lead efforts to reverse the trend by passing climate legislation in 2009? We'll find out.
In today's Washington Post, it's renowned climatologist...er, hot-air-spewing, right-wing pundit George Will vs. the world's leading climate scientists. Who do you believe?
1. George Will, the noted expert on...uh, baseball I guess...who mocks "Dark Green Doomsayers" by quoting a few sensationalistic and erroneous articles from the 1970s. Uh, George, I do believe that science has made a few advances over the past 30 years, but perhaps you missed all that...what's it called, empirical evidence? Data? Yeah, that stuff.
OR
2. The scientists, who say - and explain in great detail, using what conservatives like George Will disparage as "damn facts" - that "The pace of global warming is likely to be much faster than recent predictions, because industrial greenhouse gas emissions have increased more quickly than expected and higher temperatures are triggering self-reinforcing feedback mechanisms in global ecosystems."
Tough choice, I know, but I think I'll take the climate scientists over the bow-tied baseball "expert." How about you?
UPDATE 2/12: OK, so AFP pulled the ads off YouTube, deleted their blog post, and told the Wonk Room that the view expressed in the ads that global warming is a hoax "is not our position." Now the ads are back on YouTube. That's the way to build credibility, AFP - behave more erratically than Joaquin Phoenix.
Hey, Old Virginny! Put down that bottle of moonshine and stop chewin' yer tobaccy for a second. Americans for Prosperity has somethin' to tell you.
Listen up, Joe Sixpack. Don't you hate rich people? Aren't you jealous? Don't they get your overalls in a bunch? Don't they make your bourbon-laden blood boil? Why, it's enough to make a good ol' boy jump in his pickup, drive down to the gen'rul store and give the shopkeep a bit of what-for!
That's apparently the view of Virginia's intellect from the tenth floor office of Americans for Prosperity just south of Dupont Circle as they launch a new ad campaign in Virginia.
Honestly, I haven't been able to pay any attention to the content of the ad. I'm just dumbfounded they'd think we're this, well, dumb. Is this guy supposed to be a rich snob, a surfer dude, or some combination - Spicoli with a trust fund? And what's he eating, cheese and crackers? That's snobby rich people food?
You'd think Americans for Prosperity, with millions rolling in every year, would be able to buy some better propaganda for its buddies in the dirty fossil fuel industry.
Climate modeling has clearly established that the decline of southern Australia's winter rainfall is being caused by a build-up of greenhouse gas, much of it from the burning of coal. Ironically, Victoria has the most polluting coal-fed power plant on Earth, while another of its coal plants was threatened by the fire. There's evidence that the stream of global pollution caused a step-change in climate following the huge El Niño event of 1998. Along with the dwindling rainfall has come a desiccation of the soil, and more extreme summer temperatures.
Australia's dry period, now in its 12th year, is still being referred to as a "drought." It's a mirror image of what's going on in America's West, where "drought" has been accelerating wildfires for almost a generation.
Calling these cases "droughts" is like calling John Wooden's UCLA basketball dynasty a flash in the pan. These are two of the earliest, most definitive signs of permanent climate change.
Virginia faces threats on all sides -- the potential for more intense wildfires to the west; the danger of stronger storms and sea level rise to the east. Will we, like Australia, continue to refuse to break our addiction to coal?
Got a constituent email from Sen. Walter Stosch (R-Glen Allen) forwarded to me. Check out this paragraph (emphasis mine):
There are a host of bills to encourage increased investments in clean or "green" businesses plus regulations on those businesses which are not. Many initiatives come from the Governor's Climate Change Commission. The Commission based its recommendations on the view that global warming is a settled matter of fact and decided that Virginia should pursue strategies ahead of whatever initiatives the Obama administration might consider. You may want to question those assumptions. I do.
And a glimpse at his website turns up a "legislative survey" that's a blatant push poll. A question about uranium mining contains no reference to health risks and a question about offshore drilling doesn't mention U.S. Navy concerns or environmental risks. But a climate change question is worded, "Should Virginia implement more state regulations intended to combat the effects of global warming despite the current economic conditions?" as if we have to choose between economic health and protecting future generations from the effects of global warming. Apparently jobs constructing wind farms don't count?
I've left a message at Sen. Stosch's office asking for clarification on exactly what he meant in his constituent email. I'll let you know when I hear back.
Media Matters details how over on Drudge Report, Mad Matt claimed Al Gore should be embarrassed to testify before a Senate committee about the climate crisis because clearly two inches of snow, slush and ice means there's no global warming.
Yes, this two inches of wintry mix must be a sign of an oncoming ice age. Just look at my front yard! Isn't it magical? It's like I'm walkin' in a winter wonderland.
This storm actually marked the DC area's first measurable snowfall of the winter, so I'm surprised mildly amused Drudge would cite it as evidence of global cooling. In fact, a quick look at DC's snow records shows startling evidence of a warming trend:
Number of back-to-back DC winters with less than ten inches of snow:
1887-1990: 2
1990-2008: 4
And if we don't get ten inches of snow this winter, it will mark the first time DC has gone three consecutive winters without ten inches of snow in recorded history.
But the media can't dwell on that. Depressing news is just terrible for ratings. Much more entertaining to make fun of that buzzkill Al Gore!
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Climate change is "largely irreversible" for the next 1,000 years even if carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions could be abruptly halted, according to a new study led by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The study's authors said there was "no going back" after the report showed that changes in surface temperature, rainfall and sea level are "largely irreversible for more than 1,000 years after CO2 emissions are completely stopped."
Would you like the minor increases in temperature, slightly higher sea level, and minor increases in drought and storm intensity we're already seeing at our current concentrations of global warming pollution? Or would you like to find out what happens if we continue to emit carbon at our current pace, doubling or even tripling our atmospheric carbon? See if we can melt the polar ice caps, submerge Chesapeake Bay islands, and make category 5 hurricanes a regular occurrence in the mid-Atlantic?
Those aren't rhetorical questions. We (Virginians, Americans, humans) are currently choosing to take our chances with runaway global warming. Basically, we're telling our grandchildren, "Sorry there's no such thing as Virginia wine anymore since it's too warm and dry to grow the grapes, but getting off oil and coal seemed like more trouble than it was worth so we decided not to bother. Good luck fighting off the climate refugees."
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In today's Washington Post, it's renowned climatologist...er, hot-air-spewing, right-wing pundit George Will vs. 
Got a constituent email from Sen. Walter Stosch (R-Glen Allen) forwarded to me. Check out this paragraph (emphasis mine):
