According to Zachary Roth, George Will and the Washington Post Writers' Group are doubling up when it comes to disinformation and truthiness when it comes to global warming issues. Roth got an early look at tomorrow's (late tonight's) Will column.
We thought we were done with the topic of George Will and climate change. 
But now we've gotten an advanced look at Will's latest column, set to run tomorrow in the Washington Post and in syndication.
And it amounts to a stubborn defense of the amazing global warming denialist column he published earlier this month, that was ripped apart by just about everyone and their mother
Evidently thin-skinned Will couldn't take the mild rebuke he received in Andy Revkin's indefensible article in The New York Times equating of Al Gore's pulling one slide, of 400, from his presentation due to disagreements about how to present information (material he got, by the way, from The New York Times), to George Will's blatant (and serial) distortion and, well, blatantly dishonest opinion piece.
According to Roth, Will:
1. "Suggests that Revkin is guilty of sloppy journalism, noting that the Times writer doesn't name the experts who judged the February 15 column inaccurate." In this case, it would seem that George is lucky since that would be a long, long list of people who have examined that monstrocity and called it lacking. (And, well, Revkin's online version does have multiple links debunking Will's fraudelent claims.)
2. "Will stands by the substance of the February 15 column." Wow ... want to talk about arrogant disregard for any standard of evidence. The facts are clear, even if one wants to argue a global warming doesn't exist position, that George Will quoted people out of context (turning 'yes into 'no') and got factual information wrong on multiple issues (pdf) in his effort to peddle disinformation. Will is "maintaining, in the case of the key factual dispute, that he had accurately reported the findings of a respected climate research center on the question of sea-ice levels." The point here to emphasize is that there is not one fact, not one statement in dispute. This is not a 'he says, she says' moment about which month we're citing, but Will's column was serial truthiness, filled with misrepresentations and outright dishonesties. Will should not be able to redefine the discussion to a particular data point.
It is hard to see how anyone who is honest about "fact-checking" and editorial integrity could allow another piece of Will-ful disdain for the truth to be published on their pages.
Hmmm ... what does this say about The Washington Post and The Washington Post Writer's Group?
Update: Media Matters stepped in with Lashing out at critics, George Will spreads more falsehoods in new global warming column after getting a copy of the embargoed article.
Update 2: Columbia Journalism Review published The George Will Affair at 7:24 this evening. Amazingly, Post editorial editor Fred Hiatt stands up and defends Will, arguing that this is about opinion -- utterly ignoring Will's willful disdain for facts and rejection of scientific work. Hiatt misrepresents this as an issue of differing opinion, rather than Will's distorting information to misrepresent facts. And, then a moment of utter arrogance:
It may well be that he is drawing inferences from data that most scientists reject -- so, you know, fine, I welcome anyone to make that point. But don't make it by suggesting that George Will shouldn't be allowed to make the contrary point. Debate him."
"Debate him." Where, Fred, where? Have you given Washington Post opinion page space to any of those who have shredded WIll's truthiness? Have you distributed such commentaries to the 450 newspapers The Washington Post Writers' Group has Will syndicated to? Again, Fred, people are entitled to their opinions, not their own facts.
See, as well, Media Matters with WaPo Goes All In.
this controversy is not about "inferences" by Will with which others "disagree." It is about Will spreading falsehoods. And it is about The Washington Post standing by those falsehoods - a rather large gamble for a newspaper that cannot afford to lose readers or credibility.
Update 3: Joe Romm has an impassioned and powerful slap down of George Will's mendacity and the Post's complicity with In a journalistic blunder reminiscent of the Janet Cooke scandal, the Washington Post lets George Will reassert several climate falsehoods plus some new ones
This is Alice in Wonderland journalism. It is the paper's stated policy that the Post feels free to reinterpret whatever anybody says to fit whatever storyline they are pushing. This suggests the Post has advanced far from the Janet Cooke days.
The Washington Post is setting itself up, quite firmly, for case studies in journalism ethics or, well, the lack of it.
Note that the Will monstrocity is now published.
As for global temperature, here they are. Looks like they are increasing to me. Easy to plot in Excel if you want.
I took the yearly average temperature and averaged it each decade starting in 1880. The last point is 2000 to 2008. Results in degrees.
-0.26 1880 to 1889
-0.27 1890 to 1899
-0.26 1900 to 1909
-0.29 1910 to 1919
-0.15 1920 to 1929
-0.03 1930 to 1939
0.06 1940 to 1949
-0.03 1950 to 1959
-0.02 1960 to 1969
-0.01 1970 to 1979
0.18 1980 to 1989
0.32 1990 to 1999
0.51 2000 to 2008
SOURCE
GLOBAL Land-Ocean Temperature Index in .01 C base period: 1951-1980
sources: GHCN 1880-01/2009 + SST: 1880-11/1981 HadISST1
12/1981-01/2009 Reynolds v2
using elimination of outliers and homogeneity adjustment
Notes: 1950 DJF = Dec 1949 - Feb 1950 ; ***** = missing
What's your excuse for them?
I think your comment "But you are wasting your time arguing with these idiots. They are going to believe what they want and make up stuff to suit themselves" can easily be used to describe yourself.
What else can I do related to helping you understand the science?
Ever since the Pre-Cambrian (600 million years ago), ice ages have occurred at widely spaced intervals of geologic time - approximately 200 million years - lasting for millions, or even tens of millions of years. For the Cenozoic period, which began about 70 million years ago and continues today.
The most recent ice age peaked, in its Last Glacial Maximum about 20,000 years ago, and has been retreat ever since.
The internal combustion engine and coal fired power plants had nothing to do with it, although a caveman version of Al Gore could be heard saying ooogha aaaagha putttt out fireeee for it issss causinggg gloooooooballll waaarmmminggggg.
Have a good day and stay warm
Earth first - I'll pave the other planets later
1. That the ice ages happened
2. That 20,000 yrs ago the glaciers started to retreat and are still in retreat
or
3. That I enjoy recycling trees into paper
5. "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counteract ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage."
Obviously, if there were no internal combustion engines around, the CO2 they produced could not have caused the climate fluctuations in Earth's geologic history.
However, it is still true that a.) CO2 is a greenhouse gas (greenhouse gases contribute to the greenhouse effect, remember?) and b.) humans, with their internal combustion machines, have increased atmospheric CO2 levels by about 30% of what it was at the beginning of the industrial age. That carbon had been locked away from the earth's atmosphere since the Carboniferous era, some 280 million years ago.
Also, your description of the earth's ice ages is factually incorrect: they occurred during the Quaternary period, and their cycles were generally between 20,00 and 40,000 years long, with a few strong cycles of 100,000 years. These warming and cooling cycles were characterized by slow cooling followed by rapid warming.
The last ice age peaked 10,000 years ago, not 20,000 years ago. And left undisturbed, our climate would likely continue cooling for several tens of thousands of years. But it has been disturbed, so now it's anybody's guess.
Since it is anybody's guess, I would like to know: what makes you think you have the right to conduct a giant experiment on the troposphere, using all of us as your test subjects? Because that's what we're doing right now by returning tons of carbon to the atmosphere that has been missing for millions of years.
But then again, the argument hangs on human beings being intelligent and rational...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkuWuLezUSU
All the screeching, the panic, the melodrama, insults, predictions of world-wide doom, and warmists' refusal to debate well-informed scientists on the other side fail to convince the public. The big names and professors who support the AGW theory committed themselves too quickly and did not foresee all the contrary science now coming to the fore. Their profits and grants would be in jeopardy, if they showed weakness. Their biggest fear is the fear of being found out. That is why Americans rate global warming at the bottom of their major concerns.
There is reason not to go into "debate" format with people who do not feel constrained by any evidentiary rules and are willing to jump from item to item so fast that the debunking discussions can't keep up and don't play well with audiences who get lost in the technical discussions necessary to prove skeptic's statements as the frauds they are. George Will, in front of an not especially well-informed audience, could well run rings around many experts ... however, in a situation where one has the ability to check references against what he states, he quickly becomes shown to be the fraud that he is. And, well, so is the case with most of those "well-informed scientists" like Lindzen, who walks around comparing himself to Galileo. (Do you want to talk about Lindzen and his work arguing that tobacco couldn't be associated with cancer?)
"In addition, Will's claim that his sea ice distortion was the "only" assertion from his February 15 column that has been "challenged" is itself false. For example, ..others "challenged" Will's assertion that "according to the U.N. World Meteorological Organization [WMO], there has been no recorded global warming for more than a decade." Will did not cite a source or provide a quote to back up that claim. In fact, as recently as January 7, Agence France-Presse quoted WMO secretary general Michel Jarraud as saying, "The major trend is unmistakably one of warming.""
http://mediamatters.org/items/200902260029?f=h_top
Facts are relative to the far right. They are not respected so they are twisted and diminished. The far right does not acknowledge this dishonesty, but then twists other facts to cover their tracks. It is disturbing that their ideology has so little respect for the truth and their own integrity.
I have friends who will be in Washington this weekend, lobbying Congress to take action on global warming. They're mostly young people. See, those of us who are going to be AROUND in 2050 would prefer to take a cautious route: instead of waiting to see whether the extra CO2 and CH4 in the atmosphere is going to fry our ecosystems, we'd rather be sitting in our passive solar houses, riding the super-efficient high-speed rail lines, thinking, "I wonder whether all the fuss was really worth it?"
We'd rather be wrong, green, and happy than right, hot, and angry, yelling, "I told you so!" forty years from now.
What gives YOU the right to conduct a giant experiment on the entire planet anyway?
Do adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere cause the climate to warm? Yes. That's settled--at least as settled as anything ever is in science. About as settled as the theory of plate tectonics (or do you not "believe" in plate tectonics either?).
But let's imagine for a moment that that question isn't settled. You still haven't answered my question: what gives you the right to answer that question by conducting a giant experiment with the entire troposphere, every human being, and every other living thing on this planet as your test subjects?
I think that that is the only reason you and all the other sheep think it is.
If global warming is so real then first of all why is it that Al Gore had EIGHT YEARS to preach this crap and he did not.
Second, ALL of these same "scientists" that you GW followers claim as experts are also the exact same ones that twenty years ago claimed just the opposite saying that we were headed for another "ice age" and would most likely be in it within a century.
There are many more "experts" that dispute Al Gore and Hansen et al claims with proof showing that this global warming is a natural phenomenom, yet you are too narrow minded to see the truth.
Why don't you do a little research on these proclaimant "scientists" and you might gain a new outlook on this subject.
By the way, Al Gore is not a scientist OR meterological expert, this is nothing but a political ploy and you are falling for it hook line and sinker!
1. Your comment re ice age (Global Cooling) is factually not correct.
2. Your comment about experts "with proof showing that this global warmign is a natural phenomenom" is factually not correct.
3. You don't think Gore didn't work on this? Why do you think there was a Kyoto treaty that you likely despise so much?
Why do you so proudly display your anti-science syndrome credentials?
You are so focused on Global Warming that you do not want to see any other contradictory evidence.
Why don't you research Newsweek, Time, Science Digest and many more of the trusted information sources of the early 70's rather than just believing Al Gore because he pushed the Kyoto treaty to achieve an agenda of his own.
It is YOUR arrogance that is shining bright and it is so bright that you are blind to the FACTS.
Try doing a little research for a change before you blindly follow these global warming alarmists.
One more thing, next time why don't you try a little PROOFREADING before you post your comment.