George Will

Hiatt: Will Challenging Climate Change Consensus Is "Healthy"

Zachary Roth | February 27, 2009, 10:51AM

Fred, what gives? You'll return Columbia Journalism Review's calls, but not ours? Where did we go wrong?

Fred Hiatt has broken his silence on that George Will global warming denialist column that set off such a hulabaloo. In an interview with CJR published last night, Hiatt defended the decision to run Will's column, despite several clear misrepresentations of science that have been thoroughly documented.

Hiatt argued that, rather than trying to prevent Will from expressing his point of view, Will's critics should take him on.

"Do I think it's somehow dangerous to have one of our many columnists casting doubt on this consensus?" Hiatt asked. "No, I think it's healthy. And let the other ones come in and slam him, if they think it's irresponsible. That's what an opinion page is for."

But nowhere in the interview does Hiatt appear to grapple with the actual argument of Will's numerous critics, which is that the column at issue contained outright misrepresentations of scientific data, on a level that goes far beyond honest differences of opinion.

Here's the relevant excerpt from CJR's report, so you can judge for yourself:

"We looked into these allegations, and I have a different interpretation than [those who signed the letter] about what George Will is and is not entitled to," said the paper's editorial page editor, Fred Hiatt. "If you want to start telling me that columnists can't make inferences which you disagree with--and, you know, they want to run a campaign online to pressure newspapers into suppressing minority views on this subject--I think that's really inappropriate. 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."

Hiatt said that he has invited both the World Meteorological Organization and the Arctic Ice Center at the University of Illinois to write a letter for publication taking issue with anything that George wrote, but neither organization has taken him up on the offer. Hiatt added that he doesn't think Will has an obligation to point out, "in every column he writes about climate change," that such organizations disagree with his interpretation of their data.

"If you're concerned that readers of The Washington Post don't get a sense that most of the world thinks climate change is real, I think that's a misplaced concern," he said. "And I can tell you: I don't share George's view. If you read our editorial pages you would know that we believe that the evidence of climate change is sufficiently alarming to justify major changes in public policy. But, you know what? I think it's kind of healthy, given how, in so many areas--not just climatology, but medicine, and everything else--there is a tendency on the part of the lay public at times to ascribe certainty to things which are uncertain. I believe, and this me personally speaking, that there is a lot more we don't know about climatology and there's a lot more we have to learn in terms of our ability to predict climatological phenomena and how what's happening in the oceans is going to interact with what's happening in the atmosphere. And do I think it's somehow dangerous to have one of our many columnists casting doubt on this consensus? No, I think it's healthy. And let the other ones come in and slam him, if they think it's irresponsible. That's what an opinion page is for."

Separately, yesterday we got a sneek peak at Will's latest column, in which he digs in his heels on the issue of global warming. (It's now up on the Washington Post site.)

We decided to leave the debunking of Will's self-defense to others more expert in the subject. And Carl Zimmer, who writes frequently about science for the New York Times, has now done so, in a detailed rebuttal to Will posted on the website of Discover magazine, that concludes:

In trying to justify an old error, Will can't help making new ones. But at this point, I'm not expecting any corrections.

Late Update:
Andrew Revkin of the New York Times has added his own detailed rebuttal of Will's latest column, which itself was framed as a response to a piece by Revkin earlier this week that criticized Will's original column.

We await Will's response to Revkin's response to Will's response to Revkin's response to Will.

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Topics: Fred Hiatt, George Will, Global Warming

Global Warming

In New Column, Will Sticks To His Guns On Global Warming

Zachary Roth | February 26, 2009, 3:41PM

Just when we thought we were out, they pull us back in.

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 -- including us.

Will's new effort is framed as a response to a New York Times story, by science reporter Andrew Revkin, from earlier this week, which asserted that Will's earlier column, published February 15, was guilty of "inaccuracies and overstatements," in the view of experts. (That Revkin story itself provoked some blogospheric ire by equating Will's out-and-out distortions with some minor exaggerations on the other side by Al Gore -- but that's a whole other story.)

In the new column, Will makes two central claims, one directed narrowly at Revkin, the other more broadly at critics of the February 15 column.

First, he 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, and adding that Revkin contacted him for comment only late in the afternoon of the day before his story ran.

Revkin didn't immediately respond to an email from TPMmuckraker seeking a response to those charges.

Second, Will stands by the substance of the February 15 column, 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. Though the center has since put out a statement disavowing Will's use of its data, Will claims that last month it posted confirmation of that very data on its web site -- and, getting all bloggy, includes a link.

We'll leave it to others to parse the finer points of this defense -- though it's immediately noticeable that Will doesn't mention that the center's confirmation of its findings notes that the data concerns global sea ice levels, rather than northern hemispheric levels. Global levels, it says, "may not be the most relevant indicator."

But after Will and Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt declined to answer TPMmuckraker's questions about the column -- leaving that task to the paper's ombudsman, who cited the paper's "multi-layer editing process" -- it's certainly intriguing that Will has chosen to wade back into the muck.

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Topics: George Will, Global Warming

Global Warming

Post Ombudsman Responds, Unconvincingly, On Will Column

Zachary Roth | February 20, 2009, 1:03PM

After days of radio silence from the Washington Post, the paper's ombudsman, Andy Alexander, has sent out the following statement (via Think Progress) about the George Will column that misrepresented the facts on global warming:

Thank you for your e-mail. The Post's ombudsman typically deals with issues involving the news pages. But I understand the point you and many e-mailers are making, and for that reason I sought clarification from the editorial page editors. Basically, I was told that the Post has a multi-layer editing process and checks facts to the fullest extent possible. In this instance, George Will's column was checked by people he personally employs, as well as two editors at the Washington Post Writers Group, which syndicates Will; our op-ed page editor; and two copy editors. The University of Illinois center that Will cited has now said it doesn't agree with his conclusion, but earlier this year it put out a statement (http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/global.sea.ice.area.pdf) that was among several sources for this column and that notes in part that "Observed global sea ice area, defined here as a sum of N. Hemisphere and S. Hemisphere sea ice areas, is near or slightly lower than those observed in late 1979."

Best wishes,
Andy Alexander
Washington Post Ombudsman

Hilzoy at the Washington Monthly shows that the statement Alexander cites in fact points to the opposite conclusion from the one Will drew from it.

But engaging at this level of detail is sort of beside the point. As the Post knows, every reputable scientific organization that has studied the issue has confirmed that global warming is occurring. Will's column was intended to mislead readers into believing that not to be true. That's the case whether or not it contained a statement that meets the Post's criteria for factual inaccuracy.

Late Update: Matthew Yglesias at Think Progress says it better than we could:

As for why it's okay for Will to write stuff that isn't true, the Post didn't have much of substance to say. They picked one of debunked subsidiary claims, and said they think Will is right, though they acknowledge that the very organization Will was citing as an authority says Will is wrong. One could say that on this subsidiary point, Will perhaps made an honest mistake that the Arctic Climate Research Center has since corrected. But the Post instead says that Will is right and the Arctic Climate Research Center wrong about what the ACRC's own research says. Meanwhile, they have nothing whatsoever to say about the other problems with the column.

These problems, it should be said, include Will's overarching thesis. Will wrote, and is trying to get readers of The Washington Post to believe, that there was a scientific consensus about global cooling in the 1970s. This is false. Post readers are being deceived. And the Post is standing by the deceivers.

This started as a problem for Will, his direct supervisors, and the Post's ombudsman. But now that the Post as a paper is standing behind Will's deceptions, I think it's a problem for all the other people who work at the Post. Some of those people do bad work, which is too bad. And some of those people do good work. And unfortunately, that's worse. It means that when good work appears in the Post it bolsters the reputation of the Post as an institution. And the Post, as an institution, has taken a stand that says it's okay to claim that up is down. It's okay to claim that day is night. It's okay to claim that hot is cold. It's okay to claim that a consensus existed when it didn't. It's okay to claim that George Will is a better source of authority on interpreting the ACRC's scientific research than is the ACRC. Everyone who works at the Post, has, I think, a serious problem.

Late Late Update: Carl Zimmer, who writes frequently about science for the New York Times, goes into more devastating detail to show that the very statement the Post cites rebuts Will's point.

If someone from the Post's crackerjack multi-layer squad of fact-checkers had bothered to pick up the phone, they could have simply asked, "Is it indeed true that global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979?"

And they would have probably gotten an answer like this: "Well, what do you mean by now? Today? And what do you mean by 1979? Exactly thirty years ago today? If that's what you mean, the answer is no."

A good fact-checker would then say, "Well, it seems this claim is based on an article that came out January 1."

To which the scientist would say something along the lines of, "At that point it was near or slightly lower what was observed in late 1979."

At the very least, that discrepancy would have to be corrected. But a good fact-checker would see a deeper problem, saying, "Whoa, that changed a lot in a month and a half."

Which would then lead to a discussion of the fact ice cover is such a noisy process that picking out a single day to compare these numbers does not say a lot about how it is affected by climate change. Climatologists look over longer time scales.

A good fact-checker would also learn that almost all climate models project that increasing greenhouse gases will cause a decrease in the Northern Hemisphere sea ice area over the next several decades, but the response of the southern hemisphere is less certain. In fact, evaporation caused by the warming might lead to more snowfall onto the sea ice. If the southern ice expands, it cancels out some of the retreat of the northern ice. And lo and behold, the northern hemisphere ice is almost a million square kilometers smaller than it was in late 1979, and the Southern Hemisphere ice is about half a million square kilometers bigger than in late 1979. So not only is Will wrong on the particulars of his statement, but he's wrong on what it means about climate change. A good fact-checker would make sure that this was fixed too.

How can I be so confident that a good fact-checker would learn this? Because it is in that same January statement from the Center that the Post cited as "evidence" that Will was correct.

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Topics: George Will, Global Warming

George Will

Hiatt, Will, On Global Warming Misinformation: Talk To The Hand

Zachary Roth | February 17, 2009, 11:30AM

Mum's the word for George Will and the Washington Post when it comes to explaining how misinformation on global warming got into Will's most recent column.

Yesterday morning we called Will to ask him about the misrepresentations in his Sunday column. We also called Fred Hiatt, the editor of the paper's editorial page, to ask about the editing process that the Post's editorial page employs. Neither chose to answer our questions.

As we reported yesterday, Will twice misrepresented the facts in his Sunday column, to make it appear that there's no expert consensus that warming is happening.

In one case, Will wrote that the respected Arctic Climate Research Center had found that global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979. But within hours, the ACRC had put up a statement saying those levels have in fact significantly decreased, and adding: "We do not know where George Will is getting his information."

In the second, Will, apparently seizing on a year-old (and since corrected) BBC story, wrote: "[A]ccording to the World Meteorological Organization, there has been no recorded global warming for more than a decade." That's technically true, since 1998 was a particularly hot year. But the implication was that the organization doesn't believe warming is occurring. Will didn't tell readers that the WMO had followed up by confirming its uncontroversial view that global warming is continuing, and making clear that gauging climate change by looking only at one year is all but useless.

So there's no question that, whatever Will's intention, his column misinformed readers. But here's what happened when we tried to talk about all this yesterday morning with Will and 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.

We're hearing that the Post's editing process for opinion pieces is virtually non-existent. Maybe that makes sense in some cases -- it certainly seems reasonable to give most columnists a freer hand than straight news reporters get. But it's difficult to know for sure when the Post won't talk about it. And that approach sure didn't serve the paper well here.

As for Will, it's not hard to understand why he wouldn't want to discuss a column as misleading as Sunday's.

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Topics: George Will, Global Warming

Global Warming

Where There's a (George) Will There's A Way ... To Deny Global Warming

Zachary Roth | February 16, 2009, 11:20AM

Looks like Fred Barnes isn't the only high-profile conservative columnist still arguing that climate change doesn't really exist.

Over the weekend, the Washington Post's George Will, got in on the act. And it took us about ten minutes -- longer, it appears, than the Post's editors spent -- to figure out that Will, like Barnes, was essentially making stuff up.

Both of Will's major "data points" fall apart after a moment's scrutiny.

Here's the first:

According to the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.

But within hours of Will's column appearing, the ACRC had posted the following statement on its website:

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.

So, nevermind then.

As for Will's second claim, he writes:

[A]ccording to the World Meteorological Organization, there has been no recorded global warming for more than a decade.

This one is a little more complicated. But only a little.

Will's claim appears to come from a BBC News article from way back in April 2008, whose first version reported:

Global temperatures will drop slightly this year as a result of the cooling effect of the La Nina current in the Pacific, UN meteorologists have said.

The World Meteorological Organization's secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, told the BBC it was likely that La Nina would continue into the summer.

This would mean global temperatures have not risen since 1998, prompting some to question climate change theory.

It's true that temperatures haven't risen since 1998, because that year was a particularly hot one. But as anyone with a high-school level grasp of statistics understands, you need to look at data over a broad period to get a realistic assessment of what's going on. In fact, the WMO itself made that very point in an "information note" that confirmed that the organization believes global warming is continuing, and pointed out that the last decade has been the warmest on record.

The WMO wrote:

The long-term upward trend of global warming, mostly driven by greenhouse gas emissions, is continuing. Global temperatures in 2008 are expected to be above the long-term average. The decade from 1998 to 2007 has been the warmest on record, and the global average surface temperature has risen by 0.74C since the beginning of the 20th Century. [...] "For detecting climate change you should not look at any particular year, but instead examine the trends over a sufficiently long period of time. The current trend of temperature globally is very much indicative of warming," World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General, Mr Michel Jarraud said in response to media inquiries on current temperature "anomalies".

Indeed, the BBC soon changed the third paragraph of its report to read:

But this year's temperatures would still be way above the average - and we would soon exceed the record year of 1998 because of global warming induced by greenhouse gases.

That changed prompted climate change deniers to see a nefarious conspiracy to hide the truth. But given that additional information from the WMO, it's pretty clear that the revised version better reflects reality.

Will, of course, doesn't appear to have been interested in any of this. He saw (perhaps via Rush Limbaugh?) a report that appeared to confirm what he believes ... and straight into the Washington Post it went. Neither did Will's editors at the Post seem to care enough about not misinforming their readers to take ten minutes to delve into any of this.

An assistant for Will said the columnist might be able to return TPMmuckraker's call about the column this afternoon. Fred Hiatt, the Post's editorial page editor told TPMmuckraker he'd try to respond to questions about the editing process later today. We'll update this post if we hear back.

Thanks to reader C.P. for the catch.

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Topics: George Will, Global Warming