You would think—or maybe hope—that journalists who have to appear alongside climate change deniers would find it a bit awkward. It used to be that media were faulted for creating false “balance” in coverage of climate change—quoting reality-based scientists in roughly equal measure with non-scientists who either don’t think there’s a problem or don’t think human activity has anything to do with it.
That doesn’t seem to be as much of a problem anymore (though it made a comeback after “Climategate”). But ABC has a built-in climate problem: The network’s Sunday morning show regularly includes right-wing climate denier George Will, which means his marginal viewpoint on a massively important story—the fate of the planet—has a seat at the table whenever climate change comes up (which isn’t often).
That’s what happened on the July 7 show. The problem wasn’t just Will, though. The show opened with host Terry Moran saying this:
A record heat wave have people asking: Dog days of summer or evidence of global warming?
“Is it summer or is it climate change?” isn’t really a serious debate. Moran got back to the topic later in the show:
We’re back with the roundtable here. The thing that strikes me as odd is that we don’t make neuroscience, brain surgery, a political question. But we have made whether or not the climate is changing because of human activities an article of political faith on both sides. That seems silly.
This is an interesting one to unpack. The first part of that statement is undoubtedly true. The second part doesn’t make any sense. If Moran meant that Democrats mostly believe in climate science and Republicans mostly don’t, his meaning would be clear. Instead, it’s made to sound like climate change is just one more example of Washington gridlock and an unbridgeable gap between the two major political parties.
The question was answered, first by right-leaning Mort Zuckerman and liberal E.J. Dionne. Then panelist Gwen Ifill of PBS seemed to invite Will to weigh in. Which he did:
You asked us — how do we explain the heat? One word: summer. I grew up in central Illinois in a house without air conditioning. What is so unusual about this?
Now, come the winter, there will be a cold snap, lots of snow, and the same guys, like E.J., will start lecturing us. There’s a difference between the weather and the climate. I agree with that. We’re having some hot weather. Get over it.
That answer led another guest—investor and former Obama “car czar” Steven Rattner—to challenge Will. But since this is Sunday morning television, which is structured to appeal mostly to Beltway insiders, Moran steered the conversation away from facts and back to the election:
Is it an issue for voters? Is this salient? Is this even on the radar screen?
George Will has been distorting climate science for a long time—long enough to see the scientific consensus on the issue only strengthen, and predictions of rising global temperatures borne out. As the evidence mounts, his own views do not appear to change in the slightest. He’s entitled to that, of course. But does this embarrass anyone at ABC? The panelists didn’t seem fazed—Will’s “get over it” quip got a good laugh.
Will is another peeping Budgie of Despair when it comes to anything his corporate leash holders want. If he was on fire and the only way he could get a bucket of water to douse it, would be to tell the actual truth, the stupid moron would burn to death first.
Which, the way things are going, might not be as far off base as it sounds.
I ask myself, “Don’t some of these right-wing BS-ers (the ones who have measurable IQ’s & are just ranting for the paycheck, that is) have grandchildren who they’d like be able to have their *own* grandchildren on a semi-livable planet?”
Then I realize that they have taken the Groucho Marx line “What have future generations ever done for us?” way, WAY too heart.
FAIR usually gets it right with well-crafted writing, but this posting is about as good as it gets. Thanks, Peter Hart, for providing a glimmer of hope.
How can the Washington Post and ABC still take George Will, the 0.1 per cent’s favorite errand boy, seriously? Here (again) is the conclusion of his October 13, 2007, Newsweek column: “If nations concert to impose antiwarming measures commensurate with the hyperbole about the danger, the damage to global economic growth could cause in this century more preventable death and suffering than was caused in the last century by Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot combined.”
That Will is a spokesman for powerful vested interest is not surprising. These days such journalistic betrayal is common. What is surprising, though, is that he still has two prominent platforms for expressing his relentlessly ill-informed opinions.
@John Q:
We can rest assured that, in 2012, “Prominent Platform” = “Ill-Informed Opinions”.
Like gravity, evolution and (the mechanisms behind) global warming… It’s an immutably true formula.
I think we have to either assume Will’s lost his grip on reality …
Or he’s lying through his teeth (some might say another part of his anatomy, but be that as it may).
My money’s on the latter, but at some level, the whole issue of global warming is moot.
You may be a fool not to believe the science, but even if climate change weren’t very real, the pollution and destruction of our planet will drive us over a rapidly approaching cliff.
The same changes have to be made irrespective of the causes.
Those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it.
And those who ignore the consequences of the present condemn us, and themselves, to an apocalyptic future.
Will isn’t an intellectual, he just plays one on TV.
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/08/26/lawrence-solomon-science-now-settled/
Science getting settled (08/26/2011)
“The science is now all-but-settled on global warming, convincing new evidence demonstrates, but Al Gore, the IPCC & other global warming doomsayers won’t be celebrating. The new findings point to cosmic rays & the sun — not human activities — as the dominant controller of climate on Earth.
The research, published with little fanfare this week in the prestigious journal Nature, comes from über-prestigious CERN.
Yet this spectacular success will be largely unrecognized by the general public for years because CERN remains too afraid of offending its government masters to admit its success. Weeks ago, CERN formerly decided to muzzle Mr. Kirby & other members of his team to avoid “the highly political arena of the climate change debate,” telling them “to present the results clearly but not interpret them” & to downplay the results by “mak[ing] clear that cosmic radiation is only one of many parameters.””
Global warming is not happening and further, the E.P.A. is not allowed to regulate carbon emissions. We Republicans like the tons of carbon spewed into the air annually.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=house-repubs-vote-that-earth-is-not-11-03-16
Will needs to retire or get a gig reminiscinng about the good ole days of baseball-where he can do less harm.
The poor twits! George Carlin answered our questions about The Planet years ago..
For those who haven’t seen it..
Come on, FAIR! George Will is “entitled” to get paid peddling BS that goes way beyond the old snake oil salesmen of the Old West or the piss-peddler in Sweeney Todd? I disagree.
Ah, Tressco, won’t you ever give up? The cosmic ray theory has nothing to do with global warming–say its originators! You might check out this site from Discover Magazine:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/08/31/no-a-new-study-does-not-show-cosmic-rays-are-connected-to-global-warming/
Gwen Ifill is a conservative Republican. I stopped watching PBS news years ago because of her.
Maybe this is old news.
The problem with the planet is that the human species is mindlessly proliferating itself and we are drowning in our egoistic excesses. We are bulldozing the land for more living-working space. We are decimating other species and their natural habitat. We are exploiting our fellow-man in our greed-is-good attitude. We have NO vision. // Jean Clelland-Morin
Jean Clelland-Morin: I agree. The polllution and destruction of this planet has been going on for years. We are simply reducing its habitability for ourselves and other species of life.
Well I always feel so much safer reading FAIR and its contributors.Global warming…Global cooling.Dont worry because the government will step in to control and save you all.Why is it that no matter what the dilemma ….or CONTRIVED dilemma ……..
, you always have the same solution?Unfortunately(for you) the science is not closed.Just beginning in fact.And it has produced scant- hard repeatable science.It is a theory at this point.And the attempts to wash away all the other things that effect global temps like the sun,and cloud cover, and all the rest is just your global warming theorists becoming angry because their template is being stepped on.Look at lord Obama to see how he really feels.He is not sweating any of this.Out in the sun on the links as much as he can.Vacationing all the time.Soaking up the sun.Does not look like he is dreading the end of the world anytime soon.Of course if it gets brutally cold as it did in eastern europe this past year why that is ok.It fits the data.What is the data?ALL WEATHER IS OUR FAULT…
Hah, hah. Get over it. Sure, sure. Just as soon as I extend the awning over my deck to cut down on the solar energy heating up my living room. It’s a climate thing.
The sooner we “get over” George Will, the rich man’s shill, the better off we’ll all be. That we are still allowing him to appear on public airwaves is a potent indicator that Rome is about to collapse.
What has Will ever done as a human being to even be considered worthy of commenting on anything?
climate is always in flux. warming – cooling.
where does earth get its heat?
the sun, the superheated core(s), gravitational tug of the largest moon in the solar system. why is earth goldilocks right, venus a hothouse, mars a cold desert? proximity to the sun.
since the planet has ping-ponged between warm/cool trends before the appearance of man, the liklihood that man created the current trend seems dubious. certainly, man – as well as trillions of ocean going microbes – could contribute to an extant event. still it would be wise to investigate earth’s major sources of heat – the big dogs – rather ran blame cosmic system behavior on their fleas.
men are not gods. men are arrogant – we control the horizontal & the vertical – it’s always all about us.
and what happens to science when it’s politicized? yup, you get political science, instead.
stop pollution, step back for another look. but don’t do anything really really stupid. we have a rep. and it ain’t pretty.