Want to eliminate what otherwise will soon be the world's second leading cause of death? Impose a global speed limit of 5mph.
Comment: What about the book: Not by Fire but by Ice? Author claims we are in an ice age like every 11,500 years. Jane
Comment: I support good public transport systems where the energy used, benefits more people. Examples: subway and light rail.
I encourage commentators to provide a realistic alternative to balance their criticisms.
-chris mansonc(at)usa.net
Comment: Yes, it would be cheaper in the developed world to protect people living near the coasts from hurricanes than to change climate affecting habits. But what about the third world, such as the recent disaster in Bangladesh? These countries cannot afford to move or protect millions of people from the effects of warming, as the US can. Their low lying coastal areas will, over time, end up under water and they will have massive political and social convulsions as millions of poor people are forced to move inland and compete with locals for arable, livable land and water. What is an inconvinience for the comfortable is a disaster for the poor of the world.
Comment: Its just ol' yellowstone saying "im back......"
Comment: Anyone heard of the Global Warming Period or the mini ice-age. The Earth has always been and always will be in a state of temperate flux. While global warming is as real the air we breathe, it is not so surely caused by man. How else can we explain warming and cooling periods prior to the industrial revolution (magical carbon emissions?) as well as emissions on mars that are nearly identical to emissions from earth that earth blamed on warming. The best strategy for dealing with the current "warming crisis" is not going to be best achieved by trying to stop a process that can't be, but rather by adapting to live with the inevitable conditions. Strategies for agriculture and water resources are necessary to defeat the human suffering, money and resources should be given to helping such causes rather than wasted trying to "recool" the earth.
Comment: Ever heard of the middle age warming period? It didn't take thousands of years... And last time I checked the middle ages were prior to the industrial revolution. Is global warming real?? Absolutely. Is it caused primarily by humans..... I doubt it.....What can we do about it? Very little....coping is a better strategy than reversal which is not gonna happen....So, learn to live with it...strategies to cope are the only logically answer.
Comment: This kind of uninformed ineptitude should be illegal, and it certainly shouldn't be printed in a widely-read magazine. This is a disgrace to Newsweek.
Comment: Wow, illegal huh? Are you a communist? Oh, just a liberal, I should have known by the hate speech you spew.
Comment: If George Will actually watched "An Inconvenient Truth" he would see how ridiculous many of his statements are. There are plenty of things we can do to decrease emissions without crippling the economy. Sure, just throwing money at a problem would be a waste, but it doesn't need to be addressed that way. And closing with a line about Hitler, Stalin, etc., is just sensationalistic.
Regarding species diversity - the increase of species in certain areas due to global warming doesn't offset the eminination in other areas. That's like saying that it's ok to kill someone becase two other people are about to be born. Also, wouldn't it be better to be stewards of the environment, rather than using it like an exhaustable resource. The human species got where it is because we learned to manipulate our environment for the sake of development, but once we start to see dramatic changes in our climate (which massive changes in special diversity certainly counts as), it's time to question the impact we're having.
Lastly, it's not just a matter of accomodating a global increase in temperature of 1 degree in 100 years (something that use to take thousands of years). If that was it, we could probably accept it an move on. The point is that this could be cummulative - ongoing, increasing climate changes that escalate with an increasingly difficult task of stopping it.
Comment: I dont know about the rest of America, but I think its pretty cool that a few species of Magnolia can survive a south east Idaho winter and bloom in the spring. Something that was not possible in the last ten or so years.
Comment: This is the ultimate in political correctness - allowing someone who knows absolutely nothing about climate science to have "the last word." George Will distorts the facts to fit his perspective. He says things that are simply untrue and the editors of Newsweek publish this stuff. Why? Are they afraid of being accused of censorship? Are they afraid of being accused of not being "fair and balanced?" This is political correctness at its most dangerous level. Allowing George Will to distort and confuse the issue is dangerous - Shame on the editors for allowing this to happen.
James F. Casey
Professor of Economics
Washington and Lee University
Comment: This is the ultimate in political correctness - allowing someone who knows absolutely nothing about climate science to have "the last word." George Will distorts the facts to fit his perspective. He says things that are simply untrue and the editors of Newsweek publish this stuff. Why? Are they afraid of being accused of censorship? Are they afraid of being accused of not being "fair and balanced?" This is political correctness at its most dangerous level. Allowing George Will to distrt and confuse the issue is dangerous. Shame on the editors for allowing this to happen.
James F. Casey Professor of Economics Washington and Lee University
Comment: This is the ultimate in political correctness - allowing someone who knows absolutely nothing about climate science to have "the last word." George Will distorts the facts to fit his perspective. He says things that are simply untrue and the editors of Newsweek publish this stuff. Why? Are they afraid of being accused of censorship? Are they afraid of being accused of not being "fair and balanced?" This is political correctness at its most dangerous level. Allowing George Will to distrt and confuse the issue is dangerous. Shame on the editors for allowing this to happen.
James F. Casey Professor of Economics Washington and Lee University
Comment: This is the ultimate in political correctness - allowing someone who knows absolutely nothing about climate science to have "the last word." George Will distorts the facts to fit his perspective. He says things that are simply untrue and the editors of Newsweek publish this stuff. Why? Are they afraid of being accused of censorship? Are they afraid of being accused of not being "fair and balanced?" This is political correctness at its most dangerous level. Allowing George Will to distrt and confuse the issue is dangerous. Shame on the editors for allowing this to happen.
James F. Casey Professor of Economics Washington and Lee University
Comment: Never mind the conflation of environmental conservation with "trying to fine tune the planet's climate", or of "global economic growth" with "millions of deaths from AIDS..." And never mind that unsafe drinking water and other "clear and present dangers" may have environmental roots. At least he didn't try to send us off to fight terrorism. "The Last Word" indeed.
Comment: As a member of the Kent (WA) Bicycle Advisory Board, I have been involved in issues with bike-car impedence. My first proposals were to separate the two, now I moderate my view to say that cars in dense areas need to slow down, as you propose. There is so much we can do to lower CO2, save money and make life more pleasant. Moderation, says Horace, is the Golden Mean.
Comment: Those that speak truth to power are often attacked by those unwilling to hear, even consider, that the truths they believe may not be truths at all. Thank you for George Will for speaking truth to power.
Comment: Enter Your Comment
Comment: For an essay which purports to be a cost-benefit analysis (as per, say, the first sentence), it would be refreshing to see actual analysis of the benefits or the costs. Much of the essay is little more than a defense of apathy with regards to this issue, several points of which are ridiculous ("increasing species richness" in the Arctic, and that global warming is about deaths from extreme heat and cold rather than much more widespread climatic effects. The possibility that there might exist sane, moderate steps to combat AGW that would have other benefits as well (reduced energy consumption, pollution, and dependence on foreign energy supplies; attaining a position of leadership in green technologies which will become necessary someday regardless of the severity of global warming) does not even appear to be considered. And as for the costs... there is absolutely no serious attempt to assess the costs of attempting to combat AGW. Mr. Will takes a free kick at farm subsidies by way of dismissing global impact on agriculture and then asserts that the costs of fighting AGW have nothing to do with any specific proposed policy and apparently everything to do with a vast left-wing conspiracy to destroy capitalism. Any possible effort to reduce human impact on climate change in likened to slowing all commerce and transportation to walking speed. That is not analysis -- that is as rigidly dogmatic and hyperbolic a statement as anything environmentalists are accused of for daring to suggest that maybe we should actually consider what effect we might be having on the world's climate.
Comment: So is it a book report or an essay? If it's a book report, he reads the book and then he reports on what the book says. That is what the book says. The only research involved in a book report is... reading the book.
If you want to assert that Lomborg has not done his research, you have a bigger task ahead of you.
Lomborg is not ignoring the environmental costs. He (and Lomborg really isn't a skeptic, he believes in AGW) merely believes they won't be anywhere near as great as the alarmists say, and that there's really not much we can do about it anyway without ignoring problems we can do things about, and without reducing everyone's standard of living to levels most would find unacceptable.
As far as environmental cost -- the world, the environment -- is not now nor has it ever been static. The climate has changed dramatically over the millenia and it will continue to do so. As climate changes, species move and adapt. Some die. That is the way of things. When you look at the data, there is no cause for alarm. The only cause for alarm is certain forecasts which keep being revised downward and pushed farther into the future as they continue not to be bourne out by ... the data.
Comment: Philmon -- Lomborg has been systematically shown to be abusive in how he presents information. He will cite a few conclusions from a study that support him without mentioning that the majority of the study's conclusions are counter to his argument. He systematically overstates costs for changing toward a lower GHG economy and even more significantly understates the benefits. Lomborg is eloquent, quite pleasant to be in the room with, and heavily invested in truthiness rather than truth.
Comment: I should not that I am not what one would call a "zealot" and I have no interest in saying conservatives "eat babies" or some such. It is sad that such is the quality of current discourse on the internet that I cannot blame someone of any political persuasion for immediately assuming an ad hominem attack is imminent. I am a left of center Democrat (former Republican), and I would say the energy independence argument vis a vis Mid-East oil is equally as powerful as the climate change argument when it comes to the need to engage in an aggressive program to change the energy economy. Consistent lefties should have no interest in funding governments like the one in Saudi Arabia and Syria (and, dare I say, Iran), which stand for everything that American liberals are supposed to be against. I am still friends with a great many conservatives, and none of them "eats babies." However, even though I'm a capitalist (or perhaps BECAUSE I am), I'm wary of any corporation that has an interest in preserving the status quo against new potential competitors (the modern energy industry as opposed to new alternative energy industries.) Even Eisenhower warned us against the influence of corporations with a financial stake in the outcome when it comes to making policy decisions for the good of the country.
Comment: I should not that I am not what one would call a "zealot" and I have no interest in saying conservatives "eat babies" or some such. It is sad that such is the quality of current discourse on the internet that I cannot blame someone of any political persuasion for immediately assuming an ad hominem attack is imminent. I am a left of center Democrat (former Republican), and I would say the energy independence argument vis a vis Mid-East oil is equally as powerful as the climate change argument when it comes to the need to engage in an aggressive program to change the energy economy. Consistent lefties should have no interest in funding governments like the one in Saudi Arabia and Syria (and, dare I say, Iran), which stand for everything that American liberals are supposed to be against. I am still friends with a great many conservatives, and none of them "eats babies." However, even though I'm a capitalist (or perhaps BECAUSE I am), I'm wary of any corporation that has an interest in preserving the status quo against new potential competitors (the modern energy industry as opposed to new alternative energy industries.) Even Eisenhower warned us against the influence of corporations with a financial stake in the outcome when it comes to making policy decisions for the good of the country.
Comment: philmon: This essay is poorly researched in the sense that it is more or less a book report, uncritically swallowing even the more ridiculous assertions of a single AGW critic. (Arctic biodiversity increasing because of refugees from warming?) It's hypocritical in that Mr. Will says environmentalists are ridiculous for ignoring the possible financial costs of fighting AGW and using hyperbole to make their case -- and then he goes on to ignore the environmental costs (uncritically accepting a single source) and uses hyperbole to make his own point (by saying that fighting AGW will be more or less economically the same as applying a 5mph world speed limit). It's a shame to print this essay not because it opposes my view, but because it is based on lousy research and hypocrisy. And because an issue as potentially portentious as global warming deserves something serious. If Mr. Will wanted to cite something other than one book to credibly challenge the major cornerstones of AGW research, or if he had done any kind of reasonable back-of-the-envelope cost-benefit analysis instead of flippantly saying fighting global warming is the same as forcing the world to operate at walking speed, I might have been able to respect his position, even if I didn't agree with it. Not this.
Comment: philmon: It's "poorly researched" because it's a book report, essentially, that follows Lomborg's work uncritically. Some of the points are laughable -- warming increases Arctic biodiversity only in the sense that the Arctic will be increasingly crowded with cold-weather populations squeezing into the shrinking cold climatic zone. It's hypocritical in that Mr. Will says environmentalists are ridiculous for ignoring the possible financial costs of fighting AGW and using hyperbole to make their case -- and then he goes on to ignore the environmental costs (uncritically accepting a single source) and uses hyperbole to make his own point (by saying that fighting AGW will be more or less economically the same as applying a 5mph world speed limit). It's a shame to print this essay not because it opposes my view, but because it is based on lousy research and hypocrisy. And because an issue as potentially portentious as global warming deserves something serious. If Mr. Will wanted to cite something other than one book to credibly challenge the major cornerstones of AGW research, or if he had done any kind of reasonable back-of-the-envelope cost-benefit analysis instead of flippantly saying fighting global warming is the same as forcing the world to operate at walking speed, I might have been able to respect his position, even if I didn't agree with it. Not this.
Comment: It is not about warming, it is about change. Things change, and each change comes with a price. Those who don't understand it, can't deal with it, or directly suffer from it get screwed by it. Are we doomed? Depends upon who 'we' might be, but not me.
Comment: You couldn't be more wrong about how we conservatives feel about the "can-do" spirit and the capability, ambition, and resolve of the American people. We don't have laser eyes, either. ;-)
George is talking about the AGW theory and the associated pontificating and fear mongering that seems to go along with it. Lomborg and Will are pointing out that if you try to legislate it away, or treaty it away, you'll either get ignored treaties or people will have to make sacrifices far beyond canvas shopping bags, buying a hybrid, and changing your light bulbs to compact flourescents (that last one I've done, by the way, even though they contain toxic mercury. It's cheaper and I have confidence we'll be going to LED or mercury-free flourescents soon. There's some of that confidence in our ambition and resolve.)
It's got nothing to do with my opinion on the AGW theory, but frankly, I want us off of fossil fuels, at least foreign ones -- especially middle eastern ones --and no, it's not because I'm "racist" or "hate" middle easterners. I know that's the liberal narrative. Conservatives "hate", are "racist facists" (or nazis, depending on the mood of the liberal at the time) and we don't love the planet and like killing little babies. It's nonsense. We're your neighbors and co-workers. We're quite normal human beings, honest. We tend to be a bit quieter than our liberal counterparts, holding our tounges to avoid being shouted down by some zealot. So you don't always know who we are.
But when it comes to talking about AGW -- it's got nothing to do with whether or not I support the fossil fuel industry, it has to do with whether or not the theory is correct. Tying questions and doubts about its validity with whether or not we have faith and a work ethic is folly. The fact of the matter is we have very bright people working on these relatively new technologies, but they just aren't up to matching energy demand yet. People in general have no idea how much energy they use and what it takes to produce it. But we will get there whether we run out of oil or not. As one Saudi Prince said years ago, "the stone age did not end because we ran out of stones."
Comment: Mr. Will, and many others, have fallen prey to the false dichotomy that has been foisted upon us by those with an financial interest in maintaining the fossil fuel economy. It is a logical fallacy to assert some kind of adversarial relationship must exist between environmentalism on the one hand and economic growth on the other. It is not as though alternative energy sources will be free. The last I checked, one still must pay for the services of power companies that derive energy from hydroelectric and nuclear sources. The same will be true of hydrogen combustion, hydrogen fuel cell, advanced solar and other new energy sources. It will be a new energy economy, not the end of an energy economy, not the destruction of the energy economy. My real question for Mr. Will is as follows: Where is the "can-do" American spirit he and his fellow conservatives continually go on about? Where is his faith in the American ethic that produced rural electrification, that built a massive interestate transportation system, that performed the "industrial miracle" in WWII, all in a stunningly short amount of time? I still believe we have that kind of capability, ambition, and resolve. Apparently, Mr. Will and his fellow conservatives do not.
Comment: Mr. Will, and many others, have fallen prey to the false dichotomy that has been foisted upon us by those with an financial interest in maintaining the fossil fuel economy. It is a logical fallacy to assert some kind of adversarial relationship must exist between environmentalism on the one hand and economic growth on the other. It is not as though alternative energy sources will be free. The last I checked, one still must pay for the services of power companies that derive energy from hydroelectric and nuclear sources. The same will be true of hydrogen combustion, hydrogen fuel cell, advanced solar and other new energy sources. It will be a new energy economy, not the end of an energy economy, not the destruction of the energy economy. My real question for Mr. Will is as follows: Where is the "can-do" American spirit he and his fellow conservatives continually go on about? Where is his faith in the American ethic that produced rural electrification, that built a massive interestate transportation system, that performed the "industrial miracle" in WWII, all in a stunningly short amount of time? I still believe we have that kind of capability, ambition, and resolve. Apparently, Mr. Will and his fellow conservatives do not.
Comment: Oh, and "shame on Newsweek" for printing an opinion piece? What, some impressionable mind might read the blasphemy and become a non-believer? "Free Speech! (but only if I approve)".
Comment: Thank you for one of the most reasoned, understandable commentaries I've read in a long time. I'm so tired of this being an us against them, a right versus left, a rich against the poor argument. It should be and hasn't been a scientific issue. Now that politics has taken over, because of a politician, the science no longer matters. And that's a sad day for everyone.
Comment: What, it's "poorly researched" because it doesn't agree with the dogma several of you have obviously swallowed?
The "shreds of evidence" you seek are in well-researched books like Lomborg's and others, which Will is alluding to. There are many, many books and articles on the subject that back Lomborg et. al.
Give an example of a straw man or ad (homenum?) hominem argument in George's column and tell us why it is what you say it is.
Along those lines, it looks like Will is being accused of logical fallacies "without a shred of evidence".
A recurring theme amongst Enviroligionists seems to be that anyone who thinks they're wrong about something "doesn't care about the planet." Talk about (argumentum?) reductio ad absurdum! I am absolutely certain that George Will and other skeptics such as myself (and I do have a degree in meteorology, as do many other skeptics) care very much about the planet.
When I see what the IPCC has done to the scientific process, I have to wonder myself whatever happened to integrity. What enviroligionists are suffering from is the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. They believe that theory is reality.
Comment: Phil ... What is most frustrating about Lomborg (and Will) is that they are raising an entirely legitimate issue/question: How do we best go about providing factual/thoughtful knowledge to support decision making about the allocation of (by definition) scarce resources.
Sadly, while asking a reasonable question, both Will and Lomborg act unreasonably in distorting information and data to undermine "knowledge", rather than enhance it.
Comment: This is one of the smirkiest, short-sighted, ill-researched, don't-touch-my-stock-dividends, apathy-rationalizing dismissals of a global problem I have ever read. I understand that Newsweek feels the need to carry both liberal and conservative commentary on current issues, but this "analysis" is such a joke that it should be embarrassing even to conservatives and environmental skeptics. Does George Will really believe that the effects of global warming will be limited to how many people will be killed by extreme cold and extreme heat? Are the full extent of the meteorological and agricultural impact utterly lost and to be swept aside out of hand?
In a fit of hypocrisy, Mr. Will accuses environmentalists about gross hyperbole about the dangers of global warming and neglect of any economic impact... and then presents actual hyperbole about the dangers of 5mph "global slowing," arguing that the economic impact of fighting global warming would be similarly catastrophic without presesnting a shred of evidence, all while neglecting or dismissing the potential impact of warming.
A real, conservative, cost-benefit analysis opinion piece might have bothered to look at the actual projected costs of both likely warming scenarios and proposed mitigation policies, rather than merely taking refuge in the same sort of hyperbole Mr. Will accuses his opponents of. Newsweek should be ashamed -- not for printing a conservative viewpoint on a current hot topic -- but for printing such a poorly researched and poorly considered piece, particularly on an issue that could reach far, far beyond the political peccadillos of the day.
Comment: Newsweek, a new high...the amount of logical fallacies in this article is at an all time high. Agrumentum ad absurdum, The classic straw man, argumentum ad homenum, I could go on ...the problem is the people who understand what i am talking about already agree, and the people who have no idea what i just said are too busy stuffing their faces to care
Comment: I honestly hope this is Mr. Will's last word. He has read, or at least cited, only one, 1, source and now considers himself expert enough to chastise not only (I assume) Mr. Gore and the Nobel committee, but every person who cares about the earth. He is the ultimate spin doctor. Now I can buy an SUV the size of a hotel and smack on a bumper sticker about how I spew carbon into the air because I care. Oil companies are now earth's saviors. The only thing that scares me more than Mr. Will actually printing this middle school level book summary (very poorly cited as he pretends to have researched the topic; no recess for you, Mr. Will), is that people will read it. I can't bear the thought of some GFW jr. reciting this article to me as scientific fact. What ever happened to integrity? Mr. Wills must have left his at the high tide line, just before the rising sea took it away.
Comment: This is an idiot's attempt at down-playing a global problem! I hope the audience this author was trying to reach was the un-educated and gullable, because anyone who has read anything of scientific literature would tell you this is a bunch of crap. Warm the earth up to save lives?! As someone who has been actively involved in Artic and Antarctic travel, and also one with a science degree and years of experience I can tell you that the author of this article has dollar signs in his agenda and not the well being the the modern world. 2-5 degrees would be enough to destroy the polar ice caps in time, and if they go that would mean that all weather as we know it would go, likely driving us right back into another ice age. Maybe if Mr. Author had done any sort of research he would have been smart enough to not discuss a subject he knows nothing about.
Comment: Without a doubt George Will has neither read the UN's IPCC report nor studied climate change. Isn't it about time Mr. Will apologized to us about just how wrong he's been in the past about climate change, Iraq and the Bush administration? Do you actually pay him money to write this stuff? Perhaps he should consider a nice little retirement home in Darfur and then come back and tell us climate change has its perks.
Comment: Enter Your Comment
Comment: So this is the new tactic of the right. Having fail to convince Americans that Global Warming was a hoax. Now, George is trying to convince Americans that global warming is real but a 2 to 5 degree temperature increase will not only be benefical but it is too costly to try and change it. What he doesn't say but implies is that global warming will stop at a 2 to 5 temperature rise rather then continually to rise exponentially. What scientists are finding is that globally warming is increasing faster than anticipated. There is the ice caps that reflected rays melted that now leave the oceans to warm faster, the permafrost and ice release carbon that was previously trapped, and methane below the oceans that could blow the doors off temperature increase. And this is the first three year string of category five hurricanes. George is morally wrong try and mislead Americans.
Comment: Enter Your Comment
Comment: Thanks. Once again you have proved a voice of reason. And, you gave me the topic of my blog article today. It is titled "What Would We do Without George Will?" and while I am the rankest amateur, I did enjoy writing it. http://inkslingerchronicles.blogspot.com/
Comment: Thanks. You gave me the topic of my blog article today. It is titled "What Would We do Without George Will?" and while I am the rankest amateur, I did enjoy writing it. http://inkslingerchronicles.blogspot.com/
Comment: UGH! Okay, Mr. Will. Even a cursory attempt to research your piece beyond reading a single book would tell you that assuming "Global Warming" means everything gets warmer is akin to those who assume evolution is false because it's a scientific "theory." As Inigo Montoya might say, "I don't think that word means what you think it means."
Global Warming is really about Global Climate Change, and the result is extreme temperature changes -- not just warming. And extreme may seem only like a few degrees, but that's enough to destroy ecosystems, alter currents, jet streams and weather patterns and do economic damage far greater than the cost of curbing the trends now, before it's too late. The UN report was the summation of hundreds of studies, dozens of experts and Will would counter it all with ONE book by ONE supposed expert. There will always be contradictory opinions. Especially when billions in profits from maintaining the status quo are at stake.
I've long since stopped assuming Will could avoid the Clinton-Gore derangement syndrome. But this is one of his worst non-baseball embarrassments I've read in ages.
Comment: An even more unconvenient truth: MEAT EATING is the leading cause of global warmimg. Grab your veggies, folks!
Comment: Shame on the editors at Newsweek for printing George Will???s uncritical regurgitation of Bjorn Lomborg???s most recent book. At a time when our country desperately needs a critical and balanced national discussion on the subject of global climate change, Will???s rhetoric literally embodies the very thing he condemns: a one-dimensional and heavily biased perspective on a topic that is not only vastly complex but that literally eludes a world of experts as to what our future truly holds. Using a sole source, Lomborg???s book, as bible, Will is so lost as to not even recognize his transparently hypocritical position: using an extremist view to criticize and ridicule other extremist views. Will and Newsweek should be ashamed. What???s next, Will suggesting that I and thousands of other scientists need ???perfecting??? because we don???t accept his simplistically rosy vision of a warmer world? It???s clear that Will is not even familiar with the science of global warming or with the findings that our best science has produced. For instance, Will cites the U.N.???s 2007 report on the effects of global warming and gullibly states ???the warming that is reasonably projected might be problematic, but it won???t be devastating.??? It???s obvious that Will hasn???t actually read the U.N. report, or even a summary, which declares, among a multitude of likely effects, one billion people impacted by the depletion of freshwater resources in Asia alone, and up to 250 million people faced with malnutrition and starvation in Africa alone due to the probable effects of global warming. Yet, according to the omniscient Will, ???a net negative effect will be less injurious than current agricultural policies.??? When the country, and the world, yearns for serious discussion, Newsweek gives us George F. Will. Thanks for nothing.
Comment: Shame on the editors at Newsweek for printing George Will???s uncritical regurgitation of Bjorn Lomborg???s most recent book. At a time when our country desperately needs a critical and balanced national discussion on the subject of global climate change, Will???s rhetoric literally embodies the very thing he condemns: a one-dimensional and heavily biased perspective on a topic that is not only vastly complex but that literally eludes a world of experts as to what our future truly holds. Using a sole source, Lomborg???s book, as bible, Will is so lost as to not even recognize his transparently hypocritical position: using an extremist view to criticize and ridicule other extremist views. Will and Newsweek should be ashamed. What???s next, Will suggesting that I and thousands of other scientists need ???perfecting??? because we don???t accept his simplistically rosy vision of a warmer world? It???s clear that Will is not even familiar with the science of global warming or with the findings that our best science has produced. For instance, Will cites the U.N.???s 2007 report on the effects of global warming and gullibly states ???the warming that is reasonably projected might be problematic, but it won???t be devastating.??? It???s obvious that Will hasn???t actually read the U.N. report, or even a summary, which declares, among a multitude of likely effects, one billion people impacted by the depletion of freshwater resources in Asia alone, and up to 250 million people faced with malnutrition and starvation in Africa alone due to the probable effects of global warming. Yet, according to the omniscient Will, ???a net negative effect will be less injurious than current agricultural policies.??? When the country, and the world, yearns for serious discussion, Newsweek gives us George F. Will. Thanks for nothing.
Comment: Glad to see there is at least one sane person writing for Newsweek.
Comment: I don't normally read George Will and now I know why. This is the most unconvincing, biased and laughable thing I have read in recent memory. We should look forward to the benefits of global warming? We should ignore global warming because there are other serious issues such as federal agriculture policy and traffic accidents? It's sad to think someone might take this charlatanism seriously.
Comment: Global warming is not simply about warmer temperatures as you would lead readers to believe in your heat vs cold death tolls. Its the effect of the warmer temperature at the poles of our planet. Its about the increasing extremes in weather. When the ice caps melt and change ocean currents it will alter fundamental weather patterns causing a global ice age, not simply a planet thats more tropical with fewer polar bears. That is why it is now being referred to as climate change by those who know what they are talking about.
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