John McQuaid

Via Dave Roberts, reporters at the Washington Post are pushing back against George Will’s series of mendacious columns about climate change. In an article noting continuing declines in Arctic sea ice, they note:

The new evidence — including satellite data showing that the average multiyear wintertime sea ice cover in the Arctic in 2005 and 2006 was nine feet thick, a significant decline from the 1980s — contradicts data cited in widely circulated reports by Washington Post columnist George F. Will that sea ice in the Arctic has not significantly declined since 1979.

As Dave notes, this is a clear rebuke not just from some reporters to Will, but from the Post’s newsroom to its editorial page. (Funny that we have to resort to Kremlinology – interpreting sentences buried in news stories for broader institutional significance – to see what’s going on, but that’s how newspapers work.) This pushback is overdue. Will took data on arctic sea ice out of context, making it seem like it meant something it did not. By doing publishing it on the Post’s op-ed page (and, via syndication, on op-ed pages across America), his editors undermined the paper’s credibility on issues of fact. That’s something no newsroom can afford to just let pass.

Still, it’s sad that it came to this point. The Post editorial page prizes a certain coldly contrarian approach toward the Washington conventional wisdom, and 10 or 15 years ago, this made it a good read. But its contrarianism, ironically, derives from a mix of both-sides-do-it Broderism and, on foreign affairs (with the exception of torture, which it has consistently and admirably opposed), neoconservatism. Events have overtaken this political sensibility, and today, what was once provocative has become curmudgeonly and predictable (cf. the hiring of Bill Kristol). And in the case of Will and climate change, objectively wrong.

One last observation on George Will, the Washington Post and climate change. Beyond the scientific questions involved (is the aggregate area of polar ice decreasing due to climate change, what are the implications of that, etc.) the Will piece raises a broader issue: how much credence should media outlets give to columnists or others who deny anthropogenic climate change is occurring?

Obviously, the people who run the Post editorial pages should not lend their platform to discredited arguments (hold the snark, please). But this is a tougher question than it seems on the surface. Has man-made climate change now entered the realm of universal scientific acceptance, like evolution, quantum mechanics, or the notion that the earth orbits the sun and not vice-versa? Almost, but not exactly. There is an overwhelming consensus among scientists who have studied the issue. But that’s not the same as universal acceptance.

Also, since climate science involves computer modeling of very complex systems, it’s inexact. “Climate change” and “global warming” are themselves vague terms. The future – not just temperatures but sea levels, impacts on agriculture, changes in local living conditions and political stability – is very hard to predict. The policy options are numerous. This pocked terrain means there’s plenty of room for debate on the nature and impacts of climate change and the science used to assess those things. Some think the problem is overhyped by Al Gore and others, or that government-centric policy fixes such as carbon trading won’t work. Those arguments should be aired and grappled with.

But frankly, there isn’t much serious scientific debate on the existence of anthropogenic climate change itself. Given the preponderance of scientific opinion on the topic, media outlets should be very skeptical of pieces that deny it. Almost always, they’re based more attitude than science. This doesn’t mean you can’t argue that climate models are flawed — they are — but if you run with that, make sure it’s a serious, rigorous argument.

What you shouldn’t do, though, is what Will did: cherry-pick headlines that appear to fit an unsupported thesis and pretend you are making a serious argument. This has the effect of discrediting your own position, that of the media you’re working in, and, indirectly, the science you cite.

All of this underlines how important it is to communicate the science clearly, to distinguish the specious arguments from legitimate ones – or else the whole debate breaks down. (And we’ll never figure out how to address this issue as a society.) I’m sure George Will doesn’t have editors question his opinions very often. But some things are not just a matter of opinion, and his editors have an obligation to get this stuff right. It’s journalism 101. Which is why the Post’s apparent decision to ignore its own failings here is so baffling.

Update: TPM’s Zachary Roth reports that Will’s next column comes out swinging against his detractors. Which will probably have the effect of ginning up more faux-controversy over the substance here, which is really not in dispute. That’s what a columnist gets paid for, I suppose, but something is seriously amiss here.

The dust-up over George Will’s global warming denial column has morphed into a classic example of newspaper institutionalist failure. In its own small way, it shows why – on top of the Internet-driven collapse of media business models – many people are losing confidence in newspapers and other traditional media outlets.

After Will’s column calling global warming a media-driven fad, the Washington Post has declined to correct its errors and misrepresentations. The new ombudsman, Andy Alexander, sent out a note to those who wrote in complaining about the column, saying that the piece had undergone a thorough editing/fact checking process and that Will had committed no errors.

Hilzoy shows the superficiality and ultimate spuriousness of Alexander’s claim. Will’s principal disputed factoid has been contested by the source, the University of Illinois Arctic Climate Research Center. Alexander resorts to a semantic defense, saying that Will’s claim – that “global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979″ can be reconciled with the ACRC’s statement that polar ice levels are “near or slightly lower than those observed in late 1979.” Obviously, “equal” is not the same as “near or slightly lower than,” especially when we’re dealing with scientific evidence. So the semantic defense itself is weak.

But even if you call that one for Will, the ACRC takes pains to note what’s really going on: the measured declines in northern ice are partially made up for by increases in southern ice, a phenomenon that is itself linked to climate change. In other words, Will’s statement, which stretches the data, also misrepresents the underlying science, which tells a more complex story that doesn’t fit his thesis.

The Post editorial page and ombudsman get a lot of interest group-driven complaints, and the liberal blogosphere has been all over this one. But this isn’t just another firestorm on “the left” that can be safely dismissed as such. The Post, its editorial and op-ed pages included, has an obligation to present science correctly and not to distort it for ideological purposes. To dismiss these serious concerns with a semantic fig-leaf is irresponsible.

There’s a forest-for-the-trees absurdity here: The Washington Post has, apparently to avoid conceding error to critics it dislikes, closed ranks behind a piece denying what is a nearly universally-accepted scientific fact — one that is a very grave threat to humanity — and all-but explicitly backed the distortion of science. It’s crazy. Andy Alexander is new on the job. If he’s smart, he’ll take a second look at this one.