George Will watch: global warming

In his WP column today on the global warming debate, George Will executes a perfect example of what is known as the "straw man fallacy." Using the plot line from a recent Michael Crichton thriller as fodder, he constructs a falsely kooky image of the scientists and environmentalists who are concerned about global warming, then picks up a rhetorical bazooka and blasts that image to the ground. Specifically, Will implies that these folks all predict catastrophic Day-After-Tomorrow-type climate change and that they are busy trying to rationalize the much more incremental ecological changes they observe to fit the catastrophic scenario.

Surely, writes Will, the environmentalists are merely fearmongers, and "various factions have interests -- monetary, political, even emotional -- in cultivating fears. The fears invariably seem to require"--get this--"more government subservience to environmentalists and more government supervision of our lives."

The truth: Many climatologists warn that catastrophic changes, for example the stalling of ocean currents, are a possible, though not definite, consequence of global warming. This is akin to someone warning you that if you drink and drive you risk having a terrible accident. It's no sure thing you'll have an accident, but it's possible, which is a good reason not to drink and drive.

The observed incremental changes that Will pooh-poohs, meanwhile, are actually a pretty big deal. I'll send you over to the Union of Concerned Scientists for a discussion of these.

As always, Will makes one good point--that we should be concerned about "how conventional wisdom is manufactured in a credulous and media-drenched society"--and then uses faulty arguments to make bad conclusions.