Point/Counterpoint on Climate Change

Recently columnist George F. Will once again wrote about what he insists on seeing as the illusion of climate change. In "Climate Fixers' Hard Sell", in The Washington Post, he said:

The costs of weaning the U.S. economy off much of its reliance on carbon are uncertain, but certainly large. The climatic benefits of doing so are uncertain but, given the behavior of those pesky 5 billion [people in developing nations like India that currently resist a binding agreement to address global warming — see here], almost certainly small, perhaps minuscule, even immeasurable. Fortunately, skepticism about the evidence that supposedly supports current alarmism about climate change is growing, as is evidence that, whatever the truth about the problem turns out to be, U.S. actions cannot be significantly ameliorative,

When New York Times columnist Tom Friedman called upon "young Americans" to "get a million people on the Washington Mall calling for a price on carbon," another columnist, Mark Steyn, responded: "If you're 29, there has been no global warming for your entire adult life. If you're graduating high school, there has been no global warming since you entered first grade."

Which could explain why the Mall does not reverberate with youthful clamors about carbon. And why, regarding climate change, the U.S. government, rushing to impose unilateral cap-and-trade burdens on the sagging U.S. economy, looks increasingly like someone who bought a closetful of platform shoes and bell-bottom slacks just as disco was dying.

In today's Post, in this letter to the editor, climate scientist Brenda Ekwurzel of the Union of Concerned Scientists responded:

George F. Will once again ignored scientific evidence when he claimed that there has been no global warming over the past decade ...

Earth's average temperature rises and falls in large part because of multiyear ocean cycles, such as El Niño and La Niña. At the same time, human-induced global warming has been steadily pushing average temperatures higher. Because of the natural ocean cycles, 1998 was a warm year. Global warming made it even hotter. Conversely, 2008 was a cooler year, but global warming made it less cool.

That said, there are plenty of obvious signs of global warming over the past decade, including shrinking Arctic summer sea ice. In 2007, the region's sea ice was at an all-time low since satellite observations began. Last year marked the second-lowest year.

All corners of America are already experiencing the effects of climate change. Mr. Will should take a look at the federal government's recent report "Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States" to find out the facts.