George Will dismisses heat wave, says it has little to do with global warming - The Bunsen Burner

George Will is known for his conservative slant, but recently he’s been making a splash with his misinterpretation of science. In an ABC News roundtable on the politicization of climate change, Mr. Will explained the record-breaking heat waves and weather events sweeping the countryâ€"which a recent study described as emblematic of global warmingâ€"with one word: “Summer.”

Mr. Will continued to explain his experiences with summer heat, saying, ”I grew up in a house in central Illinois without air conditioning, what is so unusual about this? We’re having some hot weather, get over it.”

Certainly the recent derecho (a powerful hurricane-like wind storm), record-breaking heat waves, and widespread drought look like global warming, but Mr. Will seems nonplussed. Noam Scheiber of The New Rebuplic decried Mr. Will’s response on Twitter, calling his monosyllabic explanation “Just disgraceful.”

ABC news and Twitter aren’t the only places Mr. Will’s unfortunate theories on climate change have caused controversy. Thinkprogress.org has lampooned Mr. Will’s theories on global warming (and baseball) in the past, calling his column a disgrace to the Washington Post.

Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, in contrast to Mr. Will, said in the interview that, “During heat waves, belief in global warming goes up.” Mr. Dionne continues to defend theories of global warming, saying, “…what we really see is wild weather, not only here but all over the world…there is a lot of evidence that human activity is changing the climate, there is not a lot of dispute among scientists about this.”

According to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Chief Jane Lubchenco, quoted in a recent Huffington Post article, the demand for climate change data has “skyrocketed” in response to recent U.S. weather events. Many people are starting to become convinced that global warming is real.

In spite of this, Mr. Will is still not convinced. Instead he’s predicting that people “like E.J.” will be lecturing us again this winter. Mr. Will continued, saying, “There’s a difference between weather and climate. I agree with that.” Regardless of Mr. Will’s opinion, the data is beginning to accumulate for climate change.

Likewise defensive of claims against the reality of global warming, former Obama Administration Lead Auto Advisor Steven Rattner, who also took part in the roundtable, said in response to Mr. Will’s comments that, “The ten hottest years on record have been in the last 12 years the twenty hottest years on record have been in the last 30 years. There is a lot of science on thisâ€" the polar ice caps, everything we’ve all readâ€"and I don’t think we can ignore it, George.”