{"id":66,"date":"2007-04-13T10:37:57","date_gmt":"2007-04-13T15:37:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/04\/13\/fuzzy_will\/"},"modified":"2008-04-22T14:01:11","modified_gmt":"2008-04-22T19:01:11","slug":"fuzzy_will","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/04\/13\/fuzzy_will\/","title":{"rendered":"George Will Gets It Wrong\u2026 Again"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><strong>ignoratio elenchi <\/strong><em>n.<\/em><br \/>\nA logical fallacy of presenting an argument that may in itself be valid, but has  nothing to do with the proposition it purports to prove. Also known as &#8220;irrelevant conclusion&#8221;. [Lat. <em>ignorance of refutation.<\/em>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>George Will is at it again with his OpEd piece &quot;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/04\/11\/AR2007041102109.html\">Fuzzy Climate Math<\/a>&quot; in yesterday&#8217;s <i>Washington Post<\/i>. He makes a lot of pronouncements about global warming, and gets it all wrong. Although I already gave Richard Lindzen an Ignoratio Elenchi Award this week, Mr. Will&#8217;s piece is too deserving to go unrewarded.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Much of Mr. Will\u2019s rhetoric is devoted to trashing the Kyoto Protocol, and using its flaws to imply that U.S. action on climate change is pointless. He&#8217;s said this before (see my <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/02\/14\/george_will_kyoto\/\">response to another article by George Will<\/a>). To summarize my response: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Kyoto Protocol is a done deal, and no one is suggesting that the U.S. sign on to it.<\/li>\n<li>Congress is considering several climate bills at this moment, and not one of them proposes that the U.S. join the Kyoto Protocol.<\/li>\n<li>The discussion now is not about the Kyoto Protocol or whether the U.S. should have a comprehensive climate policy, it&#8217;s about what kind of policy we will have.<\/li>\n<li>There&#8217;s a mountain of evidence that the cost of stopping global warming through emission reductions would be minimal, while the cost of non-action would be huge (see my <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/03\/28\/green_technologies\/\">Green Technologies post<\/a>).<\/li>\n<li>Bringing up the Kyoto protocol diverts attention away from the real issues.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There are at least a dozen erroneous statements in Mr. Will&#8217;s article, but I&#8217;ll address just one more of them here. He says that since the measures like those proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in California will have only a tiny impact on global emissions, they aren&#8217;t worth doing. This is an Ignoratio Elenchi fallacy &#8211; the premise is correct, but irrelevant to his conclusion.<\/p>\n<p>Avoiding the most dangerous consequences of global warming will require a steady ramping down of greenhouse gas pollution over a period of decades &#8211; likely through the end of the century. A rate of about 2 percent per year will let us reach our goal without disruption to our energy infrastructure. Although a 2 percent change is negligible in itself, over time the drips can add up to an ocean.<\/p>\n<p>Look at it a different way. If you were about to take the first step in a 25 mile journey, it would be absurd for me to say: &quot;Don\u2019t bother taking that step; it will get you only 0.002 percent of the distance you need to go so it&#8217;s not worth the effort.&quot; That first step may not get you very far, but you have to take that first step to reach your goal.<\/p>\n<p>As Gov. Schwarzenegger said in his speech today for the Council on Foreign Relations, no one thinks that California&#8217;s initiatives will solve the problem of global warming. He hopes that California&#8217;s initiatives can serve as an example to the world of what is possible.<\/p>\n<p>And that\u2019s why I favor first steps on climate change &#8211; we have to get started.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ignoratio elenchi n. A logical fallacy of presenting an argument that may in itself be valid, but has nothing to do with the proposition it purports to prove. Also known as &#8220;irrelevant conclusion&#8221;. [Lat. ignorance of refutation.] George Will is at it again with his OpEd piece &quot;Fuzzy Climate Math&quot; in yesterday&#8217;s Washington Post. He &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[109],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-66","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>George Will Gets It Wrong\u2026 Again - Climate 411<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/04\/13\/fuzzy_will\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"George Will Gets It Wrong\u2026 Again - Climate 411\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"ignoratio elenchi n. A logical fallacy of presenting an argument that may in itself be valid, but has nothing to do with the proposition it purports to prove. Also known as &#8220;irrelevant conclusion&#8221;. [Lat. ignorance of refutation.] George Will is at it again with his OpEd piece &quot;Fuzzy Climate Math&quot; in yesterday&#8217;s Washington Post. He ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/04\/13\/fuzzy_will\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Climate 411\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-04-13T15:37:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2008-04-22T19:01:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Bill Chameides\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Bill Chameides\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/04\/13\/fuzzy_will\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/04\/13\/fuzzy_will\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Bill Chameides\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/#\/schema\/person\/9f5fbd8173161c5a6f7b0319be658b0b\"},\"headline\":\"George Will Gets It Wrong\u2026 Again\",\"datePublished\":\"2007-04-13T15:37:57+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2008-04-22T19:01:11+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/04\/13\/fuzzy_will\/\"},\"wordCount\":537,\"commentCount\":0,\"articleSection\":[\"International\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/04\/13\/fuzzy_will\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/04\/13\/fuzzy_will\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/04\/13\/fuzzy_will\/\",\"name\":\"George Will Gets It Wrong\u2026 Again - Climate 411\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2007-04-13T15:37:57+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2008-04-22T19:01:11+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/#\/schema\/person\/9f5fbd8173161c5a6f7b0319be658b0b\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/04\/13\/fuzzy_will\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/04\/13\/fuzzy_will\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/04\/13\/fuzzy_will\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"George Will Gets It Wrong\u2026 Again\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/\",\"name\":\"Climate 411\",\"description\":\"Blogging the science and policy of global warming\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/#\/schema\/person\/9f5fbd8173161c5a6f7b0319be658b0b\",\"name\":\"Bill Chameides\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/4d18299e79bcedd6bb3a81941c16d9e1\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/bac98415e9c06f185f4cb60754d82d498c204e2918f8d43912c0a034ae57ba50?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/bac98415e9c06f185f4cb60754d82d498c204e2918f8d43912c0a034ae57ba50?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Bill Chameides\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/environmentaldefense.org\/page.cfm?tagID=874\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/author\/bchameides\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"George Will Gets It Wrong\u2026 Again - Climate 411","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/04\/13\/fuzzy_will\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"George Will Gets It Wrong\u2026 Again - Climate 411","og_description":"ignoratio elenchi n. A logical fallacy of presenting an argument that may in itself be valid, but has nothing to do with the proposition it purports to prove. Also known as &#8220;irrelevant conclusion&#8221;. [Lat. ignorance of refutation.] George Will is at it again with his OpEd piece &quot;Fuzzy Climate Math&quot; in yesterday&#8217;s Washington Post. He ...","og_url":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/04\/13\/fuzzy_will\/","og_site_name":"Climate 411","article_published_time":"2007-04-13T15:37:57+00:00","article_modified_time":"2008-04-22T19:01:11+00:00","author":"Bill Chameides","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Bill Chameides","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/04\/13\/fuzzy_will\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/04\/13\/fuzzy_will\/"},"author":{"name":"Bill Chameides","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/#\/schema\/person\/9f5fbd8173161c5a6f7b0319be658b0b"},"headline":"George Will Gets It Wrong\u2026 Again","datePublished":"2007-04-13T15:37:57+00:00","dateModified":"2008-04-22T19:01:11+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/04\/13\/fuzzy_will\/"},"wordCount":537,"commentCount":0,"articleSection":["International"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/04\/13\/fuzzy_will\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/04\/13\/fuzzy_will\/","url":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/04\/13\/fuzzy_will\/","name":"George Will Gets It Wrong\u2026 Again - Climate 411","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-04-13T15:37:57+00:00","dateModified":"2008-04-22T19:01:11+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/#\/schema\/person\/9f5fbd8173161c5a6f7b0319be658b0b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/04\/13\/fuzzy_will\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/04\/13\/fuzzy_will\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/04\/13\/fuzzy_will\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"George Will Gets It Wrong\u2026 Again"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/#website","url":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/","name":"Climate 411","description":"Blogging the science and policy of global warming","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/#\/schema\/person\/9f5fbd8173161c5a6f7b0319be658b0b","name":"Bill Chameides","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/4d18299e79bcedd6bb3a81941c16d9e1","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/bac98415e9c06f185f4cb60754d82d498c204e2918f8d43912c0a034ae57ba50?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/bac98415e9c06f185f4cb60754d82d498c204e2918f8d43912c0a034ae57ba50?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Bill Chameides"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/environmentaldefense.org\/page.cfm?tagID=874"],"url":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/author\/bchameides\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=66"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}