Where there's a Will, there's no way [that climate change is real]

Conservative commentator and Washington Post columnist George Will has decided to throw his hat into the ring with climate change deniers who like to make up facts from thin air. Will, who often stresses the research and data that factor into his positions, based his Sunday column on misleading and made-up data (via Talking Points Memo) regarding the issue of climate change:

Both of Will's major "data points" fall apart after a moment's scrutiny. Here's the first:

"According to the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979."

But within hours of Will's column appearing, the ACRC had posted the following statement on its website:

"We do not know where George Will is getting his information, but our data shows that on February 15, 1979, global sea ice area was 16.79 million sq. km and on February 15, 2009, global sea ice area was 15.45 million sq. km. Therefore, global sea ice levels are 1.34 million sq. km less in February 2009 than in February 1979. This decrease in sea ice area is roughly equal to the area of Texas, California, and Oklahoma combined. It is disturbing that the Washington Post would publish such information without first checking the facts."

There’s another excellent argument against Will’s column at the blog www.fivethirtyeight.com. Will takes up the latest from mantra from climate change deniers that the earth is actually in a cooling period. Nate Silver (who runs 538 and is renown for his ability to interpret and make predictions from data, polls, and statistics) lays out some pretty hard evidence against Will’s claims, including this graph of global temperature rise since 1881:

Perhaps the only way to deny climate change is happening and is real is to make stuff up?