George Will
Credentials
- BA (Religion), Trinity College 1962. [1]
- Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE), Magdalen College 1964. [1]
- MA (Politics), PhD (Politics), Princeton University 1968. [1]
Background
George Will is an American newspaper columnist, journalist, author, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning commentator. Will joined Fox News as a contributor and panelist in 2013, “providing analysis and commentary across FNC‘s [Fox News Channel] daytime and primetime programming” [2],[3], [13]
Will is a “twice-weekly columnist” for The Washington Post, “and approximately 400 other newspapers,” where he writes about “foreign and domestic politics and policy.” Will is also a bi-weekly columnist for Newsweek, a “contributing analyst” to ABC News, a “regular member” of ABC‘s ‘This Week’ since the show’s inception, and a contributor to Fox News‘ programming. [4]
George Will is the author of Restoration: Congress, Term Limits and the Recovery of Deliberative Democracy, Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball, and Statecraft as Soulcraft. [4]
Stance on Climate Change
April 2016
“Today, debatable questions include: To what extent is human activity contributing to climate change? Are climate change models, many of which have generated projections refuted by events, suddenly reliable enough to predict the trajectory of change? Is change necessarily ominous because today’s climate is necessarily optimum? Are the costs, in money expended and freedom curtailed, of combating climate change less than the cost of adapting to it?” [12]
February 2014
“When a politician says, concerning an issue involving science, that the debate is over, you may be sure the debate is rolling on and not going swimmingly for his side. Obama is, however, quite right that climate change is a fact. The climate is always changing.” [5]
“Climate alarmism validates the progressive impulse to micromanage others’ lives — their light bulbs, shower heads, toilets, appliances, automobiles, etc.” [5]
Key Quotes
January 2015
“We know, because they often say so, that those who think catastrophic global warming is probable and perhaps imminent are exemplary empiricists. They say those who disagree with them are ‘climate change deniers’ disrespectful of science.” [6]
February 2009
“According to the U.N. World Meteorological Organization, there has been no recorded global warming for more than a decade, or one-third of the span since the global cooling scare.” [7]
Key Deeds
May, 2017
George Will joined MSNBC and NBC News as a contributor, Politico reported. Before officially joining the network, Will appeared as a regular guest on MSNBC shows after his Fox News contract ran out in January. [14], [15]
April 22, 2016
Writing in The Washington Post, George Will describes the investigations by U.S. Attorneys General into ExxonMobil’s knowledge of climate change as an example of “Authoritarianism” and an attempt at regulating speech. [12]
“These garden-variety authoritarians are eager to regulate us into conformity with the “settled” consensus du jour, whatever it is,” Will writes. [12]
June 18, 2015
George Will was on a Fox News Panel to discuss the question “Should Pope Francis stay out of politics?” following the Pope’s Encyclical on the Environment.
“The Pope is perfectly entitled to have his opinions about scientific problems such as this, but entitled to no particular deference. He turns this into a moral problem. He comes out of a Latin American strand of Catholicism that is frankly, sort of anti-capitalist and anti-bourgeois, and confused about how to help the poor,” Will says.
“He says we have to burn less coal. You’re going to raise the price of electricity. It doesn’t mean a thing to the four of us, but it means a lot to poor people if the price of electricity goes up. And then he says the planet is in the grip of consumerism. There are about 2 billion people on this planet who wish to be in the grip of consumerism, but they’re too poor.”
January 7, 2015
George Will publishes an op-ed in The Washington Post titled, “Climate change’s instructive past,” and writes “something about which everyone can agree is that of course the climate is changing — it always is.” [6]
February 2014
George Will appears on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace and says, “of course the climate is changing. It’s always been changing. That’s what gave us the Medieval Warm Period.” Will states that he doesn’t “buy” into President Obama’s climate change efforts, including his proposal for a $1B Climate Resilience Fund, and “neither does science.” [11]
February 15, 2009
George Will publishes an op-ed titled, “Dark Green Doomsayers,” where he writes that global sea ice levels are “now equal those of 1979,” citing the University of Illinois’ Arctic Climate Research Center. [7]
Will’s statement was proven to be false by Bill Chapman, a researcher at the University of Illinois, who said, “Mr. Will’s statement … does not square with the data or updates issued by the school.” [8] Will concludes the piece stating “there has been no recorded global warming for more than a decade, or one-third of the span since the global cooling scare.” [7]
DeSmogBlog also covered the news about George Will’s erroneous statement: “The Arctic Sea Ice is Melting – no matter how bad George Will doesn’t want it to.”
October 13, 2007
George Will publishes an article titled, “George F. Will on Global Warming,” in Newsweek‘s Culture section. Will writes that “many of [global warmings] consequences will be beneficial,” citing Bjorn Lomborg‘s book Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming. [9]
August 2, 1998
George Will writes an article titled, “Crusade Against Smoking Sees Only Victims And No Individual Responsibility,” in which he states “the debate about smoking has been distorted by vehement people who rarely suffer even temporary lapses into logic,” and that the “anti-tobacco crusade was a money grab by government.” [10]
Affiliations
- MSNBC — Contributor. [14]
- NBC News — Contributor. [14]
- The Washington Post — “Twice-weekly columnist” [4]
- FOX News Channel (FNC) — Former “Contributor,” and panelist on Special Report with Bret Baier and FOX News Sunday. [4], [13]
- Newsweek — “Bi-weekly columnist” [4]
- ABC News — “Contributing analyst” [4]
- National Review — Washington editor (1973 – 1976) [13]
Social Media
- @GeorgeWill/@GeorgeWillRSS on Twitter.
Publications
According to a search of Google Scholar, George Will has not published any articles on any subject, including climate science, in peer-reviewed journals. Some sample publications below.
Books
George Will is the author of Restoration: Congress, Term Limits and the Recovery of Deliberative Democracy, Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball, and Statecraft as Soulcraft. [4]
The Washington Post
- Brexit: Britain’s welcome revival of nationhood — Jun 24, 2016
- Scientific silencers on the left are trying to shut down climate skepticism — April 22, 2016
- The Paris agreement is another false ‘turning point’ on the climate — December 16, 2015
- Pope Francis’s fact-free flamboyance — September 18, 2015
- ‘Sustainability’ gone mad on college campuses — April 15, 2015
- Climate change’s instructive past — January 7, 2016
- George Will: Why doom has not materialized — August 17, 2012
- George Will: EPA regulations threaten Arizona’s economy, Navajos’ livelihood — July 6, 2012
Resources
- “George Will; biography,” Encyclopaedia Britannica.
- “George Will,” Wikipedia.
- “George Will,” Sourcewatch.
- “George F. Will; Columnist,” The Washington Post.
- George Will. ”George F. Will: The liberal agenda is being good to liberals,” The Washington Post, February 26, 2014.
- George Will. “Climate change’s instructive past,” The Washington Post, January 7, 2015.
- George Will. “Dark Green Doomsayers,” The Washington Post, February 15, 2009.
- Andrew C. Revkin. “Scientists: Flaw in Will’s Ice Assertions,” The New York Times’ Dot Earth, February 27, 2009.
- George Will. “George F. Will on Global Warming,” Newsweek, October 13, 2007.
- George Will. “Crusade Against Smoking Sees Only Victims And No Individual Responsibility,” SunSentinel, August 2, 1998.
- “George Will: Climate Change Is A Hoax Because Of The ‘Medieval Warm Period’,” Crooks and Liars, February, 2014.
- “Scientific silencers on the left are trying to shut down climate skepticism,” The Washington Post, April 22, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/KJ3X7
- “George Will,” FoxNews.com. Archived October 26, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/oAC3x
- “George Will joins MSNBC,” Politico, May 8, 2017. Archived May 9, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/Zgcyi
- Kate Abbey-Lambertz. “Conservative Columnist George Will Is Joining MSNBC,” HuffPost, May 8, 2017. Archived May 9, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/q6ujR
