Is this George Will article insane?

Not insane, just ignorant. Pretty typical denial.

The article doesn't distinguish between damaging the Earth and harming various species which rely on its climate, including humans. Of course the Earth will be fine. The Earth is a ball of rock flying through space. It doesn't "care" whether life resides on its surface or not.

The issue is not about harming the Earth. The issue is about radically changing its climate at a rate too fast for species to adapt to.

It's completely devoid of anything scientifically relevant. The article touches on the fact that climate changes have caused extinctions in the past, and then seems to suggest that therefore if it causes our extinction, so be it. Honestly I can't really figure out what point the article is trying to make. It basically seems to be the generic denier argument "climate has changed in the past so climate change is nothing to worry about." I can't tell if he's trying to argue that the current change is natural, that the current change is nothing to worry about, or that he doesn't care if the current change causes human extinction.

It's just a total fluff piece. No useful content whatsoever. Total ignorance in a desperate attempt to justify AGW denial.

*edit @ jim* "That is pretty funny having Dana call George Will ignorant....You might wonder what his point was but he didn't make factual errors."

I shouldn't have to point this out, but making factual statements does not mean a person isn't ignorant about a subject. If I write an article on climate science which says "The sky is blue. Bananas are a fruit. The End.", I have made factually correct statements, but the article clearly demonstrates ignorance about climate science.

In addition to taking some basic climate science classes, apparently jim would benefit from taking some basic English classes. Or at least not using words he doesn't understand.

He is just passing on the words of R. Laughlin, a noble prize winner in Physics, who basically says without significantly reducing the population of man, changing the effects of man on the earth will never happen. For this reason, then why spend time worrying and fretting about something you have no control over?

He says the earth will still be here after all the oil and coal is used up. Some humans will also be here. The oceans will finally equalize out the excess CO2, and the world will move on with or without man, SU V's, etc. etc.

It is a valid theory that should be considered. Laughlin isn't the only scientist that feels this way.

That is pretty funny having Dana call George Will ignorant. There wasn't a single thing he wrote that wasn't factual. You might wonder what his point was but he didn't make factual errors. I think he was making the point that in the grand scheme of things, the modern environmental movement is banging their collective heads on the wall and accomplishing nothing. He did this by quoting an interesting and informed individual, R. Laughlin. You may think you are accomplishing something by banning plastic grocery bags and driving a Prius. Will, or more correctly R. Laughlin seems to disagree. Sometimes, a columnist can write an article to provoke thought and attempt for people to gain a perspective, to help them see the forest through the trees. Apparently he didn't succeed with everyone, however.

There was a jewel that he quoted:

"There is something like a pathology of climatology. To avoid mixing fact and speculation, earth scientists are, Laughlin says, “ultraconservative,” meaning they focus on the present and the immediate future: “[They] go to extraordinary lengths to prove by means of measurement that the globe is warming now, the ocean is acidifying now, fossil fuel is being exhausted now, and so forth, even though these things are self-evident in geologic time.”

Although I wouldn't have used "earth scientists, I have noticed the same thing.

Jim Z's take, along with George Will's, on the issues discussed here is very short sighted. To say that "the modern environmental movement is banging their collective heads on the wall and accomplishing nothing" is absurd. Under the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and a number of other pieces of legislation the quality of air and water, and protection of wildlife in the US has improved dramatically in the past 60 years, and there is ample evidence to back that up. Will loves to grasp at items like plastic bags as examples of the focus of the "environmental movement" but that is about as far from the truth as it can be. He has a certain pathology of his own. I saw him interviewed recently, during which he said that politics is a means of "organizing our hostility." It seems to sum up his attitude toward social interactions in general. After reading even a few of his columns it becomes evident that he is much more interested in staking a claim and engaging in combat than in objective and thoughtful analysis. He has been demonstrably wrong about the science involved in global warming because he hasn't taken the time to become familiar with it at the level of detail required to make the claims that he has in the past. This is not a sign of intelligence, which he tries to assume through shortcut, but a disregard of the most basic discipline needed to make intelligent decisions. Now, unable to admit any error he leans on another naysayer who asserts, incredibly, that we should not be worried about short term effects. For the record, " even though these things are self-evident in geologic time”,

is not even a rational response to the issue of current environmental problems.

It is unfortunate that someone with such national prominance would not, finally, in the later part of his career, find it in his heart to act more responsibly in the public interest.

I think Will is trying to distract people from the real issues. He is smart enough (and Will IS smart) that he knows that if he speaks directly to the problem and he is honest then people will realize it is a real problem, and if he lies about it he will be caught. His answer is to talk about issues that are almost completely irrelevant. Sure, we will probably cause the "Earth" no permanent damage, it's just the people that live on it and all the current biological species that will have problems.

Notice how his article completely ignores that fact?

EDIT: After reading answers by our resident deniers, do they not realize that his article is saying virtually nothing that matters? Isn't his argument pretty much the same as if I would say that in the grand scheme of plate tectonics, it matters not a whit if we have all out nuclear war? The plates will continue to slide past each other at transform faults, dive down at subduction zones and buckle up at continental collisions....oh, did I forget to mention the bit about most of the world's population being wiped out? Will's article is pure sophistry, and if they are really falling for it then they're stupider than they appear. To be honest I don't think the geologist is fooled by the argument, but he's happy to play along. From his terse answer, the oil company geophysicist may be dumb enough to not understand the trickery that Will is pulling.

The article actually says nothing at all. It notes that the earth's time line is much longer than the human experience and what we do no will have little or nothing to do with the condition of the earth in 100 million years. That has nothing to do with the issue of global warming which is about the conditions of life for the next 100 human generations or so. The next 100 generations is a blink in the history of the earth but are nevertheless something that the current generation is accountable to.

I think maybe Will wanted to sound smart and sound like he has something to say to his non-scientific audience when in fact he has nothing to say really.

In George Will's logic (and every other sane person) we shouldn't worry about things we can't control and should be concerned with the things we can control that matter.

As we can't control the climate of the earth, we shouldn't worry about it. Even George Carlin eloquently mocked the morons who think that people can save the earth. It doesn't need saving.

“On the scales of time relevant to itself, the earth doesn’t care about any of these governments or their legislation.”

QED