Well I’ll agree with him about that, anyway.

In a single post, Matthew Yglesias does two things: he criticizes an article that ignores (he says) pertinent facts that would otherwise debunk that article; and he ignores pertinent facts that would otherwise debunk his post.

Thank you! Thank you, ladies and gentlemen! Don’t forget to tip your waitress!

Yglesias writes:

There’s a lot of shoddy reporting in the climate debate…

He’ll get no argument from me, there. Of course, he’s talking about this story: Inconvenient truth for Al Gore as his North Pole sums don’t add up.

Mr Gore, speaking at the Copenhagen climate change summit, stated the latest research showed that the Arctic could be completely ice-free in five years.

In his speech, Mr Gore told the conference: “These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.”

However, the climatologist whose work Mr Gore was relying upon dropped the former Vice-President in the water with an icy blast.

“It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.”

See, Maslowski’s figures only predict an 80% ice melt in 6 years – so Gore’s “75% chance” of “completely ice-free” is wrong.

Yglesias argues, though, that Gore was at least in the ballpark. So the article’s snarkiness is ignoring the actual facts.

While throwing a hissy over that seeming bit of journalistic sloppiness, though, Yglesias himself ignores these paragraphs:

Others said that, even if quoted correctly, Dr Maslowski’s six-year projection for near-ice-free conditions is at the extreme end of the scale. Most climate scientists agree that a 20 to 30-year timescale is more likely for the near-disappearance of sea ice.

“Maslowski’s work is very well respected, but he’s a bit out on a limb,” said Professor Peter Wadhams, a specialist in ocean physics at the University of Cambridge.

If that’s the case, then Gore is not only out on a limb, he’s standing tippy-toe on the very end, wildly flapping his arms and hoping Newton was wrong. And Yglesias is out there with him.

Via Memeorandum.