Dubner and Levitt Defend Superfreakonomics on New York Public Radio
Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner appeared on The Leonard Lopate Show on New York Public Radio this afternoon and defended the section on climate change in their new book Superfreakonomics.
We won’t get too deep into the controversy over their thinking on carbon reduction and geoengineering, but for a primer on the controversy start with this statement in their book:
In other words: it’s illogical to believe in a carbon-induced warming apocalypse and believe that such an apocalypse can be averted simply by curtailing new carbon emissions.
Climate Progress’ Joseph Romm has railed against this and other statements in the book here, and he’s been joined by other progressive bloggers.
The controversy provoked Dubner to respond today:
The movement to stop global warming has some of the components of a religion and I’ll tell you we’ve certainly experienced that in the past few days. Its feel very much like a fatwa has been levied. As with fatwas there’s obviously a bizarre twisting and omission of facts.
Go to the show’s site here.
