Last Friday, the New York Times introduced a new, conservative columnist: Bret Stephens, former editor at the Jerusalem Post and the Wall Street Journal. He's also a former climate-change denier, who now says he believes that human activity is responsible for global warming. But, in his first column he wrote that, "claiming total certainty about the science... creates openings for doubt [when] much that passes for accepted fact is really a matter of probabilities." The response has been deafening... from readers, including scientists, saying the paper's encouraging climate-change denial. The Times' Public Editor says readers need to hear different perspectives and it's time for "Busting up the paper's mostly liberal echo chamber." But scientists say climate change should be treated as an emergency that could be worse than predicted.
Scientific uncertainty and the politics of climate change
More
- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
- Wemple on NY Times push notifications over Stephens' column
- Wemple on NY Times editor's weak, vague response to Stephens's critics
- Hemingway on the irony on the backlash against Stephens
- Du Sautoy's 'The Great Unknown: Explorations at the Edge of Knowledge'
Credits
Guests:
- Erik Wemple - Washington Post - @ErikWemple
- Michael E. Mann - Pennsylvania State University - @MichaelEMann
- Mark Hemingway - Weekly Standard - @Heminator
- Marcus du Sautoy - University of Oxford - @MarcusduSautoy