Freakonomics Guys Freak Out Climate Acolytes

Wouldn't it be great to make global warming disappear with a helium balloon, a few miles of garden hose, and a stream of sulfur dioxide? “Maybe, but not if you’re Al Gore or one of his little helpers,” writes Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal. Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner argue for just this geoengineering approach in SuperFreakonomics, and they’ve taken a pounding for it.

Al Gore’s called their solution “nuts,” Joe Romm accuses them of “sheer illogic,” and Paul Krugman says they “grossly misrepresent other peoples’ research.” But Stephens jumps to their defense, calling them careful researchers who challenge the dogma of “the religion of global warming.” Their main point is that big problems often have simple solutions. That’s heresy for global warmists, who’d rather spend trillions on “reconceiving civilization as we know it.” (More climate change stories.)