Economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman said Tuesday that “right-wingers” and other contrarians that oppose government intervention on global warming are part of a “real axis of evil” that “may end up dooming civilization.”

Krugman went on a Twitter rant against “climate deniers” in the wake of an NYT report on a draft government climate assessment, which “concludes that Americans are feeling the effects of climate change right now.”

And it’s important to realize that at this point the overwhelming majority of climate deniers are acting in bad faith. What do I mean? — Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) August 8, 2017

Dissent — even from overwhelming scientific consensus — is OK — but only if you’re honestly trying to get at the truth. They aren’t. — Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) August 8, 2017

What we have instead are paid hacks for fossil fuels, right-wingers who refuse to acknowledge any problem requiring govt intervention … — Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) August 8, 2017

And a significant number of snide types who feed their egos by being contrarian just for the sake of thumbing their nose at liberals. — Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) August 8, 2017

This amounts to a real axis of evil — and it may end up dooming civilization. — Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) August 8, 2017

Interestingly enough, Krugman has used world-ending scenarios before to highlight his theory that government spending can boost the economy.

“[I]f we discovered that space aliens were planning to attack, and we needed a massive build-up to counter the space alien threat,” Krugman told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in 2011.

He added that if “inflation and budget deficits took secondary place to that, this slump would be over in 18 months.” Krugman later said he was being facetious about the aliens, but not about the economic impacts of military build ups.

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