Yesterday, New York Times subscribers were treated to an email alert announcing the first opinion column from Bret Stephens, who they hired away from the Wall Street Journal. Like all Journal opinion columnists who write about climate change, Stephens has said a lot of things on the subject that could charitably be described as ignorant and wrong. Thus many Times subscribers voiced bewilderment and concern about his hiring, to which the paper’s public editor issued a rather offensive response.

Justifying the critics, here’s how the paper announced Stephens’ first opinion column in an email alert (usually reserved for important breaking news):

TOP STORIES In his debut as a Times Op-Ed columnist, Bret Stephens says reasonable people can be skeptical about the dangers of climate change

Stephens gets his few facts wrong

In his column, Stephens pooh-poohed climate change as a “modest (0.85 degrees Celsius) warming of the Northern Hemisphere since 1880,” citing the 2014 IPCC report. However, Stephens packed three big mistakes into that single sentence. Here’s what the IPCC said (emphasis added):

The globally averaged combined land and ocean surface temperature data as calculated by a linear trend show a warming of 0.85 [0.65 to 1.06] °C over the period 1880 to 2012

The northern hemisphere warms faster than the global average because it has more land and less ocean than the southern hemisphere (water warms slowly), so this is an important mistake that underestimates the global temperature rise. On top of that, since 2012 we’ve seen the three hottest years on record (2014, 2015, and 2016), so even the 0.85°C warming figure is outdated (it’s now right around 1°C).

Stephens doesn’t understand the rapid pace or urgency of the problem

Most importantly, the global warming we’ve experience is in no way “modest.” We’re already causing a rate of warming faster than when the Earth transitions out of an ice age, and within a few decades we could be causing the fastest climate change Earth has seen in 50 million years. The last ice age transition saw about 4°C global warming over 10,000 years; humans are on pace to cause that much warming between 1900 and 2100 – a period of just 200 years, with most of that warming happening since 1975.

Of course, how much global warming we see in the coming decades depends on how much carbon pollution we dump into the atmosphere. If we take serious immediate action to cut those emissions, as the international community pledged to do under the Paris agreement, we can limit global warming to perhaps 2°C, and the climate consequences that come along with it.

But this is where Stephens’ opinions are particularly unhelpful:

Demanding abrupt and expensive changes in public policy raises fair questions about ideological intentions. Censoriously asserting one’s moral superiority and treating skeptics as imbeciles and deplorables wins few converts … Perhaps if there were less certitude about our climate future, more Americans would be interested in having a reasoned conversation about it.

In other words, the people obstructing climate policies are justified because climate “advocates” are too mean to them, and claim too much certainty about the future.

This is of course nonsense. There is uncertainty about how much global warming and climate change we’ll see in the coming decades (climate scientists are crystal clear about this), but the biggest factor contributing to that uncertainty is human behavior – how much carbon pollution we end up dumping into the atmosphere. This is apparent from looking at the IPCC global temperature projections:

Global average surface temperature projections. Illustration: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report.

In the red ‘burn lots of fossil fuels’ (RCP8.5) scenario, we’ll see a further 3.0–5.5°C warming between now and 2100. In the blue ‘take immediate serious climate action’ (RCP2.6) scenario, we’ll see a further 0.5–1.5°C global warming by 2100. Those ranges represent uncertainties in the climate modeling, but the difference between them – which is based on how much carbon pollution we release – is bigger than the uncertainty in each scenario.

Stephens needs a lesson in risk management

Smoking provides an apt analogy. Each time we smoke, we increase the odds of developing cancer a little bit more. The future outcome is uncertain – we don’t know exactly if or when the disaster of cancer will hit – but we know we’re making it more likely every time we smoke, and the smart move is to mitigate that risk by cutting down on the cigarettes as quickly as possible. With climate change, each time we add more carbon pollution to the atmosphere, we increase the odds of a climate catastrophe a little bit more. The smart move is to mitigate that risk by cutting down on our burning of fossil fuels as quickly as possible.

Stephens’ piece is akin to criticizing doctors and anti-smoking groups for being too mean to the tobacco industry, and for not focusing on the uncertainty about exactly when the chain-smoking patient will develop cancer.

So far, climate change may be humanity’s greatest-ever risk management failure. The Paris climate agreement was a major step to remedy that failure, but now the Trump administration is debating whether to withdraw from it, or simply refuse to honor America’s pledges.



There have been bipartisan bills in Congress to implement market-based solutions to the problem, but each has been blocked by the Republican Party at the behest of its fossil fuel donors. Democrats have even proposed small government, revenue-neutral solutions that would benefit the economy, but while some Republican elder statesmen support the policy, Republicans in Congress have refused to even vote on it.

Stephens punches the hippies



In short, on climate science and policy it’s clear where the problem lies, and it’s not with the advocates. Not only does Stephens get basic facts wrong and gloss over the tremendous risks posed by climate change, but he blames partisan policy obstruction on the people who are desperately trying every possible avenue to solve the problem. The New York Times is publishing and promoting textbook hippie punching, and its readers are rightly appalled.



The Truth Is More Important Now Than Ever, Except If You're Reading Our Op-Ed Page pic.twitter.com/1bWM9IPM1k — Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) April 28, 2017

A number of climate realists and scientists have canceled their subscriptions to the paper in response. It’s a difficult choice because New York Times journalists do a lot of good reporting, including on climate change. Justin Gillis is practically a national treasure. In fact many of those Times journalists themselves seem unhappy about the hire and Stephens’ first opinion piece.

"The New York Times newsroom and the New York Times opinion section are totally separate things!" he shouted into the void — Tom Wright-Piersanti (@tomwp) April 28, 2017

At the same time, it’s difficult to stomach paying for a paper that uses that money to hire and promote views as uninformed and harmful as Bret Stephens’, on a subject as critically important as climate change.



Personally, I had hoped that Stephens would simply avoid the subject, but his first piece dashed those hopes much in the way that our hopes for sensible American climate policy have been dashed time and time again by those who he defends.