Here is a tiny teaser:

“One of things that they do in this chapter is try to frame this as them versus the environmentalists, to say, ‘We’ve got the scientists on our side, and you’ve got Al Gore’,” says Romm. But, he argues, climate scientists familiar with the book see Dubner and Levitt as gravely mischaracterizing the state of the science

Go read the whole thing.

And I’ve also been meaning to link to this open letter to Steve Levitt, which is excellent. Very much worth taking the time to read if you are following the controversy over Superfreakonomics.

Not cool, funny man, not cool:

On last night’s Daily Show, host Jon Stewart heaped praise on the contrarian approach to global warming taken by SuperFreakonomics author Steve Levitt, a University of Chicago economist. Stewart was dismissive of the widespread criticism of Levitt and co-author Stephen Dubner, asking, “Have you stepped on a secular religion?” Stewart, often a tough interviewer, coddled Levitt, saying, “I’m sorry you’ve taken so much s**t for it.” He blamed the uproar over SuperFreakonomics on people who “feel you are betraying environmentalism.”

Here is the clip:

Stewart rightly concluded, “I really don’t know what I’m talking about, do I?” However, he failed to understand his mistake when he added that he had “apparently frightened our audience by suggesting that conservation isn’t the only way out of any of our problems.”

Stewart has excoriated other media darlings for their laissez-faire approach to serious issues, from Tucker Carlson to Jim Cramer, and just last week skewered CNN for its failure to do even basic fact-checking of its guests. Unfortunately, in this instance, there was nothing funny about Stewart’s inaccuracy.

This was honestly the worst interview I’ve ever seen Jon Stewart conduct. Very disappointing.