New York Times

The cover story of Sunday's New York Times Magazine is devoted to an affectionate portrait of the scientist Freeman Dyson. The news hook is that he's an Obama-loving liberal and a climate skeptic — both at the same time! But here's the real kicker: He's a critic of NASA climate scientist James Hansen. Dyson says:

The person who is really responsible for this overestimate of global warming is Jim Hansen. He consistently exaggerates all the dangers. 

This is as good as the Thrilla in Manila!

The magazine plays up this attack on its cover. Pictured is Dyson in close-up, looking like the wise wizard — wrinkles, pointy protruding ears — and in the background, out-of-focus mathematical equations looming on the blackboard. The headline reads: The Global Warming Heretic. The subhead: How did Freeman Dyson — REVERED SCIENTIST, LIBERAL INTELLECTUAL, PROBLEM-SOLVER — wind up infuriating the environmentalists? (The capitalization is in the original.)

Actually, it is The New York Times that has infuriated the climate community even more, using Dyson as a proxy for a climate science war of its own invention.

The Obama administration’s early leadership on global warming seems to have stirred up the climate skeptics, cynics and deniers again. Now they’re trying to discredit not only climate science, but the climate scientists the president appointed to advise him.

But when it comes to what President Obama, Congress and the rest of us should be doing, none of the squabbling matters. Outside our laboratories and classrooms and scientific journals, the chronic arguments about global warming have very little to do with the fundamental challenge ahead: Making the fastest possible transition to a green economy.

Why? Because climate change is an issue where you don’t have to agree on the problem to agree on the solutions.

First, some background on the latest media debate.

The Washington Post allowed George Will to waste some perfectly good ink to argue that Obama’s science advisors are "dark green doomsayers." The New York Times followed suit, publishing a column by John Tierney, who featured a book by Roger Pielke, a researcher at the University of Colorado who says some climate scientists are engaging in "stealth issue advocacy."