RYAN COOPER: The New York Times‘ staggering own goal on climate change.

It isn’t what you think:

Over the weekend, The New York Times found itself in a lot of hot water over the climate change views of its new columnist, Bret Stephens. The former Wall Street Journal editor has long espoused a sort of breezy science denial-lite, so liberal Times readers (i.e. most of them) reacted with stunned disbelief that the paper would waste the most valuable op-ed space in America on not only a third boring conservative white man, but one who downplays climate change, the most important problem in the world.

Stephens reacted by making his very first effort a defensive, smarmy column, full of gaping logical holes and disastrous scientific errors, about how the left was being mean to him over climate change. Many liberals were enraged enough to cancel their subscriptions over it. It’s both an excellent illustration of warped thinking about climate change, and how upper-class liberals’ need for civil discourse can lead to staggering own goals.

Got that? Gentry liberals attempted to shout down Stephens’ call for dialog and cast him out as a heretic on climate change because of their need for civil discourse.