Last Friday was the debut of New York Times op-ed writer Brett Stevens, who'd been hired away from the Wall Street Journal to offer a conservative perspective in the overwhelmingly liberal Times opinion columns.

This was part of the post-election hand-wringing throughout the media that we institutionally were

as trapped in our filter bubbles as Trump loyalists were in theirs.

The idea, as editorial page editor James Bennett phrased it, was to, quote, broaden the range of

Times debate about consequential questions.

Liberal readers of the Times had expressed concern at Stevens hiring,

and Stevens, in his debut column, obliged their worst fears.

His article titled, Climate of Complete Certainty,

lambasted liberals who rage at deniers, but themselves deny skeptics

the right to their skepticism. To quote his piece, claiming total certainty about the science

introduces the spirit of science and creates openings for doubt whenever a climate claim

proves wrong. Demanding abrupt and expensive

changes in public policy raises fair questions about ideological intentions. Brian Boydler is a senior

editor at the New Republic and host of the political podcast primary concerns. While many

readers were upset about the Times seeming revisionism or false

balance on climate change, Boydler was more upset about the Times publishing a flimsy argument.

Brian, welcome back to OTM. Thank you so much for having me. First of all, describe the column

what you believe he was trying to pull off.

I think Stevens' aim in that column was to present the debate over climate change as one dominated

by environmental activists who don't grapple with the possibility that the consequences of climate change will be less

severe than they think. And so their prescriptions for how to deal with climate change today

might end up being too costly and too disruptive to be worth it. Essentially, Stevens is

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