One expects hyperbole, demagoguery, and overall intellectual dishonesty from politicians.  In this column from the New York Times, however, Paul Krugman goes even further:  if you oppose cap and trade legislation, you're guilty of treason against humanity.  Yes, treason.  So, I sent the following email to Dr. Krugman, stating what regular readers of mine will recognize as a common question:

re:  Betraying the Planet

Dr. Krugman,

In your recent column, you criticized opponents of the "cap and trade" legislation as committing "treason against the planet" and acting with "immorality" and "irresponsibility".  You go on to mention researchers at MIT who are predicting a 9 degree rise in global temperatures by the turn of the next century.

While you don't mention whether there is competing research detailing various other potential scenarios, or what sets the particular research you cite apart from competing climate models, I think a more central question is this, based on your claims specifically against those in opposition to the Waxman-Markey bill:  precisely how many degrees would that bill lower temperatures?  One degree?  5 degrees?  0.1 degrees?  How, specifically, does passage of the cap-and-trade bill alter the computer models on climate change?  What percentage of arctic tundra will now not defrost, what percentage of polar ice caps will not now melt?  How much less in "grave danger" are "future generations of Americans" now in as a direct result of this legislation?

Failure to be able to answer this central, overarching question, seems to be laden with the same hyperbole and "politics as usual" you find so distasteful and immoral on the part of the dissenters.

Sincerely,
Dave Smith
Houston, TX