Last night, Steven Levitt, co-author of Freakonomics and now the ostensibly freakier Super Freakonomics, appeared on The Daily Show. Jon Stewart expressed his enthusiasm for Levitt’s position that we should be combating global warming in many ways, not only by reducing emissions but also by implementing strategies to actively remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.[...]

It would certainly be nice if more, even most Americans had a firm grasp of economics, real-world as well as classical. At least then, our public debate could focus on the features of economic life that actually exist. This would likely rein in the discourse on both the right and left. But in a national climate in which a substantial percentage of people don’t think evolution should be taught in schools, I see little hope for economics.