To the Editors:
We note with disappointment and shock the New York Times‘ decision to hire Bret Stephens as an op-ed columnist. In columns for the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Stephens has baselessly claimed that the abundance of evidence for global warming has been “debunked”; that climate change is an “imaginary problem”; and that those who accept the scientific evidence of climate change are akin to totalitarians, anti-Semites, and Communists.
These claims, and the intellectual dishonesty that underpins them, contradict the central mission of the New York Times, a media outlet that carefully sources its facts and information. Stephens is not just a “conservative voice.” An honest conservative voice may argue about what policies ought or ought not to be implemented in response to climate change. He is in fundamental respects an opponent of truth. It is disturbing that the Times would lend its credence to claims that find no real support in the scientific community and indeed are contradicted by the Times’ own coverage of these issues. To normalize Stephens’ science denialism is to normalize the willful negation and distortion of facts that the Times supposedly resists.
Signed:
Katheleen Alcott · Hannah Lillith Assadi · Ramona Ausubel · Michael Barron · Julie Buntin · Anelise Chen · Karim Dimechkie · Liz Dosta · Rivka Galchen · Sarah Gerard · Alex Gilvarry · Hermione Hoby · Perrin Ireland · Karl Jacoby · Porochista Khakpour · Alexandra Kleeman · Marie Myung-Ok Lee · Ariel Lewiton · Cal Morgan · Joseph O’Neill · Tracy O’Neill · Téa Obreht · David Leo Rice · Ingrid Contreras Rojas · Jonathan Schienberg · Dan Sheehan · Jessica Soffer · Marya Spence · Richard Torres · Erin White
