Was it dangerous to give Freeman Dyson a soapbox?

In a Sciam.com reunion of sorts, fellow traveler Christoper Mims sparked a lively exchange this Monday evening between him, myself and our colleague Nikhil Swaminathan on whether the New York Review of Books erred dangerously in giving Nobel-deprived physics genius Freeman Dyson room to vent his thoughts in an infamous 2008 piece on climate change and whether we can engineer our way out of it.

Dyson’s NYRB piece must have been the inspiration for a fascinating profile of Dyson in the New York Times magazine. The author, Nicholas Dawidoff, quoted Dyson extensively on his contrarian views. By all credible accounts, Dyson overestimates his grasp of the data. See also this piece on geoengineering as the new climate denialism.

So, did NYRB open a Pandora’s box of climate bullsh-t? Chris and Nikhil have given me permission to reproduce our exchange here. I hope the discussion will continue in comments.