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NYT Columnist Who Just Ate Crow Makes Another Bold Prediction

[Screenshot Morning Joe MSNBC]

Brianna Lyman News and Commentary Writer
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New York Times (NYT) opinion columnist Paul Krugman argued Thursday that transition to green energy would help the planet and be cheap just after he published a piece admitting he was wrong about inflation.

Krugman discussed a recent piece he wrote in which he argues that the climate crisis is going “to get much worse,” during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

“Your piece about climate politics being worse than you think,” host Mika Brzezinski said. “I don’t know how much worse it could get. But go ahead, tell us.”

“Well, it turns out to be the optimistic view is that it is all about money, it is all about fossil fuel interests and people making money off the current situation that don’t want to do anything. But unfortunately, what we’re seeing is that it runs deeper than that. What we’re seeing is that even when there are no large financial interests at stake, that it basically, the entire Republican Party, and occasional Democrats named Manchin, are just opposed to doing anything about climate, no matter how bad the realities are, and the real tragedy here is that technology has been a godsend.”

West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin said he would not back a bill that includes climate provisions and tax hikes as inflation runs rampant. (RELATED: CNBC Host Presses Buttigieg On Green Energy Agenda As Europe Struggles)

“The price of alternatives to fossil fuels have plunged,” Krugman continued. “At this point an energy transition that would protect the planet and looks remarkably cheap, looks like the cost of the economy, and even the cost of fossil fuel industry couldn’t be that large but we have people that don’t want it to happen.”

The NYT published one of his opinion pieces entitled “I Was Wrong About Inflation” on Thursday.

Krugman said he was incorrectly on “Team Relaxed” about inflation fears in early 2021, dismissing concerns the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan would have consequences.

“I was Team Relaxed,” Krugman confessed. “As it turned out, of course, that was a very bad call. But what, exactly, did I get wrong?”

Krugman conceded he relied on economic models that “performed pretty well” after the 2008 financial crisis but that in retrospect, he “should have realized that, in the face of the new world created by COVID-19, that kind of extrapolation wasn’t a safe bet.”