Writing on his Dot.Earth blog, the New York Times' Andy Revkin passes on a long and insightful quote from the historian Dr. Spencer Weart, to looks back from a dark future to analyse what happened in the early part of the 20th century to bring the world to ruin.

It's well worth the read [1] and is something of a credit to Revkin, who quoted the passage regardless of references like: "... the media coverage represented a new low" and "even in leading newspapers like The New York Times [2], critics with a long public record for animosity and exaggeration were quoted as experts."

But then for most of his career, Revkin has been a little like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, fallible, but still the a leading voice for reason - at his paper and among most North American newspapers.