Global warming is a good controversy to illustrate my four mistakes argument.
The Al Gore/Newsweek editor types are, according to the scientific evidence presented by many authorities (some of whom believe that global warming is real but not cataclysmic) greatly overestimating the problem. Also, they underestimate (actually, they completely discount) the mechanisms available in a free society to deal with global warming. (People can readily be persuaded to reduce their “carbon footprints” — although not Al Gore himself — and the price system is encouraging the development of cleaner fuels.) On the other side of the ledger, they greatly overestimate the ability of government to solve the supposed problem, since even the most draconian proposals for reducing “greenhouse gases” would reduce warming by only a minute amount. Finally, the zealots never give any thought to the problems their schemes would cause, among them the perpetuation of dire poverty among people in developing nations. Without an increase in energy usage, millions of people in Africa, Asia, and South America will necessarily remain desperately poor. That and other costs are ignored.