Krugman is right when he doubts Gordon's premise that we are somehow coming to the close of a third phase of the Industrial Revolution. However, Krugman is not a futurist, and though he claims that he has "been looking into technology a lot lately", he does not understand technology. Nor is he a "contemporary anthropologist" in the sense of understanding human behavioral patterns in the face of rapid change in the way that individuals and societies adapt and exploit informational tools in an economic context. His economic theory alone is too one-sided, and he should stick to his knitting and work on the half-baked assumptions behind some of the controversial notions that he advances in his chosen field. Krugman clearly aspires to be some kind of seminal social thinker and relishes the notion that his opinions might be sought out by the middle class and talk show pundits in addition to his academic peers. But his aspirations to graduate from economic theorist to social thinker are just that: aspirations. He had best stick to his 'day job' -- and do a better job at it !

Ditto the comment from spidercoz, @petermgreen: you are confusing conduction, convection and radiation. So-called 'greenhouse gases' do not "make it harder for [an] object to lose heat to it's [sic] surroundings" (in the sense of thermal conduction or convection to "surroundings"). It is the recapture of a percentage of black-body radiation from the Earth (by molecules of atmospheric gas) that would otherwise escape into space -- not the insulation or prevention of convection or conduction in a closed thermodynamic system -- that constitutes the physics behind the analysis, theories and models of the degree of this effect on the climate of the Earth. In fact, the term 'greenhouse' is in itself misleading. Actual greenhouses do prevent the dissipation of thermal energy from within their structures by inhibiting convection, not radiation. Black-body radiation is not stopped by the glass of the greenhouse at all. The temperature inside the confined air of a greenhouse rises because convection (and to a certain degree conduction) is inhibited. You are using a 'thermos bottle' metaphor, which is not correct.

Ditto the comment from spidercoz, @petermgreen: you are confusing conduction, convection and radiation. So-called 'greenhouse gases' do not "make it harder for [an] object to lose heat to it's [sic] surroundings" (in the sense of thermal conduction or convection to "surroundings"). It is the recapture of a percentage of black-body radiation from the Earth (by molecules of atmospheric gas) that would otherwise escape into space -- not the insulation or prevention of convection or conduction in a closed thermodynamic system -- that constitutes the physics behind the analysis, theories and models of the degree of this effect on the climate of the Earth. In fact, the term 'greenhouse' is in itself misleading. Actual greenhouses do prevent the dissipation of thermal energy from within their structures by inhibiting convection, not radiation. Black-body radiation is not stopped by the glass of the greenhouse at all. The temperature inside the confined air of a greenhouse rises because convection (and to a certain degree conduction) is inhibited. You are using a 'thermos bottle' metaphor, which is not correct.