Oct. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Chicago hookers work overtime around the Fourth of July holiday, suicide bombers should buy life insurance, and capuchin monkeys have learned to use money to acquire Jell-O cubes and sexual favors.

All of these curiosities crop up in Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner’s “SuperFreakonomics,” an intermittently amusing sequel to their bestseller, “Freakonomics.” Too bad the authors pushed their luck by challenging climatologists to a duel in a chapter on global warming.

The Freakonomics boys got themselves in trouble by doing what they do best: Using accumulated data to test conventional wisdom, whether it’s about shark attacks or Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.”

“You may find a few things in the following pages to quarrel with,” they write.

Now there’s an understatement. Even before the book was published, a blast of critical e-mails clogged my in-box. They included a detailed denunciation from the Union of Concerned Scientists, which said the book “grossly mischaracterizes climate science.”

I’m a reviewer, not a climatologist. So I won’t wade into the rising sea level of this debate, already addressed by Eric Pooley, a Bloomberg News columnist who’s writing a book on the politics of global warming. His conclusion: “The Freakonomics guys just flunked climate science.”

What I will say is this: Far from being global-warming deniers, Levitt and Dubner strike me as two thoughtful, albeit provocative, gents who are convinced that climate change is worth fretting about. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have devoted a chapter to exploring far-out ways to cool the planet if need be.

Sky Hose

One involves building a “garden hose to the sky,” held aloft by helium balloons, to pump sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere above Alberta, Canada. This feat of geoengineering, as it’s known, would seek to mimic the cooling that follows huge volcanic eruptions, like that of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991. (“This could work,” says Pooley. “It also could have dire unintended consequences.”)

One unintended consequence of this dispute over climate change is that it will distract readers from the stronger chapters of “SuperFreakonomics,” which bubbles with quirky examples of how people (and monkeys) respond to incentives.

In Chicago’s Washington Park, for example, demand for prostitutes surges every summer around Independence Day, the authors say. The upshot: Hookers raise their prices some 30 percent and work overtime, the authors say. The seasonal demand also draws part-timers to the market, they say.

‘Monkey Prostitution’

The capuchins, for their part, learned in a lab experiment that they could get Jell-O cubes and other treats in exchange for silver coins. Then came the day when one male monkey handed a coin to a female. Soon a researcher was witnessing “the first instance of monkey prostitution in the recorded history of science,” we read. This, not global warming, is what we expect from the partnership of Levitt, who teaches economics at the University of Chicago, and Dubner, an author and journalist.

The writing is bouncy throughout, and it’s hard to resist an economist who has brunch with a prostitute to “measure the shape of her demand curve.” Still, the humor can get forced, and I suffered Freakonomic fatigue here and there, especially when the authors presented familiar findings as novelties.

Surely anyone who recalls the 9/11 perpetrators already knew that terrorists tend to come from well-educated and middle- class (or even rich) families. Nor is it a huge surprise that suicide bombers are unlikely to buy life insurance.

What I didn’t know is that U.K. banks sift through their databases looking for young men with Muslim names who don’t have coverage. The lesson is clear, say the Freakonomics guys: A budding terrorist wanting to hide his tracks should change his name and take out a policy.

“SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance” is from William Morrow in the U.S. and from Allen Lane in the U.K. (270 pages, $29.99, 20 pounds).

(James Pressley writes for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer on the story: James Pressley in Brussels at jpressley@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 27, 2009 20:00 EDT