I wrote a couple of weeks ago about Bjørn Lomborg, an interesting author who gained notoriety back in 2007 by writing the book Cool it!, and who had impressed me with a few articles (like this one) where he called for a different, more rational approach to global warming. His two main arguments were, succinctly, that hysteria will only produce a backlash, and that every dollar spent in R&D and basic science will go many times further than most of the expensive and inefficient solutions we are using today. So far, so good.
Feeling guilty for not having read the book, I finally purchased it a week ago; what a disappointment...
[Video source: Cool It the Movie official website]
I have read a few late opinion pieces by Bjørn Lomborg (the latest one, The Return to Reason, via Project Syndicate), one of the most controversial figures in the climate change debate, and to my surprise, I have to admit his arguments are quite persuasive.
When I heard about Mr Lomborg, it was always in the context of his 1998 book (The Skeptical Environmentalist), and thought of him as nothing more than one of those scientist (he is actually a political scientist) on Chevron's payroll, denying climate change and creating more false debate. I am as innately bias as anyone (we are all more receptive to ideas we agree on, aren't we?), so I didn't pay too much attention. Proving again that my 7th grade Civics teacher was right, reading what the other side has to say has proven to be an interesting experience.It turns out Mr Lomborg is not a denier, since there is nothing to deny about climate change. Data is data. What Mr Lomborg maintains, and the reason why he is vilified by the environmental activists (establishment?), is that first there is no point scaring our kids silly as if they will not have a world left to inherit, and secondly, that before dumping billion of dollars into inefficient technologies, it would be wiser to spend the money in R&D and find out real solutions that are both effective and economically feasible, while at the same time look for short term adaptation to the real changes that are already happening, changes that are too late to stop, and that will mostly affect poor people around the globe.
