World's most high-profile climate change skeptic does U turn on global warming
guardian.co.uk
guardian.co.uk
Second, U turn?! Let's be serious. Bjørn Lomborg has always believed that global warming is one of the top global problems, but that it's too expensive to tackle it and we should spend our money on other issues instead (e.g., in his 2007 TED talk http://www.ted.com/talks/bjorn_lomborg_sets_global_prioritie...). The only difference is that now he appears to believe that global warming can be stopped with less than 0.5% of the US Federal Budget.
"Lomborg's main contention involves not the science of global warming [...] He [argues] that the economic cost of the restrictions [...] is impractically high [...].He proposes that the importance of global warming in terms of policy priority may be low compared to other policy issues such as fighting poverty and disease [...]."
By 2007 he had moderated this position substantially, but still held to the view that climate change was such a large-scale issue it was beyond our economic scope to really mitigate, and we should instead follow strategies of adaption. This latest news is noteworthy in that he is now saying that it can be mitigated, it's important enough to be mitigated, and that it won't be all that expensive to do so.
But hey, don't believe me. take it from Lomborg himself:
The Skeptical Environmentalist
In The Skeptical Environmentalist Bjørn Lomborg challenges widely held beliefs that the global environment is progressively getting worse. Using statistical information from internationally recognized research institutes, Lomborg systematically examines a range of major environmental issues and documents that the global environment has actually improved. He supports his argument with over 2900 footnotes, allowing discerning readers to check his sources.
and
Cool it - The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide To Global Warming
A groundbreaking book that transforms the debate about global warming by offering a fresh perspective based on human needs as well as environmental concerns.
Bjorn Lomborg argues that many of the elaborate and expensive actions now being considered to stop global warming will cost hundreds of billions of dollars, are often based on emotional rather than strictly scientific assumptions, and may very well have little impact on the world's temperature for hundreds of years. Rather than starting with the most radical procedures, Lomborg argues that we should first focus our resources on more immediate concerns [...]
http://www.lomborg.com/publications/
The top headline on his news page is from the Guardian: 'Bjørn Lomborg: the dissenting climate change voice who changed his tune.'
Yes, but that refers to deforestation, pollution and loss of biodiversity, not global warming. I haven't read the book myself (much less beaten anyone over the head with it), but I trust Wikipedia when it says that "Lomborg 'accepts the reality of man-made global warming' though he refers to a number of uncertainties in the computer simulations of global warming and some aspects of data collection".
He does indeed open the chapter with the statement you quote and then goes on to spend the next 60 pages disputing the predictability, degree, significance, cost or negative outcomes of climate change. To me that seems like no more than lip service, especially given that he misused a lot of data in making his argument; ad the argument follows a well-worn pattern that sounds very much like every other challenge to the concept.
I don't actually have my hair on fire about global warming (ie I think it's a serious problem but one that is solvable with a mix of thrift and technology), and I think the IPCC badly needs to overhaul its process and be more transparent about its methods. However, I feel that a majority of the skeptical arguments are rhetorical rather than substantive, and that no amount of evidence will ever be enough.
Strangely, many of the same skeptics who question the predictive power of science in this area and ridiculed believers in climate change as apocalyptic Chicken Littles see no irony in pronouncing the inevitability of economic doom that will result from envirocentric policymaking. Lomborg is exceptional in that he's revised his views as more data has become available, but many have not; if anything, they've become more partisan about it. Those folk seem far more certain of their economic opinions than any climate scientist has ever been about temperatures.
It's not clear that Lomborg changed his mind; it seems like he fudged the process the Copenhagen Consensus was using to get a politically acceptable result - 'Lomborg said he then decided to consider a much wider variety of policies to reduce global warming, "so it wouldn't end up at the bottom".'
He's always advocated development spending should be cost-effective, which makes sense. To that end, he has always said we should ignore climate change for now and concentrate on things that are profitable now, then cut heavily latter if we need to.
However, I think this is the wrong way to discount the far future. On the one hand, we have relatively little certainty about what our culture will be like in a hundred years. On the other, we are fairly certain man-made climate change is happening now and will have increasingly damaging effects. To wait for some point in the future where research and development will make the problem go away cheaply is irresponsible and naive - '"This is not about 'we have all got to live with less, wear hair-shirts and cut our carbon emissions'. It's about technologies, about realising there's a vast array of solutions."'
Clever solutions appeal to clever people, and no-one wants to wear a hair-shirt, but that's not an argument against actually making some compromises. Or, to put it another way, he got five economists to make long-term predictions about sustainability and they said "increase energy efficiency, do some R&D spending, business as usual." How surprising.
When this issue entered the public consciousness it was as if everyone had made their minds up before there was any evidence for or against AGW.
There's evidence for and against, and instead of doing analysis we seem to just be slamming the table, condescendingly dismissing dissent and calling each other names. Of course there are probably people out there doing real science, but from what I can see (ok, from the media) it's people making up their minds and then finding the data to back it up. That's not science.
I thought Lomborg's initial stance was refreshing.
Hopefully it's just the media making drama out of it and real work is being done to get to the bottom of it. Here's to hope.
(But also upvoted because it's an interesting article)
"Howard Friel, author of the book The Lomborg Deception, said: "If Lomborg were really looking for smart solutions, he would push for an end to perpetual and brutal war, which diverts scarce resources from nearly everything that Lomborg legitimately says needs more money.""
With enemies like that, Lomborg really doesn't have much to worry about.