I got an email from my brother thanking me for the Zoolander references in yesterday’s blog post about the “Faces of Coal” Astroturfing. His only complaint is that there wasn’t more Mugatu.
Well, after reading Bjørn Lomborg’s nonsense in today’s WSJ, I can honestly say:
I FEEL LIKE I’M TAKING CRAZY PILLS!
Lomborg may classify me as an alarmist, but when I listen to him it makes my head want to explode because he wants to have it both ways. He says climate change is not a pressing crisis, but one that can be solved through middling, weak policies and technology research. But then he says solving climate change will be beneficial and cheap. Not to be crude, but WTF?
This is the most backwards thinking since Exxon was named Forbes’ “Green company fo the Year” (BTW, Forbes says Exxon is “green” because of its support of natural gas! Again–WTF?!?)
Lomborg claims that climate change will not be serious and damaging– it might even be beneficial! His argument? Loss of agricultural productivity, etc, in one area will be offset by gains in another. Just tell us that while we in Texas are suffering under the worst drought and hottest temperatures ever– our loss is North Dakota’s gain? I’m sure Texas will be glad that our farming and cattle operations will move to Oklahoma and Nebraska– and we can just bake in the sun with no water.
But then he advocates radical geoengineering policies like cloud-seeding to have clouds’ albedo effect shelter the earth from more direct sunlight. (Too bad Lomborg, not a scientist, hasn’t kept up with the scientific debate, or else he would’ve read that increased water vapor and clouds would actually speed up global warming) He then claims that doing this to “Solve” global warming could save $20 TRILLION dollars.
So,let me make sure i understand this correctly:
Argument 1: Climate Change won’t be Costly
Argument 2: Solving warming will save $20 Trillion Dollars.
Any disconnect here? On what alternate plane of existence does $20 Trillion Dollars not amount to a @#$%load of money? (And here I was under the delusion that Lomborg was an economist)
Lomborg completely ignores the real solutions here: energy efficiency and renewables. According to McKinsey and Company, we can cut our greenhouse gas emissions 35-40% as a country at a net cost savings using technology already in hand. Already in Texas, we see the effect that having wind as part of our electrical generation reduces costs, as evidenced by lower electrical rates in the West ERCOT zone where the wind is, over areas relying more on oil, gas, coal, and nuclear.
Lomborg has not only missed the boat– he’s not even anywhere near the shore. Solving climate change will bring Texas millions of new green jobs and spur a technology revolution that will change how we live in the same way the Internet and computer revolution has– and all of those changes are for the better. But you don’t have to take my word for it: read a transcript of a debate between Lomborg and Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Colombia University from Fareed Zakaria GPS a few months back. Also read here someone who spend their time cataloging the ways that Lomborg misrepresents the facts in his writings.
