Reviled by greenies, beloved by The Wall Street Journal (which has given him an op-ed spot for the past six weeks): when Crikey spotted Bjørn Lomborg at the COP15 media centre cafe there was no chance this cantankerous Danish statistician would be let off without a grilling.
Previously named by Time as one of its most 100 influential thinkers, Lomborg is the thinking man’s climate sceptic. That’s because he doesn´t reject the science of anthropogenic climate change — although the emphasis he often places on the potentially positive impacts of a warmer world, such as increased agricultural production and less winter deaths, drive environmentalists gaga.
His scepticism is reserved for the economics of climate change: his view is that carbon reduction agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol are an expensive and inefficient way to try to control global temperatures.
Hand-wringing about the size of different countries’ emissions pledges, Lomborg argues, is pointless as most countries will simply ignore them. At the end of Copenhagen “we will have a beautifully crafted document and everybody will be drinking champagne and throwing confetti and saying, ‘We did it’!” Lomborg says. “The real problem, I think, is the aim of the negotiation, which is to make targets we won’t meet.”
He also wants politicians to put off mitigation efforts and devote 0.2% of GDP to renewable energy research instead. “As long as it’s really costly to cut carbon emissions dramatically it’s not going to happen. What we need is smarter technology.”
Lomborg also weighs into the debate Australia never had: whether an emissions trading scheme or carbon tax is the best way to bring down emissions. A carbon tax would be most efficient, Lomborg argues, because it is simpler and more transparent. Emissions trading schemes, on the other hand, are open to abuse by powerful industry groups who lobby for free permits to allow them to keep polluting.
On the controversial issue of “clean coal”, Lomborg is more equivocal: we should investigate all alternative energy possibilities, but carbon sequestration looks unlikely to be economically viable in the near future.
Watch the full interview below:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWESUiaWH8o&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
Lomborg has always been problematic, but he finally lost me with this gem:
“…over the last two years, sea levels have not increased at all – actually, they show a slight drop?”
Björn Lomborg, “Let the data speak for itself”, The Guardian, 14 Oct 2008.
Lomborg the statistician cannot fail to know that this statement is utter crap, statistically speaking. The interval to which he refers (2006/7) is but a blip in an indisputable long-established uptrend. Therefore the defence of ignorance fails. Only deliberate deception remains. But to what purpose? Aggrandisement? Book sales to the gullible?
But at what point, in a matter likely to adversely affect millions, does deliberate deception become criminal?
Lomborg was interviewed by Fran Kelly on Radio National’s breakfast program on 9 December 2009
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/breakfast/stories/2009/2765837.htm
and by Geraldine Doogue on Radio National’s Saturday extra on 12 August 2006
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/saturdayextra/stories/2006/1713073.htm
“Have you noticed how environmental campaigners almost inevitably say that not only is global warming happening and bad, but also that what we are seeing is even worse than expected? This is odd, because any reasonable understanding of how science proceeds would expect that, as we refine our knowledge, we find that things are sometimes worse and sometimes better than we expected, and that the most likely distribution would be about 50-50. Environmental campaigners, however, almost invariably see it as 100-0”
Yes I have but have stopped saying it because it automatically opens one to accusation of supporting planned infanticide or being a holocaust denier.
“Of course, not all things are less bad than we thought. But one-sided exaggeration is not the way forward. We urgently need balance if we are to make sensible choices”.
Hear bloody hear!!
Glen – that you say “Lomborg has always been problematic” speaks volumes. That you suggest “Lomborg the statistician cannot fail to know that this statement is utter crap, statistically speaking” without any explanation whatsoever as to why it should be so is everything that’s wrong with the ‘believe the word of the righteous because it is …er… the word and was spoken by …er… the righteous’ brigade. It’s our duty to question, after all, blind faith is what?
Lomborg says the the climate is warming, it’s anthropogenic and the knees-up in Carbonhaven will result in a pusillanimous consensus which will be ignored by all, except the financial engineers already rubbing their greedy hands.
He suggests that a far better use of government monies wouldbe investment in clean(er) generation technologies, dismisses ‘clean coal’ for the PR spin that it is and suggests that a fraction of the subnsidies proffered to Big Coal & Oil be diverted to 3rd World education, esp of women (long demonstrated to be the single, simplest and most benign form of population limitiation and social uplift), micro loans and land reform.
Tom, have you read his famous book? Problematic, at least to the fair-minded. That’s you, no?
And bothered to actually look at the sea level data I described? “Indisputable long-established uptrend” is in no way hyperbole.