Eco:nomics: Not Bjorn yesterday

Gore declines to debate Lomborg 11

I forgot to mention: the one "newsworthy" event at today’s conference was the fact that Al Gore was directly confronted by Bjorn Lomborg and refused to debate him.

Lomborg, as you know, has a shtick: we have to prioritize our social spending, and we should prioritize by what gets the most social benefit per dollar. Spending on climate change, Lomborg and his Copenhagen Consensus pals claim, ranks toward the bottom of the list by that metric. Not enough bang for the buck!

This is an intuitively plausible and seemingly hard-headed way of thinking about things—I’ve seen it seduce more than one business type at conferences like this. But scratch the surface and you’ll find that it’s absurd, for any number of reasons that have been well-documented (see here and here for starters).

Lomborg, with the assistance of the right, has been hassling Gore to debate for ages, and Gore has stiffed him (see, e.g., here). Finally, Thursday night, he got to confront Gore directly: "I don’t mean to corner you—well, maybe I do mean to corner you—but would you be willing to debate me on this?"

Gore paused and chose his words carefully, "I want to be polite to you ... [pregnant pause in which the implied "you silly little man" went unsaid] ... but the scientific community has been through this chapter and verse. We are long past the point, as a society and in the U.S. where we afford to treat this as an on-the-one-hand on-the-other issue."

Now, I think Gore played it the right way. Debating Lomborg just elevates Lomborg’s nonsense to higher visibility and degrades the larger conversation. But of course the ‘wingers are going to be all over this. The post on the WSJ blog already has over 100 comments of frothy haterade. And so the larger issues of the conference—and the fact that the CEOs in attendance are pointed in the same direction as Gore—will be lost. Sigh.

David Roberts is staff writer for Grist. You can follow his Twitter feed at twitter.com/drgrist.

Related Stories

Advertisement
Advertisement

  1. JohnMashey Posted 1:49 am
    06 Mar 2009

    Another view on LomborgTake Lomborg seriously ... not for what he says, but for the cleverness of his political advocacy strategy.
    See Lomborg and Playing the Long Game.
    Keywords: right-wing thinktanks, reincaration of Julian Simon, misdirection arguments, sophisticated version of false dilemma.

    -John Mashey

    Permalink

  2. lgcarey Posted 2:18 am
    06 Mar 2009

    What John saidJohn, thanks for the link, that post had slipped my mind.  Lomborg is dangerous because he's so clever and so good at misdirection and spouting faux-reasonable twaddle.  He loves to try to center the debate around irrelevant issues (e.g., more people die of cold than of heat each year), rather than, say, the risk of major food shortages from agricultural collapse due to shifting climate patterns.  Gore was absolutely right to refuse a debate - never debate someone who can cram so many misstatements and logical errors into two sentences that you will have to use up ten minutes just trying to get the discussion back on track.

    Permalink

  3. randino Posted 2:31 am
    06 Mar 2009

    It started with Silent Spring The play book of what I call the Triple Ds (deny, delay, dither) was first written by the chemical and agribusiness industries to counter Rachel Carson's arguments in Silent Spring. The goal is not to necessarily defeat your foe. It is to spread doubt, and keep the debate going. The longer you keep it going, the less chance there is for risk and change adverse politicians to actually do something about the problem. So when you agree to debate the Triple Ds they've got you right where they want you - namely wasting your time and energy on them. Gore did not fall for this trick bag to his credit, no matter what the mouth breathers have to say.
    There is a big weakness with our side. We seem to think that if we just present reasoned and logical arguments we will win the day. WRONG! The side that uses only reason and logic in political (which is what this is) conflict, usually loses. We have to talk to the whole person - their hearts and their minds, and avoid like the plague the post-graduate seminar template that is all too common in the environmental movement.
    Finally, I would really like to hear some good analysis of the American right and its antipathy towards environmentalism in general and the climate change issue in particular. Having locked horns with my share of right wingers, let me say that this animosity is deep, ideological, and based on faith and culture. If someone has done such an analysis I would like to know where to find it.  
    Randy Cunningham

    Cleveland, OH
     

    Randy Cunningham

    Permalink

  4. Doug Meyer Posted 3:04 am
    06 Mar 2009

    Randy's on to it, but it goes deeperEven the IPCC has a difficult time quantifying the Social Cost of Carbon. Ecosystems destruction is never going to be treated fairly by the dismal science. But the public responds to economics. Should Gore debate Lomborg? Well, should science trump economics?
    I can hear all the professional enviros groaning that the costs CAN be quantified. That's exactly the cause of the death of environmentalism. You've been co-opted by the monster. Sitting there quietly negotiating with it, the monster's eating your lunch.
    Global warming is a moral issue, and if Gore can't get up there and make the case for the science and expose the selfishness of acting on purely economic values (and yes, therefore insult the American public and lose the political debate) then I fear for him and the nightmares he'll have in the future.

    Permalink

  5. KenG Posted 3:28 am
    06 Mar 2009

    Look in the MirrorRandy C's argument contains value, but I think it is equally valid in reverse. Environmental groups also delay (increase costs and cause projects to be canceled), shout down oppponents (the science is decided, study only our side) and fog the arguments (what about the children). This is spin, this politics and all sides practice it.
    Citing Rachel Carson is ironic since she kicked off an over-reaction on use of DDT and indirectly caused millions of deaths from Malaria.
    Lomberg is a gadfly, but he is not a "denier". He raises valid questions about how we spend resources and what the final result is. I constantly see posts on Grist that indicate that global warming is inevitable without action that appears to be completely impossible on a global scale. If that's true, what option is there but Lombergs approach of dealing with it in the most cost effective way? Keep in mind that Lomberg is an economist and doesn't pretend to be a climate scientist and (at least when he isn't in front of the camera) he is approaching this as an economic/political issue, not a science/technical issue.

    Permalink

  6. JMG's avatar

    JMG Posted 7:06 am
    06 Mar 2009

    Nice assassination there, KenG"Citing Rachel Carson is ironic since she kicked off an over-reaction on use of DDT and indirectly caused millions of deaths from Malaria."
    Yes, those insanely powerful writers should definitely be held responsible for the knock-on consequences of speaking out.
    Meanwhile, how shall we hold people who mindlessly recite right wing talking points responsible for "indirectly" causing climate chaos, starvation, war, famines, and disease?

    The 5% Project



    Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay.

    Permalink

  7. biodiversivist's avatar

    biodiversivist Posted 7:16 am
    06 Mar 2009

    Three things

    Economists should be hiding under rocks right now.
    An internet debate lasting several days would be very interesting. Watching two guys yack on a stage for half an hour would be pointless.
    About the DDT myth:


    http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/10/3/0545/42216

    In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

    Permalink

  8. JohnMashey Posted 8:54 am
    06 Mar 2009

    KenG -please read my comments at ThingsBreakLomborg isn't an economist, he's a political scientist, and his tactics work very well for the unwary.
    You might ask a simple question: how much money has the Copenhagen Consensus actually raise dfor all the worthy causes?

    -John Mashey

    Permalink

  9. Jon Rynn's avatar

    Jon Rynn Posted 9:56 am
    06 Mar 2009

    randy, on the right wing --I'm reading a great book by Michael Lux called "The Progressive Revolution: How the best in America came to be".  It's excellent because to understand the right you have to understand that they are basically a reaction to progressives -- and Lux goes all the way back to the Revolutionary War on this.  To put it in a nutshell, for conservatives from Edmund Burke on, democracy is bad, and elites should be able to control society -- without interference.  Anything, including environmental concerns, constitutes a constraint, therefore conservatives don't like environmental rules and regulations and arguments.

    Permalink

  10. rorywilliams Posted 6:29 am
    07 Mar 2009

    illogicalI also posted a critique of Lomborg's method back in May last year on Carbon Copy, just before the Copenhagen Consensus was updated. Ya gotta hand it to the guy, he knows how to convince.

    Permalink

  11. JMG's avatar

    JMG Posted 1:13 pm
    07 Mar 2009

    Dean Baker on why economists are idiotsDean Baker has a nice, concise explanation of why economists are typically so autistic:
    http://is.gd/mlBM
    Gerard: But if you noticed those clues, and looking back on it, those clues are actually quite obvious, why did the vast majority of financial analysts and economists and managers for large investment funds including pensions and endowments, fail to see the bubble and its implications?
    Baker: The bulk of financial analysts and economists largely repeat the conventional wisdom without ever seriously trying to assess whether it makes sense. They unthinkingly follow the conventional wisdom because of the structure of incentives in their profession. No one is going to get fired because they didn't see the housing bubble. In fact, few people are likely to even miss a promotion because they didn't see the bubble.
    Economists and financial analysts are not like steelworkers or people in other occupations. They don't get evaluated based on their performance. They can mess up every day of the week through their whole careers, and this would be just fine, as long as they messed up in the same way as their peers.
    On the other hand, the few economists/analysts who spoke up to warn about the bubble were taking huge risks. Of course, we were all ridiculed at the time. If you were an economist working at a major investment bank and tried to tell them that all their big money- making deals were going to get them in trouble, they would probably tell you to shut up and fire you if you didn't.
    If the housing market stayed strong and house prices kept rising or just remained stable, then any economist who had warned of the bubble would be laughed off as a chicken little.
    In short, the incentives are such that the overwhelming majority of economists will never challenge conventional wisdom even if they think it is wrong. They are there to hold on to their jobs, not to inform the public about the economy.

    The 5% Project



    Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay.

    Permalink

Add a Comment

You are not logged in. Thus, you cannot post a comment. If you have an account, log in. If you don't have an account, well, by all means go make one! Meet you back here in five.

Hello, Visitor!    Why not register?

Viewed
More
Commented
More
Advertisement