I taped a debate with Lomborg today on a Denver radio station. I'll post a link when it will be broadcast on the Internet. I'll be interested to hear your reactions.
I have long thought it is pretty much impossible to win a one-on-one debate on climate change with anybody who knows what they're doing -- who knows the literature and is willing to make statements that are not really true but can't be quickly disproved. After all, the audience is not in a position to adjudicate scientific and technological issues, so it just comes down to who sounds more persuasive. And Lomborg is quite good at sounding reasonable -- he doesn't deny the reality of climate change, only its seriousness.
Lomborg is more of what I term a delayer -- the clever person's denier. Lomborg is especially persuasive because he is so clearly concerned about reducing suffering and death in the Third World.
Yes, damnit, we should do more to provide developing countries with clean water and protection from mosquitoes -- but Lomborg thinks global warming is at the bottom of the list of things we should be spending money on right now. Such delay is the road to ruin. As Tim Flannery put it:
By empathizing with those who are concerned about climate change and poverty, and trying to persuade them to divert their energies, [Lomborg's book] is a stealth attack on humanity's future.
Lomborg's book, Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming, is already #62 in Amazon.com sales ranks, and #1 in the categories of climate changes, public policy, and conservation (as of Sep. 12, 2007). Contrarian books do well these days. The #2 climate change book is a hardcore denier treatise, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years. (Yes, the title makes no sense -- if global warming is unstoppable, then why did it stop 1500 years ago?)
Lomborg's book is painful to read, but quite short. I read it quickly for the debate, and will read it more closely tomorrow while I await selection for jury duty. I will do a thorough debunking in the coming days, since I do think progressives will need to know how to respond to Lomborg's clever arguments -- and I will need some way to restore my blood pressure to normal after reading it twice.
This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
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Comments
View as Flat
eriqa Posted 12:12 am
13 Sep 2007
But I digress. I'm wondering what your take is on Lomborg's motivation. Does he just enjoy stirring up controversy and being a maverick? Or is he genuinely convinced that deflecting concern about climate change will lead to an outpouring of funding for malaria research and water treatment plants?
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Winnebago Posted 2:00 am
13 Sep 2007
"Unfortunately, Lomborg's thesis is built on a deep misconception of Earth's system and of economics when applied to that system. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is now 380 p.p.m., a figure that ice cores in Antarctica have revealed to be in excess of the maximum reached during the past 600,000 years. If there is one truth about Earth we all should know, it's that the system is driven by interlocking, nonlinear processes running at different speeds. The transition to Lomborg's recommended concentration of 560 p.p.m. would involve crossing an unknown number of tipping points (or separatrices) in the global climate system. We have no data on the consequences if Earth were to cross those tipping points. They could be good, or they could be disastrous. Even if we did have data, they would probably be of little value because nature's processes are irreversible. One implication of the Earth system's deep nonlinearities is that estimates of climatic parameters based on observations from the recent past are unreliable for making forecasts about the state of the world at CO2 concentrations of 560 p.p.m. or higher. Moreover, the nonlinearities mean that doing more of a bad deal (Kyoto) may well be very good."
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Billhook Posted 2:24 am
13 Sep 2007
That he is gifted with sufficient intellect to argue very effectively
means only that he's entirely aware of, and is intentionally ignoring,
the case for prudence, that, were IPCC either correct or understating the risk,
inaction will generate an unprecedented scale of genocide,
lead by the US, in coming decades.
The simplest means of dealing with one as callous, and as dangerous, as Lomborg,
involves a tree and a rope.
Any better suggestions ?
Regards,
Bill
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David Roberts Posted 2:38 am
13 Sep 2007
grist.org
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amc89 Posted 2:44 am
13 Sep 2007
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infp Posted 2:52 am
13 Sep 2007
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wayneluke Posted 3:42 am
13 Sep 2007
To me it seems that both are interconnected. By destroying our ecosystems, we increase the amount of global warming and disease. By restoring them, we can decrease both.
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caniscandida Posted 3:56 am
13 Sep 2007
The questions that are being asked here include:
Does he genuinely, sincerely believe in those causes himself? If so, he has chosen a bizarre way to promote them. That his attention is scattered among causes of different kinds looks mighty fishy.
Does he genuinely believe that we can EITHER take effective action for those causes, OR do something about global warming and climate change, but not both? (INFP's observation about "bloated military budgets" being a much better place to look for funds to be re-directed than whatever is going toward climate-change mitigation is excellent.)
Might not Billhook be correct, that Bjorn is a "shill" for the fossil-fuels interests, with the implication that Bjorn's kind of argumentation represents a diabolically ingenious new tactic? (Billhook seems to be playing the part of Mad-Eye Moody -- who is disquietingly eccentric in taking precautions, but is usually found to have been prudent and foresighted.)
Actually, I would not mind taking Bjorn out for a drink, in the hope of finding some answers. He gave such a pathetic, high-strung, frantic, nerd-o-rama performance in his tete-a-tete with Stephen Colbert, that I could only conclude: What a sorry waste of pretty blond hair!; perhaps the lad comes off better in a more tranquil context.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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GreyFlcn Posted 3:57 am
13 Sep 2007
The first strategy is denial
The second strategy is to delay any judgment
The third strategy is to blunt the impact of the change
What Lomborg is suggesting is classic that we should blunt the impact of any change dealing with global warming by defunding it.
Or more specifically by funding various unrelated or unrealistic projects with that same pile of money.
_
This is much in the same way that you have Oil/Car companies championing BioFuels and Hydrogen.
Because they know that the best way to slow down and blunt the impact of change is to divide the efforts of those causing change. By hyping the fake solutions, and downplaying the real solutions.
This is why you hear very little being said about Electric Cars, and Fuel Economy. And all the hype being placed on "Alternative Fuels".
If we were to focus all that attention on simply raising Fuel Economy. Then you might actually have change.
And for many companies who are reaping huge profits from business-as-usual; Change is a horrible thing.
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trock Posted 5:16 am
13 Sep 2007
Ask Lomborg which tax is more costly to the people being taxed, property, sales, income, social security, value added or carbon tax. Then if there not a big difference, then how would a carbon tax which would reduce fossil fuel use and help reduce global warming be bad for poor people in poor countries, but other taxes would be not commented on?
The reason Lomborg can get away with what he says is making the false choices, if you do something about Global Warming, kids in poor countries will stave since it cost money to fight Global warming.
Ask Lomborg about bottled water. I understand that 100 billion dollars a year world wide is spent of bottled water. Also, one sixth of that could give clean water to everybody left in the world who doesn't have it. Why the disconnect? Shouldn't the money spent on bottled water be spent of fresh water for people without it?
Ask Lomborg about all the other things that he makes a disconnect on. Did he fly to America or swim? Wouldn't the fuel used for that help heat some family in poverty somewhere? What the hell was he thinking?
George Bush does the same thing, but that's another web site post.
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Biodiversivist Posted 6:11 am
13 Sep 2007
Although your question was not directed at me I'd like to take a shot at it. The answer is quite simply, both. And since he is human, you can bet that most of the motivation is coming from the subconscious side in the form of endorfin highs from his celebrity status. These highs are like any addiction. When they fade they leave their victim grasping for more, as Britney is doing.
In a nutshell the book is just a short rehash of his first one commissioned by his publisher to generated revenue while the topic is still hot. Promoting it is a real high (literally) for him.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Aklemm Posted 8:11 am
13 Sep 2007
Upton Sinclair
Many progressives need to have this quote tattoed somewhere prominent.
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:57 am
14 Sep 2007
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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