Studies have shown the Sahara has been 3 degrees hotter than it is now...and at that temperature it turns into a paradise.

3 degrees or even 5 would benefit almost all humanity.

I look forward to the naturogenic processes that warm the Earth continuing to work their magic!!

I keep seeing this argument - don't price carbon, invest in clean energy.  For the life of me I can't understand why the two would be mutually exclusive.  Shouldn't these people be advocating for a more sensible use of revenue from carbon pricing programs - which could easily yield the tens of billions a year they want for R&D with plenty left over for consumer assistance.  This either/or thing does the debate a real disservice, because it just gives more political cover to the conservatives who want to do nothing.

I'm not sure where Lomberg is trying to go on this one. Max is close on this one. The most effective path would be to discourage carbon burning with a carbon tax and coupling that with limited investment. I say limited because this investment would have to be channeled through governments that have been historically very inefficient and ineffective at R&D work. The majority of proceeds from a carbon tax should directly offset exising taxes to allow the public to vote with their dollars on energy saving methods.

Part of that problem is that he exploits the minimal welfare of the countless disadvantaged in the undeveloped world, as part of his cold global economic calculus, to gain leverage through emotional moral blackmail.

It might also be pointed out that he says nothing about the Biodiversity Crisis.

(And in that regard, Grist/Gristmill see eye-to-eye with him.)

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

Lomborg did not invent the tactic.  It goes back to the 1980s and was first practiced by Yohe and Nordhaus for Wm. Nierenberg.

OTOH, I do have a question.  One of the latest hoohas is that relative humidity is staying constant in the troposphere (I think this started with Anthony Watt).  You published in this area a while ago (there was a deficit).  What gives.  If you want to stick an oar in one of the hotspots is dotearth.

I'm still working on relative humidity.  I'm not aware of any arguments going on the fruit-loop-o-sphere on RH ... can you give me a link?

thanks!

thanks for the link.  that stuff is amazingly bogus.  it's amazing that the same people who don't believe climate models fully trust the ncep reanalysis, which is --- wait for it --- a climate model (although one in which data is periodically inserted).  and the quality of the water data from the 1950s is highly suspect.  I guess this really shows that most skeptics have a conclusion they want to reach, and, like Lomborg, they cheerfully accept anything that fits the conclusion, and reject anything else.

Anyone that believes GW is a good thing on this planet doesn't understand the delicate balance our ecosystems exist within. The difference between freezing and thawing is only 1 degree. If you mess with the temperature too much in the arctic you get ice melting. When all the ice on land melts that will cause sea levels to rise. Not to mention that the 2 - 5 degrees is a global average. Temperature increases in different regions could be much more than 5 degrees.

With so much data and consensus regarding the validity of GW and human induced changes, I seriously can't understand the logic of Climate Change deniers... that is until I realize they don't operate on logic.

Bjorn Lomborg is a statistician.  He has no special knowledge of climate, geology, or biology.  So any publication, such as the Washington Post, that publishes his comments shows that the publication is not credible.  Of course, if you think that the corporate press is credible, you've already been successfully brainwashed.