High-Profile Climate Change Skeptic Changes Course, Calls For Carbon Tax

[telemann.livejournal.com]

The world's most high-profile climate change skeptic is to declare that global warming is "undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the world today" and "a challenge humanity must confront", in an apparent U-turn that will give a huge boost to the embattled environmental lobby. Bjørn Lomborg, the self-styled "skeptical environmentalist" once compared to Adolf Hitler by the UN's climate chief, is famous for attacking climate scientists, campaigners, the media and others for exaggerating the rate of global warming and its effects on humans, and the costly waste of policies to stop the problem.

But in a new book to be published next month, Lomborg will call for tens of billions of dollars a year to be invested in tackling climate change. "Investing $100bn annually would mean that we could essentially resolve the climate change problem by the end of this century," the book concludes. Examining eight methods to reduce or stop global warming, Lomborg and his fellow economists recommend pouring money into researching and developing clean energy sources such as wind, wave, solar and nuclear power, and more work on climate engineering ideas such as "cloud whitening" to reflect the sun's heat back into the outer atmosphere. In a Guardian interview, he said he would finance investment through a tax on carbon emissions that would also raise $50bn to mitigate the effect of climate change, for example by building better sea defences, and $100bn for global health care.

I'm pretty surprised but delighted that such a high profile global-warming contrarian has seen the light. Here in the United States, the climate bill died a silent death in the Senate. Now, the only legislation limping forward would raise fuel efficiency standards and ensure that BP pays for the spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The New York Times reported that the bill will also promote further production of natural gas and the manufacturing of natural gas vehicles, especially big trucks, a la T. Boone Pickens' plan. Meanwhile, the heat goes on: NOAA has reported "June 2010 was the hottest June on record worldwide. But this is not a new trend, at least for this year. March, April, and May 2010 were also the warmest on record. This was also the 304th consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20th century average. The last month with below-average temperature was February 1985." It doesn't stop there, Jeff Masters has studied the heat waves this year, and noted "2010 has featured several extreme heat events, as well as record flooding, in many countries worldwide. The number of countries that have set new national records for the warmest temperature recorded — 17 — would beat the old record of 14."

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

As usual people will fiddle while Rome burns. Though I remain skeptical that trying to alter the entire planet's climate to freeze it in the aberrationally stable climate of the 20th Century is wise. That might Go Horribly Right or we might end up finding out that it's one of those things that kills us either way. Trying to alter a global climate will affect *Everyone* on the planet.

I have a strong feeling that these attempts will be designed to strengthen some countries at the expense of others.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Oh don't you fret, the United States will not do anything about climate change.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Why would we? Canada walks out of a conference but the Chinese and we get the blame for their imploding it instead of following the Kyoto Protocol? Yeah, that's a brilliant way to endear the concept to the PRC and the USA. /snerk.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

"The world's most high-profile climate change skeptic"

The article lost all credibility right there since Lomborg has never been a climate change skeptic. He has been a skeptic of focusing our efforts cutting greenhouse emissions as the proper way of dealing with global warming.

With that I still don't see any essential change in his position as he is not advocating the carbon tax as a way of cutting greenhouse emissions but rather a way of raising revenues for dealing with and mitigating the effects of global warming.

Ignoring for the moment the concept of the Carbon Tax, his approach is entirely correct. Attempting to deal with Global Warming by eliminating greenhouse emissions is a fools errand at best we need to be focusing our efforts on dealing with and mitigating the impacts of it.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

With that I still don't see any essential change in his position as he is not advocating the carbon tax as a way of cutting greenhouse emissions but rather a way of raising revenues for dealing with and mitigating the effects of global warming.

You certainly love to play with words. Heh.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

Shoot, you beat me to it. Anyone who has actually read any of Lomborg's writing would know this is pretty much been his position since the Skeptical Environmentalist.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

And, tellingly, no edit or response to that part. (my bad, telemann)

Meanwhile, I'm going to wait until the book comes out to figure out exactly what Lonborg is pushing here. After all, if there's one group that's been totally fair about Lonborg, it's the media.

[ytterbius.livejournal.com]

"Attempting to deal with Global Warming by eliminating greenhouse emissions is a fools errand at best we need to be focusing our efforts on dealing with and mitigating the impacts of it."

Gotta do both. You HAVE to mitigate or die, and while you're at it, develop the system that avoids the need for future mitigation.

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

> Attempting to deal with Global Warming by eliminating greenhouse
> emissions is a fools errand at best

Oh how the debate on this issue has evolved since the early 80's.

From "There is no global warming" to "there might be warming, but it's natural and not anthropogenic" to "Sure there's Global Warming, sure it's anthropogenic, but trying to prevent it by actually controlling the causative behavior is a fool's errand!"

An ounce of prevention may be worth a pound of cure... but when you fitter away 20-30 years on obfuscation and denial, I guess you just have to be willing to shell out for those pounds of cure.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Yep. I can remember fatboy Rush running his mouth in the early 90s there was absolutely no proof about an increase in temperatures. The right wing and fossil fuel industry has done a great game of playing down the clock.

[reality-hammer.livejournal.com]

I can remember fatboy Rush running his mouth in the early 90s there was absolutely no proof about an increase in temperatures.

[citation needed]

[telemann.livejournal.com]

His early books and radio shows. :0)

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Color me skeptical, albino tigers rarely grow stripes.

[chemchick.livejournal.com]

But when they do they are GLORIOUS!

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

That isn't much of a change for Lomborg, if its a change at all. He has always been skeptical of the apocalyptic nature of a lot of global warming activists, but he's never, to my knowledge, denied that global climate change is happening and has even accepted that it has an element human cause tied to it. It looks like someone on the Left finally got around to actually reading his book Cool It!. Now, will they acknowledge his other, more important points? I won't hold my breath. That doesn't fit the narrative.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

But in a new book to be published next month, Lomborg will call for tens of billions of dollars a year to be invested in tackling climate change.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

Yeah, he called for that in Cool It! as well. He calls for that all the time. He is a big believer in addressing all the problems facing the world, including climate change. But what he sees as tackling climate change isn't what you get from the IPCC. I'd be very surprised if he called for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, for example. He is more likely to call for increased money to invest in alternative energy, like thorium-floride reactors, or in better agricultural practices.

[chemchick.livejournal.com]

Yes I don't know what new book they're talking about as "Cool It!" was published in 2008 (I think?).

No matter. That book was has already been deconstructed to show how "Lomborg studiously overlooks all the key facts that do not fit his preconceptions, falsifies what the peer-review literature states, and fabricates material to his ends." by Howard Friel earlier this year.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's the similar accusation thrown at him about The Skeptical Environmentalist, too. Wasn't true about that one, either - I think Nature actually had to print a retraction or something.

Lonborg's confusing to the environmentalist crowd - he's someone who buys into the concept of global warming, but doesn't see it as a defining issue. And he's 100% right.

[http://users.livejournal.com/aviation_/]

He is good looking

[reality-hammer.livejournal.com]

The world's most high-profile climate change skeptic

[citation needed]

Bad data is still bad data, no matter how many new "records" it sets. (Remember when you were hysterically crying that cold and snow didn't disprove global warming? So by your own logic heat doesn't prove it.

Finally, Bjørn Lomborg is not a skeptic of climate change per se but a skeptic of the call for massive changes in society to combat it.

So yeah, time to put way your WIN buttons.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Here's the diff, Biff.

The stories about snow and cold weather were local to the United States. These temperatures are overall and worldwide. NEVERMIND the global warming temperature is still way above norm, Norm.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Wow, it's like you found cooler local weather somewhere else!!

June 2010 was the hottest June ever recorded on Earth, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported yesterday, marking the fourth consecutive month that the combined global land and sea temperature records have been broken. In sum 2010 is on track to be the warmest year since records began in 1880.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Yeah it's a nice quote from NASA, that makes your silly point about localized weather rather pointless.

Here, have a cup of tea.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Don't flatter yourself, I just didn't care. There are plenty of links and coverage about this; including NASA.