Tierney interviews Lomborg

John Tierney interviews Bjorn Lomborg in the slightly surprising surroundings of New York's Museum of Sex. They discuss such things as the strange focus on global warming in preference to more pressing environmental problems such as air pollution.

Comments

[Shevva]

Funny was just reading this from the man himself :-

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304765304577478470785293702.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[Skiphil]

oh meant to post this here:

Bjorn Lomberg, Wall St. Journal, June 21, 2012:

"It's the height of arrogance to think that Third World countries should use weak and expensive technologies just to make some in the West feel good. In essence, the global elite is telling coughing Third World people sitting in their dark hovels: "Get a solar panel." That's akin to telling people suffering from water pollution to drink Perrier. Or indeed, to suggest that breadless people should eat cake."

"There are real and often overlooked environmental problems to be tackled. We need to talk less about ineffective, "feel-good" solutions to global warming and more about smart fixes to air and water pollution. We need to take back our environmental summits from the well-meaning glitterati and do what works."

[confused]

Wonder if he's realised how many lives he has 'affected' by stressing the importance of global warming and supporting the team?

Does he feel good about it?

[September 2011]

Yes, Lomborg is still (19.06.2012, in the course of the "global" conference on "sustainability", as great parts of the world are "spamming" the "Rio Priorities" also) emphasizing some revealing or possibly relevant points; basicly, for instance, that there are so many other -- and (in some cases with very high chances:) more important -- issues than "global warming" and "green economy". At the Rio+20 conference many presidents, vice-presidents, ministers, emissaries... talked about the very same points. I appreciate Lomborg's approach to name several grave problems which are real and appear to be solvable: with water/pollution and airpollution leading the way. He suggests that, for example, tackling those pollutions wouldn't cost as much as the "global elite's" fixation on CO2.

_____

Reading, more recently, for example a troubled comment at Joanne's site (June 21, 2012 at 4:38 am), made by a 'Joe V.' on Rio+20, I get further doubts.

Accidently it appears to be the same theatre here in Germany.

When I'm searching news on Rio apparently all TV stations and news reports are lamenting that the conference would be a failure w.r.t. "global governance", issues on water, air, fishes, plastic, the rainforest, seas, and so forth.

What's up? Apparently troubling issues. The concept of a Republik can be referred to Latin: RES PUBLICA, what means in German öffentliche Sache, i.e. "public matters". Last time I searched, neither (public) national TV broadcasting companies nor other outlets were reporting the fact that the negotiation text is not public anymore, e.g., even non-available by NGOs -- quasi secret.

The "Journaille" is trying to tell us mainly that Brazilian delegates -- in a somewhat well-intentioned but rude way -- pressed the rest of the UN-world to derive and agree on the desired(?) result...

         ♦ more money for "science"
         ♦ "education"
         ♦ empowering the UNEP
         ♦ automatically all members become parts in the environment programme etc.

...before the "negotiations" even officially(?) started. According to the media, for example Europe signed the outcome teeth-gnashingly (I don't know what was signed exactly. Do you? All seem to think that the negotiating text won't be changed during the next days. A bunch of...).

I wonder if the commissarial EU and many of their member states or the UN itself are really interested in democracy or seriously engaged in changing their ways towards more "sustainability", especially with respect for instance to science ("Paleo hockey sticks" and much else), education, or to public money.
_____

One more point:
How does Lomborg defines the so-called elite? (Has probably Tierney or his friend Buckley defined "elite" in their books?)
Under what preconditions can we call the "elite" a -- or even the -- "global elite"?
Does Lomborg eventually tries to distance himself from "global elites" by criticizing "them"(/Them© and others)?

[Albert Stienstra]

Lomborg makes a good case about better things to do than to mitigate global warming, based on what makes people die. Global warming is much less of a death threat than other things, as Lomborg shows in his talk.

Of course, the UN does not care about people dying. The UN wants people to die, because in the UN's view there are too many of them.

The UN wants global government, therefore the UN wants a global issue as a scare. They want the money to organise their global government and they see taxing CO2 emissions as good for the people they scare, "to mitigate global warming".

To start on the road to global government the UN wants one hundred billion dollars each year from the developed world, to use as the UN sees fit in the developing world. The UN wants to make the West poorer by forcing it to use renewable energy and they want to make the third world less numerous. It does not matter if they die of other things than climate change.

The UN wants to create a new religion, the "Gaia religion of sustainability" and they want to install a "Gaia court" to punish crimes against Gaia, which are non-sustainable acts.

It is all in the UN's agenda 21. This is a very logical process towards global power for the UN. Climate change, sustainability, climate science, all are tools for the UN to achieve their goal.

[rickbradford]

I don't think there is a "strange focus on global warming".

If you are the type of person who only gets to feel good by telling other people what to do, and controlling their behaviour, then what better way than to construct a planetary emergency (literally out of thin air) to act as a justification for your lifelong vanity project?

That's why Rio+20 has simply swapped planetary emergencies (global warming -> sustainability), while the slogan ("We must act now!") remains the same.

The real planetary emergency is how this immature and narcissistic mindset now dominates the power levers in Western countries.

[AntonyIndia]

Here is a link that shows the whole article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304765304577478470785293702.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[Bernie]

Lomborg's Skeptical Environmentalist was one of the books that provoked me to examine these issues more closely. I still find it hard to understand the venom that the book generated.
This is a good introduction to his way of looking at the issues as a whole. The big takeaway is simply to ask and keep asking "What are the benefits and what are the costs?" I really liked his bit on recycling.

[Skiphil]

Bernie

Yes, and reading of some of the deranged reactions to "The Skeptical Environmentalist", even from supposed "leading" scientists, helped prepare me for more skepticism about CAGW.... since first I had become highly critical of emotional and ideological baggage in relation to environmentalism more widely. Since Gore's "Earth in the Balance" (1992) and before (really back to Rachel Carson's "The Silent Spring") it was evident that the modern environmental movement had become quasi-religious and un-scientific. The treatments of Lomberg by many scientists showed how bad things had gotten by 2001. The virulence and dishonesty/recklessness of many reactions was shocking. Would that they could turn a bit of that critical energy toward Mann and the Hockey Team.

[Jamspid]

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5iycy_bjorn-lomborg-cream-pied_fun

"Global warming is real and its man made"
Bjorn dont suck up to those Eco Idiots
Making some conciliatory noise
They still dont respect you mate

[Jack Hughes]

Well worth watching. Excellent point about recycling.