This week, hundreds of world leaders and tens of thousands of environmentalists are convening in Rio de Janeiro for the U.N.'s Conference on Sustainable Development.
Bjorn Lomborg, author of “The Skeptical Environmentalist,” says the Rio+20 summit will be a wasted opportunity and that the U.N. is focused on the wrong things. He says that for every person who might die from global warming, 210 will die from health problems caused by a lack of clean water and pollution.
Lomborg joined “Fareed Zakaria GPS” on Sunday to talk about his views and possible long-term solutions. Here’s an edited version of their conversation, which can also be viewed by downloading the entire show on iTunes.
Fareed Zakaria:You have a Foreign Affairs article coming out in which you point out the history of these kinds of growth predictions and what the environmental concerns have been. Explain that point briefly.
Bjorn Lomborg: It’s the 40th anniversary of (the report) “The Limits to Growth” –the idea that we were going to run out of everything and, even if we weren't, we were going to be screwed anyway because we would basically be polluting ourselves to death.
That ran computer models back then. Of course, remember, computers seemed like they were telling the truth no matter what you put into them. And I think with the oil embargo in '73 just one year later and oil prices shooting up, there was a real sense that, yes, we are running out of everything … we are running out of oil and we need to conserve everything and we are really on a very, very wrong path.
In many ways, you can say, it's set the environmental agenda certainly for a couple of decades.
Zakaria: So what are the facts?
Lomborg: Well, the problem is they were wrong. They were, first of all, wrong that we were going to run out of food. But perhaps more importantly for the environmental concern, they were wrong about the idea that we were going to run out of all resources.
Actually, if you look at the cost of resources, which is the economist's way of looking at how many resources do we have left, the cost of resources generally have come down about sevenfold since 1850. Yes, it's ticked up in the last 10 years … but if you look at the whole curve, it's very clear, it's a clear downward trend. Why? Because innovation is much, much more important than using up the resources.
The Club of Rome thought there were only so many resources; when we've used up them, we are really up a creek. But what they forgot was we find many more resources and we get much better at exploiting poor resources further away but even cheaper with technology. And that's really what we've done with virtually all resources.
Zakaria: What about the other half of that report, which was about pollution?
Lomborg: They thought as we get richer and richer and there are more and more people, you'll have more and more belching smokestacks. But what they forgot was technology actually handles a lot of that. Now, we've actually seen air pollution come down in most rich countries for most of the last century.
It's not just the technology. … After '72, we put extra effort into making regulations that meant that we've gotten even lower levels of air pollution.
Zakaria: So you support those government regulations?
Lomborg: Absolutely. We want to have regulation where it makes sense - where there's lots of people dying, for instance, from air pollution. That is a real concern.
But you should also recognize, what is it that drives the ability to care about the environment? It is that you're rich enough that you don't have to worry about your kids dying tomorrow.
And that's my real concern about the way we look into the future when we go down to Rio in just a few days. What are we talking about there? Well, we're talking about going to a green economy, and we're talking about global warming. But in reality, the real issues for most of this world is still air and water pollution.
Why are we not talking about the important issues in the third world? Why are we talking about somewhat more esoteric issues that clearly concern first-world people? There is perhaps 0.06% of all deaths in the developing world caused by global warming. There's 13% of all deaths caused by air and water pollution. Let's get our priorities right. …
If you read the U.N., their little leaflet that they distribute for the Rio summit, they show how we should all get electric cars and we should go organic and stuff like that.
No. Most people in (the) developing world cannot afford an electric car. What we should do is focus on innovation to make those cars so cheap. Then the next half-century, everyone will want them.
Zakaria: And how can we focus on air and water pollution in the third world? How do we deal with bringing that number down from 13%?
Lomborg: Well, there are two main solutions.
One is that we have a lot of technologies that we know how to get clean drinking water.
We also know … most of the air-pollution deaths are actually caused by indoor air pollution, people cooking with bad fuels like dung or cardboard. Let's make sure they actually get access to fossil fuels. That makes a lot of people uncomfortable, but that's the reality that we live with. And that's why 2 million people don't have to die in the developing world each year because of unsafe cooking and heating fuels.
But the long-term solution for that, of course, is to make sure that people actually get richer in the third world. It's a poverty problem. And so I'm a little concerned about the fact that we talk a lot about the Kyoto Protocol. But there's another city with a protocol that we don't talk very much about: the Doha Round, the idea of free trade. That is one that most economists would estimate would give much, much better opportunities in the long run for most countries in the world to actually get rid of their old problems, both environmental, but also all the other poverty-related problems.
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"He says that for every person who might die from global warming, 210 will die from health problems caused by a lack of clean water and pollution."
I'm not sure how that differentiation is made. Lack of clean water and pollution are tied to 'global warming', or climate change... aren't they? Or does ...whoever... think otherwise?
Sadly even when experts have the academic credentials their biases, especially those who speak with the popular press tend to create sort of a halo effect over their statements. These people sound as if they have rejected the findings of Club of Rome and Global 2000 – and indeed I think they are largely repudiating them. The notion that we will "continue to find resources..." is predicated on limitless resources and limitless growth. Yes we will find more resources but will they be sufficient? In many ways when we examine the writings of Jules Verne as a futurist and look at his fictional accounts with a jaundice eye we will indeed see that he was wrong. Likewise in 100 years interdisciplinary historians will see the issues brought out in the Club and G2000 report and I believe these studies will be closer to truth than fiction. Because it doesn't matter whether there's a dirth of food if it destroys the biosphere or if the food can't get to the people who need it. If people are dying because allergins combine with diminished air quality to kill people – it doesn't matter what the root cause was – the fact is people are dying because of a primary, secondary or tertiary cause one of which might be air quality.
Well you certainly don't have a bias...
Sorry, Kevin, but the air quality in the U. S. is better now than it's been in the last 50 years. China, of course continues to polute their air the same way we used to back in the 60's and 70's when acid rain from the unabated burning of high-sulfur coal damaged water and forests. Water quality is not great, but if we took even the simplest steps toward making it better water quality would rapidly improve also. One of those steps would be to stop the tremendous waste of water used to water lawns. I don't have statistics to prove this, but common sense says that if no one could put clean water on a lawn, there would be way more than enough good drinking water.
Contaminated water has nothing to do with global warming. The most common cause of polluted water in the third world is human and animal effluent. Farm runoff is a major source of contamination in the 1st world. For a fraction of the cost that many want to spend to combat global warming every person on earth could have access to clean water supplies. This can be achieved easily through providing basic waste water treatment plants through the third world. Oddly the biggest beneficiary though would probably be wildlife which depends enormously on clean water. The fact that this issue is not a priority is a massive scandal.
The fact is, people want to do stuff to improve their life not other peoples. Americans don't particularly want to spend tons of money on giving south east asia clean water. That would cause population surges, shift global economy toward these areas, people die of other problems such as starvation. They would rather buy an expensive car, or pay higher property tax to clean up the air quality of the city they live in. It's not a scandal, its simply douchbaggery.
It's all about education and making people aware of the fact that the planet is what we make of it. Unfortunately many sacrifice our enviroment for the sake of economic growth without leaving the planet intact for the coming generations.
No, you are lumping things together. Global warming is based on anecdotal science and you know it. Clean water and pollution (not Carbon Dioxide) are the problems here, but if people can't start getting along the coming world war will make all of this useless diatribe like most of the Greenie's agenda.
While you type on a device that will be in a landfill in 3 years using Batteries and other power sources remember that you are on the side of the Greenies and just wish your problems away. That is the result you are pushing for right?
The chemistry behind the greenhouse effect is "anecdotal science"?
There IS global warming based on the pollution of the Earth by HUMAN BEINGS. People who think otherwise have their heads in the sand – or somewhere else which I won't mention.
Every time there is a heat wave and greenies claim that the heat wave is evidence of global warming that is anecdotal evidence. If you dont want to be accused of using anecdotal evidence then dont.
Maybe stupid people say heat waves are "global warming" but the science on global warming including temperature data from the varying layers of the atmosphere is anything but anecdotal evidence.
Well I guess the new shipping lanes in the Arctic that have been covered in ice for millenia and are now open are just a happy coincidence. The mass movement of southern species to the north is just another strange coincidence. Yep, fish from down in the Caribbean are now up her in NJ and we even have a lot of Pelicans. Too bad the Earth's forests can not migrate like the rest of the animal kingdom that is. With billions of people relying on less and less fresh water, using aquifers that filled up thousands of years ago but are now being drained dry in less than a hundred years things might not work out too well when our population goes over 9 billion (500 million in USA in 50 years) as is forecast. Texas was a big loser last year when they lost 50% of their agriculture. But, no we can not predict anything we just go on like dumb sheep to slaughter. Nobody is going to address global warming and everyone is going to push for their short term interests. When the Earth finally has enough of silly humans that consume everything in sight without regard to the future, our population will collapse starting in the undeveloped world but finally finding the USA. We humans posses a large and complex brain, but refuse to use it.
Yes Dave404 and the warming after the Ice Age MUST have been caused by man-made global warming too...
The warming after the ice age took thousands of years and then stabilized for thousands more. The warming we're seeing now is happening in a matter of just a few decades which is totally unprecedented.
Try again.
You have no idea. Does math with big numbers confuse you? It obviously does. No one weather event defines what is going on...but years of data with obviously sharp temperature increases with highs vastly exceeding lows on a global scale indicate what is going on. CO2 effects in the atmosphere have been known since the 16th century. Each person driving a car or operating a fossil fuel engine contributes...but that means nothing to you does it. Read the real science and do the real math. Maybe then you will get it. I have no hope for our kids...too many know nothings like yourself that think the is a Democrat versus Republican issue. And it is not. It is simple science. You were asleep in the back of the class apparently.
Air pollution (not CO2 and the like) actually diminishes global warming and is the reason people thought we were headed towards an Ice Age. It contributes to Global Dimming. It's real. Look it up
Water pollution need not come from industry. People died from polluted water when the closest thing to "industry" was a bronze smelter 20 miles away. Organic contamination of drinking water (usually caused by having a very limited limited supply) has been killing people for millenia.
Not really. Clean water and pollution are tied to unregulated industry. Particularly to the fossil fuel industry that Emperor Bush II deregulated. The burning of coal and drilling of the unnatural shale gas contribute significantly to both water and air pollution. With 6,000,000,000 gals. of fresh water is pumped nearly s mile down becoming irreversibly polluted during the hydraulic fracturing of each well drilled. in order to make even a slight dent in climate change, these industries need to be heavily regulated and a zero pollutant tolerance vigorously enforced.
The simple act of turning on your fossil fuel fired automobile immediately belches out the same amount of pollutants as as igniting and burning 7300 cigarettes in an instance. When the US finally turns to solar, wind and ocean generated energy, we will have reduced a substantial amount of pollutants.
I don't know how heavy industry creates clean water. And irreversally polluted? You need to go back to school. Water boils off. Heck, simple chemistry tells you that when you burn a hydrocarbon, the ones without sulphur and that is most of them the products produced are the greenhouse gas CO2 and H2O. You can boil water into steam to purify it. With electrolysis you can break it into hydorogen and oxygen, if you combust those you have H20. So how again does it become irreversably polluted. Chemistry doesn't agree with you and thinks your stupid.
jlv,
He stated water is "pumped nearly a mile down becoming irreversibly polluted during the hydraulic fracturing" and you are talking about electrolysis and boiling the water off? This is your solution to the problem? How exactly do you intend to do that in this particular case? Even if you could, how expensive would it be to treat all the water in such a way? What would you do with all the toxic sludge and heavy metals left behind after 'boiling' the water off? I am not going to be nearly as mean spirited to you as you were to Les but before you answer, perhaps you should think.
You failed to challenge Lomborg's misleading claims, Fareed. His attempt to position human health as something to be chosen instead of the environment is bogus. It is a false choice. Many human health problems stem from environmental damage–they're hardly opposing concepts. Rio is a conference on the environment, not health per se. And what about the health of the natural world itself? The well being of people is not the only principle worth fighting for. Nature deserves protection.
I do not think that you read and understood the article. Read it again with a more open mind.
That Fareed thinks Bjorn Lomborg is someone credible just shows how scientifically illiterate Fareed is.
Not only that, but also failing to even do a simple background check.
That a single report written 40 years ago by a handful of scientists at the dawn of the computer age, "The Limits to Growth," was wrong in many of its predictions proves that the thousands of scientists collaborating now in projecting significant warming and harmful climate changes due to our greenhouse gas emissions are wrong? Astounding lack of logic there.
"The real issues for most of this world today [are] still air and water pollution" says Borg. But in the future due to global warming that we refuse to address we'll probably have to cope with less and more costly food due to crops being less abundant because of drought and heat (at the same time that population growth and rising prosperity increases the demand), water shortages, flooding in many places, more and longer heat waves, stronger storms, disease vectors extending over ever wider areas, accelerated rates of extinction, and so on. But Borg blithely blathers on, inventing spurious numbers such as the claim that for every person who will die due to the effects of global warming, 210 will die because of air and water pollution. Perhaps he got that number from the Club of Rome?
Why is CNN insisting on giving publicity to Bjorn Lomborg.
His book "the Skeptical Environmentalist" was investigated by the Danish Committee for Scientific Dishonesty. It found that "objectively" the publication was viewed as dishonest (misleading citations, misrepresentations, plagiarism etc.), but acquitted Lomborg because IT WAS NOT WITHIN HIS FIELD OF EXPERTISE.
That is, they ruled that he knows nothing about what he talking about. Had that not been the case he would have been guilty of scientific fraud.
Exactly. It boggles the mind why the mainstream media repeatedly gives a platform to duplicitous anti-science provocateurs like Lomborg. He's a phony, a liar, and a narcissist.
when i was in grade 3 or 4, 1955 or 56, a catholic nun answered my query about war, famine and all thus
"War and famine are the way god controls the population of the earth."
and i think she really believed it
When I was a little runt, I asked my imam what was the purpose of learning. He said I did not need to learn anything. All I have to do is repeat what he says and kill when I am told.; I like the idea. I am a good muzzie.
yep, sounds about right, although you better be good at dodging bullets
That is OK, muzzies breed like rabbits.
in the 70's Americans were told that the world was headed for an ice age , that population was out of control and pollution would make much of the world uninhabitable , that oil and other resources were running out and that there would be global famine . none of that was true and none came to pass . most of those types of predictions were as wrong then as they are now along with global warming and many others . too many times it appears to be attempts to program the populace into being good little sheep .
@mercenary76, the global cooling of the mid part of the last century was caused by an increase in atmospheric particulates. The world would have cooled even more had it not been overwhelmed by the greenhouse effect. This has been well established. The fact that you have chosen to remain ignorant about the facts yet post here as though you are an expert clearly shows your bias and agenda. The day I care about what a tea bagger has to say about science is the day I care what a politician thinks about honesty.
Why does every discussion on this site always somehow end up with an attack on Tea Party Supporters? I don't hate the environment. I just want the government to balance the budget and start paying off the debt without taxing me more. Why is that so evil?
Great post
The attack on Tea Party supporters is a sham.
Some muzzie piece of pig s h i e t keeps spouting this stuff.
At last someone is suggesting we set priorities. What are the most pressing issue for the world? History tells us wars are fought over water/food/resources. Address those issues in that order and prepare for future worth living. Imagine that.
Can't argue with you on that one... as it stands right now... we're fighting a global war against every possible malidy that they can come up with...
My muslim confrere, it is spelled "malady".
Why won't anyone address the elephant in the room? Namely, global overpopulation. We WILL reach a tipping point and nature will step in and bring out numbers back into alignment and balance. We won't like the way nature does this.
Becasue that has been another exaggerated scare-tactic mean to frighten us into submission for whatever random reason... in 20 – 30 yrs. we'll be begging immigrants to come into the US because we won't have a young enough population to sustain our economy. As countries evolve, populations drop. There's a global trend towards where countries are all becoming essentially partially-developed, and in those countries people will find it easier to forgo having more than 1-child. At that point, global populations beging to level off and drop. That's when everyone will go nuts and start mandating 3+ child households, and fighting for immigrants from other coutnries.
In your dreams.
If you truly think that the threat of overpopulation is simply a 'scare tactic' you are in for a rude awakening. Our farmland is being degraded at a rapid rate, our supply of oil has reached a virtual peak, our aquifers are drying up, our water and air are polluted. There is no way to engineer or invent our way out of this issue. We have not given ourselves enough time for that! We have already far exceeded the planets capacity to carry us. Its a bank account and its already been mostly spent. We have degraded most of our best farmland. Turning the soil has destroyed it. It simply gases off into the atmosphere. Planting in rows causes it to erode away. Bare earth exposes it to wind erosion. Soil is alot more like fossil fuels than you think. When soil is gone we replace it with NPK fertilizer made from (thats right) fossil fuels. This further cements our need for fossil fuels and continues to cause more pollution since those fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, are usually WATER SOLUBLE. Some of these soils have been around since the ice age. Yet we have managed to use them up in 150 years or so. Finite Resources + Infinite Growth = Bell Curve. Its just simple math. You can argue about the finer details of when it is going to happen, but it WILL happen and its coming to a head as we speak.
The media – regardless of whatever political bias a particular outlet may have – generally will not touch the issue of overpopulation. The reason for this seems to rest with advertising dollars. And yet if population growth isn't addressed, the rest of the discussion on pollution, warming, food, and so forth is trivial. There are no long-term solutions to the ills brought about by unsustainable human population growth.
The world, politicians, businesses operate on instilling fear... how often have we come to the verge of apocolypse only to be saved by the efforts ouf our dear leaders. It's really mind-numbing how the public can continue to fall for the same talking points year-in, year-out.
The sky is falling, the sky is falling!
???? when has any "dear leader" saved mankind from apocalypse recently? What they do, instead, is exactly what posters on this forum are doing – disagreeing on causes, and slamming those with different opinions. Result – nothing gets done. More likely that human beings will be done in by their own inaction, caused by a deep-seated need to be "right" and to vilify everyone else who doesn't agree with them.
Whatever Zak and Lom believe, the world's population continues to increase, helped by USA's massive immigration effort, fish keep disappearing, water wars in the southwest, and the biggest mass extiction in the history of the planet. All these problems, as well as GW and pollution, are caused by excessive population, the cornerstone of the "Limits to Growth".
One person getting it right speaking into the wind at Rio. LOL. I like the whole "We also know … most of the air-pollution deaths are actually caused by indoor air pollution, people cooking with bad fuels like dung or cardboard. ". So that person is cooking green, avoiding using fossil fuels and using dried dung and other waste like cardboard or wood. 100% green ... and it's killing them! ROFLMAO. Of course to the greenies this is perfectly fine as the environment was not harmed and the reduction in people reduces the need for other resources lessening the strain on Mother Earth. Oh so funny....
Romney vs. Frankenstein (Obama)
Put simply, better the devil you don't know. Vote Romney.
Put even more simply, the devil who doesn't know anything except what his bosses tell him ... Romney
Muslims and their concept of repeating lies until you believe.
Oh yeah when the temp rises and all our water evaporates then what? Its like what came first the chicken or the egg? Oh and Aaron Chaney that is one of the most idiotic post I have ever read, don't you know that all Republicans are evil.
That's funny. I don't feel evil.
As usual, this big conference will go off and there will be all kinds of hand-wringing about "Gobal Warming" – which really ought to be called "Lowball Warming," since it's only about 1 degree in the last 400 years. And the "scientists" are not really scientists – because they refuse to use the scientific method. In spite of the fact that there is clear evidence that CO2 buildup always occurs AFTER the warming period, these nutheads refuse to admit that evidence and instead are doing exactly the oppsite of what the scientific method dictates. They have already concluded that man's activities are causing the world to warm up, and they are searching everywhere to find evidince of that. Having failed to do so, the re-work the data they do have, ignoring the pieces of evidence they don't like (because they don't fit the pre-made conclusion). In a real scientific procedure, ALL sides are listened to. In all the time that this sham of Lowball Warming has been going on, NOT ONE paper has been presented which shows how wrong the conclusions of these climate alarmists are. And there have been hundreds of such papers submitted by skeptics – most of them researched more carefully and with less bias than the once which are actually presented. They are always turned down on the basis of technicalities like a misspelled word, or failure to use the "proper" font, or some other dopey reason. In a real scientific inquiry such papers would be solicited by the directors of the global climate conference. They would be presented, and arguments for and against would be heard out. You don't see any of that in this politically motivated farce that goes on every year in the name of (tee hee) "Saving the Planet."
please provide links to these papers, or other evidence that they do, in fact, exist
"CO2 buildup followed warming?" You clearly don't understand the carbon cycle. In the distant past when warming occurred due to changes in the intensity of solar radiation, an increase in CO2 WOULD follow the warming. This was due to an acceleration in the decay of organic matter due to the warmer climate. But this then induced a "forcing" of the climate, in which now the higher CO2 concentrations induced more warming, which then caused even more CO2 to re-enter the atmosphere, which caused more warming. Only when a new equilibrium was reached did the warming stop. This is the real science, not the words of someone with an obvious agenda.
Shortage of clean water and global warming both are real problems. The fact that we are already feeling the effect of clean water shortage, and the really serious effects of global warming are still decades away does not make the latter less of a problem. It has to be dealt with now before we pass the tipping point.
As long as science is made a political issue, rather than as a search for facts, we won't get any where.
Forget about global warming, enjoy your life the most you can because the human beings and every living species in this planet are going down the toilette. Human beings are the the dirtiest species living in this planet and we are doing a fantastic job destroying it. I am so glad that maybe I will go down with the people who belong to the 1%.
Anyone who thinks that ecology concerns should primarily focus on what directly effects human population is missing the point entirely. That seems to be what Bjorn Lomborg is doing: reducing everything down to simple self-interest, rather than being concerned about biodiversity issues as well.
This is in a U.K. newspaper is our MSM even nticoing or commenting ? I haven't checked all other news sources today but I would expect the sound of crickets from them as usual or some dismissive comments about there being nothing to see here or it's a conspiracy of and by Bill Oil !VA:F [1.9.11_1134]please wait...VA:F [1.9.11_1134](from 0 votes)
"Innovation" is not a panacea, you can't just hope a problem goes away because a technological solution is just around the corner.
Like it or not, sooner or later we are going to start running out of 'innovation'. We have advanced rapidly over the last 100 years or so, but it is not a trend that is going to continue indefinitely. Physical limits are physical limits, and discoveries in physics have really tapered off over the last 50 years... so it is not implausible that we are getting close to some ceilings.
Gosh this sooo funny...I did a school project back in 1969 about this very same thing of the water and air pollution from industrial waste to the everyday people doing things like dumping antifreeze in the storm sewer, untreated raw sewage from septic tans being dumped into rivers. Got a D on the project for not having enuf evidence........
So 43 years later here we are and he's absolutely right. If we don't have clean water and clean air it won't be long before not much else matters.
Bjorn Lomborg's expertise on the environment comes from his education: he has an M.A. degree in political science from the University of Aarhus in 1991, and a Ph.D. degree in political science from the University of Copenhagen in 1994 (Wikipedia). Yes, that's correct. Political science. I think we can safely say Lomborg has no expertise whatsoever on the environmental issues facing us. He comes at this arena from a stance of 'protecting lives' by attacking what he claims are the most obvious causes of mortality. Other posters have pointed out how naive (if he is in fact naive) this analysis is; the interconnectivity of global warming and the redistribution of potable water is absolute...the one deeply affects the other (warming affects water...and the increased water vapor in the air, combined with the increased heat, in simple terms, creates hyper storm systems that dump water and then leave, with huge time gaps of no precipitation inbetween these storms, including blizzards, ironically, in many areas). Julian Simon, the late, erstwhile economic advisor of presidents, had the same magical thinking...that we will grow and innovate our way out of this mess. Finite is finite...you can grow only so much, and then, the wall. And then what? Innovation is great, but in the end, the underlying problems of seven plus billion humans, an industrial world replete with ever increasing demands on limited resources, and the vanishing of arable land and a healthy ocean will be more and more impossible to solve in the limited time we have available. I fear that just because he is published, and name recognition is everything, that even the media has begun to think Lomborg is some sort of alternate 'expert' that has something worthwhile to contribute. Unfortunately, he doesn't. There is, in fact, a site devoted to talking about his factual and analytical errors. Sad.
Kind of like Tom Cruise being an expert on psychiatry after reading a lot of papers and being a scientologist.
How does Mr.Lomborg continue fielding press interviews? Initially he did not support the evidence of global warming and its consequence but now takes the tack of trivializing it. His "small bites" try the more tangible successes first in unrelated areas of water contamination and air pollution in the 3rd world. Really has no relevance to climate activity that will radically change the earth with flooding of the large costal cities, increase desert land areas, and eliminate much of the current biodiversity of the earth that is hanging by a thread. The problem is the warming effect will not degrade if we stop putting CO2 in the air today for thousands of years and here he sits with his innovation theories. Our populations strains along with global warming are creating a dash for all basic commodities and energy and in it wake the Gulf Disaster and degradation of the land we have. To say that our children will have challenges is the understatement of the ages and the lack of any voice or vision from Mr. Lumborg and our leaders is tragic. There is still no voice for any rationale acknowlegement and vision of a solution-certainly not simply the innovations Mr. Lomborg trumpets. Innovations to bring back all the plants and animals and normal weather and shadow of the Paradise that has been ours. He only trivializes it. Shame on him.
“But what they forgot was we find many more resources and we get much better at exploiting poor resources further away but even cheaper with technology.”
Please…how could they “forget” such an obvious fact. How? Truth is they didn’t forget anything – they ignored it deliberately because it did not fit into the agenda they were pushing. It lessened the state of urgency, thereby lessening the need to fund their agenda RIGHT NOW without taking the time to really evaluate their proposals. Oldest trick in the book…create an emergency as dire as possible, set yourself up as the savior then bask in the glory and $$ and hope you can last until the jig is up. If the people start to discover your ruse muddy the waters.
from 30,000 years ago to 11,000 years ago it was an ICE AGE. wolly mammoth and sabertooth cats wandered in Los Angeles, which had a climate like northern Canada. Ice covered America down to Kansas. Then it warmed up, but 8,500 years ago there was a mini ice age for 1,000 years, then it warmed up again to today's climate.
Scientific method demands truth, not emotion or public opinion or politics. The easiest thing is to look to the geologic past for answers, but all the funding is going to reducing CO2. How are you even sure it's CO2? because Al Gore said ??
humans were in a stone age and very small numbers. I don't think it was CO2, Look at the smog produced by china, 6 out of 10 of the most air pollutd cities in the world are in China. the Particulates and PAHs are causing direct health effects on people NOW even in the absence of global warming. Buring coal and millions of vehicles without catalytic converters (and factories) in the developing world are the cause of the air pollution and probably contribute to global warming, but in the end, you will find out its really the solar cycles and the earths magnetic field that affect climate the MOST.
To answer your question, geoscientists can determine past CO2 levels by examining ice sheets (CO2 dissoves in water), and by looking at the rate of carbonate formation (limestones and dolostones). We know for a fact that CO2 (and methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, etc.) is a greenhouse gas from basic physics...it can be demonstrated on a lab scale all the way up to planetary scale. By the way, the last ice age ended primarily due to the change in phase of the Milantkotvitch cycle (eccentricity of earth orbit), not from CO2 level changes. Try learning about the fundamentals before commenting.
The basic Solary cycle of 22 years is not a factor in global warming. There are much longer cycles, some perhaps periods in the many millions of years.
But that is irrelevant. The issue is not the magnitude of change; but the pace of change. Climate change over many millenia is not a problem.
Climate change over a century is.
Pay attention.
Why do we need to stop focusing on one thing to address another? Can't we address global warming and water? I can do two things at once, sometimes even three. Why do people think we have to abandon everything else to address their personal pet project.
To answer your question, the people who pull these kinds of stunts are always doing it to serve some political purpose/ideology. Someone truly focused on clean water would not be wasting their time worrying about what other activists are doing regarding global warming.
None of you seem to actually understand what he is saying. What he is saying that taking care of third world countries and bringing them into the second and first world status will cause them to pollute less. The biggest indicator of a gross polluter is thier economic status – the wealthier the more regulated – and the more concientious about environmental issues. Since the basic need of most third world countries is the need for clean water – by cleaning the water you provide them economic stability which will lead to the greatest reductions in environmental change. THIS IS FINALLY some smart thinking on the environmental front – stop over-regulating companies that already self regulate in America and start working on the gross polluters in third world countries!
I think the author/guest is making a relatively good point. Global warming is happening. We know that from a 'scientific' perspective; meaning repeatable experimentation leads to same result with direct 'causal' linkage between the data gathered and the experiment ran. What we do NOT know is just how much of that change is within our control and can be directly attributed to human behaviors that CAN be modified. For instance there is now approaching 7 Billion humans on planet Earth expelling CO2 with every breath vs only hundreds of millions less than a thousand years ago. We don't. Period. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try to reduce what effects we do have control over. However, the author is right in that if you really are trying to focus on the environment and it's impact on humanity as a whole the 'short term' problem is water and air pollution. That is killing people directly every year and is most definitely within our control. We CAN fix many of the air and water pollution problems we have with 'off the shelf' technology and better fresh water and agricultural run-off management. Easily within our grasp. So whether the man has 'suspect' credentials or not he is making an excellent point. Shouldn't those topics be 'headline items' at ANY conference on the environment? Fix what we know we can while hopefully advancing our technologies and capabilities to improve the long term issues as best we can?
What an idiot. Working towards a fix on clean water and working otwards a fix on global wanring are not mutually exclusive activities. Only disingenuous political hacks with a radical agenda suggest this kind of garbage.
May as well worry about clear water, global warming was not selling so well, alhough better than global cooling sold number of years ago. But it is pretty safe to worry aboug climate change being climate change has been going on for the past bilions+ of years, it is most likely to continue. But we must indeed worry about clear water as well as global warming, er, I mean climate change. For myself I can worry about most anything, fortunately nothing I have ever worried abou has ever come to pass. Yet. But as of today I am going to worry about clear water as well as global warming (not cooling) and climate change, and a few other matters I choose not to mention.
The clear water problem may result from all those 32oz sugary sodas obese Americans are slurping up these days, particularly obese New Yorkers. These sugary sodas must use up quite a bit of clear water.
careful, if you stretch it any further you may dislocate something.
The root environmental problem is overpopulation. The main cause of poverty in 3rd world nations is overpopulation. The main cause of air and water pollution is overpopulation. The Earth simply can't support 7 billion humans at a high standard of living. The biggest difference between nations with high standards of living and low standards of living is family planning. Families in nations with high standards of living generally limit family size to what they can afford while in nations with low standards of living they don't. What we need to worry about isn't as much the number of people dying of pollution now but the mass die off we face in the future if we don't do something about population now. That is what environmentalists should be worried about.
Finally, some sense in the discussion. Yes, the ice caps are melting, the earth is warming, and the weather is getting weirder and weirder. But for every so-called science study that says it is due to human abuse, there are others to debunk this
But rather than sit around and argue about the cause, could we please get to solution? Instead of trying to figure out a way to cool the earth down a little – a mammoth boondoggle if there ever was one – let's start looking at changing the way we handle things like floods, hurricanes, blizzards and droughts. Instead of sinking more money into studies, let's start putting money aside so people can get a reasonable fair market value for their property so they can move off the coasts and away from the river valleys, away from the areas that are getting dryer and dryer.
Why keep paying flood insurance premiums over and over, overwhelming the insurance industry? Admit that the waters are rising and get people to higher ground. If that means parts of New Orleans and New York and other cities shrink, then they shrink. If Texas and the West are getting drier, let's make it feasible for people to get some equity out of their parched farms and find better farm land with more rainfall. The Earth is going to win this battle, regardless of why the ice caps are melting. So let's cut our losses and move on.
In the meantime, efforts to lower air pollution levels, clean up polluted water and provide clean water to those who don't have it, as well as finding ways to make fossil fuels cleaner, should all go forward. For all seven continents. But let's stop arguing about global warming and just admit it's here – and allocate our resources accordingly.
He says we cannot be running out of anything because of the prices. Reality means nothing ... only 19th century economic theory is to be believed, I guess. Pollution is certainly a big deal, he is right about that, but continuing to waste resources and pour carbon into the atmosphere is hardly the solution to air and water pollution. Pollution, global warming, disease, they are all symptoms of the same problem. It is what happens when you put corporations and profit ahead of everything else. The people who are running the world do not care who dies, they only care what the profit numbers are when the last one drops dead.
It's a short term(poor, third world) priority versus a long term (rich country) priority. Of course we should all be concerned about humanity's contribution to accelerating climate change but if you're cooking over an indoor dung or cardboard fire you have the shorter-term view. Haiti has cut nearly all it's trees for charcoal mostly for cooking. Propane is a better way but has some fixed costs and distribution challenges. I think this guy cares about the short-term needs of poor countries and their people.
Lomborg is not an environmentalist. How dare he call himself one.
It's not either-or. The two problems are inter-related. For instance, global warming is contributing to desertification in Africa, which is diminishing water supplies.
Bjorn Lomborg is nothing more than a shill for Big Oil. Each time he opens his mouth he gets crapped on by actual scientists.
First Lomborg claimed AGW didn't exist.
Then after he got crapped on, he claimed:
AGW wasn't a big deal. "Cool it"
Then he got crapped on again. So now he claims we should worry more about clean water.
Unable to rebut the copious eveidence for AGW and its attendant dangers, Lomborg now seeks to distract us.
And he still has no clue.
Really Bjorn? Rapidly rising Sea-Level will make a lot of arable land disappear like a fart in the wind. And I guess you figure its affect on water tables in coastal areas where most of the world's population lives, is simply not big deal.
Do yourself a favor. Stop writing books on subjects you known nothing about. Go back to being an obscure statistics professor. You might well have been competent at that.
The REAL issue is population control. The planet is simply overpopulated. Get serious, reduce the population and these environmental issues become non-issues.
At the core of any discussion of climate change is the chorus of deniers who go on and on about normal Earth cycles,past changes in climate that to them look like the present, and that the debate about change is in play. All mountain ice is disappearing, the poles are melting in the shortest time ever seen in history of this planet- faster than any predictions and always this chorus of voices claiming falsely motives of science:looking through a prism of their drivel about these changes being normal. Life as we know it on this planet is in balance and what does a deserving world receive – all the BS repeated over and over by people who know better. We can do something about these changes but not by sitting around listening to the Modern Sirens just spewing out their misinformation and business as usual.
I know this fellow Bjorn's writings.
He is best thought of as an internet "Troll".
Which is that he has no particular expertise, and is just saying these things to get environmentalists all riled up.
So congratulations, Bjorn, on you ability to play the role of provocateaur, regardless of the merits, so long as you can get a reaction.
Why ia this twit being given air time? Isn't his main distinction being one of the very few (if not only) people in the world officially judged "not a scientist" by the scientific community? Fareed, you diminish yourself by talking with him.
No one can ignore the abnormal changes in weather. Yes, it is an El Nino year. It is already here. It is not just a matter of being green. The weather is much above normal values and we are not warned about it. ..Say the solar flare thing was a farce, we are still in an El Nino year and this time people havea right to know it.
Forget global warming – its too late to reverse the damage, and because politicians and billionaires dont want to talk about it.
I agree that we should continue to improve water technology which will be a critical issue as global warming gets hotter around the world.
No one will "forget global warming". It will be in front of us and on our minds with each passing year. Lots of things can be done-best at this time to do things in concert as nations. Lots can be done.
Bjorn Lomborg conveniently never mentions anything about species. Climate change is affecting species diversity. Species diversity is the best indicator of the health of the planet. http://www.uta.edu/biology/gough/lab/pdf/fulltext.pdf and http://people.oregonstate.edu/~mccuneb/LesicaMcCune2004JVS15.pdf Self-interest is intoxicating. Cooperating on self-interest undermines human's natural ability to cooperate and solve problems. We are having problems with subtle long term problems. Humans should care about the other species for ethical reasons if not survival reasons.
Regarding global warming, I would like to ask Mr. Lomborg why the earth warmed up from the last ice age about 12,000 years ago? I was a science major at Auburn University and no one knew the answer to that question except that it had nothing to do with human activity at that time. Also, I undersstand the ice cap is melting on earth, but is the ice cap also mentling on Mars? I read that somewhere. If that is so, global warming could be being produced by the sun.
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"Global Warming" people pretty much single-handedly killed environmentalism. It will be back, but it has to heal.
You see, there was a time not long ago when being an environmentalist merely meant you were a good person. It didn't mean you were part of a certain political ideology. That all changed when the US Democrat party started filling up with "Global Warming" activists. I for one believe in climate change, but I also believe it is one of the most ridiculous topics to discuss right now. We can't even go outside without worrying about inhaling environmental toxins from industrialism and we have pretty much every type of cancer, lung disease, and autoimmune disease rate spinning out of control.
Yet all anyone wants to do is fund "vote for me" campaigns that revolve around "Global Warming" down to the most meticulous definition. Environmentalism is being hijacked as a political slogan. Global warming is real, but it is a nonfunctional issue. Discussing it achieves nothing. Discussing the measured, undisputed health hazards of the same things which cause global warming is functional! It leads people from all political parties to be concerned and take action.
I would honestly not be surprised if some of the most extreme, stubborn global warming figures who refuse to discuss anything else (overpopulation, water, air, toxic products, etc.) and only discuss global warming 24/7 are paid industrialists intentionally marginalizing and sabotaging the environmentalist cause. Good day everyone.
What happens when you take an anti-environmentalism person and talk to them about air pollution, water pollution and industrial corruption?
They become pro-environmentalism.
What happens when you take an anti-environmentalism person and lecture them about how the Earth's temperature may cause unforeseen consequences in several centuries?
They turn even more anti-environmentalism.
Why do only a few environmentalists seem to understand this? The fixation on global warming and refusal of certain scientists to discuss ANY other environmental topics is a corrupt scam. They are paid by large industries to turn environmentalism into a fringe political issue.
Environmentalism used to be everywhere. You were a "Green" person. It was popular. Liberals loved it, coservatives loved it.
Now what do we have? The "global warming movement", where nobody talks about anything other than obscene futurism, with a few pop-scientists making millions while environmentalism crumbles away from mainstream thought.
Please think about what is going on here. If you truly want to save Earth's environment then the old saying "you catch more bees with honey" applies extremely well. Start talking to people about air pollution, lung disease, thyroid cancer, water toxins, pesticides, etc.
STOP ranting about global warming. That's exactly what the opponents of environmentalism want you to seem like: An obsessed psycho fixated on a single doomsday theory. II know climate change is real, but when you talk about something so far away and ignore current real problems, it alienates people. Rightfully so!
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Thank you for your commentary. Great points that we all need to consider and change.