
"Cool It" -- Bjorn Lomborg's Skeptical Environmentalist comes to the big screen - cpr
http://coolit-themovie.com/
======
bigmac
His TED talk gives an interesting perspective on Global Warming, and how we
should be thinking about it. ~17mins, worth the time.

[http://www.ted.com/talks/bjorn_lomborg_sets_global_prioritie...](http://www.ted.com/talks/bjorn_lomborg_sets_global_priorities.html)

I watched it awhile ago. The argument I remember is something along these
lines. The worst case scenario of global warming is that sea levels rise some
level by 2100. The most pessimistic financial projections for the people
living in the affected areas in 2100 is that they will be equivalent to
middle-class Americans once the sea levels rise. Thus, we should consider the
fact that global warming efforts right now are essentially going toward
helping middle class Americans, whereas there are other far more pressing
issues facing the poorest of the poor in the world right now. Since we have
limited resources in the world and we aren't going to work on every issue, we
need to set priorities on what we will work on. Long story short, global
warming doesn't make the cut.

~~~
anthonyb
Which is crap. Most of Bangladesh is only a few metres above sea level, ditto
for some of India and Pakistan, the South Pacific islands, etc. Most human
settlement is either near a river or the ocean.

~~~
InclinedPlane
I think you failed to grasp the argument. Most of Bangladesh may be only a few
meters above sea level, but by the time that Bangladesh faces serious problems
from rising sea levels they will almost assuredly be a first world nation in
terms of affluence. What level of economic misery should we impose on the
entire world both rich and poor, including Bangladesh, _today_ to save
affluent future Bangladeshis from dealing with a problem which the Dutch have
already solved today?

~~~
anthonyb
I'm familiar with the argument.

If Bangladesh and India have levels of affluence comparable to western
nations, then the increased CO2 emissions will make sea levels rise faster,
surely? And that's assuming that a) they'll have that level of affluence and
b) that sea levels aren't going to rise more quickly. I don't think either of
these things are assured at this point.

Another point to note is that he's an economist, not a climate scientist. Most
of the criticism directed towards him and the Copenhagen Consensus is that
they underplay the level of potential global warming while overplaying the
part that economics has to play. In other words, his risk to reward ratio is
well out of whack.

ps. "Economic misery" is a loaded term. IIRC, mitigating CO2 was estimated to
be at most a couple of percent of GDP.

~~~
InclinedPlane
You say "couple percent of GDP" as if that's a trifling thing. Economic growth
is typically only a few percent of GDP, so if you allot that elsewhere perhaps
you cause an economic plateau or regression.

Anywho, the key point is that nobody has put as much effort into a thorough
and serious analysis as is warranted.

~~~
anthonyb
Well, at this point it's possible, and not "Economic misery". What happens
when the problem is ignored for another 10 years and becomes 5% of GDP?

~~~
InclinedPlane
This isn't just a 10 year problem, it's a 100 year problem. And at 100 years
exponentials swamp everything else.

~~~
anthonyb
Your point being? CO2 emissions have been growing exponentially too:

<http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/co2_vs_emissions.gif>

and the longer it gets put off, the more expensive it will be to fix.

~~~
InclinedPlane
That looks rather linear.

Per capita Carbon emissions in developed countries have actually leveled off
over the past several decades, though per capita GDP continues to rise.

Assume for the moment that putting off addressing global warming will make the
consequences more costly to address. How much more costly do they have to be
to justify the sort of spending and sacrifices it would take today to curb
Carbon emissions sharply? In 100 years Bangladeshis and Indonesians will
likely be richer than Americans today. What problems could they face which
would justify sacrifices today in order to save such comparatively more
wealthy and technologically advanced folks from them?

~~~
anthonyb
Looks exponential to me. Particularly from 1999 on, where there's a sharp
upturn. The developed countries emissions are flattening because a large
proportion of their production is being outsourced to China:
[http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-
wdi&met=en_atm_co...](http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-
wdi&met=en_atm_co2e_pc&idim=country:CHN&dl=en&hl=en&q=chinese+carbon+emissions#met=en_atm_co2e_pc&idim=country:CHN)

The main issue is that we may not _have_ 100 years - that's just a figure that
Lomborg has come up with, and his figures are doubted by a lot of climate
scientists. Somewhere around 2degC (over 1999 levels) is about the point where
we might start to see positive feedback and serious effects from warming. At
our current rate, we'll hit that in about 2040-2050. 5degC is certainly
possible by 2100, which means no glaciers/fresh water in
India/Pakistan/Bangladesh, desertification, food shortages and a couple of
metres of sea level rise.

------
vietor
Could someone who speaks Danish elaborate on the findings referenced on
Wikipedia here:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B8rn_Lomborg#DCSD_investi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B8rn_Lomborg#DCSD_investigation)

Though he was exonerated on technicalities, it doesn't look good. However, as
I don't read Danish, I can't check any of the actual source material.

------
guelo
Lomborg's basic position is "Global warming is real - it is man-made and it is
an important problem. But it is not the end of the world."

~~~
InclinedPlane
It's disturbing to me how much logic, reason, and science have been bypassed
in the race to global warming panic. The idea that it's necessary for human
civilization to take drastic steps in order to forestall global warming is
based on an entire chain of reasoning: that global warming exists, that it is
unnatural and anthropogenic, that massively devastating consequences to
mankind and the environment will result if AGW is allowed to continue along
current trends, and that curtailing CO2 emissions will prevent those
consequences and is the best way of dealing with their possibility. Of these
at best only the first and perhaps the 2nd could be considered "proven"
(though there is still significant debate), but the rest are just assumed,
nothing even approaching a robust analysis has been done (sadly Lomborg's work
is perhaps the best analysis so far).

~~~
philwelch
Remember risk management. It doesn't have to be proven "that massively
devastating consequences to mankind and the environment will result if AGW is
allowed to continue along current trends", it only has to be probable.
Likewise for "curtailing CO2 emissions will prevent those consequences and is
the best way of dealing with their possibility".

It's perfectly rational to curtail CO2 emissions for fear of the consequences
of AGW if curtailing CO2 emissions has a high enough EV, calculating this
with, of course, the EV of catastrophic consequences to AGW. It doesn't have
to be proven if catastrophic enough consequences are probable enough to
dominate the EV, even if that probability is less than "certainty".

~~~
InclinedPlane
Yes, the precautionary principle, Pascal's wager. I take it from this that you
are a devout Catholic, or perhaps a fundamentalist Muslim?

~~~
philwelch
Whether or not EV holds valid with risks of infinitesimal probability and
infinite cost is an interesting philosophical question, but it doesn't
undermine the use of EV to deal with risks of finite cost and probability.

------
mrkurt
It's unfortunate that the book this is based on seems to be so... wrong:
[http://www.newsweek.com/2010/02/21/book-review-the-
lomborg-d...](http://www.newsweek.com/2010/02/21/book-review-the-lomborg-
deception.html)

~~~
brc
That is a very week premise, which looks disguised as an attempt to sell one
book by criticising another. You could equally apply that much scrutiny to any
public profile book or movie (anything by Michael Moore, for instance).

I'm sure Lomborg's book contains exaggerations and selective presentation of
the truth - after all, it's a popular literature, not a scientific work. But
the very same standards applied to other 'popular' works of Global Warming
media, like 'The Great Global Warming Swindle' and 'An Inconvenient Truth'
have also showed up outright lies, fabrications and distortion of the truth.

In other words, it's unlikely that anyone can print or make something in this
genre without someone else finding all sorts of facts that are wrong. But the
whole thing is down to interpretation.

Ultimately we should be judging these books and movies for ourselves, and
realising that much of the material contains a kernel of truth, probably much
embellished for the narrative.

~~~
ugh
That seems like intellectual laziness.

~~~
anthonyb
Indeed. While it's true that most things will have errors, it depends on what
those errors were, why they were made and who's pointing them out. For
example, a lot of climate skeptics like to point out that models are wrong.
But they tend to be wrong in both directions (eg.
<http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/Arctic_models_obs.gif>, where the sea
ice loss is far more than worst-case prediction)

------
brc
I'm interested in seeing this, because from what I have read Bjorn is somewhat
middle of the road on this debate, something that is usually missing from any
mention.

I haven't had time to get and/or read his book (no space in reading schedule
for this type of thing) but I will be interested to see how this goes.

If it manages to thread between the polarized opposites on this debate, that
will be quite an accomplishment.

