

World's most high-profile climate change skeptic does U turn on global warming - mhb
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/aug/30/bjorn-lomborg-climate-change-u-turn

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zeteo
Well, first of all the "world's most high-profile climate change" label is
extremely dubious. Unlike the opposing view, skepticism doesn't have
established institutions, and a multitude of "leaders". When I read that
title, the only person I could think of was actually Steve McIntyre from
climateaudit.org.

Second, U turn?! Let's be serious. Bjørn Lomborg has always believed that
global warming is one of the top global problems, but that it's too expensive
to tackle it and we should spend our money on other issues instead (e.g., in
his 2007 TED talk
[http://www.ted.com/talks/bjorn_lomborg_sets_global_prioritie...](http://www.ted.com/talks/bjorn_lomborg_sets_global_priorities.html)).
The only difference is that now he appears to believe that global warming can
be stopped with less than 0.5% of the US Federal Budget.

~~~
anigbrowl
Ah, Bjorn Lomborg gained global fame for a book published in 2001 disputing
claims of climate change's long-term significance.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Skeptical_Environmentalist>

~~~
zeteo
Right, so the Wikipedia summary that you link to verifies what I said about
his previous position:

"Lomborg's main contention involves not the science of global warming [...] He
[argues] that the economic cost of the restrictions [...] is impractically
high [...].He proposes that the importance of global warming in terms of
policy priority may be low compared to other policy issues such as fighting
poverty and disease [...]."

~~~
anigbrowl
If you had been following the issue back then, you would recall that Lomborg
spent a good part of his book disputing the significance and credibility of
'climate change,' essentially suggesting that many adherents of the the theory
preferred doom-mongering to solving any present problems. He and his book were
extremely popular among skeptics at the time; I got tired of being
(metaphorically) beaten over the head with it. Look at the media articles
archived at the bottom of the wiki article for a list of contemporary articles
documenting his popularity among skeptics.

By 2007 he had moderated this position substantially, but still held to the
view that climate change was such a large-scale issue it was beyond our
economic scope to really mitigate, and we should instead follow strategies of
adaption. This latest news is noteworthy in that he is now saying that it can
be mitigated, it's important enough to be mitigated, and that it won't be all
that expensive to do so.

But hey, don't believe me. take it from Lomborg himself:

 _The Skeptical Environmentalist

In The Skeptical Environmentalist Bjørn Lomborg challenges widely held beliefs
that the global environment is progressively getting worse. Using statistical
information from internationally recognized research institutes, Lomborg
systematically examines a range of major environmental issues and documents
that the global environment has actually improved. He supports his argument
with over 2900 footnotes, allowing discerning readers to check his sources._

and

 _Cool it - The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide To Global Warming

A groundbreaking book that transforms the debate about global warming by
offering a fresh perspective based on human needs as well as environmental
concerns.

Bjorn Lomborg argues that many of the elaborate and expensive actions now
being considered to stop global warming will cost hundreds of billions of
dollars, are often based on emotional rather than strictly scientific
assumptions, and may very well have little impact on the world's temperature
for hundreds of years. Rather than starting with the most radical procedures,
Lomborg argues that we should first focus our resources on more immediate
concerns [...]_

<http://www.lomborg.com/publications/>

The top headline on his news page is from the Guardian: 'Bjørn Lomborg: the
dissenting climate change voice who changed his tune.'

~~~
zeteo
"In The Skeptical Environmentalist Bjørn Lomborg challenges widely held
beliefs that the global environment is progressively getting worse."

Yes, but that refers to deforestation, pollution and loss of biodiversity, not
global warming. I haven't read the book myself (much less beaten anyone over
the head with it), but I trust Wikipedia when it says that "Lomborg 'accepts
the reality of man-made global warming' though he refers to a number of
uncertainties in the computer simulations of global warming and some aspects
of data collection".

~~~
anigbrowl
Well, see for yourself - you can read most of it at
[http://books.google.com/books?id=JuLko8USApwC&dq=skeptic...](http://books.google.com/books?id=JuLko8USApwC&dq=skeptical+environmentalist&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=1geCTIXLNYmasAOl25n3Bw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CE8Q6AEwBg#v=onepage&q&f=false)

He does indeed open the chapter with the statement you quote and then goes on
to spend the next 60 pages disputing the predictability, degree, significance,
cost or negative outcomes of climate change. To me that seems like no more
than lip service, especially given that he misused a _lot_ of data in making
his argument; ad the argument follows a well-worn pattern that sounds very
much like every other challenge to the concept.

I don't actually have my hair on fire about global warming (ie I think it's a
serious problem but one that is solvable with a mix of thrift and technology),
and I think the IPCC badly needs to overhaul its process and be more
transparent about its methods. However, I feel that a majority of the
skeptical arguments are rhetorical rather than substantive, and that no amount
of evidence will ever be enough.

Strangely, many of the same skeptics who question the predictive power of
science in this area and ridiculed believers in climate change as apocalyptic
Chicken Littles see no irony in pronouncing the inevitability of economic doom
that will result from envirocentric policymaking. Lomborg is exceptional in
that he's revised his views as more data has become available, but many have
not; if anything, they've become more partisan about it. Those folk seem far
more certain of their economic opinions than any climate scientist has ever
been about temperatures.

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Robin_Message
In terms of looking at energy use and production, I cannot recommend David
MacKay's excellent book _Sustainable Energy – without the hot air_ highly
enough (<http://www.withouthotair.com/>, also available in dead tree form.)

It's not clear that Lomborg changed his mind; it seems like he fudged the
process the Copenhagen Consensus was using to get a politically acceptable
result - 'Lomborg said he then decided to consider a much wider variety of
policies to reduce global warming, "so it wouldn't end up at the bottom".'

He's always advocated development spending should be cost-effective, which
makes sense. To that end, he has always said we should ignore climate change
for now and concentrate on things that are profitable now, then cut heavily
latter if we need to.

However, I think this is the wrong way to discount the far future. On the one
hand, we have relatively little certainty about what our culture will be like
in a hundred years. On the other, we are fairly certain man-made climate
change is happening now and will have increasingly damaging effects. To wait
for some point in the future where research and development will make the
problem go away cheaply is irresponsible and naive - '"This is not about 'we
have all got to live with less, wear hair-shirts and cut our carbon
emissions'. It's about technologies, about realising there's a vast array of
solutions."'

Clever solutions appeal to clever people, and no-one wants to wear a hair-
shirt, but that's not an argument against actually making some compromises.
Or, to put it another way, he got five economists to make long-term
predictions about sustainability and they said "increase energy efficiency, do
some R&D spending, business as usual." How surprising.

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benkant
The comments in response to that article are a microcosm of the problems we've
seen with this debate.

When this issue entered the public consciousness it was as if everyone had
made their minds up before there was any evidence for or against AGW.

There's evidence for and against, and instead of doing analysis we seem to
just be slamming the table, condescendingly dismissing dissent and calling
each other names. Of course there are probably people out there doing real
science, but from what I can see (ok, from the media) it's people making up
their minds and then finding the data to back it up. That's not science.

I thought Lomborg's initial stance was refreshing.

Hopefully it's just the media making drama out of it and real work is being
done to get to the bottom of it. Here's to hope.

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confuzatron
Flagged for misleading headline. As far as I can see, he hasn't changed his
position on global warming.

(But also upvoted because it's an interesting article)

"Howard Friel, author of the book The Lomborg Deception, said: "If Lomborg
were really looking for smart solutions, he would push for an end to perpetual
and brutal war, which diverts scarce resources from nearly everything that
Lomborg legitimately says needs more money.""

With enemies like that, Lomborg really doesn't have much to worry about.

