
Bjorn Lomborg: Our lifestyle is unsustainable and why that's irrelevant - cwan
http://www.newsweek.com/2011/06/12/bjorn-lomborg-explains-how-to-save-the-planet.html
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Tichy
We got lucky a few times and now have enjoyed a comparatively long period of
time without serious problems. Relatively long time being one generation, so
we don't really remember what it feels like to go hungry, struggle to survive
in a war and stuff like that.

Unfortunately that doesn't mean that bad things can't happen again, just
because we don't remember them. In Japan they had ancient stones in the land
warning about places where previous Tsunamis had hit. Unfortunately nobody of
the "younger generations" cared about them anymore...

This attitude of "technology will sort it out every time" is just stupid and
not really supported by history. I have no doubt that humans will survive,
somehow. Doesn't mean that there can't be turmoil, millions of deaths and so
on on the way anymore.

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wisty
I'm not sure if he's correct. Neo-liberal mainstream economists take it as an
article of faith that "everything will be OK in a free market". If we don't
innovate early enough, society can collapse. Look at Easter Island.

Nuclear is there as an option, but it's not a pretty one. There's a big lead
time on reactors.

As an Australian, I'm very proud of our imminent carbon tax. Businesses will
find a way to cut energy use, or generate "green" power before any crisis
hits. OK, a carbon cap and trade _might_ do the same, but businesses won't be
able to invest as they will be afraid carbon prices will increase or decrease
too much. Speculative bubbles, fraud, and the weather would make prices
fluctuate too much.

~~~
anamax
> I'm not sure if he's correct. Neo-liberal mainstream economists take it as
> an article of faith that "everything will be OK in a free market".

So, you don't believe in innovation on demand.

> As an Australian, I'm very proud of our imminent carbon tax. Businesses will
> find a way to cut energy use, or generate "green" power before any crisis
> hits.

Except that you do.

~~~
zeemonkee
> So, you don't believe in innovation on demand.

Innovation isn't guaranteed to happen "on demand". Some things may not be
physically possible, or even if they are, may prove economically or
environmentally unfeasable. "Everything will be OK in a free market" is just
that - an article of faith.

~~~
gaius
Historically, it's more probably correct than "The Party's 5-year-plan will
make everything OK".

~~~
Tichy
This discussion is seriously flawed. What free market proponents miss is that
ALL markets are free markets. Even in communist Russia there was a free
market. It was just that the cost for doing something not allowed by the
government was incredibly high (like death penalty). The free market then
would go on to produce the things, according to prices and demand. The black
market is simply a part of the general "free market".

So there is not really any information contained in "let the free market
regulate things". The environment (including politics) determines the actual
prize of things. The free market then does the rest, but we still have to set
up the environment in the proper way.

For example the price of wheat is not just what people are willing to pay for
it - it is also the cost of producing it. You can not go artificially low with
the price. Just to provide an example that is not so obviously affected by
politics.

~~~
ckuehne
"Even in communist Russia there was a free market. It was just that the cost
[...] was incredibly high (like death penalty)."

According to your definition prisoners are also free. It's just the cost of
breaking out of prison are incredibly high (like death penalty).

~~~
Tichy
They are free to roam inside their prison cell. Nobody is really free, just
our average prison cell is bigger. Where does a real free market (as you might
subconsciously imagine it) exist? It would have to be anarchy at least - why
am I not "free" to take my neighbor's land to build a factory there? Only in
anarchy I would be really free, I could shoot my neighbor and take his land.
Unfortunately he could also shoot me first, but that is the price for the
truly free market.

Unless you want to propose anarchy, you have to propose some policies
alongside your supposedly free market, such as property laws enforced by the
state/military. There goes you free market down the drain.

My point was that "let the free market sort it out" is not a strategy. It does
not contain any actionable information, as you still have to define the actual
rules of your "free" market.

To make a better example than shooting my neighbor to take his land: why am I
not free to dump my waste on his land? Would a free market (allowing me to
dump my waste on his land) somehow sort out that I wouldn't dump my waste on
his land?

~~~
ckuehne
Most categories break down if you stretch them far enough. That does not mean
that they are not useful. Fare from it. Usually, there is some common
understanding what words mean. For example, if I say “forest” most people will
know what I mean, without arguing that there are no real forests only single
trees [1]. Just as most people will agree, that markets in the western world
are free (or more free) when compared to markets in Soviet Russia (the term
“black market” should have tipped you off).

[1] In the same manner one could argue that fossil oils really are renewable
resources if the time frame under consideration is chosen to be long enough.

~~~
Tichy
Yes, but I challenge you to come up with a proper definition, if you think the
"free market" will save us. Those wishy washy discussions are what get us into
trouble.

And fossil fuels would be sustainable if their rate of production was greater
than or equal to our rate of consumption.

~~~
ckuehne
"I challenge you to come up with a proper definition, if you think the 'free
market' will save us"

I will do no such thing because I have not argued that "a free market will
save us". I solely wanted to note that arguing over definitions and making
caricatures of commonly understood terms ("But what does it really mean to be
free?") is pointless and does not add much to the discussion at hand.

I agree, however, with the comment made by gaius: historically it is more
probable that a free market produces innovation than a centrally planned
economy. Not, IMHO, because the abstract entity “free market” somehow
magically comes up with a solution. But rather because it allows individuals
to tinker and to test their results w.r.t. the actual wants and needs of other
people as opposed to assuming that the best solution can be planned and
designed top down.

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arethuza
On the topic of the long term survival of societies I can thoroughly recommend
_Collapse_ by Jared Diamond:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse:_How_Societies_Choose_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse:_How_Societies_Choose_to_Fail_or_Succeed)

While I am generally rather positive about the long term fate of our current
society I do worry that blind belief that technological innovation will
_always_ deliver solutions is perhaps a bit naive.

~~~
Tichy
I always remember his example of a society that collapsed after 4000 years,
whereas our modern society is maybe around 200 years old. We have no idea
whatsoever how sustainable our current lifestyle is.

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danparsonson
I think there are a couple of points that the article skips over:

1) The planet's human population is much greater than it was even 50 years ago
([http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-
wdi&met_y=sp_pop_...](http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-
wdi&met_y=sp_pop_totl&tdim=true&dl=en&hl=en&q=population+of+earth)) and
continues to rise

2) We still don't fully understand the impact of widespread habit and species
loss

1) is important because each person requires a minimum amount of energy, in
whatever form, to sustain them, so we need to improve our technology year-on-
year just to stay at the same level of 'resource drain'.

2) is important because the idea that the natural world will recuperate once
we've developed more sympathetic ways of existing with it may actually be
flawed. There is some evidence to suggest that the biosphere is a self-
regulating system of which we are now breaking or removing many parts. Any
such system, however resilient, can only stand so much of that before it
collapses.

Of course technological development is crucial to our long term survival, but
in my opinion this doesn't make short term fixes irrelevant.

~~~
hkolek
ad 1: <http://overpopulationisamyth.com>

~~~
bjelkeman-again
That is a very shallow set of arguments from a self confessed pro-life group.
A better place to start understanding the complexities and impact on
environment from a large population is probably Nature’s special on planetary
boundaries.

[http://www.nature.com/news/specials/planetaryboundaries/inde...](http://www.nature.com/news/specials/planetaryboundaries/index.html)

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ThomPete
I think many people are missing Lomborgs basic point.

It's not just blind faith in technology but rather technology is the best
choice we have now, so instead of using trillions on political statements of
intention, let's use them where it matters and that is in trying to innovate
and engineer our way out of some of the issues.

~~~
Tichy
How does a political statement cost trillions? The information contained in
the sentence "let's use the money where it matters most" is zero. How do you
figure out where it matters most?

The fact is: if people can exploit some loophole (like blowing dirt into the
air instead of installing expensive filters), they will do so. They don't
really have an incentive to do otherwise. It doesn't have to be laws that
gives them an incentive - there could be "transparency", customers could
prefer to buy "clean" stuff, hence producers would have an incentive to
produce clean.

Without such an incentive, nothing will happen.

~~~
acegopher
I think the original comment about political statements costing trillions are
when say the government subsidizes corn ethanol.

There is good consensus that corn ethanol is energy negative, and that it
doesn't result in cleaner air or less greenhouse gases due to production
costs.

This mis-allocation of capital hinders development of truly better
alternatives, and sets back innovation. These setbacks, beyond the cost of the
subsidy and the lack of improvement in the areas targeted, do cost trillions.

~~~
Tichy
I dislike most of the government actions that are supposed to help, but I
think it is confusing the discussion to mix together things that could be
done, should be done, have been done, and so on. Ultimately I think Lomborg is
just a troll, and lumping people together into fake classes is a tried and
proven technique for trolling. It gets people worked up because they don't
want to be associated with certain other people, and stirs discussion towards
petty battles rather than solving the problem. Just because some government
wasted billions, doesn't imply every possible political action would be a
waste of billions.

~~~
ThomPete
I think this is a basically unfair description of the reality.

Lomborg is not some gun-ho republican right-wing that denies there is a
problem. I is just in disagreement with what most people find to be the right
reason.

He is as liberal as they come and he just happen to have a different take on
what the problem is and how to solve it.

Calling him a troll is sorry to say this but absurdly unfair and shows more
about you than him.

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nhaehnle
The author does not acknowledge the point that e.g. air quality has improved
precisely because people have complained about it.

The technological developments and business investments in filtering and
related technologies would not have happened without environmental groups
putting up a fight.

In a similar way, groups shouting about unsustainability are the ones who
actually get people to think about alternatives, which in turn plays one part
in moving technology forward.

Of course technology is moved forward by other things as well. But don't
underestimate the impact of young people taking up PhDs in relevant subjects
partly because of the high visibility of the debate about sustainability.

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khafra
> In fact, would-be catastrophes have regularly been pushed aside throughout
> human history, and so often because of innovation and technological
> development. We never just continue to do the same old thing. We innovate
> and avoid the anticipated problems.

The thing about the Anthropic Principle is that it only protects you in the
past, not in the future. We're here now because our civilization overcame its
past problems; but any speculator can tell you that past performance is no
guarantee of future results.

~~~
api
The thing we really have to come to terms with is that the future is
unpredictable. Both the "doomers" and the pollyannas fall down here. Past
performance says _nothing whatsoever_ about future performance.

Nice well-behaved Newtonian systems are amenable to prediction by mathematical
regression. Messy, complex, chaotic living systems are not. Everything
changes, and changes how it changes, and changes how it changes how it
changes, and ...

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erikstarck
I'm surprised by all the negative comments.

Lomborg makes the simple suggestion to rely on the most proven processes we
have to solve problems: science, technology and trade.

How can this in a community of hackers and entrepreneurs be so provocative?

~~~
wgren
That is a false dichotomy - lots of people suggest we rely on science and
technology, that is not what many people dislike about Lomborg. Well, it is
not what _I_ dislike about him anyway, I can't speak for everyone.

Arguing against him is not arguing against science. Actually, it is my respect
for science that makes me wary of him. He always seem to suggest simple
populist solutions to complex problems.

~~~
ThomPete
The populist solutions are the political summits that year after year claim to
want to solve the worlds pollution yet do nothing.

------
lisper
"Past performance is no guarantee of future results." Just because technology
has saved our sorry ass in the past does not entail that it will continue to
do so forever.

~~~
pyrhho
"Past performance is the best indicator of future performance." Technology has
saved our sorry ass in the past, so it is likely to continue doing so for the
foreseeable future.

~~~
Tichy
Except it hasn't. It has saved us in some occasions, but not in others. There
where still millions of "unnatural" deaths in the twentieth century. And,
similar to what the other comment pointed out, some species are extinct or
nearly extinct - technology doesn't seem to have helped them.

What about the recent financial crisis? Not sure how hard it really hit, but
nevertheless, technology has not prevented it. Just an example to point out
that we do NOT have everything under control.

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rrrazdan
And the major unfair point is that the developed countries, after having
exploited and polluted their way to prosperity, want equal cuts from the
developing world.[1]
[1][http://big5.xinhuanet.com/gate/big5/news.xinhuanet.com/engli...](http://big5.xinhuanet.com/gate/big5/news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-07/10/content_8519797.htm)

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Zakharov
I think Lomborg's got a good argument in favor of a conclusion he leaves
unstated (and may, in fact, not favor) - that some portion of the money
governments would spend on sustainability should instead be spent on finding a
proactive solution to climate change, e.g. extracting large quantities of
carbon from the atmosphere.

Doing nothing and hoping someone independently solves the problem strikes me
as an unacceptable risk; there is little market incentive at the moment to
reduce environmental damage. A carbon-trading scheme would create such an
incentive, but would no doubt create its own inefficiencies. Markets are great
at dealing with resource shortages, for example whale oil, but quite bad at
dealing with negative externalities, e.g. air pollution. It took government
intervention to clean up London (I think? I don't have any sources on this).

Spending money on proactive solutions encourages economic growth instead of
discouraging it, and can lead to future benefits as "green technology" leads
to new advances. On the other hand, it's somewhat risky as most avenues of
inquiry will lead to dead ends, and any geo-engineering technology that
becomes widely adopted could have nasty side-effects.

------
stayjin
It is the irony of the tragic nature of human race: we are both, descendants
of Promitheus, who courageously fought for our right to harness greater
powers, but also of Pandora who just did not have the maturity to know what
NOT to poke,

It is so ironic, there are so many different diets, just to conceal the simple
fact that if one eats excessively they will get fat and the simple fact that
if one wants to be in good shape, there is a very simple straightforward
answer, eat less move more. Instead we busy ourselves with the new "
scientific breakthrough" that allows us to be eating bacon all year long and
then drink the magic pill and wear our bikini just in time for the miss skinny
contest.

P.s. The interesting dude is Odisseas, who before going close ro the sirens,
he assessed the risk and decided, to hear their sing but not

------
Tichy
Just wondering, have science and free markets ever resolved a tragedy of the
commons situation (except for destroying the resource)? I think the "original"
solution for the sheep and lawns was to erect fences, which seems to me to be
a purely political solution. It doesn't seem so different from issuing CO2
shares.

------
ap22213
Nothing like standing up a straw man and then tearing it down.

The situations that are cited in the article seem like apples when comparing
to the situational oranges of today. A shaky foundation like this hardly seems
like a good place to build a valid logical argument. But, it sure does look
cool.

------
api
This guy is ignoring the twin elephants in the living room: the unbelievably
massive amount of energy that we obtain from fossil fuels, and the reliance on
the modern financial system on continuous growth simply to maintain the status
quo.

These are linked issues.

All fossil fuels will peak this century. It's not politics... it's physics. No
amount of wishful thinking will change that. Actually, I suspect they will all
peak before 2050. Many knowledgeable people think oil has already peaked.

Peaking doesn't mean running out, it means exponentially declining EROEI
(energy return on energy invested). There's plenty of oil left, but when it
takes a barrel of oil to get a barrel of oil we are out of oil.

Nothing except maybe nuclear has the muscle _right now_ to fill the gap for
electricity generation. Just try to sell that now, post-Fukushima. Nothing
except biofuel can presently fill the gap for transportation, and it is
dubious that biofuels can scale to those levels.

Does this mean apocalypse? I'm actually not a "doomer" per se. But consider
this: as we pass peak on all fossil fuels, the vast majority of our surplus
energy and labor will have to go to simply treading water and maintaining our
standard of living in the face of rapidly declining energy availability.
There's also going to be a lot of demand destruction: people buying less,
traveling less, using less.

All that does spell doom for our financial system. Even a short interruption
in growth results in financial catastrophe, since without continuous growth
you get a wave of debt defaults.

It could be a very chaotic century.

Edit: but on the upside, there's going to be a ton of entrepreneurial
opportunities around saving energy, making energy, and storing energy.
Personally I think IT isn't where it's at... if I wanted to get back into
entrepreneurship now (and I might in the future) I'd get into something
energy-related.

------
hootmon
According to this Robber Baron apologist, I am 10 times better off than I was
in the 50s. Lets see, my dad, in the fifties could afford from his average
salary to buy a new car every 2 years. Guess what in my so called better life,
I buy a new car every 15 years. yea thats progress. I think this tool lumps
the progress of the top 2% in with the rest of us smucks to come up with his
baloney good news. The average wage buys less today than it did years ago,
plus the average wage is falling and benefits are disappearing. The good news
just keeps coming...

~~~
yesbabyyes
I think this is the case: In the fifties, there were a lot fewer people who
were as rich as your dad, than there are people today who are as rich as you.
At the same time, more people today want and can afford cars and other
expensive things. Thus, even though we are constantly using resources more
efficiently, you are competing with more people for resources today than your
father in the fifties.

This is natural and a good thing: If Earth can't sustain very many people
buying cars every 2 years, then we can't buy new cars every 2 years. We have
to use resources more efficiently. It's a similar situation with fuel: For a
long time, we built stronger engines that consumed the same amount of fuel,
instead of building engines that used less fuel for more efficient use. Later
that trend reversed. A similar thing happened with computers and their energy
use.

I hope my kids won't have to buy more than one car in their life.

