Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming
by Bjorn Lomborg is a short (164 pages, if you don’t count Notes and Index) book, but a thought provoking one. Amid some of the dire predictions of catastrophe we hear and read on this topic, he takes a reasoned look at the problem and makes some worthwhile points. These include:
We have other major issues to deal with, namely HIV, malnutrition and malaria, in the Third World – the very part of the world that could suffer the most from global warming. Yet we have relatively affordable means of addressing these problems right now, rather than what problems they might face decades from now due to climate change.
The catastrophe shown in An Inconvenient Truth – cities disappearing because of a rise in sea level of 20 feet – is not supported by the models used in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which shows a worst case rise closer to around 2 feet over this century.
Damages due to extreme weather events are increasing, but not because of a proven link between these events and global warming. We have more people living along the coastal regions today, and they have more valuable assets to lose.
Malaria, widespread in tropical areas, was a major health problem in the US at one time, but isn’t any longer. It was eradicated not because of a change in climate, but because of increases in wealth and technology, which made spraying, draining and medical treatment all possible.
While deaths from heat waves will likely increase, a significant number of cold deaths still occur in winter, and these deaths will decrease in a warmer world.
Considering that the Kyoto Protocol was going to bring about at best a very small reduction in green house gas emissions at a rather high cost, we could do more good in the world by spending our money on micronutrients and mosquito nets to save Third World children from dying today, rather than drastic, expensive cuts in CO2 emissions in hope of saving them decades from now. In a world of finite resources and with real problems of this magnitude, we need to get the most bang for our buck. And this book is a good place to start the discussion on how to do that.
by Bjorn Lomborg is a short (164 pages, if you don’t count Notes and Index) book, but a thought provoking one. Amid some of the dire predictions of catastrophe we hear and read on this topic, he takes a reasoned look at the problem and makes some worthwhile points. These include:We have other major issues to deal with, namely HIV, malnutrition and malaria, in the Third World – the very part of the world that could suffer the most from global warming. Yet we have relatively affordable means of addressing these problems right now, rather than what problems they might face decades from now due to climate change.
The catastrophe shown in An Inconvenient Truth – cities disappearing because of a rise in sea level of 20 feet – is not supported by the models used in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which shows a worst case rise closer to around 2 feet over this century.
Damages due to extreme weather events are increasing, but not because of a proven link between these events and global warming. We have more people living along the coastal regions today, and they have more valuable assets to lose.
Malaria, widespread in tropical areas, was a major health problem in the US at one time, but isn’t any longer. It was eradicated not because of a change in climate, but because of increases in wealth and technology, which made spraying, draining and medical treatment all possible.
While deaths from heat waves will likely increase, a significant number of cold deaths still occur in winter, and these deaths will decrease in a warmer world.
Considering that the Kyoto Protocol was going to bring about at best a very small reduction in green house gas emissions at a rather high cost, we could do more good in the world by spending our money on micronutrients and mosquito nets to save Third World children from dying today, rather than drastic, expensive cuts in CO2 emissions in hope of saving them decades from now. In a world of finite resources and with real problems of this magnitude, we need to get the most bang for our buck. And this book is a good place to start the discussion on how to do that.
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