Bjorn Lomborg: Famous Climate Skeptic Changes His Tune

treehugger.com:

Notoriously publicity shy Bjørn Lomborg, the Danish climate skeptic known for saying outrageous things about climate change, has seemingly changed his tune. Yesterday, the UK's Guardian reported that Lomborg makes a new claim in his upcoming book: we should confront climate change now and invest huge sums for technology development and deployment.

Read the whole story: treehugger.com

Comments

[Overtone]

09:25 PM on 09/15/2010

Actually, the truth is more interesting. See his OpEd piece in today's Wall Street Journal entitled: U-Turn on Global Warming? Hardly.

Then look at how that suggests a much better strategy for attacking Global Warming.

He calls for MAKING GREEN ENERGY SO CHEAP EVERYONE WANTS IT!

As a result, see the many changes at: http://www.aesopinstitute.org

[David Gow]

10:43 PM on 09/02/2010

Today (Sept 2) Lomborg was on hour 3 of KIRO-FM's Dave Ross Show.
http://mynorthwest.com/?nid=112&cmsid=90&p=1

Says many methods we're using to fight climate change are ineffective & inexpensive; would rather invest in R&D on new technologies with some probability of failure, rather than current approaches which he says have 0% chance.

[Overtone]

12:46 PM on 08/31/2010

Perhaps his turnaround will cause others to think again!

The Great Depression ended when the U.S. mobilized to fight the Second World War. Unemployment fell to 2%.

This Second Great Depression can end by mobilizing to supersede fossil fuels and combat Global Warming.

See the analysis pro and con concerning the threat of a possible climate Tipping Point at http://www.aesopinstitute.org

We need a worldwide effort to leave fossil fuels behind much faster than conventional wisdom would believe is possible.

In spite of a legion of skeptics, it can be done!

Revolutionary, cost-competitive, breakthrough renewable technologies are being born. They can supplement the truly effective carbon free systems already available.

For a couple of examples, see Moving Beyond Oil and Running on Water on the Aesop Institute website.

Scientists understandably doubt they are possible. That is likely to change as independent laboratories repeatedly confirm the technologies are real.

Shortly after Pearl Harbor was attacked, Ford completed a bomber every 59 minutes at the Willow Run factory.

That same kind of enthusiastic 24/7 effort can dramatically reduce unemployment.

An all out attack on climate change will inherently produce the missing economic stimulus.

Ironically, this approach might open a realistic way to regain economic health that, once the threat is understood to be genuine, can enjoy strong White House and Congressional support.

Insuring reasonable odds for the survival of our children and grandchildren has the potential to provide an emotional force that can awaken widespread latent leadership

[fishermanpat]

01:29 PM on 08/31/2010

Man has been industrialized for what 50 years. The earth has been in existence for what 4.5 to 5 billion years? Are you telling me that with all the volcano eruption spewing ash around the world while the earth was cooling there was not a greater carbon footprint? Get real. If you people can't see the writing on the wall here with this global warming hypocrisy then you are doomed to suffer the consequences.

[inorbit]

10:27 AM on 08/31/2010

Did he suddenly grow a brain??? Wow, this IS news!

[Bryan Elliott]

12:27 PM on 08/31/2010

No. Lomborg has never, ever denied that climate change is going to happen, or that it's human-caused. He has made the economic case that our proposed solutions figure insufficiently in a cost-benefit analysis to do any good.

If he's changed his mind, one of a few things has happened:
- convincing projections of devastation caused by climate change have surfaced that are greater than previously
- he has seen a new avenue that can mitigate climate change at lower cost than existing provisions
- he has seen that the existing provisions may cause governments to explore an avenue he previously did not know of

Any of these would improve the cost-benefit analysis of climate change prevention, and thereby bump it up the list of things we should, in his estimation, be spending our resources on first (it was never off the list, after all).

[Bryan Elliott]

12:32 PM on 08/31/2010

I should mention, I think Lomborg's been unfairly shunned by extreme environmentalists: his position has always been one of, "yeah this is a problem, now let's look at solutions, and specifically at what solutions we can afford, and which we should be attacking first."

I don't know why, but it's this realistic view of environmental issues as soluble projects that has groups like Greenpeace demonizing him.

I suppose, some people only agree with scientists when their math comes out in a way they agree with.

[fishermanpat]

01:32 PM on 08/31/2010

Ya,,and that math is counted in dollars...good ol' greebacks.

[TomJoad1965]

10:26 AM on 08/31/2010

It's people like him that will get me killed. I hope he suffers more than I do.

[John Mainstream]

10:14 AM on 08/31/2010

In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted that by 2100, global warming (natural plus man-made) will lead to a sea level rise of 19 to 58 cm (roughly 7.5 inches to 23 inches rise). Sea level is expected to rise 12.9 inches do to natural causes, and up to an additional 10 inches due to man-made global warming over the next 90 years.

[Galong]

11:00 AM on 08/31/2010

Hi John, thanks for mentioning that it is likely going to be a combination of natural and man-made causes.

Would you happen to have a link to that info? I looked on the IPCC site and couldn't find the 2007 stats.

[Galong]

09:58 AM on 08/31/2010

Honestly, who cares what a Copenhagen Business School professor thinks about climate change?

I'll stick with climatologists and other real scientists for my information. I am, of course, glad to have one more person seeing reality. I wonder if he has any other motives?