Who's Bjorn Lomborg trying to kid?
He rides a bicycle, he's nice to his mom, he couldn't possibly be working to destroy the world.
Well, two out of three ain't bad.
You have to admire a Poli-Sci major with no climatology degree who has managed to insert himself into the debate about global warming. A man whom the Danish Commission on Scientific Dishonesty ruled couldn't be charged with gross negligence because he didn't know enough about climatology to be guilty of that. Sort of like a plumber who attempts to do an emergency tracheotomy on your kid with PVC pipe and a monkey wrench -- even if he botched the operation, no one could accurately call it malpractice. Especially not your kid.
And you have to acknowledge the versatility that has allowed him to argue, at various times, that global warming is no big deal, that it's a big deal but humans aren't the cause, that humans are the cause but it's not worth fixing...and now, that we really must do something. Most crusaders have one narrative to which they cleave; this guy has more stories than a Dubai skyscraper.
Yet no matter what version of scientific reality Lomborg is pushing, his prescription for the future is always the same: We don't need to cap greenhouse gas emissions. Ignore the hundreds of climatologists who say the opposite.
We haven't seen this kind of intellectual consistency since George W. Bush announced that tax cuts were the only sensible response to surplus or deficit, peace or war.
Now Lomborg's got a new movie out, which makes The Day After Tomorrow look like a documentary. But at least he's not selling fear! Quite the contrary, he's selling complacency. Which is fine, it's free speech. But you might want to keep him away from your future grandkids, if any.
And since he does such a rotten impersonation of a concerned environmentalist, I thought I'd reciprocate with the worst Bjorn Lomborg impression you will see all day. Although also, probably the best.
(* - without costing Big Oil a dime)