Common Sense On Climate Change

Bjorn Lomborg may be one of the clearest thinkers there is on the topic of climate change where the debate can become extremely heated between the deniers and the global warming doomsayers. He acknowledges that man is at least partly responsible for warming but not entirely and that there are many steps that can be taken that cost far less and produce much better returns than those advocated by folks like Al Gore. He would rather see the money spent where it could do the most good even it does not immediately cut greenhouse gas emissions such as helping to mitigate the effects such warming might have. He does not see a few degrees of warming as disastrous if steps are taken to adapt to those conditions instead of the economy killing measures that would have very negligible effect on the climate but cost trillions of dollars.
He makes a lot of sense and he should be listened to carefully as the debate goes forward as to what to do. He sat down with KJ Lopez of National Review for a must read interview that gave John McCain some very good advice on what he should do if elected. It is unlikely that Obama would listen since the Democrats see the issue as a way to increase big government control over our lives whether their solutions would work or not. McCain at least understands that nuclear power is a big part of what we can do for a clean source of energy, the Democrats remain highly opposed to it.
Lomborg has another interview here with The Spectator and it hits on many of the same points as the NRO one does but I liked this part about the alarmists and their screeching of doom.

“Unlike proper climate change sceptics (who are the equivalent, George Monbiot has famously claimed, of Holocaust deniers), Lomborg says his views on global warming are broadly in sympathy with those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Where he thinks the green movement has got things badly wrong is in attempting to shut down any form of critical opposition. ‘You cannot have a conversation about the biggest policy argument of the day, and then say that one side isn’t allowed to debate,’ says Lomborg. He thinks the greens have also done their cause a great disservice by talking up the climate change threat. ‘You can overplay your cards and screech so loudly that you end up losing the argument.’ The battle for common sense, though, is far from over. His worry is that the next Kyoto update — the Copenhagen summit in 2009 — will prove yet another wasted opportunity where politicians set themselves ever higher pie-in-the-sky targets on carbon emissions. ‘The danger is not that we’re not going to meet these targets, because I take that as granted — of course we’re not going to meet them, just as we didn’t after Kyoto in 1997. What’s far worse, is that yet again, it will stop us focusing on all the incredible things we actually could do with that money. So we end up wasting another ten or 20 years.’”

I still remain in the strongly skeptical camp but if the politicians think something must be done I hope they pay attention to what Lomborg has to say.