A Truly Skeptical Environmentalist

Bjorn Lomborg made a name for himself some time ago by noting that the wild predictions made by climate alarmists were wrong, and that policymakers were ignoring the broader public welfare, especially in poor countries, by pursuing futile policies to address non-existent warming.  Now Lomborg has to always give a nod to the whackos by saying there is climate change and it has mostly negative effects but he has been a persistent voice for sensible policies.  And he is wrong in saying there is irrefutable evidence that the climate is being changed by human actions in a manner that is outside of past natural fluctuations.  What is irrefutable is that the renewable energy, agricultural and other policies being foisted on us by the whackos are lowering the quality of life for everyone, everywhere.  Now Bjorn has a new article/study summarizing his perspective on the damage done by climate and other environmental policies.  (BL Article)

The article should remind you of the epidemic, in which public health officials were anything but.  They ignored the damage their single-minded policies were imposing on the broader public health.  Even if there were real climate issues, taking steps to address them which make people’s lives worse never makes any sense.  Bjorn puts numbers to the economic harm done by the policies advocated by the Kerry/Gore crowd, all of whom make a fortune by promoting those policies and yet live lifestyles that are not at all consistent with those policies.  Whatever the damage is that may be caused by a changing climate, and I personally don’t think there are any, as Lomborg lists convincingly, the cost to society of the futile and unneeded remediation policies is far, far higher.  And as always, that cost is imposed most on the poorest members of society.  Bjorn says that doing what the whackos want would cost the world $250 trillion in economic benefits which translates directly to a reduction in quality of life.

Please read this article in full, it will give you a much more rational understanding of climate issues and policy, and as always, I appreciate the discussion of methodological issues and the biases and fallacies deployed by the sky-is-falling crowd.