Are we supposed to take this guy seriously?
Posted on 08/17/2009 6:29:56 AM PDT by markomalley
Global warming means more people will die from the heat. Sea levels will rise, and there'll be more malaria, starvation and poverty. Concern has been great, but humanity has done very little that will actually prevent these outcomes. Carbon emissions have kept increasing, despite repeated promises of cuts.
We all have a stake in ensuring that climate change is stopped. We turned to climate scientists to tell us about global warming. Now we need to turn to climate economists to enlighten us about the benefits, costs and possible outcomes from different responses to this challenge.
World leaders are meeting in Copenhagen in December to forge a new pact to tackle global warming. Should they continue with plans to make carbon-cutting promises that are unlikely to be fulfilled? What could be achieved by planting more trees, cutting methane or reducing black soot emissions? Is it sensible to focus on a technological solution to warming? Or should we just adapt to a warmer world?
Much of the policy debate remains focused on cutting carbon, but there are many ways to go about repairing the global climate. Our choices will result in different outcomes and different costs.
The optimal combination of solutions will create the biggest impact for the least money. A groundbreaking paper by economists Eric Bickel and Lee Lane is one of the first – and certainly the most comprehensive – study of the costs and benefits of climate engineering. Deliberately manipulating the Earth's climate seems like something from science fiction. But as President Barack Obama's science adviser, John Holdren, has said, it has “got to be looked at.” Many prominent scientists agree.
(Excerpt) Read more at theglobeandmail.com ...
I think Bjorn has had a few to many kippered herrings
No, it sounds like something from the loony bin.
it must be nice to be a “climate engineer”..wake up every day thinking you are God...”Good morning dear..today I will stop hurricanes from striking land”...etc...
Hurricanes aren't climate -- they're weather.
Lomborg is one of the few sane voices in the climate debate. He wants to do things that make economic sense, instead of using it as an excuse for socialism and spreading the poverty around.
Me thinks you left out the sarcasm tags.
These folks thinking they can change or control the weather are looney tunes.
Global cooling would be just as disastrous.
So what is the prefect temperature?? There isn't one, never has been and never will be.....no matter what we do!!
Are we supposed to take this guy seriously?
“...more people will die from the heat. Sea levels will rise, and there’ll be more malaria, starvation and poverty.”
None of this really has anything to do with “global warming.” It has more to do with global stupidity, psycopathic dictators, and greed.
Drill more oil. Mine more coal. Build power plants in places where we waste gazillions of dollars to maintain populations on subsistance standards so they remain uneducated and die more slowly.
Sea levels will rise? Not in heat. Sea levels would drop.
Grow food not fuel. Use air conditioning. Bring back DDT. Poverty is not chosen. It is mandated and enforced.
I don't know who "these folks" are, but Bjorn Lomborg is not proposing to change or control the weather.
Are we supposed to take this (ad hominem) "argument" seriously? Surely you meant to write something more intelligent?
psyco/psycho
I am proud of the intelligent folks on this site who can see right through the Global Warming scam. You are not going to find many buyers on FR.
If he believes in global warming, he is a loony toon. I don’t care what else he says about anything because everything that follows that line of reasoning is ridiculous on its face.
If the premise is wrong, then any “solution” to a problem that is NOT a problem is necessarily wrong and can only lead to more problems.
(1) The case for man-made global warming is not proven, but it remains possible that it will be shown to be true to some degree, or that ocean acidification from increased CO2 will be shown to be severely harmful.
(2) Climate engineering is likely to be both relatively cheap and a way to avoid pressure for more extreme measures such as cap and trade.
(3) The advocates for climate engineering tend to be conservative or at least fact oriented scientists. They deserve a fair hearing.
Global cooling would be far worse.
"Hi, I'm a climate engineer..."
It means some control over (as the phrase indicates) climate. Climate is not weather. Climate is a long-term average of weather. Ability to control climate does not imply ability to affect what will happen on any given day or month in any particular location. As an analogy, the Fed has some knobs that affect the long-range economic climate, but it can't control what the market does, or consumers buy on any particular day.
We can control climate, and for much less than it would cost to reduce carbon emissions. For example, if the earth's temperature is controlled by solar insolation, we could put mirrors up in space to deflect some of the sun's energy from the planet, and cool it somewhat. As some have proposed, artificial clouds could reflect more energy into space.
We need to be thinking about these things regardless of what the socialists want to do, because there may be some natural climate change that we'd want to mitigate (for instance, we're actually cooling right now because the sun is currently in an extreme minimum in terms of sunspots). It wouldn't necessarily take that much to tip us back into a new glacial advance. It's only been a few thousand years since what is now Detroit and Chicago were under thousands of feet of ice. If there's something we can affordably do to prevent that, wouldn't it be a good idea? Lomborg is simply pointing out that we should take actions based on rational economic analysis, rather than Global Warm-Mongering (and socialist) hysteria.
One does not have to be a "loony tune" to think that we may be in a long-term warming period, for whatever reason. There is quite a bit of evidence to that effect. And if we are, it doesn't hurt to come up with some sane alternatives to the potential problem, instead of wrecking the world's (and particularly the US') economy.
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