Posted on 01/16/2002 8:01:06 AM PST by Goddess50
Former "Greenpeace" Activist Now Says Earth Healthier Than Ever!...Danish Professior Bjorn Lomborg was a former Greenpeace member who truly believed the earth was in dire condition and that humans were ruining the environment until he was challenged to check the facts for himself.
"I never doubted the environmental myths. I used to be a very concerned Greenpeace kind of leftie," he said.
In 1987, he read an article by Economist Julian Simon who said the earth's environment was getting healthier. "I said no, no. That's got to be right-wing American propaganda," he stated.
Lomborg then set out with some of his students from the University of Aathus to debunk Simon's contention. But it was Lomborg who was in for a surprise. "As it turned out, we were the ones getting debunked. Things are actually getting better and better on pretty much all accounts. We are actually leaving our kids a better world," he said.
Lomborg is in he U.S., promoting his new book The Skeptical Environmentalist. In his book, he details his transformation on environmental thinking and uses statistical information from respected research institutions to debunk what he sees as the major environmental myths of today.
Lomborg, who speaks with the zeal of a convert, explained that the air in London is cleaner today than it was in 1585. He also insisted that world hunger is a rapidly declining problem, dropping in half since 1970 and projected to drop dramatically lower in the next 30 years.
He criticized the alarmism and misinformation with regard to most environmental issues and suggested that myths are designed to force immediate action.
Lomborg noted that since the 1920s, the world has been told how there is only a "10 year supply of oil" left in the world. He quoted an old professor who said, "We have been running out of oil ever since I was a kid. It's like looking into your frige and saying "whoa, you only have food for three days, you are going to die in four," he joked.
Lomborg explained that we continue to consume more oil while at the same time producing greater quantities of the fuel. He quoted the former head of OPEC, who once said, "The oil age is not going to come to an end because of a lack of oil, just like the stone age did not come to an end because of a lack of stone".
Lomborg asserted that the Kyoto global warming treaty would be an economic disaster for world while having only minimal effects on climate change. According to Lomborg, even if the Kyoto Protocol were fully enacted, the world would have "simply posponed the problem (of climate change) for six years. We will basically say the temperature we would have reached in 2094, we have now postponed until 2100."
He believes the money Kyoto would cost the world's economy would be better spent investing in cleaner drinking water and improved sanitation for the developing world.
by Marc Morano, CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer, 10/9/2001
Mr. Lomborg is my "new best friend".
I met one of these Gruen Nazis once. A German girl, music major, reasonably good-looking, but militant green, and vegetarian, too just like Der Fuehrer and his pal Rudof Hess. She was also rabidly anti-American. It was basically a reflex. She is just as fanatic as Nazi Jugend. Then there are German girls who want to audition for Bay Watch. The complete split personality. 50% of population are fanatics of one ideology or the other, the rest are no different from Mall Shopping crowd of U.S.
Between that, meteors, the sun's eventual collapse, and the universe imploding (or stretching apart) I'm on pins and needles.
But I still don't trust this Lomborg guy, what with all the TPS reports he makes me file.
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