The Rational Environmentalist

Bjorn Lomborg on the priorities that should come before global warming

Ronald Bailey from the October 2008 issue

(Page 5 of 5)

I'm perfectly aware that you should also engage people in thinking about institutional change or the setup of the international system, but what we focus on is, given where we are right now, what can you do with a little extra money? What can you marginally do? It's not the only relevant question in the world, but I would argue it's not an unimportant one.

reason: What's the next project?

Lomborg: We have a lot of projects. I'm doing Copenhagen Consensus for individual countries: for Ghana, for Zambia, for Chile, possibly for Peru, possibly for Mali. And then we're thinking of doing something towards the next climate conference in 2009 in Copenhagen. Maybe we should just do a Copenhagen Consensus for climate, where we get some of the world's top climate economists together and say, "There's a bunch of different packages on the table, what do you think?" And perhaps have some of the negotiators play around with what works best, so that we spend our money well, or better.

We're also thinking of doing one for the world's total environment-air pollution, clean drinking water, all the other things. There is a tendency right now in which global warming has subsumed all other environmental issues. While global warming is definitely an important environmental issue, there's a problem if it takes all of the time to the exclusion of everything else.

Comments

|10.1.08 @ 3:11PM|#

I myself am a skeptical environmentalist, yet I prefer to be referred to as "conspiracy theorist" when I'm being described by the media.

|10.1.08 @ 3:19PM|#

Someone told me that this month's issue of Reason has two articles featuring blonde swedes. I was sorely disappointed.

Johnny Nowhere|10.1.08 @ 3:46PM|#

Save the Caribbean Plate!
Stop Plate Tectonics!

|10.1.08 @ 4:05PM|#

Socialism scares me. does it work well in Denmark?

the message is good that global warming really isn't the existential threat that it has been portrayed as.

Earthquakes on the other hand, *shudder*.

|10.1.08 @ 4:16PM|#

For God's sake, when are we going to do something about the supervolcanoes?!? I demand that the Discovery Channel raise awareness of this important issue.

Also the possibility of something like in "The Happening", but with sharks.

Neu Mejican|10.1.08 @ 4:21PM|#

Lomborg: Most people who have no sort of preconceived notions about one thing or another think it's eminently sensible.

Is this most infants?

Translation: those that think it is eminently sensible have the same bias I do, so they seem to be unbiased?

|10.1.08 @ 4:26PM|#

Great article.

I disagree with Mr. Lomborg on lots of stuff. That said, I really like his humility and the approach he takes towards problem definition and solutions. It is no wonder that he pisses off lots of folks.

Neu Mejican|10.1.08 @ 4:36PM|#

JsubD,

I actually agree with you in your opinion about Lomborg. He does, however, dismiss his critics a little too easily. Some of the criticism of his work has been rooted in disagreements with his scientific methodology and the assumptions he used in his analysis of the environmental issues. Similar to the some of the criticisms that can be leveled at Freakonomics...for instance. Good statisticians will tell you that any analysis is only valid to the degree that your assumptions are valid. Validity doesn't come from the numbers...they support validity, but they don't create it.

Like many intellectuals, Lomborg's work is used inappropriately to back some pretty ridiculous positions. He gets some of the flak that comes off of the reaction. Lots of it is undeserved. His reaction to more nuanced criticism may be a result how it is mixed in with the undeserved flak.

Perhaps.

NM copy editor|10.1.08 @ 4:37PM|#

add an "of" as needed.

MAX HATS|10.1.08 @ 4:53PM|#

Global warming denial - Is that still happening, or have we moved on to "it's happening but there's nothing we can do to change it." Sorry, missed the memo.

|10.1.08 @ 5:06PM|#

Global warming denial - Is that still happening, or have we moved on to "it's happening but there's nothing we can do to change it." Sorry, missed the memo.

You've sorta got a little glimmer of the new meme.

It's happening but for rational people it is farther down the list of priorities than Al Gore would like.

|10.1.08 @ 5:08PM|#

I actually agree with you in your opinion about Lomborg. He does, however, dismiss his critics a little too easily.

Fortunately you and I are never guilty of that. ;-)

|10.1.08 @ 5:11PM|#

The tempature dropped 0.7 degrees C in 2007. Further sun spot activity is at an all time low. Odd coincidence isn't it? I will be curious to see the numbers for 2008.

Neu Mejican|10.1.08 @ 5:19PM|#

John,

That is indeed a coincidence.

Coincidence-noun
1. a striking occurrence of two or more events at one time apparently by mere chance.

|10.1.08 @ 5:21PM|#

Heh Bailey,..HEH BAILEYYYYY
I got Reason yesterday and there is no man made global warming. It is solar activity.
Your wrong.
When are you going to admit it?
Are you still a member of the ACLU?

Chad|10.1.08 @ 5:59PM|#

Lombborg is a smart guy, but I disagree with him on several points

1: Even in his own Copenhagen Consensus, combating climate change was found to provide a positive cost-benefit in almost every scenario. He does not often point this out.

2: The methodology used by the Consensus, like all other cost-benefits, uses a process called discounting - essentially, lowering the value of future benefits by a set percent for every year they exist in the future. Therefore, any cost-benefit analysis involving the deep future winds up being more of a debate around the appropriate discount rate rather than the facts about the system. 3% vs 4% compounded a hundred times makes a wild change in your conclusions. Not surprisingly, Lomborg's team chose a high discount rate, making future payoffs very small.

3: The Consensus did not account for far too many effects of global warming. The essentially focused on weather events (floods, droughts), sea level rise, and effects on crops. Losing 1/3 of the species on earth, for example, didn't factor into their equations at all.

4: Lomborg just doesn't understand one major difference between climate change and everything else on the list - climate change is not charity. While a dollar donated towards providing malaria nets in Africa might be a great way for me to spend my charitable dollars, by no means is this anything but charity. However, I have a responsibility to clean up the pollution that I dump into the public commons. This makes a world of difference politically.

|10.1.08 @ 5:59PM|#

NM, I have to say I have a hard time believing that changes in the activity of the sun and changes in the Earth's temperature are completely unrelated.

|10.1.08 @ 6:10PM|#

Guys, guys, guys (gals too).
This is not a global warming thread. It's a risk assessment and bang for the buck thread.

I'm stockpiling data for the next time an AGW thread appears. ;-)

|10.1.08 @ 7:16PM|#

Lomborg and Bailey are obviously in the pocket of Big Peroxide.

|10.1.08 @ 8:28PM|#

I got Reason yesterday and there is no man made global warming. It is solar activity.
Your wrong.
When are you going to admit it?
Are you still a member of the ACLU?

That's great news, Terry! Just submit your data to the appropriate journals so we can all stop caring about it.

|10.1.08 @ 9:06PM|#

NM -- Are you seriously implying that the strong correlation over long periods of time between sunspot activity and global temperature is complete coincidence?

Are you a sunspot cooling denier?

MAX HATS|10.1.08 @ 9:15PM|#

Who needs science? I have a messageboard. And blogs! I can find stuff that I already agree with there. And there are LOLcats!!!!

|10.1.08 @ 9:27PM|#

That was a great article Ron, kudos.

I liked the fact that there was actually some disagreement, but along with it was rational debate. So often when it comes to discussions on environmental issues, reason and rational thought just go out the window. I really must get around to reading some of Mr Lomborg's books.

I also really like the idea of the Copenhagen Consensus and actual risk assessment and cost/benefit analysis. There is only a finite amount of resources to go around for these issues and at some point we really have to prioritise their allocation.

Chad|10.1.08 @ 10:39PM|#

prolefeed | October 1, 2008, 9:06pm | #

NM -- Are you seriously implying that the strong correlation over long periods of time between sunspot activity and global temperature is complete coincidence?

Are you a sunspot cooling denier?

Ummm....solar output and sunspot cycles are included in the IPCC calculations. Their effect is minor. And btw, the current sunspot minimum is one of the several "natural" effects that is currently blunting global warming. Of course, the sunspot cycle should be reversing any time now...

Adam S | October 1, 2008, 9:27pm | #

That was a great article Ron, kudos.

I also really like the idea of the Copenhagen Consensus and actual risk assessment and cost/benefit analysis. There is only a finite amount of resources to go around for these issues and at some point we really have to prioritise their allocation.

Adam, cost-benefit analysis just don't work well when talking about long time frames, because it inevitably breaks down into philosophical arguments about the discount rate rather than a debate about the situation being considered. Since the discount rate is compounded hundreds of times in any climate change discussion, it wildly affects the conclusions. If you pick 5% and I argue for 2%, we are going to reach entirely different conclusions even if we agree on everything else.

|10.2.08 @ 1:22AM|#

Chad, sure, but so often these things have *no* cost/benefit analysis done at *all*. I agree that the discount rate is important.

|10.2.08 @ 2:40AM|#

Neu Mejican | October 1, 2008, 4:21pm | #

Lomborg: Most people who have no sort of preconceived notions about one thing or another think it's eminently sensible.

Is this most infants?

Translation: those that think it is eminently sensible have the same bias I do, so they seem to be unbiased?

Nuevo: Perhaps you need to reconsider your committment to rationality. I can recall many times in my life, as my beliefs evolved based on new (to me) evidence, that an eminently sensible idea altered my biases ;-}

|10.2.08 @ 2:52AM|#

Agreed Kant. I have often changed my view on something when presented with incontrovertible evidence.

Neu Mejican|10.2.08 @ 10:07AM|#

Re: Coincidence discussion above.

Chad covers the questions regarding solar activity.

It was a poor attempt at a dig at John.

The "it's the sun" argument is fueled on straw rather than fusion.

|10.3.08 @ 9:54PM|#

The problem with the priorities presented is that they all decrease the overall human mortality rate. The sheer number of human alive right now is one of the major causes of the environmental damage being done. We could all live like the Amish, but as long as the global population continues to rise, we will still destroy the habitable world we now live in. Make priority one global birth control, and maybe I can get behind those measure which aim to improve the quality of human existence. And before everyone gets all upset at my "trampling on other people's freedom" let me say that my freedom to responsibly have even one child has first been trampled by those who have already bred excessively. No one can honestly claim to both desire a sustainable human treatment of the Earth and allow for unending population growth. Everyone who breeds beyond the mortality rate is adding a permanent increase in humanity's load on the Biosphere. Everyone who lowers the mortality rate is doing damage on that line as well.

Chad|10.4.08 @ 4:03PM|#

City Bear: Go ahead and have all the kids you want. The entire developed world has fertility rates well below replacement levels. So does most of the developing world. Birth-rates are generally falling in most of the least-developed areas as well.

The problem is rapidly becoming one of too FEW people, not too many. Population will peak in the second half of this century, according to the UN, and then begin to decline. The problem of low birth rates is already becoming a severe issue in some European and Asian nations, particularly Japan, Korea and Singapore. The problem will spread to the US in another generation or so.

If you really feel guilty about increasing the population, for each child you have, simply donate $1000 to one of many good charities that deal with family planning in poor nations. You will get the children that you want while simultaneously preventing the birth of tens of unwanted children whose parents cannot support them. Everyone wins.

Sarah Palin|10.5.08 @ 4:16AM|#

"We could all live like the Amish"

Thanks but no thanks.

|10.5.08 @ 4:16AM|#

Thanks but no thanks.

|10.7.08 @ 10:13AM|#

Ron, it's a puzzle why you didn't challenge (1) the obvious inapplicability of the "Copenhagen Consensus" effort to prioritize government spending on development aid to climate mitigation policy or (2) the disconnect between Lomborg's desire for strong government leadership on clean energy investments - in the form of "a lot of cheap researchers having smart ideas rather than big projects that make the politicians feel comfortable" - and his very tepid support for carbon pricing that economists have long favored as the best way of eliciting increased investment.

As for point (1), the CC economists were measuring how a fixed purse of money might be best spent; in doing so, they simply ignored the possibility that climate mitigation policy might take the form of carbon taxes or auctioned permits - which would RAISE MONEY (not use it), which revenues could in fact be used to increase the pool of money to be spent on the rest of the government aid priorities weighed by the CC.

In other words, as I have argued on Pielke's thread concerning the Lomborg and Yohe spat, the CC structure just doesn't make sense in the context of climate change policy alternatives and so tells us almost nothing about climate change policy.
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2008/09/04/lomborg-misapplies-the-quot-copenhagen-consensus-quot-to-ignore-carbon-pricing-and-yet-argue-for-massive-government-investments-in-clean-energy.aspx