Bjorn Again

The San Francisco Examiner gives a two-page Q&A to Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist. Sample:

Q: There are advantages to global warming?

A: Absolutely. I come from Denmark, and there it's pretty cold. The environmental assessment of the impact of global warming in Denmark is that overall it will be slightly positive. We'll have better agricultural production. We'll probably have better forestry. We will, however, also have more flash rain. That will be a negative.

One of the most typical examples we're told is that people will die from heat waves from global warming. That's true. People will die from heat waves. What you really seem to forget is in most advanced countries, the cold deaths outweigh heat deaths two-to-one.

And of course while you will get more heat deaths, you will also get many fewer cold deaths, and actually a research team looking at the cold and heat deaths around Europe estimated that for Britain global warming will mean 18,000 fewer deaths.

Ron Bailey gave a thumbs-up review to The Skeptical Environmentalist, and took a look at the attacks on Lomborg that followed. When Denmark's "Committees on Scientific Dishonesty" pronounced anathema on Lomborg, Chuck Freund was there with his bell, book, and candle. And of course, that Lomborg is getting a forum right in the City of Saint Francis suggests my own vision of a conservative San Francisco may already be coming true.