The Great Debate UK
from Environment Forum:
Bjorn Lomborg: skeptic or too much an optimist?
Bjorn Lomborg, author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist," used to argue that concern about climate change was overblown because there were better causes to spend money on such as curing AIDS or malaria.
The Danish political scientist now says in a book coming out later this month called "Smart Solutions to Climate Change: Comparing Costs and Benefits," that global warming is one of the top challenges facing the world and we should spend money on trying to fix it - $100 billion a year.
But true to his contrarian nature, he thinks the way the world is fighting climate change is all wrong.
First, he thinks that global environment and climate negotiators are trying to put money into the wrong places. Many of them want $100 billion a year by 2020 to go to developing countries to pay for adapting to the worst effects of climate change, like flooding and droughts, and to help them move into alternative energies like solar power.
We Need a Fresh Approach on Climate Change
- Bjorn Lomborg is adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School. He is the organizer of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, which brings together some of the world’s top economists, including 5 Nobel laureates, to set priorities for the world. The opinions expressed are his own. -
In this blog, I would like to share with you some of the best – and worst – ways to fix climate change. This is important because the Earth is warming up, increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide are contributing to this warming, and humankind is dumping ever-increasing amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.
