I think this is a MUST PASS (for this informed sustainability advocate). I have more accurate data to ingest.

Bjorn Lomborg is a statistician. He is controversial, and a climate skeptic. I'll pay attention to him when he gets his doctorate in climatology. We know what a clever statistician can do with numbers, especially when one suffers from denial.

Climate skeptics thrive when denial comes up among a population of relative scientific illiterates. He also does well with the mathematically challenged set who've forgotten their exponentials.

His critique can be found at: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/10/demolishing_lom.php

I'd rather listen to the great climatologists like James Hansen (who I've met, and communicate with), James Lovelock, and Jérôme Chappelaz
Posted by Larry Menkes

well always good to listen to thoughts & ideas & opinions. 'ample room for skepticism, however, as this mag is hardly a scientific journal, genuine scientific journals have not been kind to his “facts” or methods, and the undeniable fact that he is a full blown self- promotion mega machine. it’s always a good bet to create your own institute or organization as well and use it to justify your own conclusions as he has done. glad that you brought this up as surely not many of us read esquire. great picture of what’s her name [?] to the right of the article.
Posted by Bob Hovey Management Recruiters of the North Fork

You have a very good solution. the intent of Al Gore, and B. Obama however is not necessarily to reduce Carbon, but to increase government control and to satisfy the the 'enviro-socialists'.
Posted by Mark Oleszko

Some thoughts. The reduction of only 0.3 degrees C would mean we would still see substantial increases from 2009 temperatures, but that they would be about a third of a degree less than business-as-usual. This is because CO2 and other greenhouse gases are long-lived. What is in the atmosphere today will, for the most part, still be here in 2100, so we've already cast the dice for our great-grandchildren. It will get hotter, despite what we do today. Just how hot - that is the question.

I think the misperception is that money spent on what the writer refers to as "the Gore Solution" is universally a bad idea. Forced, extreme cuts in CO2 will undoubtedly cause problems elsewhere. It makes no sense to throw out the baby with the bathwater. By the same token, making cuts where they can be made is a good idea. Gore's not completely wrong.
Posted by Joe Van Gompel

I didn't know there was anyone left in the ULI still susceptible to information .

Sustainable is code for coercion by statists that don't beleive in property rights or the native ability of free people to develop best practices - the brain trust that is shoving density on us first gave to us planned unit developments.
Posted by Daniel K. Meyer

Grant, great article. I think more debate on climate change is worthy. I have attached a link to a site that studies the interaction of the Sun and the gas giants in our solar system. As you may know we detect planets around far away stars due to their gas giants forcing a wobble on their stars. It is a little long but a great read.

http://www.schulphysik.de/klima/landscheidt/iceage.htm
Posted by Walter Horsting (visionar@comcast.net)

What do you mean he got it wrong? Gore's net worth has gone from just over $1million to nearly $100million in about 7 years! Sounds like he got something right!
Posted by Ron Dodson

Great article! By the way Mr. Gore lives in Nashville and yes we have had 2-3 days of the coldest in July recorded since the late 1800's.
Posted by Amy Fuge

I stand corrected. Must have read too many of Grisham's books.
Posted by Boris Feldblyum

I heard today (no time to verify, sorry) that yesterday was the coldest July 21 in Memphis (Gore's town) since the 1860's or 70's.
Posted by Boris Feldblyum

Grant, excellent find! I have been arguing against this false science for many years now and it has felt at times like the noise a tree makes in the forest when no one is around. Loudbut very lonely!
Posted by Mike Landfair

Grant, I wonder if our readers have noticed that 'global warming' morphed into 'climate change' when it became apparent that we might actually be faced with a global COOLING trend in the years to come? Man's effect on the temperature of the earth's atmosphere is minute compared to the sun's, which is currently in a "deep minimum". If the sun's 'deep minimum' continues, global cooling will be impossible to arrest. Effort to reverse or minimize a presumed 'global warming' (if it has any effect at all) will only deepen global cooling. Think about that for a while!

We should focus our efforts on alternative energy for the right reasons, like its promise to reduce costs and improve availabilty, but not climate change. If we want to spend time on climate change, we should find ways to adapt to it, because there's no way we're going to have an effect -- it's way bigger than we are.
Posted by Don Crowe

Maybe Gore's science is good or maybe it isn't. Science does not produce 100% truth, it is a process. There are good scientists working on climate change and they disagree on many things. The only ones with scientific credibility, however, are the ones who go where the research leads them. Those with an agenda are dismissed in the academic world, although you are not likely to see that on the front page of the NY Post. Believe me, scientists are cutthroat. Peer review is rigorous, daunting and humbling. Again, however, it does not make great news. Consequently, for you to scoff at their work in the ignorant belief that if they don't find the proverbial "smoking gun" shows a true lack of understanding in how science works.

Spouting out anecdotal data like "coldest" this and "coldest day" that over a tiny amount of time is stupid. A single datum point means nothing. Besides, we are talking about "climate change" not "global warming". The general warming of the globe may make some places colder, some warmer, some dryer, some wetter... Yapping on and on about "global warming" and how cold it was yesterday shows a horrible lack of understanding about how research works.

Al Gore is a good guy and he is trying to fix a problem using the constantly shifting scientific information he has. You can't wait to have all the facts before you start taking action. If you do you will never start. If it turns out that CO2 is not the problem, then you will see concerned persons--like Gore--change his methods.

I work at a natural history museum and this is how science works. It is messy, Very messy. But if you want to criticize it you'd better know what you are talking about and not site some random article in the layman's press. You do your homework before you open your mouth. This article makes many statements, but I see no footnotes. You can say anything you want; where is the evidence sited? You need to be very skeptical when you read pseudoscientific articles. Who is to say what is true and not true in this article? Just because you wish something to be true does not make it true. Don't you remember you mom telling you not to believe everything you read? That is still good advice.
Posted by Michael Brown

Al Gore didn't get it wrong. Al Gore proffited greatly from mining for coal as a fuel until that activity became unprofitable then he found a way to profit even more by denouncing the use of fossil fuel and he has flown his private jet worldwide to make speaking engagements telling others to change their lifestyle. While claimimg to be the answer to the problem he has multiplied his personal wealth and influence far above it's previous levels.
Posted by Robert K. (Bob) McIntire

Makes a lot of good points. Politicians will spend a lot of money (borrowed) or other peoples money (higher costs) and acheive very little in the long run. But they can proclaim they did something. In the long run they will have done nothing & made life harder for the general guy just trying to live. Are you listening Congress?
Posted by Dana Miller

Three big problems with Lomborg's proposition:

(1) He claims that cost-benefit analysis allegedly shows that limiting CO2 emissions is not cost-effective, but gives no evidence for this; and Nicholas Stern's definitive economic study (commissioned by the UK Treasury --not exactly a radical group !!) shows just the contrary.

Here are the URLs. The first one is for the UK government study; the other is for Stern's article in the (peer-reviewed) American Economic Journal:

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/sternreview_index.htm

(Note: the study executive summary and report can be downloaded as pdf files)

http://www.atypon-link.com/AEAP/doi/abs/10.1257/aer.98.2.1 f

(2) Lomborg makes up for lack of evidence by wild claims (e.g. alternative energy sources are "incredibly inefficient". What does that mean? Where is the evidence?)

(3) It is glaringly obvious that Lomborg (a favorite of the coal and oil lobby) is in bad faith about all this. I have been around long enough to remember that until a couple of years ago, Lomborg was denying the existence of climate change entirely. Now he's adopted the same fall-back position as the Republican far-right: "yes, climate change is real, but it's so bad, so inevitable, and so costly to fix it, that we should just forget the whole thing". Not exactly a credible source of counsel, is he?
Posted by Michael Tyler

Michael, you write, "If it turns out that CO2 is not the problem, then you will see concerned persons--like Gore--change his methods."

I'm sorry, I disagree with you. Many, many scientists have pointed any number of times that temperatures go up THEN CO2 goes up. Al Gore wants you to believe the reverse and he continues to speak this untruth and has no doubt when he talks. He has not once changed that part of the movie "The Inconvenient Truth". As for (gasp) global warming, the name was changed to climate change. No one argues with climate change!

By the way, how can you be so cocksure that GHG are changing the climate for the worse. Since the beginning of this century, NOAA has recorded NO increase in global temperatures, in fact the earth has cooled and the output of CO@ is higher in the last ten years.

Silly me, but my paper gives me the weather for only the next 10 days. When it can forecast the weather with certainty on my birthday 6 months from now or 1 1/2 years from now I might start paying attention to the doomsters predicting disaster after my grand children are gone from this planet.
Posted by Mike Landfair

Hi Grant, this is an interesting use of statistics and as we know, there are lies, damned lies and statistics.

This is not a case of either or, as the article indicates, it is a case of doing as much as we can in all areas.

On the safari - you can't turn a large part of Africa into agricultural land, it lacks the water, infrastructure and it would be detrimental to the people who live there - they don't own the land in the sense of having paid for it but this does not give others the right to evict them or the animals that live there.

The malaria analogy is spurious. The disease is spreading to other areas with global warming and as with other diseases, persists.

Auto accidents and the developing world - true, so teach road safety as part of the driving test and stop multinationals and others from bribing local officials to permit the use of unsafe vehicles.

One could just as easily argue that the richest 1% of the population should be taxed at 95% for the next 10 tears, which would easily pay for the improvements needed - leaving them only a few million + a year each for private expenses.

regards
Posted by martin hogan

Here are some more "must reads for the informed": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B8rn_Lomborg , http://www.mindfully.org/GE/2003/Bjorn-Lomborg-Dishonesty7jan02.htm
Posted by Herbert Eppel

Extremely interesting. One thing that confused me is Bjorn wants money spent on creating efficient, cost competitive renewal energy technologies rather than the Gore plan of cutting emissions. I absolutely agree. However, wouldn't this take years to develop and what happens in the meantime to help businesses to reduce their footprint?
Posted by Anna Hackman

Well-stated Don - thank you!
Posted by Mark Vieaux (markv@prgnc.com)

Interesting article. However, as we lived this last century without thinking about our planet, it has come the time, that we take responsability and start acting now no matter the cost. Cutting emissions can be done rather rapidly. Today energy is very cheap almost all over the world.
Just increasing the cost of energy via taxes can reduce dramatically it´s use ( and reduces CO2 output ) and creates the funds necessary to finance the other emission cutting programs. Obviously not a popular method - but extremely efficient.
This will also increse the green building efforts as people will have to build more efficiently, increase thermal insulation, etc.
Posted by Caspar Menke

Thank you for sharing this! I would like people who are on board with the issue of global warming to read it.
Posted by Corinne Cain

It is all about the Sun's wobble caused by the Gas Giants and the Earth's own orbit & spin variations. For the past 2 million years 90% of the time the earth is in an ice age. Here is a great link on the mechanics...
http://www.schulphysik.de/klima/landscheidt/iceage.htm
Posted by Walter Horsting (visionar@comcast.net)

This is an excellent article. The basis of the numbers is not well documented, but the thought process is sound. As a wealthy nation, it is typical to pursue secondary social issues. If you look at midevil european history, the dark ages had little cultural development in the arts or buildings. But once the climate warmed and the crops provided more food, the culture turned to secondary issues such as the arts and construction. All of the great cathedrals were build in the prosperous (warm) period following the dark ages. So as a socieety, we must direct our economic priorities to best benefit both our society and the world's most vulnerable.
Posted by Eric Hansen