Update 10/10/07 - British Court finds inaccuracies in Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth." Judge rules it should only be shown in schools with guidance notes to prevent political indoctrination.
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David Freddoso refers to Bjorn Lomborg's article as
a must-read — a reductio ad absurdum for the Global Warming religion from someone who believes in man-made warming but sees through the hype.
Freddoso says:
Bjorn Lomborg is not a skeptic of man-made global warming. But he is a skeptic of the millennialist views of Al Gore and other adherents. The world is not coming to an end, he says, and no, Kyoto will not solve the world's problems. Nor is Global Warming the cause of all the world's problems — it might actually solve some of them.
Excerpts from Lomborg's article:
According to the first complete peer-reviewed survey of climate change's health effects, global warming will actually save lives. It's estimated that by 2050, global warming will cause almost 400,000 more heat-related deaths each year. But at the same time, 1.8 million fewer people will die from cold.
The Kyoto Protocol, with its drastic emissions cuts, is not a sensible way to stop people from dying in future heat waves. At a much lower cost, urban designers and politicians could lower temperatures more effectively by
planting trees, adding water features and reducing the amount of asphalt in at-risk cities. Estimates show that this could reduce the peak temperatures in cities by more than 20 degrees Fahrenheit.
Global warming will claim lives in another way: by increasing the number of people at risk of catching malaria by about 3 percent over this century. According to scientific models, implementing the Kyoto Protocol for the rest of this century would reduce the malaria risk by just 0.2 percent...[F]or every dollar we spend saving one person through policies like the Kyoto Protocol, we could save 36,000 through direct intervention.
...Environmentalists point out that magnificent creatures such as polar bears will be decimated by global warming as their icy habitat melts. Kyoto would save just one bear a year. Yet every year, hunters kill 300 to 500 polar bears, according to the World Conservation Union. Outlawing this slaughter would be cheap and easy — and much more effective than a worldwide pact on carbon emissions.
Wherever you look, the inescapable conclusion is the same: Reducing carbon emissions is not the best way to help the world. I don't point this out merely to be contrarian. We do need to fix global warming in the long run. But I'm frustrated at our blinkered focus on policies that won't achieve it.
Fredoso summarizes:
If you believe in Global Warming, then Lomborg is telling you that the only long term solution is economic growth (and government subsidies) that will result in development of non-carbon-based energy that is economical and practical enough to be used for industrial and residential electric generation, plus automobiles.