Cool It
Bjorn Lomborg
• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1 edition (September 4, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307266923
• ISBN-13: 978-0307266927
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #243 in Books
Review on 06 November 2007 by Donald N.
Anderson.
After
reading so many books on the science of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) it
was refreshing to read an economist’s analysis. Lomborg has brought an
intensely practical viewpoint to the debate. He dismisses the crank claims
(such as 20 foot sea level rises and starving polar bears) and picks scenarios
for which there is some serious scientific support. He does give the AGW
proponents more credit than I think they deserve, but that only makes his
calculations conservative. He assumes the political pronouncements of the IPCC
represent real science which is very disputable and is challenged by the very
scientists who wrote the chapters of the underlying report. Of course if
serious AGW does not exist, there is no need for his estimates of AGW impact.
He
covers a number of symptoms of AGW such as temperature, melting glaciers,
rising sea levels, extreme weather, flooding rivers, Gulf Stream shutdown, the
spread of disease, crop growing, and water shortages. He dismisses the more
ridiculous postulated problems (not enough in my opinion) and looks at both the
positive and negative aspects of those that remain. For example, increased
temperatures increases the number of deaths due to heat but reduces the number
of deaths due to cold. His calculations show that a modest temperature increase
will have a decisively positive effect since cold deaths greatly outnumber heat
deaths. With modern air conditioning the heat deaths can also be greatly
reduced if the populations are wealthy enough.
He
continually emphasizes the need to prioritize and spend our resources wisely
rather on fool’s errands (such as Kyoto). He shows that attempting to reduce
CO2 emissions is not a cost effective way to address these symptoms and makes a
number of suggestions for approaches that have a greater chance of improving
human welfare.
His
appeal for calm reasoned debate may well be lost in today’s newspapers where
alarmist reports are everyday occurrences and reason is an unwelcome intruder.
We need to follow Lomborg’s example and stop trying to sacrifice skeptical
scientists (like witches) to the weather gods.
He
employs a unique system of endnotes with no mention or numbers in his text at
all. The 35 page Notes section is organized by the page to which each note
refers and each note is identified with a bold fragment from the text. The note
in turn refers to the full citation in
his 42 page literature section and particularizes it where necessary. Tracing
Lomborg’s sources is quite easy since in many cases he provides the web address
and the date he retrieved it.
I
certainly hope Lomborg has some moderating influence on the rancorous AGW
debate. His advice to “Cool It” is very
badly needed.