Mr. Gore, Your Solution to Global Warming Is Wrong

[MrCoffee]

The plan we are most likely to adopt to address climate change will cost far too much and do next to nothing. The fight over the science of warming is over, yes. But the debate over the solution to global warming hasn't even begun.

President Obama and other world leaders face a clear choice. They can continue on their current path — what we might call the "Gore solution" to climate change, given that the former vice-president is the fiercest advocate of cutting CO2 emissions, whether through a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade scheme.

Or, here's the truth: There are better, more cost-effective ways to fight global warming. And if we want to fight the problems that will be made worse by global warming, the solutions have very little to do with cutting CO2 emissions.

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/features/new-solutions-to-global-warming-0809?click=pp#ixzz0LRrqw4S1

[villager]

1. you ommitted the byline of Bjorn Lomborg -- industry's professional "skeptical environmentalist"

Only skeptical of the enviro side of things, oddly enough...

[MrCoffee]

3. That article doesn't read as though he's skeptical of the fact of global warming

Just of the proposed solutions.

[endarkenment]

8. Right - as that is the new goalpost.

They've conceded 'the verdict is still out' defense and are now into stalling over 'this isn't the best way'. What is the same is that they are fighting all proposals to do anything effective.

[baldguy]

9. He's one of the most prominent purveyors of deception about the causes of global warming.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjorn_Lomborg

The Skeptical Environmentalist

In 1998, Lomborg published four articles about the state of the environment in the leading Danish newspaper Politiken, which according to him "resulted in a firestorm debate spanning over 400 articles in major metropolitan newspapers."

In 2001, he attained significant attention by publishing The Skeptical Environmentalist, a controversial book whose main thesis is that many of the most-publicized claims and predictions on environmental issues are wrong.

Accusations of scientific dishonesty

After the publication of The Skeptical Environmentalist, Lomborg was accused of scientific dishonesty. Several environmental scientists brought a total of three complaints against Lomborg to the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty (DCSD), a body under Denmark's Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. The charges claimed that The Skeptical Environmentalist contained deliberately misleading data and flawed conclusions. Due to the similarity of the complaints, the DCSD decided to proceed on the three cases under one investigation.

DCSD investigation

On January 6, 2003 the DCSD reached a decision on the complaints. The ruling was a mixed message, deciding the book to be scientifically dishonest, but Lomborg himself not guilty because of lack of expertise in the fields in question:

Objectively speaking, the publication of the work under consideration is deemed to fall within the concept of scientific dishonesty. ...In view of the subjective requirements made in terms of intent or gross negligence, however, Bjørn Lomborg's publication cannot fall within the bounds of this characterization. Conversely, the publication is deemed clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice.

The DCSD cited The Skeptical Environmentalist for:

1. Fabrication of data;
2. Selective discarding of unwanted results (selective citation);
3. Deliberately misleading use of statistical methods;
4. Distorted interpretation of conclusions;
5. Plagiarism;
6. Deliberate misinterpretation of others' results.

Basically, they said Lomborg doesn't know what he's talking about.

[gratuitous]

2. And the cranks move the goalposts again

"The fight over the science of warming is over." But the battle over reining in polluters continues just as hot as ever before. And if extractive industries actually have to clean up the environmental messes they've made, why, it could lead to some of them having to pilot last year's model yacht into the marina, and you can't imagine the scorn and approbation they'll be subject to! So watch your house wash away; see your kids get cancer; watch millions starve from crop failure. But please, don't infringe on the rights of a select group of white men to amass more wealth than even Croesus dreamed of.

:cry:

See what you've done, Mr. Gore? Baby Jesus is crying!

[MrCoffee]

4. Good luck selling that argument in India

Sort of the point of the article, by spending less on cap & trade or trying to clean up an inherently dirty fuel, why not spend some of the money for reducing carbon emissions on developing cleaner tech in the first place?

[gratuitous]

6. Oh, okay

What measures should Congress enact then, to regulate industry in India? Go slow, as I'm not very smart.

[stuball111]

5. What about nukes?

As much as I hate to say it, and I have worked in construction in these places, if run right, they are virtually pollution free. Now there is the fact of the waste, but nuclear material does come from the earth in the form of a mineral, so it is there. Adequate storage is possible, until a program can be figured out that is better. This waste could be downgraded to serve as, say, medical x-ray quality stuff, or simply shot into space some day if a safe way to do that is figured out. There will come a day when it will be so blatantly obvious that C02 has to be brought to a screeching halt, and I hope we have enough wind turbines to handle the job. Another solution is to scale back usage. We are gluttons when it comes to power. We flick on lights and let them burn away, lights that use 110 volts and 100 watts for each bulb. Nobody ever addresses this fact. The 110v-100w light bulb, by the millions burns up a tremendous amount of power, and it is not necessary. A 12 volt bulb will do just as well at say, 10 or 20 watts.There are converters that you can hook up in your house to do this, and if you change every light bulb in America, or the world to 12 volt, you would save billions of kilowatt hours every day! hell, I knew a guy who set up a simple solar panel to charge a few batteries and changed all his lighting to 12 volt. But, the power companies don't want this obvious fact out there because it would cut their profits. Oh, they have these new fluorescent types of bulbs that are supposed to be more efficient, and they are a bit, but, they STILL use 110 volts! Yes, folks, the simple light bulb could be the answer to a lot of this problem.

[endarkenment]

7. " they are virtually pollution free" - ask the people of nevada about that.

I think you meant 'they have a near zero carbon footprint'. Not pollution free at all. Also hugely expensive and prohibitively so large government subsidies to cover liability and externalities. If cost is the issue (and I disagree about that - what is the cost of catastrophic climate change to society?) nuclear plants are less attractive than other near zero carbon footprint solutions.

[stuball111]

10. True

That's what I meant to say, little carbon foot print. I would much rather see wind and solar and thermo.

[Ichingcarpenter]

11. Bjørn is a joke is European scientific academia & only popular in the US

Bullshit club, He's a paid hack and has his background in economics not science.

A Professor of Statistics in the Political Science Department at Aarhus University, Lomborg acknowledges the depletion of natural resources and considers the decline in tropical rainforests a temporary phenomenon. For him, poverty and hunger are on the wane and climatic change is far from being the worst threat to humanity after war. He harshly criticizes environmentalists for cultivating a climate of fear and propagating various environmental myths, in his view to support their fundraising campaigns and strategic position in civil society. He has even dared challenge the credibility of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which says climatic change is exposing the planet’s population to serious environmental, social and economic threats in the 21st century.

Lomborg bases his statements on recent statistical data obtained by finetuning indicators on the state of the planet. His numerous detractors in academic journals accuse him of making selective, incomplete and biased use of the scientific data he tosses at the media as fodder, without regard for the disinformation and confusion this causes among the public. Prominent researchers accuse him of casting dishonour on the scientific community. "Lomborg is a joke. He draws no distinction between environmentalists and scientists," says University of Alberta Biology Professor David Schindler.

http://www.sciencepresse.qc.ca/congres/js/0303en.html


His economkic philosophies go with the Austrian school of thought