critic of climate scientists to declare global warming a chief concern facing world

[G_j]

Bjørn Lomborg: $100bn a year needed to fight climate change

Exclusive 'Skeptical Environmentalist' and critic of climate scientists to declare global warming a chief concern facing world

Juliette Jowit
guardian.co.uk, Monday 30 August 2010

The world's most high-profile climate change sceptic is to declare that global warming is "undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the world today" and "a challenge humanity must confront", in an apparent U-turn that will give a huge boost to the embattled environmental lobby.

Bjørn Lomborg, the self-styled "sceptical environmentalist" once compared to Adolf Hitler by the UN's climate chief, is famous for attacking climate scientists, campaigners, the media and others for exaggerating the rate of global warming and its effects on humans, and the costly waste of policies to stop the problem.

But in a new book to be published next month, Lomborg will call for tens of billions of dollars a year to be invested in tackling climate change. "Investing $100bn annually would mean that we could essentially resolve the climate change problem by the end of this century," the book concludes.

Examining eight methods to reduce or stop global warming, Lomborg and his fellow economists recommend pouring money into researching and developing clean energy sources such as wind, wave, solar and nuclear power, and more work on climate engineering ideas such as "cloud whitening" to reflect the sun's heat back into the outer atmosphere.


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[DCBob]

1. It would be useful for this person to explain in detail why the "u-turn"..

That might help the cause even more because many will look at this and say he is just trying to sell a book.

[G_j]

3. an extreme turn around like this

warrants scrutiny. If he's sincere, great! Why was he so aggressive in his crusade against global warming science?

[Radical Activist]

2. I already smell bullsiht.

Bush said climate change was real too. His so-called solutions were really delay tactics. We don't need research into far-fetched ideas. We need money spent on immediate, concrete action right now. Many of the actions we need to take are ready.

This guy is a fraud and I don't believe he has changed his stripes.

[bherrera]

4. Where does the money we need come from?

My friend, one problem I see is, where does this money we need come from? It is easy to speak, but it is much more difficult to be specific, and have a specific answer which makes economic sense. I have some ideas, but I don't think it is so easy. For example, the USA should impose a tax on liquid fuels similar to the tax we have in Europe. This tax can be introduced gradually to help the American people change, but you do need to change, and drive much smaller and fuel efficient vehicles. I have a diesel powered Spanish car which achieves more than 50 miles per US gallon, and it is fairly large. As you like to say, you guys have to bite the bullets.

[RainDog]

5. Legalize Hemp. if 12% of America's farmland was devoted to hemp cultivation...

we could replace fossil fuel use with hemp oil, biomass and hemp rather than petrol products.

since hemp is far closer to carbon neutral - all that is required to create MASSIVE change in our approach to sustainable and environmentally responsible living is to stop pretending that hemp is a dangerous plant.

That would require politicians in America, however, to care more about this nation and this planet than any political points they could score by pretending hemp should be illegal.

http://www.greenlivingtips.com/articles/72/1/Hemp-facts.html