An Inconvenient Truth

mckai777 said:

That's a bit cynical, don't you think? And, shouldn't you right-wingers be concerned anyway about the state of God's green Earth? He entrusted it to your care (the Bible tells me so, and it's infallible, of course), yet it seems to me that the most strident anti-green sentiment comes from those on the conservative end of the spectrum.

Republicans, while focused intensely on garnering the vote of a vocal religious minority with what are peripheral issues at best (abortion, gay rights), yet still ignoring the more immediate and pressing matter of good foreign policy, continue to wage successful campaigns against their opponents. I do not understand this, but the Democrats have been far too timid as of late.

The well-document "ABC" (Anything But Clinton) agenda currently employed by the Bush administration is typical of a party whose members are misguided and inept at best, and bloated and corrupt at worst.

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It's not Anti-Green. It's Pro economics.

The Rebublicans took a lesson from the Democrats. Scare the hell out everyone and shout louder. Today they're louder. Tomorrow it will be the Dems who up the loudspeaker volume.

If you want to call the Bush administration miguided and inept, I can point out plenty of the same from Clinton, Gore and others currently or used to be in office.

Inept. If Ms. Hillary hadn't been such a snitty bitch and kept it all as secret as possible, we might just have gotten the wonderful healthcare system modeled after the Brits, French and Canadians. No offense you folks. You want to talk about Big Brother. Just wait and see if she gets elected. At least now we know what's being shoved up our asses. She gets in we won't know until it's coming out our noses.

MJL

mckai777 said:

That's a bit cynical, don't you think? And, shouldn't you right-wingers be concerned anyway about the state of God's green Earth? He entrusted it to your care (the Bible tells me so, and it's infallible, of course), yet it seems to me that the most strident anti-green sentiment comes from those on the conservative end of the spectrum.

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OK, lets get down to specifics. I lived in Cape Cod. The area around Provincetown is a desert, with giant sand dunes. The reason for the sand dunes is a matter of historical fact. The area was a common pasture and the locals grazed their animals on it until the remaining vegetation was insufficient to hold the soil together and the weather created sand dunes. I also took a vacation trip. We stopped and had a little picnic in a nice forest setting. The forest was owned by a lumber company. It was a nice forest, because the lumber company had to manage the land as a reusable resource. The lumber company guys were not good guys, just guys determined to make a profit over the coming yuears as well as today.

mckai777 said:

Republicans, while focused intensely on garnering the vote of a vocal religious minority with what are peripheral issues at best (abortion, gay rights), yet still ignoring the more immediate and pressing matter of good foreign policy, continue to wage successful campaigns against their opponents. I do not understand this, but the Democrats have been far too timid as of late.

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I am not a Republican. My ancient religion is suppressed and against the law in almost every country. If you think that negotiations with Islamic terroist organizations are going to produce anything but more terror, you need professional help.

mckai777 said:

The well-document "ABC" (Anything But Clinton) agenda currently employed by the Bush administration is typical of a party whose members are misguided and inept at best, and bloated and corrupt at worst.

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I don't have an anything but Clinton outlook. In fact, I tried to get my Republican Cogressman to get me the chance to bid on a blowjob franchise for the White House. If Clinton can do it, why not me? Despite the fact that I was willing to give Hillary and Chelsea a chance to earn a little honest money, my Republican Congressman would not even address the issue. Don't try to tell me typical.

mjl2010 said:

If you want to call the Bush administration miguided and inept, I can point out plenty of the same from Clinton, Gore and others currently or used to be in office.

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A point on which we can agree. People (unlike the Bible) have a tendency to be fallible. However, I'd like to think that Clinton sought to act as best he could under the circumstances and given what information was available to him at the time, as opposed to the patently willful ignorance and blatant disregard for the rule of law displayed by our current president.

R. Richard said:

If you think that negotiations with Islamic terroist organizations are going to produce anything but more terror, you need professional help.

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To my knowledge, the United States does not currently negotiate with any known terrorist organizations.

Suprised? Rich guy, big house. (Perhaps 20 times bigger then the average in square feet? That'll up the power bill accordingly.)

I'm sorry, what was the gas mileage on that Abrams tank again? And how many do we have deployed? And what kind of emissions standards do they conform to? And how does that compare to Al's energy consumption?

The Gore's have money. They have a big house. I'm sorry, I thought by Repug standards that meant they were to be given tax breaks and treated like American aristocracy?

Oh. Right. He's better liked than W, according to the popular vote in that election. Means that if not Satan Incarnate, he is at least a fairly major demon...

My mistake.

edit: Liar, it surprises me not at all that we had that thought at the same time...*high 5*

Will Al Gore Melt?

By FLEMMING ROSE and BJORN LOMBORG

Al Gore is traveling around the world telling us how we must fundamentally change our civilization due to the threat of global warming. Today he is in Denmark to disseminate this message. But if we are to embark on the costliest political project ever, maybe we should make sure it rests on solid ground. It should be based on the best facts, not just the convenient ones. This was the background for the biggest Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, to set up an investigative interview with Mr. Gore. And for this, the paper thought it would be obvious to team up with Bjorn Lomborg, author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist," who has provided one of the clearest counterpoints to Mr. Gore's tune.

The interview had been scheduled for months. Mr. Gore's agent yesterday thought Gore-meets-Lomborg would be great. Yet an hour later, he came back to tell us that Bjorn Lomborg should be excluded from the interview because he's been very critical of Mr. Gore's message about global warming and has questioned Mr. Gore's evenhandedness. According to the agent, Mr. Gore only wanted to have questions about his book and documentary, and only asked by a reporter. These conditions were immediately accepted by Jyllands-Posten. Yet an hour later we received an email from the agent saying that the interview was now cancelled. What happened?


One can only speculate. But if we are to follow Mr. Gore's suggestions of radically changing our way of life, the costs are not trivial. If we slowly change our greenhouse gas emissions over the coming century, the U.N. actually estimates that we will live in a warmer but immensely richer world. However, the U.N. Climate Panel suggests that if we follow Al Gore's path down toward an environmentally obsessed society, it will have big consequences for the world, not least its poor. In the year 2100, Mr. Gore will have left the average person 30% poorer, and thus less able to handle many of the problems we will face, climate change or no climate change.

Clearly we need to ask hard questions. Is Mr. Gore's world a worthwhile sacrifice? But it seems that critical questions are out of the question. It would have been great to ask him why he only talks about a sea-level rise of 20 feet. In his movie he shows scary sequences of 20-feet flooding Florida, San Francisco, New York, Holland, Calcutta, Beijing and Shanghai. But were realistic levels not dramatic enough? The U.N. climate panel expects only a foot of sea-level rise over this century. Moreover, sea levels actually climbed that much over the past 150 years. Does Mr. Gore find it balanced to exaggerate the best scientific knowledge available by a factor of 20?

Mr. Gore says that global warming will increase malaria and highlights Nairobi as his key case. According to him, Nairobi was founded right where it was too cold for malaria to occur. However, with global warming advancing, he tells us that malaria is now appearing in the city. Yet this is quite contrary to the World Health Organization's finding. Today Nairobi is considered free of malaria, but in the 1920s and '30s, when temperatures were lower than today, malaria epidemics occurred regularly. Mr. Gore's is a convenient story, but isn't it against the facts?

He considers Antarctica the canary in the mine, but again doesn't tell the full story. He presents pictures from the 2% of Antarctica that is dramatically warming and ignores the 98% that has largely cooled over the past 35 years. The U.N. panel estimates that Antarctica will actually increase its snow mass this century. Similarly, Mr. Gore points to shrinking sea ice in the Northern Hemisphere, but don't mention that sea ice in the Southern Hemisphere is increasing. Shouldn't we hear those facts? Mr. Gore talks about how the higher temperatures of global warming kill people. He specifically mentions how the European heat wave of 2003 killed 35,000. But he entirely leaves out how global warming also means less cold and saves lives. Moreover, the avoided cold deaths far outweigh the number of heat deaths. For the U.K. it is estimated that 2,000 more will die from global warming. But at the same time 20,000 fewer will die of cold. Why does Mr. Gore tell only one side of the story?

Al Gore is on a mission. If he has his way, we could end up choosing a future, based on dubious claims, that could cost us, according to a U.N. estimate, $553 trillion over this century. Getting answers to hard questions is not an unreasonable expectation before we take his project seriously. It is crucial that we make the right decisions posed by the challenge of global warming. These are best achieved through open debate, and we invite him to take the time to answer our questions: We are ready to interview you any time, Mr. Gore -- and anywhere.

Mr. Rose is culture editor of Jyllands-Posten, in Copenhagen. Mr. Lomborg is a professor at the Copenhagen Business School.

mckai777 said:

To my knowledge, the United States does not currently negotiate with any known terrorist organizations.

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The United States states has Secy of State Rice negotiating with the PA. The PA is a known and proven terrorist organization with a written charter that dedicates it to the destruction of Israel, a member state of the UN. The US is allowing the UN to negotitate with Iran which has been caught with illegal nuclear enrichment. The UN is also negotitating with Syria. Syria is the only point of transfer for the illegal weaponry that Hizbollah used against Israeli civilians.

Stern Report Review
By BJORN LOMBORG

The report on climate change by Nicholas Stern and the U.K. government has sparked publicity and scary headlines around the world. Much attention has been devoted to Mr. Stern's core argument that the price of inaction would be extraordinary and the cost of action modest.

Unfortunately, this claim falls apart when one actually reads the 700-page tome. Despite using many good references, the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change is selective and its conclusion flawed. Its fear-mongering arguments have been sensationalized, which is ultimately only likely to make the world worse off.

* * *
The review correctly points out that climate change is a real problem, and that it is caused by human greenhouse-gas emissions. Little else is right, however, and the report seems hastily put-together, with many sloppy errors. As an example, the cost of hurricanes in the U.S. is said to be both 0.13% of U.S. GDP and 10 times that figure.


The review is also one-sided, focusing almost exclusively on carbon-emission cuts as the solution to the problem of climate change. Mr. Stern sees increasing hurricane damage in the U.S. as a powerful argument for carbon controls. However, hurricane damage is increasing predominantly because there are more people with more goods to be damaged, settling in ever more risky habitats. Even if global warming does significantly increase the power of hurricanes, it is estimated that 95% to 98% of the increased damage will be due to demographics. The review acknowledges that simple initiatives like bracing and securing roof trusses and walls can cheaply reduce damage by more than 80%; yet its policy recommendations on expensive carbon reductions promise to cut the damages by 1% to 2% at best. That is a bad deal.

Mr. Stern is also selective, often seeming to cherry-pick statistics to fit an argument. This is demonstrated most clearly in the review's examination of the social damage costs of CO2 -- essentially the environmental cost of emitting each extra ton of CO2. The most well-recognized climate economist in the world is probably Yale University's William Nordhaus, whose "approach is perhaps closest in spirit to ours," according to the Stern review. Mr. Nordhaus finds that the social cost of CO2 is $2.50 per ton. Mr. Stern, however, uses a figure of $85 per ton. Picking a rate even higher than the official U.K. estimates -- that have themselves been criticized for being over the top -- speaks volumes.

Mr. Stern tells us that the cost of U.K. flooding will quadruple to 0.4% from 0.1% of GDP due to climate change. However, we are not told that these alarming figures only hold true if one assumes that the U.K. will take no additional measures -- essentially doing absolutely nothing and allowing itself to get flooded, perhaps time and again. In contrast, the U.K. government's own assumptions take into account a modest increase in flood prevention, finding that the cost will actually decline sharply to 0.04% of U.K. GDP, in spite of climate change. Why does Mr. Stern not share that information?

But nowhere is the imbalance clearer than in Mr. Stern's central argument about the costs and benefits of action on climate change. The review tells us that we should make significant cuts in carbon emissions to stabilize the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide at 550 ppm (parts per million). Yet such a stark recommendation is not matched by an explicit explanation of what this would mean in terms of temperature.

The U.N. Climate Panel estimates that stabilizing at 550 ppm would mean an increase in temperature of about 2.3 degrees Celsius in the year 2100. This might be several degrees below what would otherwise happen, but it might also be higher. Mr. Nordhaus estimates that the stabilization policy would reduce the rise in temperature from 2.53 degrees Celsius to just 2.42 degrees Celsius. One can understand the reluctance of the Stern review to advertise such a puny effect.

Most economists were surprised by Mr. Stern's large economic estimates of damage from global warming. Mr. Nordhaus's model, for example, anticipates 3% will be wiped off global GDP if nothing is done over the coming century, taking into account the risk for catastrophes. The Stern review purports to show that the cost is "larger than many earlier studies suggested."

On the face of it, Mr. Stern actually accepts Mr. Nordhaus's figure: Even including risks of catastrophe and non-market costs, he agrees that an increase of four degrees Celsius will cost about 3% of GDP. But he assumes that we will continue to pump out carbon far into the 22nd century -- a rather unlikely scenario given the falling cost of alternative fuels, and especially if some of his predictions become clear to us toward the end of this century. Thus he estimates that the higher temperatures of eight degrees Celsius in the 2180s will be very damaging, costing 11% to 14% of GDP.

The Stern review then analyzes what the cost would be if everyone in the present and the future paid equally. Suddenly the cost estimate is not 0% now and 3% in 2100 -- but 11% of GDP right now and forever. If this seems like a trick, it is certainly underscored by the fact that the Stern review picks an extremely low discount rate, which makes the cost look much more ominous now.

But even 11% is not the last word. Mr. Stern suggests that there is a risk that the cost of global warming will be higher than the top end of the U.N. climate panel's estimates, inventing, in effect, a "worst-case scenario" even worse than any others on the table. Therefore, the estimated damage to GDP jumps to 15% from 11%. Moreover, Mr. Stern admonishes that poor people count for less in the economic calculus, so he then inflates 15% to 20%.

This figure, 20%, was the number that rocketed around the world, although it is simply a much-massaged reworking of the standard 3% GDP cost in 2100 -- a figure accepted among most economists to be a reasonable estimate.

Likewise, Mr. Stern readjusts the cost of dealing with climate change. The U.N. found that the cost of 550 ppm stabilization would be somewhere around 0.2% to 3.2% of GDP today; he reports that costs could lie between -4% and 15% of GDP. The -4% is based on the suggestion that cutting carbon emissions could make us richer because revenue recycling could address inefficiencies in taxation -- but the alleged inefficiencies, if correct, should be addressed no matter what the policies about climate change. The reason Mr. Stern nevertheless finds a very low cost estimate is because he only considers models with so-called Induced Technological Change. These models are known to reduce costs by about two percentage points because carbon cuts lead to an increase in research and development, which again makes further cuts cheaper. Thus Mr. Stern concludes that the costs are on average 1% of GDP, and in the summary actually claims that this is a maximum cost.

* * *
The Stern review's cornerstone argument for immediate and strong action now is based on the suggestion that doing nothing about climate change costs 20% of GDP now, and doing something only costs 1%. However, this argument hinges on three very problematic assumptions.

First, it assumes that if we act, we will not still have to pay. But this is not so -- Mr. Stern actually tells us that his solution is "already associated with significant risks." Second, it requires the cost of action to be as cheap as he tells us -- and on this front his numbers are at best overly optimistic. Third, and most importantly, it requires the cost of doing nothing to be a realistic assumption: But the 20% of GDP figure is inflated by an unrealistically pessimistic vision of the 22nd century, and by an extreme and unrealistically low discount rate. According to the background numbers in Mr. Stern's own report, climate change will cost us 0% now and 3% of GDP in 2100, a much more informative number than the 20% now and forever.

In other words: Given reasonable inputs, most cost-benefit models show that dramatic and early carbon reductions cost more than the good they do. Mr. Stern's attempt to challenge that understanding is based on a chain of unlikely assumptions.

Moreover, there is a fourth major problem in Mr. Stern's argument that has received very little attention. It seems naïve to believe that the world's 192 nations can flawlessly implement Mr. Stern's multitrillion-dollar, century-long policy proposal. Will nobody try to avoid its obligations? Why would China and India even participate? And even if China got on board, would it be able to implement the policies? In 2002, China decided to cut sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions by 10% -- they are now 27% higher despite SO2 being nationally a much bigger health and environmental problem than climate change.

* * *
Why does all this matter? It matters because, with clever marketing and sensationalist headlines, the Stern review is about to edge its way into our collective consciousness. The suggestion that flooding will overwhelm us has already been picked up by commentators, yet going back to the background reports properly shows declining costs from flooding and fewer people at risk. The media is now quoting Mr. Stern's suggestion that climate change will wreak financial devastation that will wipe 20% off GDP, explicitly evoking memories of past financial catastrophes such as the Great Depression or World War II; yet the review clearly tells us that costs will be 0% now and just 3% in 2100.

It matters because Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and Nicholas Stern all profess that one of the major reasons that they want to do something about climate change is because it will hit the world's poor the hardest. Using a worse-than-worst-case scenario, Mr. Stern warns that the wealth of South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa will be reduced by 10% to 13% in 2100 and suggests that effect would lead to 145 million more poor people.

Faced with such alarmist suggestions, spending just 1% of GDP or $450 billion each year to cut carbon emissions seems on the surface like a sound investment. In fact, it is one of the least attractive options. Spending just a fraction of this figure -- $75 billion -- the U.N. estimates that we could solve all the world's major basic problems. We could give everyone clean drinking water, sanitation, basic health care and education right now. Is that not better?

We know from economic models that dealing just with malaria could provide economic boosts to the order of 1% extra GDP growth per capita per year. Even making a very conservative estimate that solving all the major basic issues would induce just 2% extra growth, 100 years from now each individual in the developing world would be more than 700% richer. That truly trivializes Mr. Stern's 10% to 13% estimates for South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Last weekend in New York, I asked 24 U.N. ambassadors -- from nations including China, India and the U.S. -- to prioritize the best solutions for the world's greatest challenges, in a project known as Copenhagen Consensus. They looked at what spending money to combat climate change and other major problems could achieve. They found that the world should prioritize the need for better health, nutrition, water, sanitation and education, long before we turn our attention to the costly mitigation of global warning.

We all want a better world. But we must not let ourselves be swept up in making a bad investment, simply because we have been scared by sensationalist headlines.

November 2, 2006

Mr. Lomborg, author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist" (Cambridge, 2001), teaches at the Copenhagen Business School and is director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center.
__________________

Here's an extra $50 billion for good works: How will you spend it?


Interview with Bjorn Lomborg - "Get Your Priorities Right"
By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
July 8, 2006

NEW YORK -- Bjorn Lomborg is a political scientist by training, but the charismatic, golden-haired Dane is offering me a history lesson. Two hundred years ago, he explains, sitting forward in his chair in this newspaper's Manhattan offices, the left was an "incredibly rational movement." It believed in "encyclopedias," in hard facts, and in the idea that mastery of these basics would help "make a better society." Since then, the world's do-gooders have succumbed to "romanticism; they've become more dreamy." This is a problem in his view, and so this "self-avowed slight lefty" is determined to nudge the whole world back toward "rationalism."

Well, if not the whole world, at least the people who matter. In Mr. Lomborg's universe that means the lawmakers and bureaucrats who are charged with solving the world's most pressing problems -- HIV/AIDS, malaria, malnutrition, dirty water, trade barriers. This once-obscure Dane has in recent years risen to the status of international celebrity as the chief advocate of getting leaders to realize the world has limited resources to fix its problems, and that it therefore needs to prioritize.

Prioritization, cost-effectiveness, efficiency -- these are the ultimate in rational thinking. (It strikes me they are the ultimate in "free markets," though Mr. Lomborg studiously avoids that term.) They are also nearly unheard-of concepts among the governments, international bodies and aid groups that oversee good works.

Mr. Lomborg's approach has been to organize events around the globe in which leaders are forced to think in new ways. His task is certainly timely, with groups like the U.N. engaged in debate over "reform," and philanthropists such as Warren Buffett throwing billions at charitable foundations. But, I ask, can the world really become more rational? "It's no use just talking about all the great things you'd like to accomplish -- we've got to get there," says Mr. Lomborg.

* * *
Bjorn Lomborg busted -- and that is the only word for it -- onto the world scene in 2001 with the publication of his book "The Skeptical Environmentalist." A one-time Greenpeace enthusiast, he'd originally planned to disprove those who said the environment was getting better. He failed. And to his credit, his book said so, supplying a damning critique of today's environmental pessimism. Carefully researched, it offered endless statistics -- from official sources such as the U.N. -- showing that from biodiversity to global warming, there simply were no apocalypses in the offing. "Our history shows that we solve more problems than we create," he tells me. For his efforts, Mr. Lomborg was labeled a heretic by environmental groups -- whose fundraising depends on scaring the jeepers out of the public -- and became more hated by these alarmists than even (if possible) President Bush.

Yet the experience left Mr. Lomborg with a taste for challenging conventional wisdom. In 2004, he invited eight of the world's top economists -- including four Nobel Laureates -- to Copenhagen, where they were asked to evaluate the world's problems, think of the costs and efficiencies attached to solving each, and then produce a prioritized list of those most deserving of money. The well-publicized results (and let it be said here that Mr. Lomborg is no slouch when it comes to promoting himself and his work) were stunning. While the economists were from varying political stripes, they largely agreed. The numbers were just so compelling: $1 spent preventing HIV/AIDS would result in about $40 of social benefits, so the economists put it at the top of the list (followed by malnutrition, free trade and malaria). In contrast, $1 spent to abate global warming would result in only about two cents to 25 cents worth of good; so that project dropped to the bottom.

"Most people, average people, when faced with these clear choices, would pick the $40-of-good project over others -- that's rational," says Mr. Lomborg. "The problem is that most people are simply presented with a menu of projects, with no prices and no quantities. What the Copenhagen Consensus was trying to do was put the slices and prices on a menu. And then require people to make choices."

Easier said than done. As Mr. Lomborg explains, "It's fine to ask economists to prioritize, but economists don't run the world." (This sounds unfortunate to me, although Mr. Lomborg, the "slight lefty," quickly adds "Thank God.") "We now need to get the policy makers on board, the ones who are dealing with the world's problems." And therein lies the rub. Political figures don't like to make choices; they don't like to reward some groups and not others; they don't like to admit that they can't do it all. They are political. Not rational.

So all the more credit to Mr. Lomborg, who several weeks ago got his first big shot at reprogramming world leaders. His organization, the Copenhagen Consensus Center, held a new version of the exercise in Georgetown. In attendance were eight U.N. ambassadors, including John Bolton. (China and India signed on, though no Europeans.) They were presented with global projects, the merits of each of which were passionately argued by experts in those fields. Then they were asked: If you had an extra $50 billion, how would you prioritize your spending?

Mr. Lomborg grins and says that before the event he briefed the ambassadors: "Several of them looked down the list and said 'Wait, I want to put a No. 1 by each of these projects, they are all so important.' And I had to say, 'Yeah, uh, that's exactly the point of this exercise -- to make you not do that.'" So rank they did. And perhaps no surprise, their final list looked very similar to that of the wise economists. At the top were better health care, cleaner water, more schools and improved nutrition. At the bottom was . . . global warming.

Wondering how all this might go over with Al Gore, I ask Mr. Lomborg if he'd seen the former vice president's new film that warns of a climate-change disaster. He's planning to, but notes he wasn't impressed by the trailers: "It appears to be so overblown that it isn't helpful to the discussion." Not that Mr. Lomborg doesn't think global warming is a problem -- he does. But he lays out the facts. "The proposed way of fixing this -- to drastically reduce carbon emissions now and to solve a 100-year problem in a 10-year time frame, is just a bad idea. You do fairly little good at a fairly high price. It makes more sense to solve the 100-year problem in a 50-year time frame, and solve the 10-year problems, like HIV-AIDS, in a five-year time frame. That makes sense, and is the smart way to spend money."

Slipping into his environmentalist's shoes, he also says people need to get some perspective. "The U.N. tells us global warming will result in a sea-level change of one to two feet. It is not going to be the 30 feet Al Gore is scaring us with. Is this one to two feet going to be a problem? Sure," he says. "But remember that this past century sea levels rose between one-third and a full foot. And if you ask old people today what the most important things were that happened in the 20th century, do you think they are going to say: 'Two world wars, the internal combustion engine, the IT revolution . . . and sea levels rose'? It's not to say it isn't a problem. But we fix these problems."

* * *
There is already talk of a bigger U.N. event in the fall. Still, it strikes me that simply getting the top folks to prioritize (which itself would be a minor miracle) is only a start. How does Mr. Lomborg intend to deal with a compartmentalized bureaucracy, where every unit claims it is sacred and each one is petrified of losing funding? Here, Mr. Lomborg himself turns a little less rational and a little more political. It's no accident that the consensus organizers tell its participants to consider what they'd do with an "extra" $50 billion. "Most of these guys, the day-to-day guys at the U.N., went into their business to 'do good.' And we need to appeal to that bigger sense of virtue. The best way to do that is talk about 'extra' money, so that they aren't worried about losing their own job."

Mr. Lomborg hopes that prioritization up top will inspire "competition" down below. "Most people work in their own circles -- malaria guys talk to malaria guys, malnutrition guys to malnutrition guys. But if they understand that there are other projects out there, and that they also have price tags, and that the ones with the best performance are the ones that will get the extra money -- you start to have an Olympics for best projects. And that means smarter ideas for how to solve problems." In fact, Mr. Lomborg wishes there were more Al Gores. "It's good we have someone educating about global warming. But we need Al Gores for HIV/AIDS, Al Gores for malnutrition, Al Gores for free trade, Al Gores for clean drinking water. We need all these Al Gores passionately roaming the earth with power-point presentations, making the case for their project. Because at that point, the real Al Gore would be slightly sidelined, since he's arguing for the most expensive cure that would do the least good."

Mr. Lomborg is smart enough to realize that what really bothers political leaders with this approach is that "it would be launching a ship and it's unknown where it will land. That makes people uncomfortable." A Copenhagen Consensus exercise for the Inter-American Development Bank in Latin America or for the Environmental Protection Agency in the U.S. (both of which Mr. Lomborg is working to organize) could result in findings that suggest the leaders of these organizations have been throwing good money after bad for years.

"Right now, politicians know that in public they have to say they support all things, and suggest there is an infinite amount of money to give to an infinite amount of good causes. Semiprivately, they know that if they have 10 good causes, the easiest thing is to give one-tenth of the funds to each -- so there are no complaints. But privately they know there isn't enough money for everything and that they probably should have given most of it to the one or two groups that would do the most good."

At the very least, the Copenhagen Consensus might make it harder for public figures to defend bad decisions. "If you have a rational list that tells you that you do a lot more good preventing HIV/AIDS, then those in favor of such projects have slightly better arguments. Those arguing for climate change have slightly worse arguments." And while this may not change the world, it could be a start. "The Consensus isn't about getting it perfectly right," says Mr. Lomborg. "It's about getting it slightly less wrong."

only_more_so said:

Remember back in the 80's when we were all more worried about a nuclear winter than global warming? With nations like Iran and North Korea working on nuclear weapons, I think that is a frightening possibility.

If you really want a quesy feeling in your stomach at the prospect for the future, look at which countries have nukes, and think about their likelihood of eventually using them. According to wikipedia, France has 350! Now that's scary.

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Only one country has ever used nuclear weapons in a war.

maggot420 said:

Only one country has ever used nuclear weapons in a war.

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Said use of nuclear weapons SAVED many, many lives. The Japanese were prepared to fight to the bitter end in a struggle that would have cost hundreds of thousands of lives [historical fact.] After the US hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese took only a few days to devise a complete defense against the atomic bomb.

R. Richard said:

Said use of nuclear weapons SAVED many, many lives. The Japanese were prepared to fight to the bitter end in a struggle that would have cost hundreds of thousands of lives [historical fact.] After the US hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese took only a few days to devise a complete defense against the atomic bomb.

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Don't forget that they went from being a war-mongering nation to one of the most peaceful.

R. Richard said:

Said use of nuclear weapons SAVED many, many lives. The Japanese were prepared to fight to the bitter end in a struggle that would have cost hundreds of thousands of lives [historical fact.] After the US hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese took only a few days to devise a complete defense against the atomic bomb.

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I mentioned nothing about whether I thought it was wrong or right. I made no argument about its morality or justification. I merely stated a fact.

Defensive much?

maggot420 said:

I mentioned nothing about whether I thought it was wrong or right. I made no argument about its morality or justification. I merely stated a fact.

Defensive much?

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Rather trying to present a complete picture.

maggot420 said:

I mentioned nothing about whether I thought it was wrong or right. I made no argument about its morality or justification. I merely stated a fact.

Defensive much?

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Well, the only reason to bring that up in the first place is to imply that the US is the most likely country to use a nuclear weapon again. A person usually means a lot more than they say.

maggot420 said:

Only one country has ever used nuclear weapons in a war.

I mentioned nothing about whether I thought it was wrong or right. I made no argument about its morality or justification. I merely stated a fact.

Defensive much?

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The implication of your quote is that the U.S. was unjustified in using the weapon they had to end the war. If further implies, by your quotation of the earlier post, that Iran and Korea would never use a nuclear weapon.

Considering the leadership of those two countries I hope your implied assumption is correct.

Making such a statement definitely implies the U.S. was wrong to use those bombs. Without making a judgement on that, I'd suggest you carefully consider what you're implying rather than come back and say you didn't mean that.

MJL

mjl2010 said:

The implication of your quote is that the U.S. was unjustified in using the weapon they had to end the war. If further implies, by your quotation of the earlier post, that Iran and Korea would never use a nuclear weapon.

Considering the leadership of those two countries I hope your implied assumption is correct.

Making such a statement definitely implies the U.S. was wrong to use those bombs. Without making a judgement on that, I'd suggest you carefully consider what you're implying rather than come back and say you didn't mean that.

MJL

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You have inferred much more than I implied.

If I walk into a fight and everyone has a gun, the first guy I'm gonna look for is the guy that I know has already shot somebody.
The reasoning or morality of his previous actions don't matter.

Of course I believe that Iran and Korea are just as much of a threat because
I believe that anyone that has the capability to use a nuclear weapon is equally dangerous but the one that has used it before, is the one to watch.

I made no judgements in my previous statements nor I have I done so here.
Your inference is based on sophistry, and your assumptons about what it is I'm trying to say I find offensive...but I will forgive you. I understand you're very sensitive...and I'm very generous.

maggot420 said:

If I walk into a fight and everyone has a gun, the first guy I'm gonna look for is the guy that I know has already shot somebody.
The reasoning or morality of his previous actions don't matter.

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Your reasoning here is not too bad, but flawed. You might read the thinking of the Earps before the shootout at the OK Corral.

R. Richard said:

Your reasoning here is not too bad, but flawed. You might read the thinking of the Earps before the shootout at the OK Corral.

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As a Canadian, I must admit to being ignorant of much american history. And that I am also guilty of flawed reasoning, and that I am of course, a commie.

ETA: The earps are the ones that lost right?

The human economy has increased more than 40 fold since 1820 while the size of the Earth has remained the same. Human-induced climate change is just one of several indications that the increasing scale of the world's economy is having measurable, non-sustainable, degrading impacts on the environment. Economists should recognize and teach students that the economy is a large and growing sub-system of the planet and that it makes no sense to study the economy as if it existed in isolation of the biosphere.

This is not a political problem. This is a problem of appetites, and of narcissism, and of self-deceit. The planet is breaking, and it is breaking under the weight of our hunger for more. To reform the world, we must first reform ourselves.

good posting cum,

degradation of the environment is real. the problem requires addressing, even though mr lomberg says spend the money on AIDS instead. (even he admits the environmental problem).

rr, thanks for proving the hysteria of the right; all the ammo they have-- with Bush showing hints of 'green,'-- is Gore's electricity bill.

they're idiots.

maybe roxanne can tell us why fuel economy, conserving house heat, reducing garbage, alternatives to gasoline will --judging by the right's hysteria-- produce the end of capitlism. i would have thought that new types of generators, new fuels, new types of cars, new building and packaging materials would be a boon to the economy. silly me. the end is nigh!

R. Richard said:

Al Gore was and is a fund raiser. He raised money from convicted felons. He raised money from Bhuddist monks [who take a vow of poverty] and then claimed he didn't know it was fund raising. Al Gore, of course, is the man who invented the Internet and who, with his wife was the source for Love Story. If Al Gore's lips are moving and sound is coming, Al Gore is lying. Al Gore is the guy who was so devastated by his sister's death from lung cancer that he had to cash sopping wet checks from his leased tobacco acreage.

Al Gore is a guy who has found a cause. He will make a damn good living off any cause he shills for.

JMNTHO.

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I may be wrong, but I have a feeling that you don't like the much-maligned Mr. Gore??

Doesn't that dislike adversely colour ANY comments you might have to make on the man and his 'cause'?

Global warming? Gimme a break. They can't tell me if it's going to snow tomorrow. But they want to tell me what will happen over the next 100 years? I have to call bullshit.