Amazon.com Guest Reviewer: Michael Crichton
In his many science-themed bestsellers--including The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, Prey, and most recently, Next--Michael Crichton has covered everything from genetically engineered dinosaurs to time travel to nantechnology run amok. Having cast his own views on the dangers and hysteria surrounding global warming with State of Fear, he turns his pen toward the often controversial Bjørn Lomborg and his latest book, Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming.
Bjørn Lomborg is the best-informed and most humane advocate for environmental change in the world today. In contrast to other figures that promote a single issue while ignoring others, Lomborg views the globe as a whole, studies all the problems we face, ranks them, and determines how best, and in what order, we should address them. His first book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, established the importance of a fact-based approach. With later books, Global Crises, Global Solutions and How to Spend $50 Billion to Make the World a Better Place, this mild-mannered Danish statistician has steadily gained new converts. Not surprisingly, Time Magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming will further enhance Lomborgs reputation for global analysis and thoughtful response. For anyone who wants an overview of the global warming debate from an objective source, this brief text is a perfect place to start. Lomborg is only interested in real problems, and he has no patience with media fear-mongering; he begins by dispatching the myth of the endangered polar bears, showing that this Disneyesque cartoon has no relevance to the real world where polar bear populations are in fact increasing. Lomborg considers the issue in detail, citing sources from Al Gore to the World Wildlife Fund, then demonstrating that polar bear populations have actually increased five fold since the 1960s.
Lomborg then works his way through the concerns we hear so much about: higher temperatures, heat deaths, species extinctions, the cost of cutting carbon, the technology to do it. Lomborg believes firmly in climate change--despite his critics, he's no denier--but his fact-based approach, grounded in economic analyses, leads him again and again to a different view. He reviews published estimates of the cost of climate change, and the cost of addressing it, and concludes that "we actually end up paying more for a partial solution than the cost of the entire problem. That is a bad deal."
In some of the most disturbing chapters, Lomborg recounts what leading climate figures have said about anyone who questions the orthodoxy, thus demonstrating the illiberal, antidemocratic tone of the current debate. Lomborg himself takes the larger view, explaining in detail why the tone of hysteria is inappropriate to addressing the problems we face.
In the end, Lomborgs concerns embrace the planet. He contrasts our concern for climate with other concerns such as HIV/AIDS, malnutrition, and providing clean water to the world. In the end, his ability to put climate in a global perspective is perhaps the books greatest value. Lomborg and Cool It are our best guides to our shared environmental future.
--Michael Crichton
(photo credit: Jonathan Exley)
Review
“Brimming with useful facts and common sense. . . . [Lomborg presents] a calm analysis of what today’s best science tells us about global warming and its risks. . . . His analysis is smart and refreshing, and it may bridge at least one divide in our too divided culture.” —Kimberley Strassel, Wall Street Journal
“Cool It is a highly valuable contribution to the climate-policy literature. In clear and concise prose, Lomborg diagnoses the problems plaguing contemporary climate policy, injecting a needed tonic of realism and common sense into the climate debate. And for that very reason, it is sure to make Lomborg’s critics hot-under-the-collar.” —Jonathan Adler, National Review
“A reasoned addition to the debate about what to do about climate change. And it is sure to provoke just as much controversy as his last book.” —Esquire
“Bjorn Lomborg is the best-informed and most humane advocate for environmental change in the world today. . . . [He] is only interested in real problems, and he has no patience with media fear-mongering. . . . In the end, his ability to put climate in a global perspective is perhaps the book’s greatest value. Lomborg and Cool It are our best guides to our shared environmental future.” —Michael Crichton, Amazon.com
“Bjorn Lomborg’s rational and compassionate suggestions would save more lives, preserve more wilderness and have a better chance of eventually halting man-made global warming than hysterical catastrophism, global treaties, and high-minded energy rationing. Read this ingenious book.” —Matt Ridley, author of The Origins of Virtue
“Lomborg affirms that the planet is warming, but questions why so much of the policy debate is framed around the idea of imminent catastrophe. This book dares to offer straightforward new thinking about how best to respond. Indispensable.” —Clive Crook, associate editor, Financial Times; senior editor, The Atlantic Monthly
“At last we have a book that puts the hype of global warming into perspective. Bjorn Lomborg’s eye-opening book, Cool It, examines and meticulously documents climate change’s effects and proposed solutions. An extraordinarily timely and supremely useful book.” —John Naisbitt, author of Megatrends
“Brilliant! A devastating critique of the prevailing climate change hysteria. This book provides an overwhelming case for re-assessing where exactly our policy priorities should lie if we are genuinely concerned with world welfare rather than with making noble—if futile—gestures that, at best, make us feel good but actually do a lot of harm.” —Wilfred Beckerman, professor emeritus of economics, Oxford University
About the Author
Bjorn Lomborg is the author of The Skeptical Environmentalist. He was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2004 and has written for numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Economist. He is presently an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School, and in 2004 he started the Copenhagen Consensus, a conference of top economists who come together to prioritize the best solutions for the world’s greatest challenges.
From The Washington Post
Reviewed by Tim Flannery Bjorn Lomborg is a Danish statistician and darling of those who believe that markets should not be regulated and that concerns about the environment are overblown. He is articulate, certain in his opinions and well informed on the statistical minutiae of the topics he investigates. Indeed, so compelling and entertaining are the grains of truth that adorn his latest book, Cool It, that you are certain to hear them soon in dinner table conversation. But is this book, as its subtitle proclaims, really an acceptable "guide to global warming"?
In his opening paragraph Lomborg establishes a revealing dichotomy: "In the face of . . . unmitigated despair" about global warming, he intends to write a book that is optimistic about humanity's prospects. It's seductive rhetoric. But is climate change really about unmitigated despair? And can Lomborg's optimistic solutions actually work? It all depends on how well he's read the science.
Cool It commences with a look at polar bears. Despite what you might have heard, they're doing fine, according to Lomborg. If we want to protect them better, we should forget about melting ice and just ban hunting. For every bear the Kyoto Protocol saves, a hunting ban would save 800 bears, he conjectures. Lomborg then moves on to the consequences of the warming itself. He does not doubt that it is occurring, nor that it is caused by humans, but almost alone among commentators he finds reason to welcome it. In Europe, 200,000 people die from excess heat each year while 1.5 million die from cold, he asserts. His message is simple: more warming, less death. In this and many other projections, Lomborg is astonishingly certain about how things will be in the future. In a sentence italicized for emphasis, he writes that in 2200 -- nearly 200 years from now -- more people will still die from cold than from heat.
Glib, misleading associations mark Lomborg's style. In his chapter on glaciers, he states that since "we're leaving the Little Ice Age" (which, in fact, we left long ago) it's not surprising that glaciers are dwindling. Remarkably, he believes that is more good news, because "with glacial melting, rivers actually increase their water contents, especially in the summer, providing more water to many of the poorest people in the world." "It boils down to a stark choice," he lectures us. "Would we rather have more water available or less?"
Lomborg's flawed grasp of climate science is most evident when he discusses sea levels. He makes much of the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) projection that sea level will rise by "about a foot," misleadingly noting that this is lower than previous projections. He does not tell us that the IPCC figures do not account for collapsing ice sheets, which may result in far larger rises, due to the difficulty of predicting how glacial ice will react to warming. While Lomborg waves vaguely in the direction of ice melt and collapse, he assures us it's not a problem. We'll just put up dikes. Indeed, with dikes, he asserts, some nations might end up with more land than they have today. And so the arguments go on, from rising seas to extreme weather events to malaria and other tropical diseases, the collapse of the Gulf Stream, food shortages and water shortages. In one case after another, Lomborg asserts, it's cheaper and better to do nothing immediately to combat climate change, but instead to invest in other things.
The deepest flaw in Cool It is its failure to take into account the full range of future climate possibilities. The computer models project outcomes ranging from mild, which he acknowledges, to truly catastrophic, which he ignores. While the chances of catastrophic climate change may still be small, they are increasing: By comparing real world data with the 2001 IPCC projections, researchers have shown that the sea is rising more swiftly than even the worst case scenarios in the projections.
Lomborg's mantra is the supposedly high costs of dealing with climate change. The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change is a detailed analysis of those costs, commissioned by the UK Treasury and reported to the prime minister. Stern, a senior government economist, argues that it's much cheaper to combat climate change than to live with the consequences. Because Stern and Lomborg cover the same ground but strongly disagree, I had hoped for a detailed critique of the report, but Lomborg devotes a scant three and a half pages to it (about the same space he devotes to an analysis of the far less relevant social activist George Monbiot). Lomborg asserts that "a raft of academic papers have now come out all strongly criticizing Stern, characterizing his report as a 'political document' and liberally using words such as 'substandard,' 'preposterous,' 'incompetent,' 'deeply flawed,' and 'neither balanced nor credible.' " Such broad accusations are impossible to assess. He further asserts that the Stern report was not peer reviewed (making one wonder whether Cool It or the Internet postings he cites criticizing Stern were), and that it's slanted toward "scary" scenarios. This latter assertion is simply not true. Stern gives a straight reading of the range of possible climate outcomes.
Despite all the supposed benefits global warming will bring, Lomborg acknowledges that some people want to act to reduce it. His solution is to abandon the Kyoto process and devote more dollars to research on technologies to prevent it. Yet we already have the necessary clean technologies: What we need is market penetration for them, and this will only come by getting the polluter to pay, which means adopting a carbon tax much higher than the $14 per ton of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere that Lomborg is willing to allow.
What, ultimately, is Cool It all about? On the surface, it's a cry from a compassionate conservative not to waste money on combating climate change when that money could be better spent helping the poor. But why climate change rather than military spending? By empathizing with those who are concerned about climate change and poverty, and trying to persuade them to divert their energies, Cool It is a stealth attack on humanity's future.
Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Preface
Global warming has been portrayed recently as the greatest crisis in the history of civilization. As of this writing, stories on it occupy the front pages of Time and Newsweek and are featured prominently in countless media around the world. In the face of this level of unmitigated despair, it is perhaps surprising–and will by many be seen as inappropriate–to write a book that is basically optimistic about humanity’s prospects.
That humanity has caused a substantial rise in atmospheric carbon-dioxide levels over the past centuries, thereby contributing to global warming, is beyond debate. What is debatable, however, is whether hysteria and headlong spending on extravagant CO2-cutting programs at an unprecedented price is the only possible response. Such a course is especially debatable in a world where billions of people live in poverty, where millions die of curable diseases, and where these lives could be saved, societies strengthened, and environments improved at a fraction of the cost.
Global warming is a complex subject. No one–not Al Gore, not the world’s leading scientists, and most of all not myself–claims to have all the knowledge and all the solutions. But we have to act on the best available data from both the natural and the social sciences. The title of this book has two meanings: the first and obvious one is that we have to set our minds and resources toward the most effective way to tackle long-term global warming. But the second refers to the current nature of the debate. At present, anyone who does not support the most radical solutions to global warming is deemed an outcast and is called irresponsible and is seen as possibly an evil puppet of the oil lobby. It is my contention that this is not the best way to frame a debate on so crucial an issue. I believe most participants in the debate have good and honorable intentions–we all want to work toward a better world. But to do so, we need to cool the rhetoric, allowing us to have a measured discussion about the best ways forward. Being smart about our future is the reason we have done so well in the past. We should not abandon our smarts now.
If we manage to stay cool, we will likely leave the twenty-first century with societies much stronger, without rampant death, suffering, and loss, and with nations much richer, with unimaginable opportunity in a cleaner, healthy environment.
