All thinking men and women are with Bjorn Lomborg, that is not enough
Posted by John Reed on
I spoke to Bjorn Lomborg last night after he gave a talk to the Pacific Research Institute. He is the author of the climate change book False Alarm which I recently finished reading.
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The book says there is climate change and it is man caused. I am not convinced of man caused. Looks more like normal variations that caused such things as ice ages and thawing out before humans existed.
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He says the optimal thing for humans to do is to takes some modest steps to lower the likely temperature increase from about 7.5% to about 6.5% or something like that.
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He says that it what give the lowest sum of cost of climate change actions and GDP decrease due to not trying to go for zero emissions. He also says, as all experts including those employed by government climate change experts do, that none of the climate forecasts with or without action to “save” us are certain. It may be that doing nothing about climate change is optimal.
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Anyway, I told him of the time a supporter of Democrat presidential nominee of the 1950s Adlai Stevenson told him, “All thinking men are with you.” Stevenson replied, “That’s not enough. I need a majority.” Then I said, “Dr. Lomborg, all thinking men and women are with you. But it’s not enough. You need a majority.”
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He preaches to the choir like the PRI audience. And to Fox News viewers. The bottom line is America and Europe are currently loaded down by anti-fossil fuel policies that, unlike, a possible slight rise in temperature, ARE certainly extremely harmful.
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The squeaky wheel gets the grease. A visitor from Mars who knew that would observe, “apparently ignorant but loud people are outshouting your informed people when it comes to energy policy.”
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Just so. If the majority of people paid attention to this, they would be extremely angry and would out shout the squeaky woke children.
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Judged by the standard of reversing anti-fossil fuel policies, Lomborg’s preaching to the choir of thinking men and women are a noble, well-intentioned, well-researched waste of time—a footnote in history books about how we did great damage to ourselves with anti-fossil-fuel policies.
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Policy is set by politicians. Politicians are not interested in what is the right thing to do. They are only in what avoids losing elections. And they measure that by listening to the squeaks.
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I said his efforts need to be at least in part directed at getting the “thinking” men and women to squeak louder and longer. That would take condensing Lomborg’s message into an honest campaign-slogan bumper sticker and it needs a catchy, punchy slogan that makes people agitated about ending the anti-fossil-fuel policies.
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That is not his strength, but I hope he will work with people who are good at it and about raising funds to get such a slogan out to the public.
.
I also noted that an ounce of $7 a gallon gasoline might be worth a ton of Bjorn Lomborg books for the purpose of getting angry voters to tell their Congressman to end all the anti-fossil fuel crap. He agreed.
.
The book says there is climate change and it is man caused. I am not convinced of man caused. Looks more like normal variations that caused such things as ice ages and thawing out before humans existed.
.
He says the optimal thing for humans to do is to takes some modest steps to lower the likely temperature increase from about 7.5% to about 6.5% or something like that.
.
He says that it what give the lowest sum of cost of climate change actions and GDP decrease due to not trying to go for zero emissions. He also says, as all experts including those employed by government climate change experts do, that none of the climate forecasts with or without action to “save” us are certain. It may be that doing nothing about climate change is optimal.
.
Anyway, I told him of the time a supporter of Democrat presidential nominee of the 1950s Adlai Stevenson told him, “All thinking men are with you.” Stevenson replied, “That’s not enough. I need a majority.” Then I said, “Dr. Lomborg, all thinking men and women are with you. But it’s not enough. You need a majority.”
.
He preaches to the choir like the PRI audience. And to Fox News viewers. The bottom line is America and Europe are currently loaded down by anti-fossil fuel policies that, unlike, a possible slight rise in temperature, ARE certainly extremely harmful.
.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease. A visitor from Mars who knew that would observe, “apparently ignorant but loud people are outshouting your informed people when it comes to energy policy.”
.
Just so. If the majority of people paid attention to this, they would be extremely angry and would out shout the squeaky woke children.
.
Judged by the standard of reversing anti-fossil fuel policies, Lomborg’s preaching to the choir of thinking men and women are a noble, well-intentioned, well-researched waste of time—a footnote in history books about how we did great damage to ourselves with anti-fossil-fuel policies.
.
Policy is set by politicians. Politicians are not interested in what is the right thing to do. They are only in what avoids losing elections. And they measure that by listening to the squeaks.
.
I said his efforts need to be at least in part directed at getting the “thinking” men and women to squeak louder and longer. That would take condensing Lomborg’s message into an honest campaign-slogan bumper sticker and it needs a catchy, punchy slogan that makes people agitated about ending the anti-fossil-fuel policies.
.
That is not his strength, but I hope he will work with people who are good at it and about raising funds to get such a slogan out to the public.
.
I also noted that an ounce of $7 a gallon gasoline might be worth a ton of Bjorn Lomborg books for the purpose of getting angry voters to tell their Congressman to end all the anti-fossil fuel crap. He agreed.
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