Bjorn Lomborg on The Hour with George Strombolupolous

[paulyork2008]

He is being paid indirectly by fossil fuel companies to promote this shit.

[Aidinovic]

He's naught but a government puppeteered instigator who happens to mask his catastrophic neo-liberal notions behind a sly smile and fancy words.

One of our worst and most damaging exports in years.

[Nateb123]

@Aidinovic Instigator? What's he instigating? He's as uncontroversial as anyone gets in the climate change debate because he neither denies climate change exists, nor proposes useless, consumer-ended mandates to see the results we ultimately want.

[DraganHDD]

@Aidinovic you sir are an idiot

[sjnelson82]

I'm sorry, this guys talks rubbish.

Technology will save the day... well we are considerably more tech advanced than 50 years ago and all that has done is massively increased consumption.

Aim the money at poverty reduction and that will have a bigger impact - this has been happening since 1945 with minimal success, and it could be argued that because of economists and business being in control it has only served to benefit those who give the aid.

[eier]

@sjnelson82 Throwing money at poverty reduction rarely works (as you admit), and expecting people in developed countries to care enough for those in need to bring them out of poverty through generosity is just naive. I'm sorry, but I can't avoid being painfully realistic about the increasingly dominant role of avarice in our society. If I've learned anything after 8 years of Bush&Co and Wallstreet-Washington collusion it's that money wins 9/10.

[RadioactiveBraunMan]

@sjnelson82 exactly, poverty redution doesnt work... nevermind the 350m south americans, 200m africans, 400m chines, 20m vietnamese etc etc etc that arent dirt poor anymore, and have reached a middleclass income.

if more than 2 billion people leaving poverty is an indication that poverty reduction doesnt work, well, yeah....

And what do you mean by increased consumption? Weirdly enough more people can get more things for less money and there is no end in sight, so whats the problem exactly?

[dravreh]

Go Bjorn!

[macflyfilm]

It seems to me that Bjorn Lomborg is a lot of style over substance. He's arguing for nothing. He has no better ideas.

[mantrap9]

@macflyfilm Ahhhhh, Reseach & Develoment,, Somthing that slowing down the engines of Technology will delay = the actual ability to Fix Global Weather & Pollution Problems,,, Counterintuitive,, But true ie; Law of Returns. GNR.

[rcl151]

Is this guy the Martin Luther of the Environmental Religion? Will he split the Church of Green a great schism! haha

[BiomimicryArch]

Bjorn Lomborg is a master of rhetorical and statistical trickery. Those of you that are interested in a critique of his analysis might want to look at the rebuttal I delivered when I opposed him at a major construction industry conference in the UK. You can see my talk on Youtube in three parts (24 mins in total) by writing 'pawlyn' into the search field.

[Visfen]

Nr 1 issue? That right there is a problem, the nr 1 problem is probably starvation, after that, nr 2. is the LACK of energy.

Global warming is somewhere along the lines of 170th or something like that. It deserves its' proportional response, not an irrational one.

It's like fighting terrorism. (It is, hang with me) Spending 2 trillion on chasing a bunch of hooligans in caves is not good money spent. Especially not since you're as likely to be a victim of terrorism as being struck by lighting

[spreckt]

This was before Climate gate

[eruagnostic]

No Lomborg. This is NOT going to be a 50-100 year problem. This is going to be a problem from now and FOREVER.

If we make irreversible changes to the environment, it's not going to stop.

You economic calculations might be true within the next 50-100 years, but you obviously don't care what happens after your time frame.

[TheCaptainLulz]

you clearly have no concept of forever. and no changes are irreversible. There have been asteroids that have done infinitely more dammage than we could ever do, including setting off all our arsenals and the system has survived and recovered completely. Catastrophism solves nothing.

[Visfen]

Forever?

CO2 lifetime in the atmosphere is measured to be 5-15 years.

Either you're fanatic about the feedback effects or your completly irrational and unkowledgable about the subject (actauilly, those are the same, because supposed feedbacks effects in the future is simply doomsday sepculation, like how blowing the nuclear bomb supposedly should turn the entire atmosphere on fire)

Those economic calucaltions are basically the same you've seen with your cell phone. Compare it to ten years ago

[eruagnostic]

I didn't speak of CO2 lifetime. I'm aware that it is limited (though much longer than water vapor). I spoke of the consequences of a radically changed climate. You have no guarantee that you will get "normal" climate back in acceptable time after CO2 has had its chance to leave the atmosphere by it self.

Of course... climate will probably normalize it self in a few million years after humans have gone, but that's beyond an acceptable value of "forever" - at least for me.

[Visfen]

SO what if we do get a radically changed climate in a hundred years.

By then 500 million people will have died of starvation, 120 million because of lack of electricity and millions more because of other reasons.

It's a stupid argument to make to simply say " OIM!!G! one 11!!21 WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!". We're not all going to die, calm down, grow up, read the actual science.

Okay fine, it is a problem. how do we add this problem to all the other thousand and work to solve it.

[eruagnostic]

I never said anything like "we're all going to die". I have read the actual science. Grow up and stop setting up strawmen.

You are probably right that on the short term we could save millions of people from starvation if we don't try to stop changing the climate. My point is that that might be short sighted. What do we do after that in a climate changed beyond return? What guarantee do you have that even more people wont die of starvation then because climate changes?

[netromdnul]

He have argued for a long time, even maybe back in 2000 or around there, that it would much more effective to sewer the entire planet, than to follow Koyoto protokol. He maybe had some smart insight, because back then, the waterlevel was estimated to raise about 10 or 20 centimerters in 100 years. Now, if the waterlevel will raise as much as estimated (2009), we will need some big drains.

[jmchristian63]

Huh?

[AnatomicalDeadspace]

Basically this man makes his living trying to tell people they have to do practically nothing.

He is just sowing PR confusion for the big oil agenda.

George - you've lost any and all credibility by simply having him on your show.

[Visfen]

Look, there's a difference in doing the right thing and doing the fasionable thing.

FOr instance, sure it looks great when the government gives money to poor countries, it makes you feel comfy, you feel all good inside.

BUT.... most of the foreign aid end up in the hands of the rulers rather than the population, and solidifies the dicatorship and the situation which makes it hard for enterprise to take place.

You're actually better of buying products from the country.

Results > appearance.

[TruthJunior]

search bjorn lomborg debates, find the obvious counter to his book. You are a chump if you accept his thesis without doing this.

[BriansVideoHobby]

There are no "Lomborg" debates. He is backed by hundreds of economists along with Nobel Prize winners in economics. Because he is simply arguing that we should be smart about how we spend money, there is no logical counter argument.

[TruthJunior]

He is arguing that we should not spend money on reducing carbon emissions. That is a bit different that being "smart".

The stern report disagrees with him. Read george monbiot's "heat" for a direct critique of lomborg's book.

Do you think it is a bit innaccurate to say there are no counter arguements?

[Visfen]

He said there are no logical counter argument.

And you brought up none.

[TruthJunior]

go to wikipedia search copenhagen consensus (basically what lomborg is talking about) and scroll down to the criticism section

[Visfen]

Yes I know, it is simply a bunch of people who say "you can not be sceptical, we are right (even though we're never proven to be)"

On issues like this the John Stossel approach, of rational skepticism and practical solution always gets met by the hysterical people by fists of fury

But that has nothing to do with logic. No counter argument has to do with rationality. The closest I've heard was something where somebody misunderstood how a investment-risk-analysis works

I'm interested though

[TruthJunior]

the guy below mentions a video with michael pawlyn, and i notice now its actually in the related videos tab on the side. briansvid, your a joke.

[schnacker77]

Lomborg deconstructed by Michael Pawlyn:

watch?v=w_c5g6tXvK8

The hight-cost-thesis has lost all credibility!

[CARIBOU07]

Thanks for the link schnacker77, very interesting.

[johnnondrowsyd]

the only one speaking truth about climate change.

[mannster21]

This guy seems like a nice intelligent person but hes not an environmentalist. An environmentalists goal should be to lessen and reverse the impact humans have on the planet. Everything he talks about (in all of his work)is how to benefit just human life whether it means using more resources and not reducing human population(these are the main things that cause env degredation). Hes a religious or secular humanist. The title of his book is deceptive because again hes not a environmentalist.

[johnnondrowsyd]

reducing human population? what does this mean, chinese laws everywhere? environmentalists are such neo-luddites. they hate humanity and technology. it's all bad, even though it's made almost everything better in the last 30 years.

[tejo29se]

No, Bjørn Lomborg is the REAL SCIENTIST. He is the thruth.

[nyclights526]

IPCC is not credentialed to speak or direct this issue. The discrediting of the hockey stick graph is only one of many instances that the report is bogus.

Consenus is not science, it's politics.

If the gorebal warming freaks are convinced and can provide the data along with the models by which the data was input, let other outside scientists prove it.

"If global warming were a corporation you couldn't purchase it because they won't let you due diligence on it"

[RMKumpf621]

Very smart, very educated

[Keylimedelight]

Bjorn the bas ass, bad assin' it up.