Talking sense on global warming

Bjorn Lomborg, writing in the Washington Post:

We must accept that climate change is real and that we've helped cause it. There is no hoax. But neither is there a looming apocalypse.

To some people, cutting carbon emissions has become the answer, regardless of the question. Cutting emissions is said to be our "generational mission." But don't we want to implement the most efficient policies first?

Combating the real climate challenges facing the planet -- malaria, more heat deaths, declining polar bear populations -- often requires simpler, less glamorous policies than carbon cuts. We also need to remember that the 21st century will hold many other challenges, for which we need low-cost, durable solutions.

This is Spinal Tap 2007

The devil went to Devon
Felt like the fourth degree
He said, "Is it hot in here
Or is it only me?"

Spinal Tap 2007 - a short film by Martin DiBergi, at Live Earth

Smoke and mirrors

If you were the chief executive of an oil company hoping to defend your business against environmental campaigners, there are several ways you might go about it. The most direct approach, as adopted by ExxonMobil, would be to fund groups that claim climate change isn't happening and urge the White House to remove the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

But you wouldn't do this if you had any sense: Exxon's tactics, while successful in the short term, have backfired spectacularly, confirming many people's impressions that the oil industry is a threat to life on Earth. If you were smart, you would follow BP and Shell's tactics. Rather than denying that climate change is happening, they have repositioned themselves as friends of the environment. Their new advertisements... seek to persuade us that they have left the bad old days behind...

Smoke and Mirrors: George Monbiot, New Scientist, 30 December 2006

Related: TurnUpTheHeat.org