So it’s mainly a question of helping the Third World overcome the effects of global warming.
BJORN LOMBORGSo it’s mainly a question of helping the Third World overcome the effects of global warming.
BJORN LOMBORGThere is something wrong with saying we should start using renewables now, while they are still incredibly expensive.
BJORN LOMBORGMy suggestion is that we should first work to ensure the Third World has clean drinking water and sanitation.
BJORN LOMBORGListen, global warming is a real problem, but it’s not the end of the world. A 30-centimetre sea level rise is just not going to bring the world to a standstill, just like it didn’t over the last 150 years.
BJORN LOMBORGIf every country committed to spending 0.05 per cent of GDP on researching non-carbon-emitting energy technologies, that would cost $25 billion a year, and it would do a lot more than massive carbon cuts to fight warming and save lives.
BJORN LOMBORGI found university a little dispiriting. I thought I would enter the great halls of Plato, but instead I entered the halls of an intellectual sausage factory. I wanted to do something not on the main course, and chose the environment.
BJORN LOMBORGI’m an old member of Greenpeace. I worried intensely, as I think most of my friends did, that the world was coming apart.
BJORN LOMBORGWe worry about the seemingly ever-increasing number of natural catastrophes. Yet this is mainly a consequence of CNN.
BJORN LOMBORGThe only thing that will really change global warming in the long run is if we radically increase the speed with which we get alternative technologies to deal with climate change.
BJORN LOMBORGI really try to say things as they basically are and it so happens that it is a good message that things are getting better, but there are still problems.
BJORN LOMBORGSurely the biggest problem we have in the world is that we all die. But we don’t have a technology to solve that, right? So the point is not to prioritize problems; the point is to prioritize solutions to problems.
BJORN LOMBORGThe second thing is, if you want to do something about global warming, you have to think much more long-term.
BJORN LOMBORGOn average, global warming is not going to harm the developing world.
BJORN LOMBORGWe see many more, but the number is roughly constant, and we manage to deal much better with them over time. Globally, the death rate from catastrophes has dropped about fifty-fold over the past century.
BJORN LOMBORGAcross Europe, there are six times more cold-related deaths than heat-related deaths…by 2050…Warmer temperatures will save 1.4 million lives each year.
BJORN LOMBORGWe need to invest dramatically in green energy, making solar panels so cheap that everybody wants them.
BJORN LOMBORG