Listen, 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 LOMBORGWishful thinking is not sound public policy.
More Bjorn Lomborg Quotes
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I 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 LOMBORG -
If 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 LOMBORG -
So it’s mainly a question of helping the Third World overcome the effects of global warming.
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We worry about the seemingly ever-increasing number of natural catastrophes. Yet this is mainly a consequence of CNN.
BJORN LOMBORG -
My suggestion is that we should first work to ensure the Third World has clean drinking water and sanitation.
BJORN LOMBORG -
Of course, the world is full of problems. But on the other hand it’s important to get the sense… are we generally moving in the right direction or the wrong direction?
BJORN LOMBORG -
We 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 LOMBORG -
The Kyoto treaty has an estimated cost of between US$150 and $350 billion a year, starting in 2010.
BJORN LOMBORG -
Global warming is real – it is man-made and it is an important problem. But it is not the end of the world.
BJORN LOMBORG -
Surely 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 LOMBORG -
I think it’s great that we have organisations like Greenpeace. In a pluralistic society, we want to have people who point out all the problems that the Earth could encounter. But we need to understand that they are not presenting a full and rounded view.
BJORN LOMBORG -
There is something wrong with saying we should start using renewables now, while they are still incredibly expensive.
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Money spent on carbon cuts is money we can’t use for effective investments in food aid, micronutrients, HIV/AIDS prevention, health and education infrastructure, and clean water and sanitation.
BJORN LOMBORG -
The 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 LOMBORG -
For the longest time in Denmark I didn’t want to say what I was politically. I thought it was irrelevant.
BJORN LOMBORG -
Nobody wanted to buy a computer in 1950, but once they got cheap, everyone bought them.
BJORN LOMBORG -
Obviously any group that has to have funding also needs to get attention to their issues.
BJORN LOMBORG -
On average, global warming is not going to harm the developing world.
BJORN LOMBORG -
I 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 LOMBORG -
Across 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 LOMBORG -
There is no question that global warming will have a significant impact on already existing problems such as malaria, malnutrition, and water shortages. But this doesn’t mean the best way to solve them is to cut carbon emissions.
BJORN LOMBORG -
Winter regularly takes many more lives than any heat wave: 25,000 to 50,000 each year die in Britain from excess cold.
BJORN LOMBORG -
We need to invest dramatically in green energy, making solar panels so cheap that everybody wants them.
BJORN LOMBORG -
If our starting point is to prove that Armageddon is on its way, we will not consider all of the evidence, and will not identify the smartest policy choices.
BJORN LOMBORG -
The second thing is, if you want to do something about global warming, you have to think much more long-term.
BJORN LOMBORG -
I’m an old member of Greenpeace. I worried intensely, as I think most of my friends did, that the world was coming apart.
BJORN LOMBORG