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.
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.
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.
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.
The fact that we’re catching more fish per person than we’ve ever done before doesn’t mean that there are not particular places where we’ve managed fisheries badly.
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.
I tentatively believe in a god. I was brought up in a fairly religious home. I think the world is compatible with reincarnation, karma, all that stuff.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
