Book Tip No. 2 (2014): Cool it! Why we should keep a cool head despite climate change
Munich 2008.
Lomborg was formerly a Greenpeace member; he now teaches at the Copenhagen Business School. His main area of work: statistics on climate change, use of natural resources, changes in human living conditions.
Lomborg uses the same sources as Greenpeace, WWF or other organizations, but he comes to sometimes completely different conclusions.
His introductory example already shows in what form the public is provided with information. Lomborg quotes the WWF: “Polar bears will be a closed chapter of natural history, a species that our grandchildren will only encounter in books” (p. 13). A dramatic statement. Is it due to global warming? After all, Lomborg shows that about three times more polar bears die from hunting than from the factor of global warming. And Lomborg also shows that polar bear populations are declining precisely where it has become colder.
Lomborg’s message: Climate change is happening. But its consequences are far less catastrophic than poverty, hunger, diseases on this earth. The priorities urgently need to be adjusted.
Reading Lomborg is not only an intellectual pleasure. The reading also shows how those who supposedly only have the best for our environment in mind often steer public discussion and political decisions in a questionable direction with questionable information.
