Book Recommendation No. 59 (2022): BJOERN LOMBORG: CLIMATE PANIC.
Munich 2022.
By Hans-Christian Riekhof
If you know books by Bjoern Lomborg such as “The Skeptical Environmentalist” or “Cool it”, is it worth reading his latest work? From my point of view: a clear YES.
Lomborg is the founder of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and, wherever possible, critically and evidence-basedly deals with our strategies to counter climate change. His conclusions fundamentally question some of today’s approaches. Not everyone likes this, and Lomborg does not shy away from speaking clearly and taking (counter) positions. This debate must be part of every scientific and socio-political discourse. The fact that Lomborg heavily criticizes the media for their shortened and one-sided representation of possible climate disasters should ultimately not be surprising.
Björn Lomborg provokes
What is the provocative effect of his publications? Even the headlines of the individual chapters show that his considerations do not correspond to the media mainstream, as it is about questions why we classify and evaluate climate change so wrongly, what global warming and the counter-strategies proposed today will cost us and why they destroy prosperity, why the individual cannot stop climate change, why the Paris Agreement will fail or how today’s climate policy harms the poorest in the world.
Lomborg has clear ideas on how to do better
He advocates an effective CO2 tax, which should reach completely different orders of magnitude in the future. He relies on massive investments in the research of new technologies for generating green energies, but also on adaptation strategies (yes, you can also adapt to the consequences of global warming!), and he demands a consistent evaluation of the costs and benefits of any climate policy strategies and programs.
In my view, important questions remain unanswered, such as the long-term costs of nuclear power and renewable energies. Caution is also advised when Lomborg extrapolates prosperity gains and losses until the end of the century. But Lomborg is of course right when he points to the enormous adaptation achievements that humanity has made in the past decades and centuries. A critical examination of Lomborg’s analyses and derivations is urgently needed.
