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Concern vs. Alarm
Via our friends at Prager University, Bjørn Lomborg on how climate change alarmism hurts everyone:
Published in Science & Technology
EDs,
Mr. Lomborg’s presentation is clear and unassailable although that hasn’t stopped climate alarmist fanaticism in the past. If I had a criticism it would be that he is still being too generous. The amount, breadth, and credentials of his data are so strong that MMGW as a hypothesis must be rejected. One can make an argument for continued monitoring as the information gathered will always be of use. However, any draconian general policy on the assumption of the threat of climate change must be ended immediately. Also, his case against the green energy technologies is actually stronger than he presents. In the last 45 years, huge amounts of research capital have been thrown at the green energy technology efficiency problem. It is quite reasonable to conclude that solar & wind are not suitable means for the mass generation of power. There might be niche applications but the free market with a small tax incentive should be more than enough to allow those applications to be pursued.
This is excellent. This is a step forward in the presentation of the conservative case on the environment.
Regards,
Jim
The video still assumes that warming is bad, that carbon emissions is the culprit and that our government can fix it. It may not be bad, there are multiple causes, governments can’t fix it. This does not mean we will not discover new technologies that will reduce carbon emissions and these may have an effect. Whether warming or cooling is good or bad, fast or slow, we like other species will have to adjust and will. We will adjust to the extent we have free markets and smaller government with less intervention and fewer regulations. If the government is involved it will allocate resources toward groups and economic interests that have k street presence and lobbying heft. e.g. the subsidies to wind are larger than the total current market price of natural gas. K street influences will be existing technologies and companies. We don’t know what technologies will emerge, if we did they’d already be here. Moreover, a great deal of energy waste is caused by government in the first place. Farm subsidies for instance. Or, if we had less zoning, fewer building standards for roads, building etc. we’d save more energy because it costs to heat cool, and move people and businesses. Left alone we find low cost solutions as we did before zoning and building inspectors. Nor does this mean we can’t have clear transparent pollution standards that create incentives to solve problems without corrupt meddlesome regulations and subsidies.
I wonder if Spanish historians in 1493 predicted the existence of Bolivia. I wonder if, more than three centuries later, when Bolivia did in fact come into existence, Spanish historians said, “See? We told you so!”