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Bjorn Lomborg, the Disingenuous Environmentalist, is (with the generous assistance of the Washington Post opinion page editor) once again fighting against any tax or regulation that might inconvenience his buddies in the fossil fuel industry. But, perhaps out of character, Lomborg is also proposing a very specific global investment - $100 billion US - in alternative energy research.

This is probably a good idea, although anyone who is even slightly skeptical of government might worry about empowering politicians to try to pick winners when it comes to financing research and innovation.

Smart economists (clearly a group to which Lomborg has no affiliation) tend to agree that the best way to address climate change is to ask the market to do it. You put a price on carbon - a price that begins to reflect the unfunded damage that CO2 (and other fossil fuel pollutants) do to the atmosphere - and let entrepreneurs act on that price signal and seek the most efficient solutions.

But Lomborg is suddenly a socialist - suddenly an advocate for direct government control and investment.