Finally, a vestigial government-funded program actually worth cutting gets taken out as Denmark's new regime change is opting to excise Bjorn Lomborg's $1.6 million in funding for his Copenhagen Consensus Center.
“It’s been very strange that particular researchers have received special treatment due to ideology. We’re going to run fiscal policy differently,” said Ida Auken from the Socialist People's Party.
Lomborg is notorious for touting economic woes pertaining to the costs of mitigating climate change. He has often suggested that it is either too expensive to tax carbon and cap emissions to solve climate change, except when he was advocating his 1900 robotic ship army idea to spray sea water and ameliorate warming through geoengineering.
Either way, the almighty free market that laissez-faire economists pray to has spoken (Lomborg's movie 'Cool It' raked in all of $62,713 in box office sales), and it's out with excessive climate-denier-mobiles. It's like the irony is killing…off his program. Literally.
“Our starting point is that money which is given to people who do not agree that there are climate change problems should be chucked out,” stated Social Democrat environmental spokesperson Mette Gjerskov.
In response to the news, our friends at the Carbon Brief noted about Lomborg's funding loss, “that's a lot of tight t-shirts.”
Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy.
There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.
“What happens if the climate skeptics are wrong? Catastrophe.”
Those were the words of Secretary of State John Kerry here in Lima today as he addressed the COP 20 climate talks on the need to foster global action to address climate change.
Secretary Kerry also emphasized the 97 percent scientific consensus on manmade global warming, calling it “a...
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Previous Comments
As the americanism has it,
cool.
Astonished
Lomberg got government funding for his blathering – I never imagined! What a ratio: $1.6 Million from the Danish government, $62 Thousand in sales.
This should be just the
This should be just the beginning of cutting unnecessary grants and gifts. Cut now and cut deep. No more freeloaders.
This is great news. The
This is great news. The previous government appears to have towed the right wing agenda in promoting deniers & liars for hire. Unfortunately Lomborg will ply his deception trade elsewhere, as there is never a shortage of gullible people out there for his type of messaging.
I see the new government is going to hit it hard with their cleantech options.
http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-09-19/denmark%E2%80%99s-new-government-more-green-red
Good for them. Even if half of this is achieved, it’s a massive turn around for a country that was tetering towards economic doom with no prospect of turn around.
"They forgot to put in the
“They forgot to put in the part about a flying car in every garage by 2025.”
Well that sort of propulsion or any sort of planetary propulsion outside of mars isn’t going to happen with old school neanderthal fossil fuel energy is it?
A lot of the technology we probably could have had by today has been held up or suppressed by the fossil fuel industries and governments.
"We’re going to run fiscal
“We’re going to run fiscal policy differently,” said Ida Auken from the Socialist People’s Party.”
Oh, I bet they will – with the predictable results.
I guess this is what they do to enemies of the state, who don’t conform to socialist ideology.
Oh nooo, it's reds under yer
Oh nooo, it’s reds under yer beds eh David? Can be any worse than the previous right wingers that ran their country into the ground & employed deniers & liars for hire.
The new government have a big job ahead of them fixing up the economic shambles the conservatives created in the past 10 years. Creating a clean tech economy is a good first step.
"The new government have a
“The new government have a big job ahead of them fixing up the economic shambles the conservatives created in the past 10 years.”
Please tell us, Phil, in what way is Denmark’s economy any more of a “shambles” than other European countries? If anything, compared to the rest of the EU, they’ve done fairly well. Then again, I’m merely going by the widely available and undisputed facts and figures.
"Then again, I'm merely going
“Then again, I’m merely going by the widely available and undisputed facts and figures.”
You could have provided a link for those “facts”, but chose not to. It was just sooo good that the people voted them out eh?
"We need socialist parties to
“We need socialist parties to make us remember why they suck so much.”
Ralph, you might be waiting a long time buddy…… because they are social democrats that practice the “Third Way”, or centrism. Others you may have hear of that practiced the 3rd way of recent note are the Clinton government. The Blair government & the Hawke, as well as current Labor/Gillard government in Australia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way_%28centrism%29
Many political pundits I’ve seen believe that these governments are more like the Conservative governments of yesteryear & many of the current conservative governments like in Australia, Canada & the USA are actually right wing now. Hence why many conservatives in these countries see the conservatives in Europe as not really conservatives anymore. By conservative they mean right wing.
“Thanks Denmark for taking the sucker punch for the rest of us. I hope the rest of us can learn from your upcoming economic contraction.”
Well you don’t have to wait too long Ralph, we practice the 3rd way here in Australia. Debt is 26% of GDP & we have 5.1% unemployment. None of our banks failed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_public_debt
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/6202.0
Great pic of Lomborg. A
Great pic of Lomborg. A nice, steady, wide open mouth just waiting for his foot.
the famous evenhandedness of
the famous evenhandedness of desmog coming through in the picture selection.
"the famous evenhandedness of
“the famous evenhandedness of desmog coming through in the picture selection.”
On a blog that opposes Lomborgs stance, you expected a picture of him hoisted upon shoulders, with great crowds waving banners saying “Lomborg the great!” or some such thing?!
You don’t check out WUWT much do you?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/16/newsbytes-obamaepa-put-co2-regulation-on-hold/
I didn’t see your complaint about Al Gores photo. Or the dozens of other ones with him breathing fire onto our planet.