Bjorn Lomborg

On my latest podcast, I had the fortune of hosting Michael Shermer, who is the founder of Skeptic magazine and author of the important new book The Believing Brain. Shermer is also a self-identified libertarian, but one who drew much attention in 2006 when he dropped his global warming skepticism and embraced the scientific consensus that we’re causing climate change to happen.

However, oddly, Shermer still isn’t really worried about global warming. He falls into roughly the same camp as Bjorn Lomborg, arguing that it isn’t likely to be a big deal and will be something we can manage. Here is Shermer’s summary of Lomborg’s answers (in the film Cool It) to two key questions that one must confront if one accepts global warming is happening and caused by humans.

Now, this baffles me. I don’t understand how anyone could be so confident warming would be on the low end of the projections, and not that big a deal.

When I had Shermer on the show, it was not my goal to debate him about global warming...

It must be sad for professional contrarians like Bjorn Lomborg when their well worn speaking points become more laughably wrong with each emerging study on the dangers of climate change.

That of course does not stop Lomborg from holding forth his increasingly loopy opinions at every opportunity - most recently in the Australian, where Lomborg hectors incoming President Obama for his shoddy understanding of climate science. (By the way, Lomborg’s training is in political science)

Lets get stared on pulling apart this polemic and the laundry list of errors and misinformation.

Lomborg starts by calling into question the link between tropical cyclones and climate change. The doubting Dane intones:

“It is simply wrong to say that storms are growing stronger every hurricane season… hurricanes across the world for the past year have been about as inactive as at any time since records began to be kept.”

Strange. That’s not what scientific community thinks.

Well-known climate change apologist Bjorn Lomborg is at it again. In May 2008, the “skeptical environmentalist” will be hosting the latest Copenhagen Consensus 2008 conference in Denmark.

For the uninitiated, this event is where a group of right wing economists, hand picked by Bjorn Lomborg, paid for by the conference organized by Bjorn Lomborg, will rank a laundry list of the Earth’s ills based on an arbitrary budget and timeline.

Here's a review out this weekend in Canada's Globe and Mail on Bjorn Lomborg's new book, Cool it.

Choice quote:

I remember wondering, after I interviewed Lomborg, whether he was intellectually dishonest or just not very bright. Cool It has convinced me that it doesn't matter. Lomborg has now proved beyond a doubt that he is incapable of contributing anything of merit to scientific discourse."