We worry about the seemingly ever-increasing number of natural catastrophes. Yet this is mainly a consequence of CNN – we see many more, but the number is roughly constant, and we manage to deal much better with them over time. Globally, the death rate from catastrophes has dropped about fifty-fold over the past century. Bjorn Lomborg Read Quote
When thinking about the future, it is fashionable to be pessimistic. Yet the evidence unequivocally belies such pessimism. Over the past centuries, humanity’s lot has improved dramatically – in the developed world, where it is rather obvious, but also in the developing world, where life expectancy has more than doubled in the past 100 years. Bjorn Lomborg Read Quote
Even if every major government were to slap huge taxes on carbon fuels – which is not going to happen – it wouldn’t do much to halt climate change any time soon. What it would do is cost us hundreds of billions – if not trillions – of dollars, because alternative energy technologies are not yet ready to take up the slack. Bjorn Lomborg Read Quote
Money spent on carbon cuts is money we can’t use for effective investments in food aid, micronutrients, HIV/AIDS prevention, health and education infrastructure, and clean water and sanitation. Bjorn Lomborg Read Quote
There is no question that global warming will have a significant impact on already existing problems such as malaria, malnutrition, and water shortages. But this doesn’t mean the best way to solve them is to cut carbon emissions. Bjorn Lomborg Read Quote
Obviously any group that has to have funding also needs to get attention to their issues. Bjorn Lomborg Read Quote
Of course, the world is full of problems. But on the other hand it’s important to get the sense… are we generally moving in the right direction or the wrong direction? Bjorn Lomborg Read Quote
It seems incontrovertible to me that there is a global warming effect and that it is going to be serious, probably not in the amount of, say, six degrees warming, but it’s likely that we’ll get two to three degrees warming and that will be serious enough. Bjorn Lomborg Read Quote
Even if I was a bad right wing guy, to the extent of whether my arguments are right or wrong, they’re right or wrong independently if I’m right or left. Bjorn Lomborg Read Quote
But this is an occupational hazard of being a scientist. You say this is the best information I have and then you realize that not everyone is going to read the footnotes or the whole book, so people are going to get the wrong impression. Bjorn Lomborg Read Quote
