Polar Bears, Dead Coral and Other Climate Fictions
Activists’ tales of doom never pan out, but they leave us poorly informed and feed bad policy.
-
Click for a realistic view of our Climate Change Reality.
-
Polar Bears, Dead Coral and Other Climate Fictions - WSJ
-
-
-
Polar Bears, Dead Coral and Other Climate Fictions - WSJ
-
-
Summary:
Activists do the world a massive disservice by refusing to acknowledge facts that challenge their intensely doom-ridden worldview. There is ample evidence that man-made emissions cause changes in climate, and climate economics generally finds that the costs of these effects outweigh the benefits. But the net result is nowhere near catastrophic. The costs of all the extreme policies campaigners push for are much worse. All told, politicians across the world are now spending more than $2 trillion annually—far more than the estimated cost from climate change that these policies prevent each year.
-
Scare tactics leave everyone—especially young people—distressed and despondent. Fear leads to poor policy choices that further frustrate the public. And the ever-changing narrative of disasters erodes public trust.
-
Telling half-truths while piously pretending to “follow the science” benefits activists with their fundraising, generates clicks for media outlets, and helps climate-concerned politicians rally their bases. But it leaves all of us poorly informed and worse off.
-
Mr. Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus, a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and author of “Best Things First: The 12 Most Efficient Solutions for the World’s Poorest and our Global SDG Promises.”
-
Activists do the world a massive disservice by refusing to acknowledge facts that challenge their intensely doom-ridden worldview. There is ample evidence that man-made emissions cause changes in climate, and climate economics generally finds that the costs of these effects outweigh the benefits. But the net result is nowhere near catastrophic. The costs of all the extreme policies campaigners push for are much worse. All told, politicians across the world are now spending more than $2 trillion annually—far more than the estimated cost from climate change that these policies prevent each year.
-
Scare tactics leave everyone—especially young people—distressed and despondent. Fear leads to poor policy choices that further frustrate the public. And the ever-changing narrative of disasters erodes public trust.
-
Telling half-truths while piously pretending to “follow the science” benefits activists with their fundraising, generates clicks for media outlets, and helps climate-concerned politicians rally their bases. But it leaves all of us poorly informed and worse off.
-
Mr. Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus, a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and author of “Best Things First: The 12 Most Efficient Solutions for the World’s Poorest and our Global SDG Promises.”
-