{"id":58,"date":"2009-12-18T15:40:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-18T15:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ec2-54-213-215-163.us-west-2.compute.amazonaws.com\/?p=58"},"modified":"2022-10-25T19:13:55","modified_gmt":"2022-10-25T19:13:55","slug":"time-for-a-smarter-approach-to-environmental-thinking-thomas-friedman-vs-bjorn-lomborg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bobfreling.com\/index.php\/2009\/12\/18\/time-for-a-smarter-approach-to-environmental-thinking-thomas-friedman-vs-bjorn-lomborg\/","title":{"rendered":"Time for a Smarter Approach to Environmental Thinking: Thomas Friedman vs. Bjorn Lomborg"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I\u2019ve just returned from the COP15 talks in Copenhagen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the events I attended was a\u00a0CNN\/YouTube\u2013sponsored debate<\/strong>\u00a0that featured the following panelists:\u00a0Yvo de Boer<\/strong>, exec. secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,\u00a0NY Times<\/em>\u00a0Op-Ed columnist and Pulitzer-prize winning author\u00a0Thomas Friedman<\/strong><\/a>, actor\/environmentalist\u00a0Daryl Hannah<\/strong>, and\u00a0Bjorn Lomborg<\/strong>, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Mr. Lomborg, an environmental skeptic, says he believes in the concept of anthropogenic (human-induced) climate change, but unlike the vast majority of people and organizations who attended COP15, he doesn\u2019t think that cutting carbon emissions is the best approach to dealing with the problem. Instead, he argues, we should invest our time and money helping those who are most vulnerable to the adverse affects of global warming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an article (\u201cTime for a Smarter Approach to Global Warming\u201d) that appeared in the Dec 15, 2009\u00a0edition of\u00a0 the\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/em>, Mr. Lomborg states that \u201cmoney spent on carbon cuts is money we can\u2019t use for effective investments in food aid, micronutrients, HIV\/AIDs prevention, health and education infrastructure, and clean water and sanitation.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0

While\u00a0I appreciate Mr. Lomborg\u2019s concern for the poor<\/strong>\u2014and yes, it is true that the world\u2019s poorest citizens will, in fact, suffer the greatest from climate change even though they are least responsible for causing it\u2014I do not agree with his reductionist way of thinking<\/strong>.\u00a0 It\u2019s the same old\u00a0false dichotomy of \u201cthe economy versus the environment\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0argument, repackaged in a different form and for a different audience.
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According to Mr. Lomborg, people who are dying of AIDS or malaria, or who are worrying about how they\u2019re going to get their next meal, could care less about global warming.\u00a0That may well be true,\u00a0but dealing with their individual plights while ignoring the causes simply perpetuates and compounds their problems. He fails to recognize that\u00a0unless the rural poor gain access to modern energy services, they will have little hope of ever dealing effectively with the host of ills and injustices that plague their lives.<\/strong>

This point was certainly not lost on\u00a0Tom Friedman<\/strong>\u00a0who, sitting right next to Bjorn Lomborg at the CNN\/YouTube debate in Copenhagen, astutely countered Mr. Lomborg\u2019s specious argument with the following remarks:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026every problem Bjorn referred to is an energy problem<\/strong>. The school that has no light, that\u2019s an energy problem. A clinic in a remote part of Africa that doesn\u2019t have the capacity to refrigerate medicines, that\u2019s an energy problem.  These are all energy problems<\/strong>, and if we, the developed countries, take the lead in driving down the cost of distributed energy<\/strong>, we are solving both problems (climate and pove<\/em>rty)<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Watch:<\/p>\n\n\n\n