The climate blogosphere erupted yesterday with the news that Bjorn Lomborg has a new book coming out that seems to reverse his bottom-line conclusion on climate change. While I haven’t read the new book, I think a fair summary of his pre- and post-pivot positions would be:
Pre-pivot: Climate change is real but it’s not a big deal. We should spend money on a bunch of other things to help people. Don’t get your undies in a twist.
Post-pivot: WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE FROM CLIMATE CHANGE!!! TAX CARBON!!! SPEND MONEY ON R&D!!! [BillPaxtonInAliens] WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO NOW MAN??? [/BillPaxtonInAliens]
Perhaps I’ve taken some liberties here; you be the judge.
I think this situation, aside from being important because of the seriousness of climate change and all the attention Lomborg gets (for reasons that escape me), is fascinating. For years now I’ve wondered how the hard core deniers, as well as those who say climate change is real but at most a minor problem, would walk back from their positions once the evidence became so overwhelming that not even their most loyal and reality immune followers could deny it. Consider it the Dilemma of the Iraqi Information Minister, e.g.:
August 11 – The LA Times reports that the Iraqi military was itself fooled by the creative reporting of furloughed Iraqi Information Minister Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf (M.S.S.): “After the information minister claimed that Iraqi forces had retaken the Baghdad airport from U.S. troops, two former commanders said, Republican Guard Gen. Mohammed Daash was dispatched to check out a rumor that four or five American tanks had survived the Iraqi counterattack. Daash returned to his headquarters in a panic. “Four or five tanks!” the commanders quoted Daash as telling his fellow generals. “Are you out of your minds? The whole damn American Army is at the airport!” ”
(Please, no jumping to absurd conclusions like, “Lou is saying the deniers are equivalent to Saddam Hussein and his flunkies!” because I never said that, OK?)
In the case of the hardest of the hardcore deniers, like Fox News and the fossil fuel companies that want us to believe CO2 is “plant food” and more of it is always better (a proposition I’ve yet to see pan out in the real world regarding anything, including chocolate, sex, good wine, and, well, sex), I think they have only a couple of possible moves:
- Say absolutely nothing about it and pretend they never uttered a single word of denial. I.e. the same strategy most cats use moments after falling off a couch for no reason or doing something equally stupid.
- Go on the attack and blast the climate scientists for not making a compelling case sooner, and therefore making the situation much worse, in terms of both the expense and the degree of government intervention required, by causing decades of delay. Being around rational human beings when the deniers trot out this insanity will be like sitting in the front row of a Gallagher show, but with brain matter from Exploding Head Syndrome substituting for watermelon.
Back to Lomborg. Astute readers will remember that this isn’t his first change of direction. Last August, in fact, I wrote about how he suddenly seemed to be a fan of geoengineering and focusing on cuts in soot and methane emissions (see Bjorn again on CC). One could see this latest embrace of a carbon tax and more focused spending on decarbonizing the world economy as a continuation of that shift; publicly held opinions tend to be like ocean liners: you can redirect them, but it’s usually a wide, slow turn. In a follow-up post about a month later I talked about the geoengineering pivot, they way for deniers and minimizers to “split the difference” between their do-nothing stance and the mainstream scientific conclusion that we have to reduce our CO2 emissions a lot and very quickly (see Earth-Now, with geoengineering!).
So, Lomborg continues to help delay meaningful action on climate change, and he gets lots of juicy attention for an upcoming book, all while asymptotically approaching the view of mainstream science on what needs to be done. I’m beginning to think that Lomborg is not only just as deluded or evil as the hardcore deniers, but he’s also vastly smarter more subtle.
Related:
- Climate change: The facts of life
- Brendan DeMelle: Bjorn Lomborg Now Says Climate Change “Chief Concern,” Calls for Carbon Tax
- Lomborg: Just Kidding. We Do Need Climate Action Now
Lomborg’s an interesting creature. I’ve been trying to answer the Great Question Of Our Time: Crazy as a Loon or Crafty like a Fox?
Given his Crazy Ivan’s over the years, I’m going with Fox.
I think he’s truly gifted in his madness, though. Like this guy.
Keep up the fight,
The Yooper
I actually just heard him interviewed (about 15 minutes ago) on the BBC.
Basically what he’s saying now is – climate change needs to be dealt with, we should spend $100billion a year (on a World level through an impossible carbon tax) on green R&D, but (and here’s where he actually hasn’t changed a bit) not go rushing out and putting up wind turbines etc. now (because they are too inefficient and expensive). He says we need to just plow money into R&D until green tech is cheaper than fossil fuel based power, then start putting them up.
From the forest view, nothing has changed – just as the Koch brothers and Exxon would like – keep everything as is – until green tech is much cheaper (which of course won’t happen until you produce in enough numbers to scale down your costs, but that won’t happen under his plan cause you’re not deploying enough to do that).
The commentator repeatedly pounded on him about how he’s had this about face regarding climate change, which he denied saying he’d always said it was real and human based…
The fact that there is a time limit before nature takes control out of our hands over this whole CO2 geo-engineering experiment and that we’re on borrowed time at this point isn’t on his radar (or the media).
Just another prescription from Bjorn to ensure we go running past those feedback tipping points and the eventual deaths (this century) of billions.
I do so hope that your “post pivot” characterisation is accurate. A lot of the sensible, cool-headed contrarians/sceptics (their self-description) rely on Lomborg and his ilk to tell them what to think or say. What will they do now?! I can’t wait!
Sasparilla:
Thanks very much for mentioning that interview, which I didn’t know about.
I think that position of Lomborg’s, as you describe it, would be significantly worse for humanity than a full reversal. Of course, it still leaves him at least one more opportunity for a sea change (and the ensuing media attention) before we can say definitively that he’s joined the reality based community. I wonder when his next book is due…?
I’m beginning to wonder if Lomborg’s trying to “be all things to all people”. He’s not coming out as a strong supporter of the current science, but he keeps splitting the difference as the evidence piles up. Hmm…
You’re welcome about the interview mention. He seems to be a center of attention person, so I’m sure he’ll be popping up every 6 months or year or two with some new “change” and book to keep the light shining around him.
Give him some more time and when things are getting desperate (and his wait to do anything with CO2 emissions prescription is obviously bankrupt to the general population), I fully expect him to come singing the praises of Geo-Engineering as “the solution” and probably saying its too late to reduce CO2 emissions. Just a guess.