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Merged Bjørn Lomborg, noted climate change skeptic / switches teams

The title of the article, "Noted anti-global-warming scientist reverses course", is a bit exaggerated ...

Lomborg's essential argument was: Yes, global warming is real and human behavior is the main reason for it, but the world has far more important things to worry about.
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... hardly a reverse course ... he already seemed to be warmed up to the idea
 
Bjørn Lomborg, noted climate change skeptic, does a U-turn!

Well, well. Isn't this an interesting bit of news...

'Sceptical environmentalist' and critic of climate scientists to declare global warming a chief concern facing world
The world's most high-profile climate change sceptic is to declare that global warming is "undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the world today" and "a challenge humanity must confront", in an apparent U-turn that will give a huge boost to the embattled environmental lobby.

Bjørn Lomborg, the self-styled "sceptical environmentalist" once compared to Adolf Hitler by the UN's climate chief, is famous for attacking climate scientists, campaigners, the media and others for exaggerating the rate of global warming and its effects on humans, and the costly waste of policies to stop the problem.

But in a new book to be published next month, Lomborg will call for tens of billions of dollars a year to be invested in tackling climate change. "Investing $100bn annually would mean that we could essentially resolve the climate change problem by the end of this century," the book concludes.

Examining eight methods to reduce or stop global warming, Lomborg and his fellow economists recommend pouring money into researching and developing clean energy sources such as wind, wave, solar and nuclear power, and more work on climate engineering ideas such as "cloud whitening" to reflect the sun's heat back into the outer atmosphere. ...
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:popcorn1
 
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Doh! *facepalm*

Thanks for the catch, Wangler. My apologies - would the Mods please merge the threads?
 
While I'm quite pleased to see Lomborg's change in position on this, I also agree that his new stance isn't necessarily a reversal, per se. It seems that he's always accepted the fact that the planet is warming, and been reasonably accepting of a human-induced component of said warming. I think the real big issue that he seems to have had in the past is that there was too much uncertainty in the data and how to effectively (if at all) address the question.

At least, that's my take on it all.

Curiously, I shared this news with a colleague who strongly questions any climate change science (I think for ideological reasons), and he basically dismissed Lomborg's "reversal" outright. I'm guessing that Lomborg will find himself universally astrocized: many on the GW-denying side will likely label him as "irrelevant" or a "traitor" or whatnot, whereas some on the other side will call him an "opportunist" or something similar.
 
MattusMaximus said:
Curiously, I shared this news with a colleague who strongly questions any climate change science (I think for ideological reasons), and he basically dismissed Lomborg's "reversal" outright. I'm guessing that Lomborg will find himself universally astrocized: many on the GW-denying side will likely label him as "irrelevant" or a "traitor" or whatnot, whereas some on the other side will call him an "opportunist" or something similar.
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Which I find extremely sad.

In the entire GW "debate", Bjorn Lomborg seems to be just about only person with name recognition who is acting like a scientist -- looks at evidence and changes his mind when evidence contradicts what he previously thought to be true. To call such behavior "opportunism" (or "treason" for that matter) indicates there is no honest debate, just ideology.
 
Mark6 said:
Which I find extremely sad.

In the entire GW "debate", Bjorn Lomborg seems to be just about only person with name recognition who is acting like a scientist -- looks at evidence and changes his mind when evidence contradicts what he previously thought to be true. To call such behavior "opportunism" (or "treason" for that matter) indicates there is no honest debate, just ideology.
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Yes, I agree that it is sad. Bully for Lomborg; I have a newfound respect for the man. If only there were more voices like his in this whole discussion. Who knows? Perhaps he'll start more public discussion and start giving lectures, like he did back in his "Skeptical Environmentalist" days.
 
MattusMaximus said:
While I'm quite pleased to see Lomborg's change in position on this, I also agree that his new stance isn't necessarily a reversal, per se. It seems that he's always accepted the fact that the planet is warming, and been reasonably accepting of a human-induced component of said warming. I think the real big issue that he seems to have had in the past is that there was too much uncertainty in the data and how to effectively (if at all) address the question.

At least, that's my take on it all.

Curiously, I shared this news with a colleague who strongly questions any climate change science (I think for ideological reasons), and he basically dismissed Lomborg's "reversal" outright. .
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Aside from what his actual position has been, and you can correct me if I am wrong, but Lomborg was still a high profile guy who was happily included on the list of global warming skeptics before, right? Weren't they perfectly happy to include him among their numbers before? But now they will try to disavow his significance...

It's kind of like the recently retracted Wakefield study and vaccines. Wakefield made himself a huge player in the anti-vax movement with that paper, and it was responsible for a huge part of the anti-vax movement, especially in Engalnd However, when it got retracted, they tried to claim that it wasn't REALLY about autism and vaccines, and tried to downplay it's significance. To be fair, the original Wakefield paper really didn't claim that vaccines caused autism, but it certainly was promoted that way by the anti-vaxxers (including Wakefield himself). However, once that paper was officially dismissed as trash, then suddenly they all claim that it wasn't that important.

I think the same is true for Lomborg. When they could claim him, the global warming loons were more than happy to do so, and to hold him up as a beacon. Now that he's switched, they will try to downplay his significance, and deny that he ever mattered.
 
Mark6 said:
Don't count you flock, Preacher. Lomborg does not believe anything. He accepts evidence, and changes his mind with new evidence.
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Lomborg was not relevant to the scientific discourse on climate change before and he is not relevant to it now. TBH if he accepted evidence readily he would not be needing to change his mind now.
 
lomiller said:
Lomborg was not relevant to the scientific discourse on climate change before and he is not relevant to it now. TBH if he accepted evidence readily he would not be needing to change his mind now.
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True enough, but he is relevant to the public discourse, more so now than ever especially given his "skeptical environmentalist" history. Of course, his switch will do nothing to dissuade the hard core ideological deniers, but it could serve to cause many fence-sitters to think hard.
 
Mark6 said:
Which I find extremely sad.

In the entire GW "debate", Bjorn Lomborg seems to be just about only person with name recognition who is acting like a scientist -- looks at evidence and changes his mind when evidence contradicts what he previously thought to be true. To call such behavior "opportunism" (or "treason" for that matter) indicates there is no honest debate, just ideology.
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He's a SOCIAL scientist, ie. not really a scientist at all, who has lectured in statistics :rolleyes:
 
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Since the whole thing is meant to promote Lomborg's book, you may see by yourselves and read the introduction, pages 1 to 5, at Amazon's, by clicking look inside (you know the drill). The 90usd price has been reduced, but you'll have to wait for the paperback edition as the only edition available is hardcover (hardened to match the author). No notice of any percentage being donated to any charitable cause, so Tiny Tim is not offering any blessing next Xmas.
 
lomiller said:
Did you read the pdf you linked? It’s a salad of classic denier woo filled with outright lies about what’s actually in the published literature re climate change.
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You will have to forgive me, but as an outsider to your religion I am unqualified to judge what is orthodoxy and what is heretical at any given moment.

I was just pointing out I don't see any difference from his recent quoted remarks to this in 2007

Introduction
Climate is back on the agenda, thanks to a large degree to my co-presenter, Al Gore. The climate
discussion was strong in 1992 when it was put on the agenda by the Earth Summit in Rio and
through the Kyoto Protocol agreed in 1997. Gore deserves applause for making global warming
cool again.
However, in this presentation I will move beyond recognizing the importance of global warming
and ask how we should view it, deal with it and put it in perspective.
I will make 4 basic points.
1. Global warming is real and man-made. This point has been made in many places, but
perhaps most strongly and convincingly by the IPCC (2007a).
2. Statements about the strong, ominous and immediate consequences of global warming are
often wildly exaggerated, as I will show below.
3. We need a stronger focus on smart solutions rather than excessive if well-intentioned efforts.
4. We need – as this hearing asks for – to put global warming in perspective. Climate change is
not the only issue on the global agenda, and actually one of the issues where we can do the
least good first.
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little grey rabbit said:
You will have to forgive me, but as an outsider to your religion I am unqualified to judge what is orthodoxy and what is heretical at any given moment.

I was just pointing out I don't see any difference from his recent quoted remarks to this in 2007
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You could, you know, try reading the article in the OP? A novel and radical idea, I know, but you never know what gems you might discover:

Lomborg's essential argument was: Yes, global warming is real and human behavior is the main reason for it, but the world has far more important things to worry about.

Oh, how times have changed.

In a book to be published this year, Lomborg calls global warming "undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the world today" and calls for the world's governments to invest tens of billions of dollars annually to fight climate change.
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I'll leave you to deduce how that differs from what you quoted above.
 
Again I am not sure if that is different to what he was writing in 2007 in Cool It

Q: Does he believe we should do anything about global warming?
A: Yes. As Bjorn Lomborg argues in 'Cool It', we should focus on the smartest solutions to the problems that the world faces, whether we're dealing with climate change, communicable diseases, malnutrition, agricultural subsidies, or anything else. Lomborg finds that the smartest way to tackle global warming is to invest heavily in R&D in non-carbon emitting technologies, which will enable everyone to switch over to cheaper-than-fossil-fuel technologies sooner and thus dramatically reduce the 21st century emissions. Specifically, he suggests a ten-fold increase in R&D in non-CO2 -emitting energy technologies like solar, wind, carbon capture, fusion, fission, energy conservation etc.... This is entirely in line with the top recommendation from the Copenhagen Consensus 2008, which includes some of the word's top economists and five Nobel Laureates.

Lomborg also supports a CO 2 tax comparable with the central or high estimates of CO2 damages. That means an estimate in the range of $2-14 per ton of CO 2, but not the unjustifiably high taxes of $20-40 implicit in Kyoto or the even higher ones ($85) suggested by the Stern report or Gore ($140).
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http://www.lomborg.com/faq/?PHPSESSID=5adeb64ff565ad6e8232f75769b6f2a7
 
Summarizing:

He then said this and that.

He now says this and that.

But he's still telling this. I can cut&paste the evidence.
But he always told that. I can cut&paste the evidence.
But he changed from telling this to telling that. I could cut&paste the evidence, but you still have to find your way.

Er... um... I'm so confused.

When I think of Lomborg I can't avoid picturing him in a kayak. So strong with each rock but still following the flow...
 
little grey rabbit said:
but as an outsider to your religion
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Science is not a religion. Repeat that to yourself as many times as it takes to learn or you will not fare well on a skeptic forum.

little grey rabbit said:
I was just pointing out I don't see any difference from his recent quoted remarks to this in 2007
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The “change” is that he no longer seems to be claiming global warming isn’t a problem, something he did repeatedly in the article you linked.

If you want a concrete example consider the part where he accuses various people of lying about sea level rise because they point out the total expected sea level rise for another 2 degrees of warming could be as much as 20 feet.

His evidence these people are “lying” the IPCC’s already obsolete statement that if there is no increase in glacier melting sea level rise over the next 100 years will be about 40cm. He then attacks this strawman claiming 40cm isn’t a problem.

There are estimates in the literature that do account for increased glacier melting and they say 1-2m per 100 years. (over ~500 years for the same total melt he claimed was false”

As I said it’s his claims were completely unsupported by the actual published science, and like this one were so obviously woo it doesn’t take a climate scientists to spot the errors.
 
bit_pattern said:
He's a SOCIAL scientist, ie. not really a scientist at all, who has lectured in statistics :rolleyes:
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I think we have to be cautious about that kind of statement, though. It smacks of scientism. (which is a serious problem within skepticism imho)

Social scientists may not be natural scientists, but they're still scientists.

Of course: just like natural scientists, skeptics should be very suspicious of their claims if published non-peer-reviewed documents on topics outside their scope of competence.
 
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little grey rabbit said:
Again I am not sure if that is different to what he was writing in 2007 in Cool It



http://www.lomborg.com/faq/?PHPSESSID=5adeb64ff565ad6e8232f75769b6f2a7
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Why does Lomborg refer to himself in the third person? Is it a Danish thing?

Does he still say the $20-40 per tonne CO2-tax is implicit in Kyoto? That would be interesting.

Where he is consistent is in saying that money should be given to foreigners for other, more pressing reasons, such as curing them of malaria or providing them clean water. He could put more time into promoting those causes but I guess he's pretty busy writing books and doing Social Science.
 
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