The Oil Drum

[Editor's note by Super G] There's an advertisement for Bjorn Lomborg's new book on the left. The editors and staff debated whether or not to run the ad. On one hand, Lomborg's attempt to "muddy the waters" in the discussion on climate change can be seen as counter-productive to goals of The Oil Drum. On the other hand, a policy that separates editorial and advertising decisions can prevent advertisers from unduly influencing our content. (The corollary is that we have run ads we don't like.) In the end, we've decided to run the ad alongside the critiques of Lomborg's book below.

Bill McKibben in the New York Review of Books:

Doubtless scientists and economists will spend many hours working their way through Cool It, flagging the distortions and half-truths as they did with Lomborg's earlier book. In fact, though, its real political intent soon becomes clear, which is to try to paint those who wish to control carbon emissions as well-meaning fools who will inadvertently block improvements in the life of the poor.

Just ask yourself this question: Why has Lomborg decided to compare the efficacy of (largely theoretical) funding to stop global warming with his other priorities, like fighting malaria or ensuring clean water? If fighting malaria was his real goal, he could as easily have asked the question: Why don't we divert to it some of the (large and nontheoretical) sums spent on, say, the military? The answer he gave when I asked this question at our dialogue was that he thought military spending was bad and that therefore it made more sense to compare global warming dollars with other "good" spending. But of course this makes less sense. If he thought that money spent for the military was doing damage, then he could kill two birds with one stone by diverting some of it to his other projects. Proposing that, though, would lose him much of the right-wing support that made his earlier book a best seller—he'd no longer be able to count on even The Wall Street Journal editorial page.