Cutting carbon emissions is not the right solution, we must seriously ramp up our commitment to green-energy development
Bjorn Lomborg, 45, is a former director of the Environmental Assessment Institute in Copenhagen. In 2002, Lomborg, in association with the institute, set up the Copenhagen Consensus Center which advocates prioritising global expenditure on controlling the spread of diseases like AIDS and malaria, and malnutrition instead of diverting all resources to tackle global warming. He is best known for his controversial book on the subject of global warming, ‘The Skeptical Environmentalist.’ Professor Lomborg is a vegetarian and was selected as one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2004.
I would single out the idea that policymakers should pay more heed to economic science — and less to hyperbole and alarmism — when they are formulating solutions to the world’s biggest problems.
Focussing on the data instead of indulging our fears would allow us to realise three things. First, there’s an awful lot about the planet that is getting better (e.g. air pollution, clean water, nutrition). Second, many of the problems we’ve been told to worry about (e.g., the use of fertilisers) are not problems at all. Third, some of the “solutions” we’ve spent many years and billions of dollars pursuing may not actually be making things better.
(This story appears in the 04 June, 2010 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)