The Usual Good Sense.

Bjorn Lomborg writes in the Telegraph:

   

Likewise, the economic models tell us that the cost
is substantial. The cost of Kyoto compliance is at least $150billion a
year. For comparison, the UN estimates that half that amount could
permanently solve the most pressing humanitarian problems in the world:
it could buy clean drinking water, sanitation, basic health care and
education to every single person in the world.
Global
warming will mainly harm the developing countries, because they are
poorer and therefore less able to handle climate changes. However, even
the most pessimistic forecasts from the UN expect the average person in
the developing countries to be richer in 2100 than we are now.
So
action on global warming is basically a very costly way of doing very
little for much richer people far into the future. We need to ask
ourselves if this indeed should be our first priority.
Of
course, in the best of all worlds, we would not need to prioritise. We
could do all good things. We could win the war against hunger, end
conflicts, stop communicable diseases, provide clean drinking, step up
education and halt climate change. But we don’t. And we have to ask the
hard question: If we don’t do it all, what should we do first?

There we have it, the usual good sense. Next time an idiotarian blathers on about global warming, simply ask them why they want to take money now from the poor to give to the rich in the future.

 

One response

  1. What’s Lomborg got against free markets? The cost of Kyoto compliance would be vastly lower than $150bn if we simply implemented a global emissions trading system. Y’know, use a market reform to correct a market failure. Then we could spend all that lovely loot on aid to the Third World.
    Actually, it strikes me that Lomborg is not so much in favour of more spending on AIDS and malaria as simply against doing anything about global warming. If he was so keen on fighting AIDS he’d presumably be campaigning tirelessly about the trillion dollars spent on arms every year and the countless other instances of money that could be better spent on fighting AIDS and malaria. Instead, he seems to spend his time complaining about how we might at some stage find ourselves wasting money on Kyoto.
    I may be wrong, and maybe he does tirelessly campaign about those other things. But if he does, I haven’t heard about it – I guess the Telegraph wouldn’t be as interested in that kind of thing anyway.

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