Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming

The author of this book, Bjorn Lomberg, is one of the most vilified figures in world science. He is a Danish social scientist; he has no expertise in the physical sciences His first book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, and this book, have been greeted with extremely intense hostility by the advocates of the theory that humanity is causing catastrophic global warming. Lomberg was subjected to a formal legal proceeding in Denmark by some governmental panel charged with maintaining scientific truth. There are entire web sites devoted to attacking every single page of every one of his books. According to these critics, he is an evil denier, who deliberately and with malice aforethought distorts and lies about the self-evident truths proclaimed by Al Gore.

After all of this build-up, this book is rather surprising. Never once does Lomberg challenge the IPCC case for global warming. Instead, he takes the IPCC global warming argument at face value. He basically says, assume that it is all true. (He does not even say that; he appears to believe that it is all true.) Assuming that it is all true, he says, lets look at the costs of the damage that global warming will do, and lets compare that cost to the cost of stopping it. Basically, he says, lets do an economic cost-benefit analysis. He takes every specific prediction of harm that global warming will do, and quantifies the damage in dollar terms. He then looks at the costs and benefits of dealing with the problem via the Kyoto Treaty approach, as opposed to alternative approaches. For example, it is often said that global warming will cause increased hurricanes, such as Katrina. He assumes that is true. He then looks at the cost of the damage caused by the hurricanes, the cost and benefit of the Kyoto approach and the cost and benefit of alternative approaches, such as building better sea walls, upgrading building codes in hurricane prone areas and the like.

His basic conclusion is starkly simple. The Kyoto Treaty approach will be vastly expensive and do very little good. All of the problems identified by the IPCC can be far more effectively solved by putting the money into different approaches. His fundamental conclusion is that Kyoto will slow down economic growth, and make future society less wealthy and less able to handle problems. If we let growth go forward, on the other hand, the future will be more wealthy and better able to adjust to a variety of problems.

I have no personal knowledge about any of the particulars cited by Lomberg. I do not know, for example, what the most cost-effective way would be to fight malaria. (This is an issue, because one of the cited harms of global warming is more malaria.) I am willing to bet that, in each and every case, one could argue with Lomberg's numbers. In matters of this sort, experts usually disagree with each other to some degree.

What I think is not arguable, however, is Lomberg's whole approach. He basically says that humanity has scarce resources. We cannot solve every single problem, simultaneously. Thus, he says we should use cost-benefit logic, to set priorities. He basically argues in favor of using reason to approach the problem.

I have read some of Lomberg's critics. I read some of the negative reviews here. They all argue, in different ways, against the use of reason in this area. One approach is to say that you cannot quantify human life and environmental purity. Because global warming threatens life and threatens the planet, says this approach, it is WRONG to put any numbers on it! After all, as Gore tells us, this is a MORAL issue. Another approach is to say that Lomberg does not take into account what if Earth is a tipping point, which, if we cross, will lead to everything getting irrerversbibly worse. What if the IPCC predictions are not bad enough? What if everything is much, much, much worse? Since there is a chance of this, however, slight shouldn't we drop all other problems and focus all human energy on this one, supreme, overriding problem?

Lomberg's critics, in short, counter his use of reason with emotion and hysteria. They basically argue that we should all be so afraid that we never try to use logic and reason. What is kind of funny about all of this is that Lomberg is actually a moderate. He does not question the IPCC's science. He simply applies logic to their conclusions. As we now know, there is plenty of reason to question the IPCC's science. But, as the reaction to Lomberg shows, the pro-IPCC side has never specialized in reason. They reached a conclusion, and they have tried to stampede the world into going along by promoting extreme fear and terror. It is past time to reject this approach and to embrace reason. Lomberg's book is a huge step in the right direction.

This book makes you look at the whole issue of Global Warming in a new light. The author presents information and alternatives to the current agenda that make sense. No matter what you believe about Global Warming 'Cool It' presents a perspective and possible solutions you may not have thought about.

If you are reading reviews on this page, chances are you have heard all the hype about anthropogenic global warming, and you would really appreciate some help separating the rhetorical fog of war from the reality of the situation. My advice to you is to read this book. In particular, this book should be read by science students in every high school where "critical thinking skills" are valued, especially if they are being subjected to Al Gore's movie or books.

Dr. Lomborg starts with the assumption that agw is real, and then proceeds both to make logical arguments for effective political action and to skewer the irrational arguments for what will be disastrous political action. These arguments have been discussed in other reviews. Suffice to say that if you have an open and rational mind, you will be glad that you spent a couple of hours reading this well-written book.

My only question for Dr. Lomborg is if Al Gore and the climate alarmists are fudging the data about the extinction of polar bears and penguins, etc., etc., why does he think they aren't fudging the data about agw? In light of the recent leaked CRU emails that allege collusion in covering up the Medieval Warming Period in the hockey stick graph, and cherry-picking temperature measurements to rely less on rural recordings than on those from urban "heat islands," perhaps Dr. Lomborg will rethink his agw assumption.

Someone I thought was a serious person recommended this book. When it came I sat down to read it eagerly. Finished about 20 pages before I realized the author was not about to offer any facts to back up his claims that global warming is over-rated.

Mr. Lomborg puts his finger on some of the real issues we should be spending our tax money on. He does this in a very convincing way.