The West Virginia University (WVU)
Festival of Ideas invited Bjorn Lomborg on December 3rd to speak
about global warming and economical solutions to the problem he called real and
man-made. Lomborg is thought of as a climate skeptic, and is quite
controversial among scientists and the public. His main approach is to put
global warming into a statistical context, quantifying the costs and benefits
of countering global warming and addressing many other issues facing humans.
Lomborg shows, for example, that cooking food in the 3rd world kills
far more people than global warming does, due to the indoor pollution caused by
cooking without proper venting. His moral philosophy is utilitarian, to help
the most people improve their lives, and he quantifies this through economic
arguments, using poverty as a proxy for unhealthful, unhappy living. His
approach is also short-sighted on purpose, emphasizing ideas that global
leaders and non-profit organizations can implement in the next decade to make
people happier. This is attractive – after all, who doesn’t want to be happy in
the next ten years – but downplays the likelihood of climate change if changes
in energy consumption don’t begin soon.
Lomborg notes that
fossil fuels are energy dense, and have made current high living standards
possible, and with it happier lives, because affluent people can make choices
that make their lives better. And these choices are enabled by technology as
simple as a kitchen vent or as complex as a cell phone. Lomborg underemphasizes
the alleged side effects of technology and affluence, such as obesity, that
kill millions of people, albeit people pushing middle age and beyond. The
problems with cars and cell phones relate to the idea of affluenza, that is,
the notion that a machine can do all the “heavy lifting”, leaving one with
nothing to do than check for social media status updates, drive through
mountain passes at high speeds like James Bond, and spend lavishly at night
clubs.
The cure for
affluenza can also help the planet and make people happier. Such win-win
scenarios are hard to model economically, virtually impossible to legislate,
and not something fossil-fuel interests care to emphasize. Walking an extra 300
steps instead of driving across a parking lot, taking the stairs instead of the
elevator if possible, and putting the cell phone down and going for a bike ride
are all things than can make us happier and healthier while modestly reducing
carbon emissions.
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Lomborg reserved
most of his criticism for renewables and the Paris climate agreement, which
heavily emphasizes the installation of solar and wind farms around the globe.
Using computer models, he claimed that the benefits of renewable installations
are small whereas the costs are high, funded by subsidies such as the
production tax credit (PTC) for wind. He made an effective case that providing
family planning including birth control to women worldwide would do more
benefit than any feasible amount of renewable energy generation. However, his
message was most appropriate to policy and law makers, not individual people
who care about the environment. Indeed, he showed efficiency improvements such
as a transition to light emitting diode (LED) lighting and weatherproofing
provided three dollars of benefit for each dollar of investment. This is an
incentive for personal action, which former Vice President Dick Cheney referred
to when he said in April 2001, “conservation may be a sign of personal virtue,
but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy
policy." I believe personal action, be it conservation, efficiency, or
using better technology, is not just a personal virtue, but a virtue in
general. And we know we need virtue now!
