Cool it! A response to Bjorn Lomborg

The West Virginia University (WVU) Festival of Ideas invited Bjorn Lomborg on December 3^rd 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 3^rd 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!