Blowing hot air: Governmental carbon-cutting promises are inadequate

Though the images of abandoned cars in waterlogged East Coast streets might make you think otherwise, the relative toll that floods take on the U.S.—in property and lives—has decreased over time. Flooding costs as a share of gross domestic product declined almost 10-fold since 1903 to 0.05% of GDP, while annual flood death risk—fatalities per million—dropped almost threefold. World-wide data are sparser, but flood research shows costs relative to GDP and deaths relative to population have decreased globally from 1980 to 2010.

By Bjorn Lomborg In a week's time, several thousand well-meaning officials from 194 countries will gather in Cancun, Mexico, for yet another global climate summit. And just as they did last year in Copenhagen, and the year before in Poznan, Poland, and in fact every year since 1995 in a variety of locales from Kyoto, Japan, to Marrakech, Morocco, they will fill the air with apocalyptic warnings about what will happen to the planet if we don't cut carbon emissions drastically. After that, they will go home, once again having done nothing meaningful about global warming. (...) 

2014-01-16

PRAGUE – Read a newspaper or watch the evening news, and the world always seems to be getting worse. One problem after another is put under a spotlight. The more death, destruction, and despair, the better. As one Danish journalism textbook puts it: “A good story is usually bad news.” 

Only occasionally do we get uplifting, things-are-getting-better stories. When we do, they feel like a guilty pleasure. As a result, we often think that the world is in worse shape than it is – even if we think our own lives are improving.