Climate Change Hasn’t Set the World on Fire

While the challenge of climate change is incredibly complex, the climate conversation is often restricted to an overly simplistic scope, with a limited number of acceptable perspectives. The ‘acceptable’ worldview can be reduced to this: Climate change is an existential threat, our most important problem, and we can fix it cheaply with solar and wind energy.

Bjorn Lomborg gave a speech at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusettes on 24 February 2014. The talk, entitled "Prioritizing Our Greatest Problems Versus Prioritizing Our Efforts to Find Solutions," discussed the smartest ways to tackle today's most pressing global issues. 

According to WPI, "the University Lecture Series provides a forum for speakers of national and international importance to enhance scholarly and scientific learning and to stimulate the intellectual climate of the university and surrounding communities."

Negotiators and activists are getting increasingly serious about the prospects of finalizing a carbon-cutting deal here in Paris. No doubt if they are successful we will see much back-slapping and exhortations of "success" in 7 days. But the bonhomie will hide a rather inconvenient truth: even if it’s successful, any deal negotiated in Paris is going to do very little to rein in temperature rises.