The Debate: Should we be doing more to combat climate change?

Obama's Global Warming Straddle (...) The skeptics may not be winning the debate in the media, but they're "winning the reality" according to Bjørn Lomborg, author of the bestseller The Skeptical Environmentalist. Lomborg points out that despite "tremendous amounts of worrying .  .  . if you look at actual reductions in CO2 over the last few years, nothing." Lomborg isn't opposed to government action, but he derides cap-and-trade regimes as a way for politicians to "put on a tax and get people to think it's a cool thing." (...) Read full article here

Global warming is a significant, long-term problem. Unfortunately, we’re tackling it with very costly, and very ineffective, feel-good solutions.

Lomborg writes in The Australian that we should instead focus on cost-effective CO2 reductions like shale gas in the short term and green R&D in the long run.

SÃO PAULO – In a heroic case of finding a silver lining in the bleakest of all situations, the European Union climate commissioner has concluded that the global economic crisis and recession actually provided a lucky break for everyone. Commissioner Connie Hedegaard says that the slowdown in economic activity will make it easier for the EU to achieve its 2020 goal of ensuring that greenhouse-gas emissions are 20% below their 1990 level.