Is Everything Better Than We Think?

On the GZERO World Podcast, Ian Bremmer sits down with Danish author Bjorn Lomborg, a controversial figure in the world of climate change. Lomborg is unequivocal that climate change is a real problem and that humans are responsible for causing it. But where he differs from the global climate narrative is that the current focus on reducing carbon emissions is misguided and ineffective. Lomborg argues the world is too fixated on stopping climate change at the expense of… everything else.

Current climate action is more costly than inaction, even if politicians were smart. Bjorn Lomborg recently gave testimony to the US Senate in regard to the economic and budgetary consequences of climate change.The cost of climate action is likely to cost at least twice as much as climate inaction in this century. Lomborg presented how green energy research could show a way out of this dilemma.

By Bjorn Lomborg Wednesday, November 17, 2010 One of the scarier predictions about global warming is the suggestion that melting glaciers and ice caps could cause sea levels to rise as much as 15 to 20 feet over the next century. Set aside the fact that the best research we have - from the United Nations climate panel - says that global sea levels are not likely to rise more than about 20 inches by 2100. Rather, let's imagine that over the next 80 or 90 years, a giant port city - say, Tokyo - found itself engulfed by a sea-level rise of about 15 feet. (...)