Green activists don’t care how many people will die from zero fossil fuel use

Marine cloud whitening, and other ideas. We have precious little to show for nearly 20 years of efforts to prevent global warming. Promises in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 to cut carbon emissions went unfulfilled. Stronger pledges in Kyoto five years later failed to keep emissions in check. The only possible lesson is that agreements to reduce carbon emissions are costly, politically arduous and ultimately ineffective. But this is a lesson many are hell-bent on ignoring, as politicians plan to gather again—this time in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December—to negotiate a new carbon-emissions treaty.

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. (...) 

Headlines from around the world tell us of hundreds of deaths caused by recent heat waves. The stories invariably blame climate change and admonish us to tackle it urgently. But they mostly reveal how one-sided climate-alarmist reporting leaves us badly informed.

The stories contain a kernel of truth: Global warming is a real, manmade problem that needs addressing. As temperatures increase, so will the frequency and severity of heat waves. But the media fail to report the full story and thus lose focus on the most effective ways to help.