An Overheated Climate Alarm

The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris later this month is being billed as an opportunity to save the planet. It is no such thing. As I show in a new peer-reviewed paper, even if successful, the agreement reached in Paris would cut temperatures in 2100 by just 0.05° Celsius. The rise in sea level would be reduced by only 1.3 centimeters.

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.

The Climate Connection 2010
Debate - What's Stopping Us?What's stopping us from taking action on climate change?
Can research from other fields help us find solutions where conventional thinking around environmentalism might have failed?
The last part of the Climate Connection explores some of the ideas we've heard throughout the series in an audience discussion with experts in the fields of economics, psychology, leadership and environmentalism. 

Participants:
Kersty Hobson
Bjorn Lomborg
Stephen Peake
Sunand Prasad