The Polar Bears are No Longer Dying! Who Saved Them?

The concept of trade-offs has become unfashionable. Politicians around the world like to pretend that their choices will bring us nothing but superlative benefits.

Nowhere is this whitewashing more pervasive or accepted than in climate change. There is a prevalent, comforting notion that we can have our cake and eat it too: that cutting carbon need not involve financial sacrifice.

Danish statistician, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist (2001) and one of the TIME 100 Scientists & Thinkers of 2004, Bjorn Lomborg, 42, sat down with TIME's Laura Blue in London to discuss carbon cuts, his many critics, and his new book, Cool It: the Skeptical Environmentalist's guide to Global Warming, published in the U.S. in September 2007. Watch the full interview

Bjorn Lomborg was asked if Russian President Putin was benefitting from Europe's green agenda. He explained that because the EU doesn't want coal or fracking, and its biggest economy Germany decided to phase out nuclear power, Europe has become very dependent on Russian gas, because wind and solar cannot provide reliable energy around the clock.