'STOP THE DOOM-MONGERING': WaPo article blasted for claiming house plants hurt climate

Bjørn Lomborg, a Danish writer and author of The Skeptical Environmentalist,11 argues that if imposed today, efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050 (one goal of the Obama administration) would cost trillions of dollars and inflict more pain than climate change itself. Not surprisingly, governments won’t agree to those costs, he says, which is why international meetings like the Copenhagen conference fail every time they’re held. “One of the definitions of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different outcome,” Lomborg says.

Our current climate conversation embodies two blatantly contradictory claims. On one side, experts warn that promised climate policies will be economically crippling. In a new report, the International Energy Agency (IEA) states that achieving net-zero in 2050 will likely be “the greatest challenge humankind has ever faced.” That is a high bar, surpassing World War II, the black plague and Covid.

This Friday, world leaders and their entourages will disembark from carbon-spewing jets in New York to sign the world’s costliest climate change treaty. Lit by the flashbulbs of the world’s press and warmed by their sense of accomplishment, these politicians will pat each other on the back and declare a job well done.

The reality is that the so-called “Paris Treaty” is a hugely expensive way of doing very little.