Some business leaders are cozying up with politicians and scientists to demand swift, drastic action on global warming. This is a new twist on a very old practice: companies using public policy to line their own pockets. The tight relationship between the groups echoes the relationship among weapons makers, researchers and the U.S. military during the Cold War. President Dwight Eisenhower famously warned about the might of the "military-industrial complex," cautioning that "the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." He worried that...

Global Warming Is Manageable -- if We're Smart THE NEXT TREATY TO CURB GLOBAL WARMING WILL BE negotiated this December in Copenhagen, Bjorn Lomborg's home city. Called by The Guardian (U.K.) "one of the 50 people who could save the planet," Lomborg, a statistician, is the author of The Skeptical Environmentalist (2001) and Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming" (2007). He also maintains a Website on environmental issues at www.lomborg.com. Contrary to widely held belief, Lomborg isn't at all skeptical of the fact that global warming...

WE are often told that tackling global warming should be the defining task of our age — that we must cut emissions immediately and drastically. But people are not buying the idea that, unless we act, the planet is doomed. Several recent polls have revealed Americans’ growing skepticism. Solving global warming has become their lowest policy priority, according to a new Pew survey. (...)

According to conventional wisdom, we are voraciously using the world’s resources and living way beyond Earth’s means. This narrative of decline and pessimism underlies much of today’s environmental discourse, and is often formulated in a simple fashion: by 2030, we will need two planets to sustain us, owing to higher living standards and population growth. If everyone managed to live at American living standards today, we would need almost five planets. But this received wisdom is fundamentally wrong. (...)

THIS Saturday, the World Wildlife Fund wants everybody on the planet to switch off their lights for an hour in a "global election between Earth and global warming", where switching off the lights "is a vote for Earth". In Australia, where Earth Hour started, it evidently enjoys strong support from politicians, celebrities, corporate backers and the public. The efforts this Saturday certainly will be well-intentioned. Many of us worry about global warming and would like to be part of the solution. Unfortunately, this event - as with many public proposals on climate change...

Bjorn Lomborg said the event could actually increase emissions (...)

Better to leave it off. Bjørn Lomborg: Stefan Rahmstorf is a respected climate change scientist but by labelling me a 'spin doctor' who 'fools the public' he shows weakness in his argument on sea level rises Bjørn Lomborg, Guardian, Monday 9 March 2009 12.58 GMT In an article in the Guardian last month, I criticised an effort by a group of scientists and activists to cast aside the consensus view of thousands of scientists from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The group is organising an emergency summit on global warming in Copenhagen this...

Dire predictions about climate change and health omit the cost of cold, says Bjorn Lomborg. By Bjorn Lomborg, 13 Mar 2009 Global warming will increase the burden on the British health system because more people will suffer from heat-caused illness. This was the message delivered to a conference in Copenhagen this week by Alistair Hunt, a researcher at Bath University. "I am trying to bring home the impact of climate change to everyone," he said. (...)

Obama's Global Warming Straddle (...) The skeptics may not be winning the debate in the media, but they're "winning the reality" according to Bjørn Lomborg, author of the bestseller The Skeptical Environmentalist. Lomborg points out that despite "tremendous amounts of worrying .  .  . if you look at actual reductions in CO2 over the last few years, nothing." Lomborg isn't opposed to government action, but he derides cap-and-trade regimes as a way for politicians to "put on a tax and get people to think it's a cool thing...

The entire playlist: Carbon Emissions Debate can be found here. (2 of 14) MAJOR REDUCTIONS IN CARBON EMISSIONS ARE NOT WORTH THE MONEY DEBATE:BJORN LOMBORG (13 of 14) MAJOR REDUCTIONS IN CARBON EMISSIONS ARE NOT WORTH THE MONEY: CLOSING ARGUMENTS PT1 On BBC World News Channel: Verizon-FIOS: Channel 94 or 107 Optimum/Cablevision Channel 104 March 7: 2:10 am, 10:10 am, 3:10 pm, 8:10 pm (EST) March 8: 2:10 am, 10:10 am, 3:10 pm (EST)