Bjorn Lomborg said Friday that politicians were blaming climate change for disasters like the wildfires on Maui to duck “responsibility” for “failures” in addressing them.

Ahead of the UN General Assembly next month where the Global Goals for 2030 will be a major talking point, Lomborg is promoting the most effective solutions in media around the world, urging the UN and its member states to prioritize those solutions that will do the greatest amount of good per dollar spent.
Take a look at his new interview with Michael Shermer.

The meaningful exchange of truly diverse ideas and perspectives has withered over recent decades.

Unorthodox thinking is increasingly trashed or disregarded, even as the chattering class’s fear- and force-predicated approaches repeatedly prove inadequate to cope with the true complexities and crises of the modern world.

It turns out the percentage of the globe that burns each year has been declining since 2001.

This conversation draws attention to the importance for a rational, data-inspired response to global issues. As a successful entrepreneur, I say often, data is the most information rich data stream. Every decision you make and in every approach to solving novel problems, data must be at the center of the decision, otherwise you’re speculating and relying on emotion.

A spell of extremely hot weather has hit Europe this month, bringing with it a raft of apocalyptic headlines. Named Charon, after the boatman in Greek mythology who navigated the river Styx into Hades, the heatwave has immediately been linked to climate change and, by extension, humanity’s faltering attempts to combat it.

Author and Copenhagen Consensus Center President Bjorn Lomborg has raised concerns about tuberculosis and its effect on lower-class people. “It’s actually the biggest infectious disease killer,” he told Sky News host Andrew Bolt. “Most people in the rich world haven’t heard about it – because we’ve fixed this for rich people. “We need to fix this for poor people as well.”

The global goals are a phenomenal idea. They’re what happened when the United Nations came together and said: “Here are the world’s biggest problems, and here is how we’re going to measure progress on them.” The 17 goals include promises to end extreme poverty and hunger, fix climate change and education, and reduce inequality and corruption.

Dr Bjørn Lomborg is a researcher, writer and the founder of the  think tank, Copenhagen Consensus. He has collaborated with hundreds of the world’s top economists and seven Nobel Laureates to find and promote the most effective solutions to the world’s greatest challenges, from disease and hunger to climate and education. His latest book, ‘Best Things First’ posits 12 of these solutions and details how they can be applied in a relatively inexpensive manner.

While the challenge of climate change is incredibly complex, the climate conversation is often restricted to an overly simplistic scope, with a limited number of acceptable perspectives. The ‘acceptable’ worldview can be reduced to this: Climate change is an existential threat, our most important problem, and we can fix it cheaply with solar and wind energy.