Finance and Economy

2014-01-08 Will we be living better in 2050 than our predecessors did in 1900? The discussion over the state of the world, and whether things are getting better or worse, is not new. Scientists and philosophers have debated the topic for centuries. From Malthus to The Limits to Growth, pessimists have built their case for a future blighted by overpopulation, starvation, and depleted resources as optimists have tried to assure them that everything would be OK.

2013-11-09  What kind of Australia do you want in 2040? What kind of jobs will be available to the next generation? And how do you want your society to look in three decades?  It is a conversation conducted far too rarely, overshadowed by day-to-day policy battles and the sensational scare of the month. In some ways, it is easy for Australia to avoid this conversation. (...)  

2013-11-06 One of the longest-running big picture debates is between optimists and pessimists  arguing the state of the world. Pessimists  have constantly painted a dystopian future from Malthus and Jevons to the 1972 book Limits to Growth. Optimists have cheerfully pointed to how everything is getting better. 

Resources, Development, and the Future of the Planet

Lomborg's answer to responses written to his "Environmental Alarmism, Then and Now" article in Foreign Affairs.

ENVIRONMENTALISTS DO NOT OPPOSE GROWTH

Frances Beinecke

2012-07-16 Die Idee, "grüne" Indikatoren ins BIP mit einzubeziehen, ist gefährlich. Auch wenn die grüne Buchführung sicher eine Rolle spielen kann, dürfen wir nicht zulassen, dass sie die Entwicklung blockiert.  

BBC Radio 4's The Today

2012-06-19 Bjorn Lomborg

BBC asked Dennis Meadows, co-author of Limits to Growth, to debate its predictions, but he said no sound bite would convince people who would listen to people like Lomborg. Yet, this debate is not about sound bites, Lomborg explains on the BBC Today program. It really is about a 40 year track record of spectacularly bad predictions. Limits to Growth set the agenda for worrying about the wrong problems with poor solutions. 

SÃO PAULO – In a heroic case of finding a silver lining in the bleakest of all situations, the European Union climate commissioner has concluded that the global economic crisis and recession actually provided a lucky break for everyone. Commissioner Connie Hedegaard says that the slowdown in economic activity will make it easier for the EU to achieve its 2020 goal of ensuring that greenhouse-gas emissions are 20% below their 1990 level.

July 19, 2010 Economista, scrittore e direttore Business School Copenhagen La Repubblica.

Looking at the issues behind the trade of endangered species, plus Middle East banking. For interview with Lomborg: see 10:40-15:10.