Innovation & technology

Striking the right balance between preventing global warming and adapting to its effects is one of the most important – and most vexing – policy questions of our age. It is also often ignored. (...)    

Cutting future emissions is much cheaper than slashing present ones, argues Bjorn Lomborg

In The Daily Star. Saturday, August 15, 2009

Bjorn Lomborg: We Need To Spray Water Into The Air To Cool The Globe

Jay Yarow|Aug. 7, 2009, 12:52 PM

Zgodnie z obiegową mądrością zachłannie zużywamy zasoby świata i biorąc pod uwagę możliwości Ziemi żyjemy ponad stan. Ten pesymizm i opowieść o grożącym upadku leży u podstaw całej niemal debaty o środowisku i często jest bardzo prosto sformułowana: ze względu na wyższy poziom życia i wzrost populacji do roku 2030 będziemy potrzebowali dwóch planet, żeby przeżyć. Gdyby dzisiaj wszyscy żyli na amerykańskim poziomie, potrzebowalibyśmy niemal pięciu planet. Jednak ta obiegowa mądrość jest całkowicie błędna. (...) 

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. (...) 

by Bjorn Lomborg, WSJ May 22, 2008 The pain caused by the global food crisis has led many people to belatedly realize that we have prioritized growing crops to feed cars instead of people. That is only a small part of the real problem... Read it online BL May 22 2008 WSJ How to Think About.pdf

By Bjorn Lomborg, Thursday, June 26, 2008 The bitter arguments in the Senate this month over the Lieberman-Warner climate change bill, which would have required major emitters to pay for the right to discharge greenhouse gases, proved that climate change caused by humans has come to the fore of U.S. policy debates. (...) 

By Zafrir Rinat, January 21, 2008, Haaretz