Energy

‘Eat Less Meat” is the typical headline used to present a new United Nations report on climate change released Thursday. The report correctly points to the need to improve global food systems, but pundits are fixating on the supposed need for people in rich countries to change their dining habits radically. This is an ineffective and unachievable policy response.

A year ahead of the US presidential election, exaggeration about global warming is greater than ever. While some politicians continue (incorrectly) to insist it’s made up, far more insist (also incorrectly) that we face an imminent climate crisis threatening civilization.

Around the world, we’re being told to stop eating meat. Headlines, think tanks and activists all ask us to change our diet to combat climate change. 

Extremvärmen har drabbat Europa och tragiskt nog kostat människoliv, något som nu blivit ett argument för mer kraftfull klimatpolitik. Tyvärr är det fel väg att gå – och det kan leda till fler dödsfall totalt sett.

Probablemente usted haya visto los últimos titulares alarmantes: el aumento del nivel del mar debido al cambio climático podría obligar a 187 millones de personas a abandonar sus hogares por riesgo de inundaciones. No los crea. Esa cifra no es realista y ni siquiera es novedosa. Aparece en un nuevo artículo académico, cuyos autores la extrajeron de otro artículo publicado en 2011. 

Bjorn Lomborg, President of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, talks about the costs and benefits of attacking climate change with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Lomborg argues that we should always be aware of tradeoffs and effectiveness when assessing policies to reduce global warming. He advocates for realistic solutions that consider the potential to improve human life in other ways. He is skeptical of the potential to move away from fossil fuels and argues that geo-engineering and adaptation may be the most effective ways to cope with climate change.

Chancellor Phillip Hammond was slapped down by Downing Street last week for warning that reaching net zero carbon emissions could cost the UK £1 trillion and require cuts to funding for schools, hospitals and the police force. Climate change needs a response, but Mr Hammond is right to highlight the cost – and in fact, he is likely to be underestimating the real price-tag.

You’ve probably seen the latest alarming headlines: Rising sea levels from climate change could flood 187 million people out of their homes. Don’t believe it. That figure is unrealistic—and it isn’t even new. It appears in a new scholarly paper, whose authors plucked it from a paper published in 2011. And what the earlier paper actually found was that 187 million could be forced to move in the unlikely event that no one does anything in the next 80 years to adapt to dramatic rises in sea level.

Ever notice how, in the last decade or so, we quietly stopped just having storms and started having “extreme weather events”? It feels like no temperature drop or seasonal downpour is too small for the media to slap a scary name on it and issue minute-by-minute warnings. Well, now some news outlets and campaigners are trying to do the exact same thing for climate change itself.