Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalists Guide to Global Warming by Bjørn Lomborg

Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalists Guide to Global Warming Reviews

• 
  Amora

  Lomborg offers dozens of smart solutions to climate change and environmental deterioration in this short, but excellent, book. Backed by excellent research, Lomborg shows how we can combat climate change without overhauling the economy or dramatically changing the way we live. Lomborg also puts into perspective the problems that come with climate change and how our conventional wisdom on it is wrong. Old, but a solid book.
• 
  Manny

  Many people have pointed out that the right to free speech doesn't mean that you are allowed to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater. I suppose that what Lomborg is doing isn't quite as bad; the theater is on fire, and he's shouting "Sit down, there's nothing to worry about!" That may put him just on the right side of the line, but I still wish he wouldn't do it.
  
  As everyone who's worked with science knows, if you cherry-pick your facts to favor only the most extreme interpretations, you can support almost any position, and make it sound superficially plausible. That's what Lomborg has done here with the skeptical position on global warming. Unfortunately, it's not easy to refute him out of hand, unless you are yourself an expert; I had a long argument with a friend a couple of years ago, and spent several hours searching the web. The problem is that we don't yet know for sure what's going on, the models are all very complicated, and even the experts disagree. Lomborg is exploiting that disagreement, and making it sound like they think there is room for doubt; it's rather like the way that Intelligent Design people look at disagreements between evolutionary biologists, and then tell you that evolution's just a theory. This is disingenuous. They disagree over many details; they don't disagree about the basic fact of evolution.
  
  The bottom line for me, is simple. Why ever should Lomborg, who has had no formal training in this subject, be able to get it right, when the very responsible IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) are supposed to have got it wrong? They have hundreds of people working for them, they take all the competing viewpoints into consideration, and they are careful to give only the most conservative projections, the ones that everyone is prepared to sign up to. You have to postulate some kind of conspiracy among most of the world's scientists, which is frankly absurd. They don't have sufficient motivation, and science doesn't work that way.
  
  
• 
  Anthony A

  Lomborg looks at global warming and the proposed solutions with the unflinching eye of an economist, and discovers that most of the hype and hysteria is unjustifiable, and that most of the political solutions offered will make things worse for future generations.
  
  Lomborg is not a "climate change denier" - he fully accepts the IPCC consensus that global warming exists and is significantly caused by human activity. But that's where he parts company from most people who discuss global warming in public. Early in the book, he shows that warming is not always bad - warming in big cities has noticeably reduced death rates, for example, and polar bear populations are increasing in those areas of the Arctic which are warming. He then recounts what the actual consensus science of the impacts of warming, which excludes most of the apocalyptic visions peddled by the fearmongers. After establishing the actual effects of global warming, he starts to examine the costs and benefits of proposed solutions, and finds most of them, particularly Kyoto, wanting.
  
  This is probably the most important book written regarding the political debate over coping with global warming
• 
  Scot

  A conservative friend gave me this book for Christmas, saying it stimulated her book club to have a thoughtful discussion about the global warming debate.
  
  Not wanting to condemn it without reading Lomborg's position first, I made a valiant effort to read this all the way through, but grew increasingly disturbed at the way he reduces, simplifies, and misrepresents the arguments of many committed environmentalists, as he offers a rather smug economist's reaction to the fact that global warming is occurring--"alright already, so what if it is?" this perpsective admonishes, suggesting a range of ways that global warming can be seen as a good thing, and how many people might profit from it in different ways. (Economists are about PROFIT.) Stop worrying about climate change, all your attempts to save the environment, whether individual or collective, are counterproductive, so why not just cool it, he asks.
  
  Why indeed. Arguments presented here are faulty, evidence is highly selective, the opposing side is oversimplified to an extreme and then belittled, and there is no awareness that major lifestyle and behavior changes must occur in a wasteful, self-indulgent consumer society like the United States. I don't trust his "liberal" economic theories at all. Instead of wasting energy on this book, better to use the time to check out a book that documents its facts about how the influence of such economists can be very harmful to societies: see Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine."
  
  Sure, the Kyoto Protocol wasn't perfect, but he argues it was so faulty that we should celebrate that the US has avoided it so far. I'm quite willing to consider alternatives but the US has got to willingly accept that it is consuming too much too fast, and with the rest of the world wanting to emulate us, we're going to clean out that larder SOON. This book is a bad guide to solving social problems, and he seems to leave the concept of or impact on interelated ecosystems out entirely when theorizing how benefits of global warming might accrue. He suggests environmentalists do not support fighting AIDS, hunger, or world poverty. He is, in a word, wrong, and my deepest concern is his argument will be used by Bushniks to keep avoiding dealing with the imperative need to start changing our consumption behaviors and lifestyles. That is a bad thing and a sad thing.
• 
  Larry

  Interesting book. Mr. Lomborg takes the science and applies statistical and economic methodology to it. Bottom line, the scare stories miss the point. Quite often they forget to give the other fact or more embaressing to look at the denominator. For example, about 5 times as many people die from cold than from heat related disease, etc. So warming saves lives. Rain increases so some areas do better others worse, but on the whole the world may do better. The amount of starvation may go up, but far less than population grows. The population exposed to Malaria may increase but the science assumes no wealth effect which ameliorates the effects. Even if stronger hurricanes happen, much of the added destruction is due to population shifts.
  
  Lomborg suggests that much of the money politicians propose to spend on preventing global warming could be better spent on food, clean water, disease prevention, etc. Simply, I agree.
• 
  Erik

  I have a fascination with reading what is popular in non-fiction no matter how idiotic the book appears. I have at times been surprised and my intuitions about a book proved completely wrong. That was not the case with this book.
  
  Lomborg, has nothing new to say, he has no specialization in education or experience that is in anyway relevant to the topic he has chose to discuss, and he has no sense of proper scholarship. One would have thought that the fire storm that broke over his last book would be enough to get him out of the spotlight, but alas, still a best-seller. As with the last book, where several of the scientists whose data he used said he had grossly misrepresented it, this book is full of false uses of data.
  
  I am actually realizing as I write this that there is one use that this book could be put to that it is better suited than any others, it could be studied by students of the sciences and social sciences in order to show them how statistics and data can be manipulated to make arguments that are obviously false.
  
  As a last point, I have no idea why best selling literature always leans towards the unspecialist, people read journalist Friedman on economics, instead of Nobel Prize winners Joseph Steigltz or Amartya Sen; and now they read Lomborg, who has not one single article published in a per reviewed journal on climate change.
  
  In closing I agree completely with the Publishers Weekly Review above: "Though he argues passionately, Lomborg's efforts seem more about pushing his opponents' buttons than facing honestly the complexities of global climate change."
  
  This is a book for ostriches hoping to keep piling sand on their heads, luckily for them, with more an more people reading this book, their will be a lot more sand to go around in the near future.
  
• 
  paper0r0ss0

  Nemmeno troppo eretico questo scienziato fuori dal coro. Il riscaldamento terrestre a causa dell'attivita umana e' molto probabilmente una realta', quello che veramente si differenzia nell'analisi di Lomborg e' l'effetto di questo innalzamento della temperatura a causa della co2. Nulla di catastrofico, di esiziale, di inaffrontabile e soprattutto nulla che giustifichi una campagna terroristica come quella portata avanti dai profeti di sciagura della specie di Al Gore e profittatori vari. Profittatori di disparata natura, politici riciclati, scienziati rampanti, giornalisti main stream e cosi' via, perche' una cosa e' certa, se si fa dell'allarmismo in questo campo i soldi piovono a catinelle (in barba alla siccita'). L'uso dei carburanti fossili deve essere superato il piu' rapidamente possibile, ma con un processo attivo di sviluppo sociale, economico e scientifico, non con iniziative repressive come quelle previste dall'accordo di Kyoto, che oltre a essere insensatamente costoso si e' rivelato massimamente inutile. Con lo stesso sforzo economico, o una frazione di esso, indirizzato opportunamente, si salverebbero molte piu' vite umane in minor tempo, dando una svolta epocale alla qualita' della vita sul pianeta.
• 
  Thom

  "Cool It" does two things well - criticizes some of the reactionary aspects of Global Warming (statements, media campaigns, and Kyoto), and proposes a method of deciding where money should be spent, based on solid numbers and good estimates of the effects of Global Warming. His point, and I agree with it, is that no matter what you and I do about hybrid vehicles and carbon credits, more people in China are going to want cars over the next 10 years. That is the BIG problem here. If we can provide an affordable alternative, affordable to China, to the third world, then THAT will go a long ways towards changing the global warming trend.
  
  Read in 2007
• 
  Michael

  Excellent book about climate change, and the choices we face over the next century. Professor Lomborg is not a 'climate change denier' (a disparaging term coined by assholes whose moral vanity is matched only by their self-righteousness. For example of usage, see: Al Gore). Instead, he fully accepts the very clear science that tells us that the earth is warming, that humans bear some of the responsibility, and there will be negative consequences (increased flooding, more frequent and more powerful storms, more malnutrition, more diseases like malaria, etc.) However, the questions raised by this book are tremendously thought-provoking, and backed up by vast swathes of data. For example...how expensive (not to mention possible) is it to reduce carbon emissions? Even if we do reduce carbon emissions, how much of an impact will it have on global temperature? When? At what price? Are there any positives to global warming (fewer cold related deaths? Longer growing seasons?) Which is more feasible, pursuing some vague international consensus on making one's economy less robust by arbitrarily taxing carbon, or investing in adaptations to help human beings weather (ha!) the inevitable disruptions that will be caused by climate change?
  
  Whichever side of these questions you come down on, Cool It requires the reader to take a long, hard look at some of the statements made about the impact of climate change. As I said in a recent previous review, environmentalists are their own worst enemies. By making every utterance an hyperbolic, breathless prediction of global catastrophe, then calling anyone who questions their prognostications a 'denier,' they have managed to stifle important conversations about how we might best prepare for the changes in our environment. Because--let's face it, people--the United States, China, India, Brazil, and other nations--are not going stop emitting carbon. It's just not going to happen. It makes much more sense for us to be proactive and plan as best we can for what will most likely challenge us as the world gets warmer. The author suggests many excellent areas where we can prepare to protect human beings and property. More lives will be saved by doing these common sense things than by spending trillions of dollars to see a 0.06% drop in global temperatures 100 years from now.
  
  With all of that said, I found one major flaw in Professor Lomborg's arguments. Much of his analysis about how to best help third world nations mitigate the impact of global warming was predicated on developing their economies so that they were richer, with the idea being that the richer a nation is, the more resources they will have to protect themselves against climate related disruptions. I am unconvinced that greater wealth will be possible using fossil fuels as a basis for economic development as we have done in the wealthy west and north. As fossil fuels become more expensive due to increased scarcity, it seems to me that hoping for a healthier, wealthier third-world may not be a sufficient strategy to stave off climate disruption. Likewise, the Professor doesn't talk much about other forms of pollution related to developing (and developed) economies. His idea that growth is the answer seemed a bit overly optimistic, in my opinion. Professor Lomborg rightly points out that we can't simply focus on Co2 reductions as a solution to all of our problems. I would humbly suggest that we can't count on a fossil fuels based economy to grow its way out of danger, either, since fossil fuels are most likely going to become much more expensive in the future. (I loved his suggestion about a globally funded R&D program to find more clean and efficient energy sources. I'd gladly pay a modest carbon tax if it funded something like that!)
  
  All in all, this is an excellent book, honestly written, logically presented, and worthy of a fair hearing in the marketplace of ideas. I came away from reading Cool It knowing much more than when I started, even if I don't agree with every point. Good stuff. If you are interested in the Great Climate Wars, this one is for you.
• 
  Philip

  Maybe 1.5 stars. For cautionary reasons relating to messaging.
  
  Having just read Osman et. al.'s reevaluation of Mann's hockey-stick graph in Nature (
  Globally resolved surface temperatures since the Last Glacial Maximum), where they use additional global data to sharpen the conclusion that "both the rate and magnitude of modern warming are unusual relative to the changes of the past 24 thousand years," I figured I should finally get around to reviewing this book (one of the reasons for this is, of course, that Lomborg uses criticisms of the original hockey stick graph to chip away at the consensus that global warming is kind of bad for us and the world).
  
  Full disclosure before I begin:
  1) I generally think Lomborg is full of shit, so I didn't exactly come into this book with an open mind; Rather, I read it since Lomborg is often referenced by climate change skeptics and deniers and I've been meaning to read it for quite some time now. And,
  2) I think the trend of blaming everything on climate change is doing more damage than it is doing good. It allows skeptic- and denier-profiteers to pounce on iffy causality and messaging opportunism.
  
  Nothing I read in this book changed my mind on either point. In fact, on both points I came away with a strengthened conviction that I am right.
  
  As with pretty much all his arguments that I have taken part of to date (primarily articles and other non-book publications as well as various talks and podcasts), Lomborg shows that he is a skilled cherry-picker and a fantastic knife-edge balancer. He seemingly scours climate change/global warming arguments for inconsistencies - however small - in order to re-frame the entire argument into a straw man that he then proceeds to pick apart. Misrepresenting arguments, international agreements, studies, and research is Lomborg's bread and butter, yet he often manages to stay on just this side of truthful in what he says (just not what that implies). Nonetheless, his purpose is clearly that of deception.
  
  Lomborg does not take on the problem as a whole. Everything in his arguing boils down to a specific example that serves his purposes while ignoring the greater picture. He then extrapolates and scales his conclusions globally - conveniently leaving out all other global data since they would change his specific and desired conclusions. Unfortunately, humans respond really well to specific examples, especially when we can relate to them personally from our own experiences (like, say, it's cold here, the world can't be getting warmer), and even more so when we stand to gain personally in the short term.
  
  That being said though, there is a cautionary tale with claims and argument like those in this book. We cannot continue to blanket-blame all weather and/or climate phenomena on global warming just because a catastrophe or tragedy is playing out on live TV. It's pivotal to not provide tinder for climate change denying rhetoric - people like Lomborg are good enough at finding things to pick at without us handing them legitimate arguments to feed their followers.
  
  Also, were I to mention anything truly worth keeping in mind from Lomborg's bag of tricks/arguments, it would be that we truly make sure our efforts to combat global warming are useful. Too often it's more about sounding green and sustainable than actually achieving anything. That, too, does an unspeakable amount of harm.
  
  In summary, Lomborg should not be read or listened to without real fact checking. When he says that "here B is true, therefore A can't be true as a whole" it's not enough to just check if he's right about B, you have to look and see if that B is an anomaly in the great scheme of things or not. The problem is that this takes both time and effort - not to mention things like not dismissing everything not originating in one's social media feeds.
  
  In other words, read with caution, doubt, and verify.
• 
  John Atcheson

  No stars for this misleading bit of non-science masquerading as science. Lomborg sets out to intentionally misinform, and he distorts facts, repeats debunked denier talking points and flat-out lies in order to do so. Hard to see what his motive is, except global warming iconoclasts get a lot of attention from the mainstream media which seeks "balance" at all costs, including loss of accuracy. There's gold in being a denier I guess, but don't wast your time here -- just listen to Fox News if you need to deny reality.
• 
  Vivi

  Couldn't finish it 😬
  First book I pick up on climate cause I got it for free with another one and it sounded promising with a middle ground approach but from the beginning it sounds like the author doesn't account for corruption, capitalism and billionaires pollution.
• 
  Kuszma

  Lomborg alaposan megadatolt, mégis rövidke vitairatában szembeszáll a „zöld alarmizmussal” – vagyis azzal, hogy a globális felmelegedés kapcsán folyton csak a katasztrofikus forgatókönyveket vesszük számba, de kizárjuk az értelmes vita lehetőségét. Sorra cáfolja meg az olyan toposzokat, mint a jegesmedvék kihalásának veszélye, az új jégkorszak, vagy a Kilimandzsáró hósipkájának eltűnése. Közben azért nem szabad elfelejtenünk, hogy Lomborg nem a globális felmelegedést vitatja, egyszerűen elfogadhatatlannak tartja, hogy a pánikgombot nyomogatjuk ahelyett, hogy racionális megoldási alternatívákat keresnénk. Végső soron felhánytorgatja az olvasónak, hogy „ösztönösen úgy érezte, hogy meg kell kérdőjeleznie azt az állítást, hogy a globális felmelegedés pozitív hatással is járhat. Ugyanez az ösztön valamiért nem működik, amikor a negatív hatásokról hallunk.” Amely sajátosság amúgy nem csak környezetvédelmi kérdésekben jellemző, hiszen minden évtizednek megvan a maga apokalipszise: az ötvenes-hatvanas éveknek az atom, az ezredfordulónak az üvegházhatás, korunknak pedig az új népvándorlás. Aminél mi sem természetesebb, hisz az ember valószínűleg evolucionálisan van pesszimizmusra kódolva – gondolom, az óvatos ősembernek nagyobbak voltak a túlélési esélyei, mint az optimistának, aki így szólt a barlang előtt: Á, biztos már nincs itt az a benga nagy barnamedve, akit a múltkor láttam. Viszont az utóbbi évszázadokban ragadhatott volna ránk annyi, hogy legalább a sorsfordító kérdéseket alaposabban körüljárjuk, és objektív adatokra épülő döntést hozunk.
  
  Egyetlen bajom a könyvvel, hogy túlságosan az Al Gore & tsai által feldobott állításokra koncentrál – bár szó se róla, azokkal eredményesen kel birokra. Nyilván tudatos szerzői cél ez, Lomborg ezt érzi prioritásnak: a tévhitek felszámolását. Viszont ezzel feladja annak lehetőségét, hogy koherens, jól felépített tanulmányt írjon az „igazi” globális felmelegedésről. Elmondja ugyan, hogy mi nem igaz, de arról kevesebbet beszél, hogy mi igen. Másrészről azzal, hogy ilyen mértékben hozzáláncolja magát ellenfele érveihez, paradox helyzetet hoz létre: azokra a problémákra javasol megoldási alternatívákat, amiknek a létét amúgy megkérdőjelezi. Sajátos helyzet. Ettől függetlenül ez egy tárgyilagos és fontos könyv, amit mindenképpen javasolt átfutni azoknak, akik a téma iránt érdeklődnek. És nem árt, ha közben mindenki tisztában van azzal: Lomborg csak jót akar. És egy termékeny dialógus megnyitására kiválóan alkalmas ez a kis pamflet.
• 
  Alice

  *INITIAL IMPRESSION*
  
  I'm not even halfway through this book yet, and I'm already ranting about it. Not a good sign.
  
  Look, Mr. Bjorn whatever-your-name-is, I agree with your overall argument. I do, I really do. And I think you make some important points about how to think about solutions to global warming that are worth pursuing.
  
  But if you're going to write a book, FERCHRISSAKES make it interesting. Lord knows I love economists (well, one economist anyway), but they couldn't write an interesting sentence if their positive utility depended on it. The writing is as dead as a Dickensian doornail.
  
  Also, where the hell are you getting your numbers from? Fishy fishy fishy, that's all I have to say.
  
  Lord knows how the hell I'm going to finish reading!
  
  *AFTER ACTUALLY FORCING MYSELF TO FINISH THE BOOK*
  
  It took great effort to finish this book. The author's writing is ABSOLUTELY INFURIATING. Not just because it's soporifically boring, as mentioned above, but because he is clearly trying to pull the wool over his readers' eyes via gross gross GROSS oversimplification and wily/selective use of statistics.
  
  By golly, given the dismissive ease with which Lomborg thinks we can eradicate HIV/AIDS and malaria, why do we even HAVE disease on this planet? It's just not that simple, damnit. And god, his statistics. He cites Nobel laureates and says that 'leading climate scientists' support X and Y statement about cold deaths and heat deaths and yadda yadda yadda. It wreaks of rhetorical appeals to authority, to cover up the fundamental weakness (and spuriousness?) of his arguments.
  
  And it's frustrating, because I actually AGREE with some of his major points. (Go ahead, call me anti-green.) I suppose I've been biased by my economist boyfriend, but I do think that more money should be put into R&D, instead of attempting to pursue prohibitively expensive policies that may yet do little toward addressing the global warming problem.
  
  So, fundamentally, it is a testament to the great failure of Bjorn Lomborg that his book, his writing, his fishiness have essentially infuriated the converted! If he can drive away his most receptive audience with his transparently suspicious tactics, then how is he going to convince anyone else?
  
  But perhaps that's the answer - maybe he's not trying to convince anyone. Maybe he's just out to stir up controversy. He's an economist after all, and controversy sells books.
• 
  Frank R

  No, the polar bears aren't going to go extinct. No, the seas are not going to rise and flood our cities, coastlands, and small island nations. No, the Gulf Stream is not going to stop and plunge Europe into Siberian cold. No, hurricanes are not getting more frequent or more intense. No, there will not be droughts and famines. Lomborg dispenses with all the hype, hysteria, and doom-saying in this slim volume (1/3 of its pages is bibliography and notes!)
  
  Lomborg, an economist, argues that we need to cool the overheated rhetoric and start talking sanely and calmly about anthropogenic, CO2 caused global warming. Why are we reaching for the most expensive, most divisive, most politically unlikely solution--a massive reduction in human's CO2 production? Not only is such a solution unworkable (India, China and the rest of the developing world will never sign on, not to mention the failure of Europe to meet its Kyoto goals) and highly damaging to our way of life, but it also will have a very small effect. Instead, Lomborg says, we need to look into ways to adapt, and consider the many other more effective and more pressing environmental and social concerns that face humanity, such as controlling malaria and HIV, and providing sanitation, water and nutrition to poor nations.
  
  Today's environmentalist movement has been turned into a cheap religion, where one can feel morally superior to others, and can feel good about oneself, by such puerile means as using a certain kind of lightbulb, driving a certain kind of car, recycling, or donating to certain non-profits. It is about "feeling good", not actually doing effective good.
• 
  G

  A balanced sensible view of the climate change debate. It should be mandatory reading, especially for advocates of radical climate change policy. Author Bjorn Lomborg is not a climate change denier. Rather, he looks at the disasater claims made by policy advocates and then compares them to the actual likely outcomes, to the costs of the proposed solutions, and the costs to potential, but rejected, alternatives. Why have politicians and advocates pushed this agenda and for the most costly, yet ineffective, solutions. He doesn't go deeply into the why's but it is something everyone should think about when provided the facts. I have my own thoughts.
• 
  Bonnie E.

  This book provides an interesting perspective on global warming without being shrill or overtly political. It's not an anti-environmental polemic but rather, a thoughtful and logically presented point of view about an issue that has polarized people to such an extent that we sometimes find it difficult to listen to one another. Lomborg's propositions will force you to test your assumptions and broaden your understanding of global warming, and no matter where you fall on the sliding scale of believers/ non-believers, you'll learn something from this one.
• 
  Kayla Peebles

  This book was much needed for me. Bjorn Lomborg urges us to take a step back from the environmental debate and look at it in a economically. What is the cheapest way to do the most good? Carbon cuts rank towards the bottom of the list. Instead we should focus on research and development as well as other more concrete actions that can be made imminently. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who cares about the environment but wants to stop approaching the global warming problem so "heatedly" (muahaha). Seriously though, good read.
• 
  William

  Lomborg does a great job of approaching global warming from an economist's perspective. He also does it concisely which is rare. He easily demonstrates why large monetary investments in the "prevention" of global warming would be (and currently are) silly public policy. He uses Kyoto as the perfect example of a current policy and also examines some proposed policies. All this from a believer in man-made global warming.
• 
  Laura Finazzo

  From Al Gore to Kyoto, from sea level rise to fatal disease, Bjorn Lomborg tackles it all in his book Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming. Having seen a preview for Lomborg’s movie which spreads the message of his book, I was intrigued and decided to see what it was all about. I’ve seen An Inconvenient Truth, I’m completed my share of reading on environmental issues and strategies for doing my small part, and I consider myself to be a citizen who cares about the world in which she lives. Though I’m still skeptical of some of the research that Lomborg himself is advancing, his 164 page book offered a concise and clearly thought-out argument for tackling other more feasible issues before the environment in order to take the time to more efficiently and intelligently handle the global warming crisis.
  
  Lomborg doesn’t really buy into the crisis of global warming. The language of terror and fear in which environmental issues are coated rings grossly over-exagerrated to him. Throughout the course of Cool It, he provides evidence to the contrary of what you may have learned from Al Gore or what you think you know about the Kyoto agreement. Ultimately, though we should still do what we can to reduce CO2 emissions, doing so will not make a big enough dent to halt environmental change. We are focusing on fruitless and inefficient potential solutions to a misconstrued problem and Lomborg urges us to think in terms of improving the quality of life and the environment, rather than allowing ourselves to get caught up in focusing upon on aspect of the environmental damage we are causing. He advocates utilizing a cost-benefits analysis when looking at the environment because so many of our expensive efforts do much less than their worth.
  
  With a decidedly optimistic view of climate change, Lomborg does not believe that the future will be as bleak as everyone claims these days and definitely not as quickly as popular research believes. Backed largely by research from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the argument is that the global temperature will warm less than 5 degrees by the end of this century. And though temperature rise may not seem desirable, it actually will lead to a decrease in cold deaths, which already outweigh heat deaths worldwide. At the same time, the change in temperature, so says Lomborg, will not be substantial enough as to increase heat deaths because humans are far more adaptable than we give ourselves credit for. Plus, we’ve got AC. Overall, the average global temperature statistics are hard to go by because different hemispheres and climes of the world will change in different ways over the years. Essentially what is most important to take away from the IPCC’s research is that every heat wave is not an indicator of global warming, that our temperatures are not going to sky rocket as we thought, that subtle temperature increases may be better for humanity, and, most importantly, that there are ways we can deal with warmer climes because we’ve dealt with it before (when we had even fewer technologies and resources at our disposal) in the last century.
  
  Among the various analyses Lomborg provides, let me give you an example. In cities, temperatures are likely to rise more quickly because there is less vegetation and more heat-absorbing building materials, such as brick, asphalt, and tarmac, creating what are known as urban heat islands. Rather than making costly efforts to reduce CO2 emissions only, Lomborg suggests other more affordable, simple, and accessible solutions. Paint black tarmac and buildings white to attract less heat and plant more vegetation to increase moisture and cool the air. These efforts could reduce temperatures in cities by more than the 5 degrees that they are expected to rise in the coming century – giving us a net lower temperature. And in his signature cost-benefit analysis, Lomborg shows us that taking these efforts in Los Angeles, though initially costing $1 billion, would annually save $170 million in air conditioning and $360 million in smog-reduction. It wouldn’t take too long for the annual benefits to outweigh the one initial cost.
  
  But Lomborg doesn’t just look at the environment in this book. He’ll fight your fears about rising sea levels, global temperature increases, potential mass flooding, an impending Ice Age, catastrophic changes in the Gulf Stream, and global warming contributing to an increase in major natural disasters with solid factual evidence and a realistic look at the changes in our modern world. A lot of the fear-mongering that occurs among the major player in the environmental dialogue compare modern day damages, both real and hypothetical, with those of the past. But doing so in like comparing apples to oranges. For instance, Hurricane Katrina, which was a category 3 hurricane, wrecked unparalleled havoc on New Orleans. But in looking back at hurricanes that have occurred in the area since 1900, Katrina was by far not the largest or most dangerous as a natural disaster. The real tragedy and the reason Katrina has become a poster child of sorts for evil natural disasters is because so many people were affected by it. In years prior, fewer people were living at the coast, they had fewer possessions and less wealth, and thus any disaster would have affected a smaller contingent of people with less to lose. Katrina caused so many irreparable damages by virtue of the fact that she struck a highly populated area in the 21 century when people have more things that are in danger of being destroyed. We can’t just say Katrina was a hurricane like no other that can only be explained by the global warming crisis – to do so would be largely inaccurate and would miss the point entirely. And to do so would really be an injustice as we can learn some valuable lessons from Katrina. There is nothing humans could have done to have stopped the category 3 hurricane that hit, however, there is much more we can do to educate and prepare people in the future. Better support systems for buildings, citizens informed of evacuation routes and escape protocols, and increased knowledge about the dangers of living in such coastal areas could all help us better prepare for and recover from any such future disasters. Reducing CO2 emissions or demonizing our fellow humans for wreaking havoc on the environment will do little to positively impact any potential future Hurricane Katrinas.
  
  Again and again we see that we’re focusing on the wrong issues and framing them in the least effective ways. And improperly framing a problem will no doubt lead to an ineffective solution. Lomborg takes the time to focus on other major issues the world over that we can do something about – HIV/AIDS, malaria, hunger. These are issues that are more pressing than global warming, he argues, but also have much more achievable solutions. And throughout the course of Cool It, like an annoying voice inside your head, Lomborg repeats again and again that if we can ensure the health, safety, and survival of more people all over the world, then there will be more people with the potential of developing the technologies and ideas to further reduce whatever threats global warming may pose. In first securing the needs of a population, we can then move on to less fundamental but still important issues – and we’ll have more people who will be willing and able to contribute to the discussion. Once again, we need to look at things through the cost-benefit lens. Is it more beneficial to prioritize less costly issues that will equip us with more people to tackle slightly lower priorities? I think yes. In talking about global warming and its impending threats, we are called on to thing about our future and the future of our children. Sure, we want them to live in a healthy and stable environment, but don’t we also want them to live, to eat, to be healthy and free of disease too? We can’t tackle all the social ills in one lifetime, or even one century, but we can prioritize intelligently to tackle the most pressing problems with viable solutions first.
  
  The only issue I really have with Cool It comes to food production. I don’t know all sides of the story, but I do think that for the health and viability of our sustenance, in terms of maximal nutritional content and sufficient dietary diversity, it is important to have better and more authentic methods of production. Lomborg talks about food availability and how it has increased dramatically since the 1960s and 70s. However, we aren’t distributing the food adequately, which Lomborg points out. But we also need to keep in mind that more food isn’t necessarily good. Sure we want enough to feed ourselves without worry but when we are producing more than our daily caloric needs, where does the excess food go? Well normally we eat it, then we gain weight and increase our risk of disease and unhealthy patterns. Or the food goes to waste and usually isn’t put back into the soil to improve next year’s lot, but rather tossed in the garbage. We need to focus less on how much we produce and more on what we produce. Lomborg references agriculture models that predict large increases in food availability – “more than a doubling of cereal production over the coming century.” I love cereal and that’s all well and good for breakfast, but what about the fresh fruits and vegetables that contain our most essential vitamins and minerals? What about all the fields of corn crops that are producing nutritionally inadequate corn syrup to make those cereals? These fields are not only using up valuable land on which we could be producing more viable sources of sustenance, they are also going to cereals and other sugary and processed foods on which we can’t hope to maintain a healthy existence.
  
  But I digress. Lomborg’s arguments are not flawless, but they are fairly tough, well thought-out, and accessibly described. He ultimately wants us to know that, though decreasing CO2 emissions is a noble goal, it isn’t one that is affordable or realistic, or even all that necessary when so many other potential solutions would provide a bigger bang for our government’s buck. Lomborg is optimistic about the future, about the environmental changes that could actually improve some of our living conditions. I remain skeptical, however, of the ability of social policy to change. So many Americans have been bombarded with messages of imminent environmental ruin and have been scared into advocating change. We need to educated everyone about the reality of the issue and our potential to more effectively handle other important issues that are just as pressing if not more. Education and knowledge are ultimately what we need to focus on – if we want to improve our lives and those of future generations, we need to ensure that people know the best solutions for and methods of doing so. Otherwise policy will never change and the social issues that Lomborg, the IPCC, and many other compassionate souls the world over care about and recognize as needing attention, will never get the spotlight they deserve. And though I am wary when it comes to population issues, I also agree with Lomborg that a more healthy and vital future population, though larger than the numbers we are currently struggling with, will likely be more wealthy with the potential to thrive and to conduct more research and development to avert whatever global warming crisis is imminent. By taking the time to more thoroughly understand the environmental issues and what is at stake, we can better adjust our efforts to curb the damage. But first, maybe we should turn our eyes to humanitarian issues about which we can currently do more.
  
  Ultimately, Lomborg’s Cool It provides a new method of understanding the environmental debate and proposes new solutions to it. He calls out the fear-mongerers and assuages our worries with less frightening evidence of potentially positive changes. He takes an optimistic view of the future and sets it forth in an easy to understand, accessible, and relatively short book that makes a whole lot of sense. The cost-benefit analysis when applied to so many aspects of the global warming crisis calls for a new method of conceptualizing the environment, however this reconceptualization needs to take place at a level larger than us individuals. There is little we can do on our own beyond urging policymakers to change and it is this that leaves me still skeptical. I can envision Lomborg’s changes for improving our lives and environment, but the most important question is, can we make them a reality?
• 
  Rafael Nieto

  Bjorn, publicando en el 2007, habla del calentamiento global como si no fuera tan malo. Sus datos citan que en Europa muere más gente por frío que por las olas de calor. Algunas de sus soluciones propuestas son que las personas compren mosquiteros contra la malaria y si se calienta el mundo podremos, si mejoramos la economía, tener más aires acondicionados. Esto no es broma. Una cachetada duele menos que leer a Cool It, aún así, lo he terminado.
  
  Aquí dejo dos citas que me han pesado mucho. La primera habla de los glaciares y cómo, según él, no importa perderlos porque como quiera, hay otros problemas sociales que debemos atacar. El autor dice que en la revolución industrial, aunque los bosques peligraran, fuimos ricos.
  
  Primera cita:
  
  “Now, you may be cringing and saying that we should conserve the pristine glaciers. They are aesthetically magnificent, and in the best of all worlds, where there are no competing demands, that would be an important ideal. But in a world of many other issues, we have to consider that developing countries might be interested in using some of their finite natural resources, like glaciers, to grow richer rather than to provide aesthetic enjoyment for the wealthy. Certainly we did so in the developed world when we cut down much of our forests and grew rich.”
  
  La segunda cita, y última, con la que me valgo a rematarlo de pendejo, es esta:
  
  “First, when water wets warmer, like everything else it expands.”
  
  Ustedes critiquen como quieran. Dos veces se equivocó el autor, muy feo. Cualquiera que se quede insatisfecho con su cita, busque en google si yo me he equivocado.
  
  Para terminar, si algunas ganas te quedaron de leerlo, mi resumen es que a Bjorn le interesa más la calidad de vida humana (o sea, el crecimiento económico) que cualquier problema ecológico. Este hombre habla de billetes, pero nada de naturaleza.
  
  0.5 estrellas de 5 aunque goodreads me imponga darle una.
• 
  Gregg

  This is a fair economic review of climate change. Some of the analysis is strained (e.g. malaria deaths) but it is a unique lens to look at climate change. This book is dated—15 years old—however it sets up his 2020 book so I look forward to reading that.
• 
  Thomas

  Basically a critique of lying propagandists such as Al Gore.
• 
  Blair

  In his own words, the argument in this book is:
  
  1. Global warming is real and man-made. It will have a serious impact on humans and the environment toward the end of this century.
  
  2. Statements about the strong, ominous and immediate consequences of global warming are often wildly exaggerated, and thus unlikely to lead to good policy.
  
  3. We need simpler, smarter, and more efficient solutions for global warming rather than excessive if well intentioned efforts. Large and expensive CO2 cuts made now will have only a small and insignificant impact far into the future.
  
  4. Many other issues are more important than global warming. We need to get our perspective back. There are many more pressing problems in the world, such as hunger, poverty and disease. By addressing them, we can help more people, at a lower cost, with a much higher chance of success than by pursuing drastic climate policies at a cost of billions of dollars.
  
  Lomborg presents a framework for analyzing climate change as one of many problems to be solved. Spending money reducing greenhouse emissions today will reduce the negative impact of those emissions in the future. But there is an optimum amount of money that should be spent, after which the amount spent will exceed any benefits. This comes as a welcome relief to the single issue approach in most other books on this topic. Given this reasonable approach to the problem, the reader may tend to trust Lomborg when he answers the question what is the optimum effort to combat global warming. Unfortunately this trust is betrayed by a systematic distortion of the issues involving climate change.
  
  The book starts with looking at the issues of the impact of climate change on polar bears, and heat deaths to humans from heat waves such as the one in Europe in 2003. These non-issues were indeed raised by environmentalists and the ignorant media, but Lomborg rides them hard throughout the book. You get the idea that the main problem with global warming is that more people will die of heat stroke. But don't worry, even more people will no longer die from the cold. Polar bears are cute, and it is sad when old people die from the heat, but the real issue with global warming is the ability of humanity to feed itself, which gets only cursory coverage. Instead there is a consistent pattern of distorting information from authoritative sources.
  
  For example, on page 60 we are told "In its 2007 report, the UN estimates that sea levels will rise about a foot over the rest of the century." He does not mention that this estimate explicitly excludes melting from ice caps, which is so uncertain they want to consider it separately than the other much better understood contributors to sea level rise. There is good evidence that melting ice caps will contribute many meters of sea level rise, what is uncertain is whether that will take place over tens, hundreds, or thousands of years.
  
  On page 36 we are told that the optimum strategy to deal with climate change is a carbon tax starting at two dollars per ton, rising to 27 dollars by the end of the century. He then quotes the two dollars figure throughout the rest of the book. The references for these pages all point to a 2006 study by economist William Nordhaus. But the Nordhaus 2007 paper (on page 18) states that the optimum carbon tax rate should start at $27 per ton and rise between 2 and 3 percent in real terms each year, reaching $90 per ton in 2050 and $200 per ton in 2100. This is more than an order of magnitude higher than Lomborg claims.
  
  This book should not be lightly dismissed, because its logical approach to the problem will be appreciated by people of good will who cannot recognize the distortion in the details. The type of hysterical denunciation of Lomborg often seen in these pages will only reinforce how much more reasonable and balanced he seems to be. Branding him as a "denialist" is patently false, as point one from his book demonstrates. Instead, it would be better to embrace his approach, but correct the many errors and come up with a more realistic solution to this problem. A good start would be to steer people away from this flawed work, and instead consider the similar economic approach taken by Nordhaus that is more careful with the facts of climate change.
  
• 
  Longfellow

  It’s been a long time since I finished a book I enjoyed so little. The truth is, I appreciate much of what Lomborg seems to say and I also appreciate the spirit in which he says it, but much of the time he just doesn’t say it very well. Write it, I should say. Should write.
  
  What he has to share boils down to this: 1) the trend of rising temperatures does not spell the end of the world: the stated effects of global warming are not untrue, but they are much exaggerated: alarmist vocabulary and skewed, worst-case-scenario statistics rule the theories that call for drastic action to affect climate change; 2) this strategy lumps nearly all tragedies and catastrophes under the climate change roof: severe weather, disease, future war, etc.; 3) it’s important to consider the climate change issue in terms of economics: in reality, thinking about and investing in worldwide social policies would be a much greater use of money and save and improve a much greater number of lives around the globe than using the same amount of money to slow global warming mostly by attempting to cut carbon emissions.
  
  So his message, the way I read it, is a valuable one. First, because he offers an alternative perspective on the climate change problem, rationally challenging the storm of rhetoric that effectively creates more fear than fixes, and second, because he offers mostly tangible solutions that keep the whole of the world’s population in mind.
  
  As for the style in which his message is relayed, it is nearly the opposite of entertaining, and it is so full of complex statistics as to be perpetually convoluted. Though the stats are relayed quite matter-of-factly, many of his statements are assumptive, at least for the average reader who has not researched or read widely on this topic. Still, when his main ideas leak through, it is enough to show his sincere concern and lend him intellectual credibility.
  
  Ondi Timoner’s documentary of the same title covers the majority of Lomborg’s message in under an hour and a half, and while it’s not a whole lot better at conveying his main points, it does an adequate job. Especially if you’re willing to watch it twice.
  
• 
  Brad

  It's been a while since I read this book, a couple years now, but I quite enjoyed the read (though I didn't love the book and was nowhere near in full agreement).
  
  I've always appreciated that Lomborg -- despite Rajendra Pachauri, head of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, likening him to Hitler -- was mostly trying to put all of the world's ills in perspective.
  
  For Lomborg, at least back when he was writing
  Cool It, there were other issues of greater importance to the world than climate change. He talked about how we can deal with several of the world's problems -- such as malaria, the need for clean water, an end to famine, etc. -- for a fraction of what it would cost to deal with climate change (which, I might add, I never got the sense he was denying existed, simply attempting to "cool" down, rightly or wrongly, those who were rushing in), and he suggested that those areas are where we should be spending our money.
  
  Fast forward a few years, and Lomborg is now calling for
  massive spending to put an end to climate change. I am sure there are some critics of Lomborg out there who will say this discredits everything he's ever said about climate change, but what it does for me is build trust. If he's willing to take "a u-turn" on something as major as climate change, he is a man worth hearing out -- even when I disagree with him.
• 
  Daniel

  Lomborg’s book on climate change is a mixed bag. I heartily agree with his major policy prescriptions: give more aid to alleviate poverty, enact a carbon tax to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and invest massively in low-carbon R&D. The slim book is otherwise disappointing: short on ideas, selective with facts, and cavalierly dismissive that climate change could prove worse than most expect.