Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming

Bjorn Lomborg is the author of The Skeptical Environmentalist and has written for numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and USA Today. He was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2004. In 2008 he was named “one of the 50 people who could save the planet” by The Guardian; one of the top 100 public intellectuals by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazine; and one of the world’s 75 most influential people of the 21st century by Esquire. He is presently an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School, and in 2004 he started the Copenhagen Consensus, a conference of top economists who come together to prioritize the best solutions for the world’s greatest challenges.

 

Visit the author's website at www.lomborg.com.

Bjorn Lomborg argues that many of the elaborate and staggeringly expensive actions now being considered to meet the challenges of global warming ultimately will have little impact on the world’s temperature. He suggests that rather than focusing on ineffective solutions that will cost us trillions of dollars over the coming decades, we should be looking for smarter, more cost-effective approaches (such as massively increasing our commitment to green energy R&D) that will allow us to deal not only with climate change but also with other pressing global concerns, such as malaria and HIV/AIDS. And he considers why and how this debate has fostered an atmosphere in which dissenters are immediately demonized.

A startling book that reshapes the debate about global warming and offers a moderate approach to meeting its challenges.

Bjorn Lomborg argues that many of the elaborate and expensive actions now being consideredthe Kyoto Protocol, for examplehave a staggering potential cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, but, ultimately, will have little impact on the world's temperature. He suggests that rather than institutionalizing these programs to “cool” the earth's temperature 100 years from now, we should focus our resources on some of the world's most pressing immediate concerns, such as: fighting malaria and HIV/AIDS, and maintaining a safe, fresh water supply. And he considers why and how this debate has developed an atmosphere in which dissenters are immediately demonized.

“Far more convincing than An Inconvenient Truth.”

—The Financial Post

 

“Brimming with useful facts and common sense. . . . [Lomborg's] analysis is smart and refreshing, and it may bridge at least one divide in our too divided culture.”

—The Wall Street Journal

 

“Enlightening, eye-opening, brain-nourishing stuff!”

—Los Angeles Times

 

“A reasoned addition to the debate about what to do about climate change. . . . Sure to provoke much controversy.”

—Esquire

 

“Bjorn Lomborg is the best-informed and most humane advocate for environmental change in the world today. . . . [He] and Cool It are our best guides to our shared environmental future.”

—Michael Crichton

 

“[A] calm, civil, even-handed analysis. [Cool It] is suffused with concern for socially beneficial priorities and for practical steps to do good. . . . It provides some badly needed balance.”

—Financial Times