After years of making a name for himself as the fossil fuel industry's favorite Climate Change Skeptic, Bjorn Lomborg has apparently now seen the folly of his ways.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
The world's most high-profile climate change sceptic is to declare that global warming is "undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the world today" and "a challenge humanity must confront", in an apparent U-turn that will give a huge boost to the embattled environmental lobby.
Bjørn Lomborg, the self-styled "sceptical environmentalist" once compared to Adolf Hitler by the UN's climate chief, is famous for attacking climate scientists, campaigners, the media and others for exaggerating the rate of global warming and its effects on humans, and the costly waste of policies to stop the problem.
Lomborg, once a critic of methods to reduce carbon emissions, now appears to have done a turnabout and now espouses the idea of a carbon tax.
Lomborg's history of giving indirect aid and comfort to Denialists is well-documented. His cost-benefit schtick in which he argues for redirection of the focus of world efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by increasing expenditures to tackle other world health problems (while relying disproportionately on devlopment of renewable energy sources) has provided a ready-made "intellectual" excuse for inaction. The damage he has wrought as the "go-to" pawn of the "let's not be too hasty" crowd is incalculable as it is insidious:
Lomborg campaigns to oppose the Kyoto Protocol and other measures to cut carbon emissions in the short-term, and argues that we should instead adapt to short-term temperature rises as they are inevitable, and spend money on research and development for longer-term environmental solutions, and on other important world problems such as AIDS, malaria and malnutrition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
His track record was established with the publication of a questionable piece of work called "The Skeptical Environmentalist":
After the publication of The Skeptical Environmentalist, Lomborg was accused of scientific dishonesty. Several environmental scientists brought a total of three complaints against Lomborg to the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty (DCSD), a body under Denmark's Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. The charges claimed that The Skeptical Environmentalist contained deliberately misleading data and flawed conclusions. Due to the similarity of the complaints, the DCSD decided to proceed on the three cases under one investigation.
Unfortunately the Danish Ministry of Science Technology and Innovation annulled the decision of the DCSD, and Lomborg claimed vindication, providing more indirect support for the climate obfuscators.
But in recent years, outright Denial has become more and more "inconvenient." What Lomborg enabled is a "yes..but" argument which is even more destructive.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Climate change deniers use his work to say, wait, let's not rush into anything (which makes me ask, you mean rushing into things that might save us money, keep cash and jobs here instead of sending them to parts of the world that hate us, and improve our health -- you mean those things?).
Lomborg's arguments are more subtle than he usually gets credit for. Probably 75% of what he says is dead on -- but that's what makes him so dangerous. It's the other 25% that gets us in trouble.
As the horrifying effects of climate change grows more manifest and undeniable we can expect to see more and more self-promotors like Lomborg jump ship in an effort to protect their own reputations and legacy. Meanwhile the rest of us will have to endure the consequences of their past actions.