emember when the Abbott government used the promise of $4 million to entice Australian universities to take in Bjorn Lomborg's Consensus Center, so that he'd have more dignified headquarters than a shipping center? Now, with Tony Abbott out and Malcolm Turnbull in, that offer isno longer on the table.
In a struggle to remain relevant after this latest setback, Bjorn Lomborg has a "new" piece in the WSJ. It's not really new, because it's basically the same message that Lomborg's been flogging for years: we should focus our international aid efforts on things other than climate change. It was his message in 2009, when the WSJ published three op-eds of his three months in a row before the Copenhagen Summit. Twoof themeven use the exact same rhetorical tool, featuring a citizen of a developing country asking what climate change is. The thirdincludes someone quoted along those same lines, questioning why they should care about warming if they die from malaria tomorrow. One could respond to this rhetorical question by pointing out that climate change isfacilitating the expansion of malaria-carrying mosquitos' range.
In 2012, Lomborg wrote yet another piece that largely follows the same structure as his new one. He opens with a reference to UN negotiations, pivots to the fact that there are other issues in need of attention, claims that climate action is only implemented to make us feel good, and concludes by disparaging renewables and suggesting we focus on something else—as though we can't tackle multiple problems at once.
So it's no surprise that no Australian university wanted Lomborg's center—even with the $4 million incentive— as most universities have better things to do than play "Anything But Climate" Mad-Libs.
