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He's got a new book called Cool It, a follow-up to the oft-quoted Skeptical Environmentalist - it's out in the US but yet to reach our shores. A piece in yesterday's Observer puts across his view that the effects of climate change are being exaggerated. the piece concentrates far too much on an argument about polar bears, which for my taste is missing the point somewhat, with all due respect to the furry creatures.
I went to a launch presentation of the book recently; it was interesting, he's certainly passionate. He was very clear that the IPCC work is the most authoritative on the subject, that climate change is happening and is man-made, but he disagrees with the alarmist perspective.
The main focus of his argument was that Kyoto would cost about US$175 billion per year and achieve very little, whereas the UN estimates that providing basic healthcare, sanitation, education and food to all of the world's children would cost about US$70 billion per year, is achievable and would deal with the overpopulation issue.
Asked what one environmental thing he would do for the developing world, he said he would deal with the problem of indoor air quality in mud huts (and the like) in the third world. [for anyone unsure about this, mud huts have the highest concentrations of CO2, CO, PM10s and other nasties because wood is burnt as fuel to cook food indoors. This causes acute respiratory problems; combine it with AIDS and over a third of your active workforce is taken out of action]
Asked what he thinks of Gore and "The Day After Tomorrow," he noted that what might really save the world is just not as glamorous as catastrophic climate change. Brad Pitt digging latrines for two hours probably has a limited audience...
PS considering that he doesn't actually deny climate change, it is interesting that Pachauri felt the need to compare Lomborg to Hitler not so long ago.
Posted by: Matthew | 15 October 2007 at 10:59 AM