False Alarm
How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet
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4.3 • 6 Ratings
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- $29.99
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- $29.99
Publisher Description
An “essential” (Times UK) and “meticulously researched” (Forbes) book by “the skeptical environmentalist” argues that panic over climate change is causing more harm than good
Hurricanes batter our coasts. Wildfires rage across the American West. Glaciers collapse in the Artic. Politicians, activists, and the media espouse a common message: climate change is destroying the planet, and we must take drastic action immediately to stop it. Children panic about their future, and adults wonder if it is even ethical to bring new life into the world. Enough, argues bestselling author Bjorn Lomborg. Climate change is real, but it's not the apocalyptic threat that we've been told it is. Projections of Earth's imminent demise are based on bad science and even worse economics. In panic, world leaders have committed to wildly expensive but largely ineffective policies that hamper growth and crowd out more pressing investments in human capital, from immunization to education. False Alarm will convince you that everything you think about climate change is wrong -- and points the way toward making the world a vastly better, if slightly warmer, place for us all.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Danish statistician and political scientist Lomborg (Cool It) brands climate change warnings as alarmist, and argues that a massive reduction in fossil fuels would exacerbate global poverty, in this detailed contrarian account. Lomborg insists that climate change isn't advancing as quickly as many people believe, and claims that technological innovations will allow humanity to adapt to rising sea levels and increased temperatures. He analyzes data from the UN and other climate organizations to argue that the links between global warming and natural disasters aren't as strong as some authorities believe, points out the limitations and high costs of renewable energy sources like solar and wind power, and contends that the continued use of fossil fuels will eliminate "extreme poverty" by 2050. Instead of the standard renewable energy pursuits, Lomborg suggests that climate change can be effectively mitigated with a modest carbon tax that gradually increases over time, and with innovations in energy storage and geoengineering. While Lomborg is careful to back his cost-benefit analyses of climate policies with surveys and statistics, he overhypes the risks posed by the "extreme language" of environmentalists and fails to fully address the impact of climate change deniers on the debate. This is sure to spark controversy.
Customer Reviews
Tocsin haste
The author sees climate change as a significant challenge but only one of many we face globally. His thesis here is the negative effect of the alarmism that pervades political discussion and media reporting of climate change, which is harmful of itself (e.g. for raising community anxiety especially among children) and out of proportion to the rate at which noticeable environmental change is developing and likely to develop. He rails particularly against dire predictions of catastrophic environmental consequences extrapolated from experimental models that make no allowance for adaptive measures, many of which are already in progress.
The argument are well made and supported by published data of good quality. I am puzzled by critics on the left who complain that Lomberg quotes selectively from the published literature in support of his case, when they do the exact same thing in reverse.
In case you were wondering, Mr L’s answers to the scourge of climate change include adaptation, weaning off fossil fuels gradually, and spending more money on research and less on mature technologies that are never likely to be more than a partial answer (wind, solar).