Cool It

Just finished reading Bjorn Lomberg's newest book: Cool It This is his answer to those people who think that the Kyoto Protocol is the way we should go. basically, Kyoto, if implemented, would cost a lot and accomplish very little -- a reduction of less than one degree of temperature in 2015. The experts all agree on this (from the IPCC) but everyone seems to be focused on that big climate change knob that we really need to be turning. What is not talked about is: #1) - Global Warming might not be a bad thing after all. More people die from excessive cold than from excessive heat (poor people who cannot afford fuel during winter, etc...). #2) - the actual state of the planet is pretty good, it is people that are the problem. People didn't build on floodplains until only recently. People dredged canals and filled wetlands around New Orleans and this contributed to the damage of Katrina. It would be substantially cheaper and more effective to change this behavior than to toss money down the Kyoto hole. #3) - There are very simple and cheap things than can be done that would greatly extend and improve the lives of people in the third world. Once their lives are improved to the point where they do not spend 6-8 hours/day providing for basic sustenance, they can then start to earn money. Earning money allows them to protect themselves against any problems brought about by global warming. I will be writing more on this in a few days. The book is an amazing read and needs to be widely distributed. Very well researched with as many pages of links and citations as there are of text.