It’s Getting Hot In Here

Bjørn Lomborg, author of the Skeptical Environmentalist, has been interviewed on Salon.com and apologized for the errors and hyperbole in his new book, Cool It! Lomborg’s first book was thoroughly debunked by figures as esteemed as E. O. Wilson, in A Skeptical Look at the Skeptical Environmentalist. However, Lomborg became a media darling due to his iconoclastic personal style and blithe insistence that nothing particularly bad was happening on the environmental front. Traditional media exists to sell copy and what sells better, the exciting or the boring and dare I say it, gloomy reality? It seems that it took Grist and An Inconvenient Truth to make global warming funny or gripping to a broader audience on its own merits.

However, there are some shocking revelations in Lomborg’s new interview with Salon, Bjørn Lomborg feels a chill, over his new book. Lomborg apologizes for his “reckless hyperbole” in “comparing Gore, Bill McKibben, the Natural Resources Defense Council, New Scientist magazine to the leaders of the Inquisition“, admitting in retrospect ‘That’s actually a little disturbing‘.

He also tries to distance himself from his supporters, those promoting Lomborg’s book and ideas. Sounding faintly queasy about his linkages to Sen. Inhofe, Michael Crighton, and the Big Deniers, he protests that he really doesn’t support them. Worried to be linked to a shady assemblage of global warming deniers and science fiction, he admits global warming is real and we should move to invest in clean energy.

“The most misunderstood idea is that I think it’s all a hoax, which I definitely don’t think it is. Or that I’m saying, “Oh, let’s just continue to use those oil wells” — I don’t do a Texas accent very well, do I? — that I’m a spokesperson for big oil.” Read more at Salon.com

The interview also has more mundane back-tracking, such as the fact that his statements about polar bears might be off and his use of quotes selective and mis-representational of the facts. He admits Gore did an important public service with An Inconvenient Truth, stating “I think we need to congratulate [Gore] on getting the issue on the agenda and taking it away from the people who just say it’s a hoax or it’s not happening.”

Eban Goodstein also has a list of reasons why we should not take Cool It! seriously in his review, ‘Hot Air‘. The most important being the tipping points that Carlos talked about in “Climate Tipping Points Get Scarier” .

“The glaring error in “Cool It,” and the one that disqualifies the book from making a serious contribution, is that Lomborg ignores the main concern driving the debate. Incredibly, he never mentions even the possibility that the world might heat up more than 4.7 degrees. ” Salon.com

However, Lomborg never addresses the other critical issue, that he is a political scientist conducting a ‘thought experiment’ that has been seized upon by the very people he tries to distance himself from to derail international efforts to tackle Global Warming. Despite statements that his work is “Junk Economics” and the existence of reputable economic analysis, such as the Stern Review Report, his true failing is that he is willing to play to denialist figures and media outlets in order to gain personal fame and raise his personal profile. Are we simply feeding Lomborg’s narcissism as he plays this dangerous game? Is this interview a recognition that he is getting uncomfortable with the cost of his grandstanding? Time will tell.