Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming

Bjørn Lomborg is the best-informed & most humane advocate for environmental change in the world today. In contrast to other figures that promote a single issue while ignoring others, he views the globe as a whole, studies all the problems, ranks them, & determines how best, & in what order, to address them. His 1st book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, established the importance of a fact-based approach. With later books, Global Crises, Global Solutions & How to Spend $50 Billion to Make the World a Better Place, this mild-mannered Danish statistician has steadily gained new converts. Not surprisingly, Time named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Cool It will further enhance his reputation for global analysis & thoughtful response. For anyone who wants an overview of the global warming debate from an objective source, this brief text is a good place to start. He's only interested in real problems. He's no patience with media fear-mongering. He begins by dispatching the myth of endangered polar bears, showing that this Disneyesque cartoon has no relevance to the real world where polar bear populations are in fact increasing. He considers the issue in detail, citing sources from Al Gore to the World Wildlife Fund, then demonstrating that polar bear populations have actually increased fivefold since the '60s. He then works his way thru the concerns we hear so much about: higher temperatures, heat deaths, species extinctions, the cost of cutting carbon, the technology to do it. He believes in climate change--despite his critics, he's no denier--but his fact-based approach, grounded in economic analyses, leads him to a different view. He reviews published estimates of the cost of climate change, & the cost of addressing it, & concludes that "we actually end up paying more for a partial solution than the cost of the entire problem. That is a bad deal." In some of the most disturbing chapters, he recounts what leading climate figures have said about anyone who questions the orthodoxy, thus demonstrating the illiberal, antidemocratic tone of the current debate. He himself takes the larger view, detailing why the tone of hysteria is inappropriate to addressing the problems. In the end, his concerns embrace the planet. He contrasts our concern for climate with other concerns such as HIV/AIDS, malnutrition & providing clean water. In the end, his ability to put climate in a global perspective is perhaps the book's greatest value. Lomborg & Cool It are our best guides to our shared environmental future.--Michael Crichton (edited)