Bjorn Lomborg on 10 O’Clock Live
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Bjorn Lomborg, statistician and “skeptical environmentalist”, appeared last Thursday on Channel 4’s new show, 10 O’Clock Live. The controversial professor was interviewed by Jimmy Carr, who introduced him as a “maverick”, joking “I’ve heard it said you put the mental in environmentalist”.
Such cutting-edge humour aside, Lomborg is a prominent public intellectual, a formidable self-publicist and a former but no longer climate sceptic. He’s also quite a controversial figure – his books are highly regarded in some circles but he has been criticised by many scientists for his ” cost-benefit economics” analysis of climate change and ” cherry-picking” of data.
Controversial, ‘mental’ and guaranteed to inspire strong feelings, Lomborg was a safe choice for the opener of 10 O’Clock Live, a “weekly, live comedy and current affairs show”. He was billed as a climate change expert, and Carr introduced him as “someone with surprisingly good hair for a brilliant academic”. (Whatever you think of Lomborg’s hair, it’s worth noting at this point that his writings on environmental science and policy have never been published in peer-reviewed journals.)
The professor was given a few minutes to table his ideas for “saving the world” from global warming, and used the time to paraphrase arguments made in his book Cool It, (which is a remarkably dry read), and the film of the same name, which was a box-office flop.
First, he said that trying to cut carbon emissions hasn’t worked and it is time for a new approach. He suggested, “dramatically increasing the research and development in green energy,” which no-one is going to disagree with, and then “volcanoes” – cue bemused faces and laughter. Well, it is a comedy show.
Volcanoes expel sulphur dioxide into the Earth’s stratosphere during eruptions. The presence of this gas reflects some of the sun’s rays back into space, cooling the planet. Recently, the idea has been floated of artificially duplicating this effect by injecting large quantities of sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere.
This strategy, a so-called geo-engineering technique, might be useful to cool the planet and avoid the worst effects of climate change. But like actual volcanoes, such ideas come with significant downsides. UEA climate scientist Naomi Vaughan warns, “as soon as you stop any type of solar radiation management, the rate of warming is extremely fast – the system readjusts”. In other words, if we stopped pumping the sulphur, there’d be a very rapid temperature rise.
Because they don’t address CO2 emissions, the “volcanoes” Lomborg advocates could only delay global warming, rather than preventing it. Other adverse effects of CO2 emissions, like the acidification of the oceans, would continue as before.
Geo-engineering is contentious in part because there’s so little research into it. The Royal Society did a very careful review of the subject in 2009, and John Shepherd, chair of the research team said, ” Our opinions range from cautious consent to very serious scepticism about these ideas. It is not an alternative to emissions reductions and cannot provide an easy quick fix.”
That’s why Lomborg’s harshest critics claim that his advocacy of ‘more research’ and geo-engineering are merely diversionary tactics to undermine calls for emissions cuts. Because he doesn’t address the reduction of co2 emissions, his arguments can be used as a smokescreen for polluters to continue business-as-usual.
Perhaps his arguments are made in earnest. Lomborg does not cut the figure of a typical arch-sceptic or climate change denier. But policies to reduce global warming without reducing CO2 curry favour with few scientists and remain questionable as tools to mitigate climate change.