'Feel Good' vs. 'Do Good' on Climate

• Published in: The New York times
• Main Author: Tierney, John
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, N.Y New York Times Company 11.09.2007
• Edition: Late Edition (East Coast)
• Subjects: Behavior; Books-titles; Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming; Global warming; Lomborg, Bjorn
• ISSN: 0362-4331

''We could spend all that money to cut emissions and end up with more land flooded next century because people would be poorer,'' Dr. [Lomborg] said as we surveyed Manhattan's expanded shoreline. ''Wealth is a more important factor than sea-level rise in protecting you from the sea. You can draw maps showing 100 million people flooded out of their homes from global warming, but look at what's happened here in New York. It's the same story in Denmark and Holland -- we've been gaining land as the sea rises.'' Dr. Lomborg, who's best known (and most reviled in some circles) for an earlier book, ''The Skeptical Environmentalist,'' runs the Copenhagen Consensus Center, which gathers economists to set priorities in tackling global problems. In his new book, he dismisses the Kyoto emissions cuts as a ''feel-good'' strategy because it sounds virtuous and lets politicians make promises they don't have to keep. He outlines an alternative ''do-good'' strategy that would cost less but accomplish more in dealing with climate change as well as more pressing threats like malaria, AIDS, polluted drinking water and malnutrition. ''No historian would look back at the last two centuries and rank the rising sea level here as one of the city's major problems,'' he said, sitting safely dry and cool inside the Bridge Cafe. ''I don't think our descendants will thank us for leaving them poorer and less healthy just so we could do a little bit to slow global warming. I'd rather we were remembered for solving the other problems first.''