Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Bjorn Lomborg

Quote by Bjorn Lomborg

“When a company (e.g. Enron) is calling for more environmental regulation, we need to look very carefully at what they might stand to gain from it… I don’t believe that there is some kind of grand conspiracy to promote scare stories about environmental crisis. I do believe that companies, the media, and politicians benefit from those stories. This confluence of interests goes a long way to explaining why the conversation surrounding climate change has become so detached from scientific reality.”

Quote by Bjorn Lomborg

Author

Bjorn Lomborg
Bjorn Lomborg

Bjørn Lomborg is a Danish writer, scholar, and environmental activist known for his economic analysis of environmental issues. He was born on January 6, 1965, and his work typically emphasizes the importance of cost-benefit analysis in addressing environmental challenges. more

You May Also Like

“Climate policies often make life WORSE specifically for the poor...Choosing climate policies over growth policies doesn’t just do nothing. It means more people die avoidable deaths… Lifting incomes significantly reduces the damage from any potential climate-change-caused increase in hurricanes, droughts, and floods...A comprehensive study...shows that strong global action to reduce climate change would cause far more hunger and food insecurity than climate change itself.”

“The science shows us that fears of a climate apocalypse are unfounded. Global warming is real, but it is not the end of the world. It is a manageable problem. Yet, we now live in a world where almost half the population believes climate change will extinguish humanity. This has profoundly altered the political reality. It makes us double down on poor climate policies. It makes us increasingly ignore all other challenges, from pandemics and food shortages to political strife and conflicts, or subsume them under the banner of climate change… If we don’t say stop, the current, false climate alarm, despite its good intentions, is likely to leave the world much worse off than it could be… We need to dial back on the panic, look at the science, face the economics, and address the issue rationally.”

“We must rein in temperature increases and help ensure that the most vulnerable can adapt. But today’s popular climate change policies of rolling out solar panels and wind turbines have insidious effects: they push up energy costs, hurt the poor, cut emissions ineffectively, and put us on an unsustainable pathway where taxpayers are eventually likely to revolt. Instead, we need to invest in innovation, smart carbon taxes, R&D into geoengineering, and adaptation...Making the world richer is also important...The richer people are, the more resilient they will be in the face of global warming.”

“A carbon tax forces you to take into account the climate disbenefits that your purchase is responsible for, so you can weigh these against the benefit… “It doesn’t just show consumers which products are carbon intensive and should be used more sparingly, but it helps energy producers move toward lower carbon dioxide emissions (perhaps through more reliance on solar and wind energy), and it encourages innovators to come up with new, lower-carbon processes and products.”