Tuesday, September 11, 2007
REVIEW REVIEWED
“I was all geared up to recommend this review of Bjorn Lomborg’s new book Cool It , written by The Weather Makers author Tim Flannery,” enthuses David Roberts, “but it turns out to be pretty bad. It’s kind of scattered all over the place ...”
One can appreciated Roberts’ alarm at a rash of Flannerisms, but even a whole page load of Flannery-style scatterthoughts won’t deter this brave site. Let’s take a look:
Bjorn Lomborg is a Danish statistician and darling of those who believe that markets should not be regulated and that concerns about the environment are overblown.
Flannery is an Australian paleontologist and darling of those who believe that concerns about the environment should be overblown. Certain of his opinions? Hell, yes!
Indeed, so compelling and entertaining are the grains of truth that adorn his latest book, Cool It, that you are certain to hear them soon in dinner table conversation.
Listen to those Flannery teeth grind.
In his opening paragraph Lomborg establishes a revealing dichotomy: “In the face of ... unmitigated despair” about global warming, he intends to write a book that is optimistic about humanity’s prospects. It’s seductive rhetoric. But is climate change really about unmitigated despair?
You tell us, Mr Happy: “It’s likely to be too late for the polar bear ... it’s just so depressing at the moment.” And how’s this for cheerful: “Environmentalist Tim Flannery munches on a club sandwich in a suburban Sydney shopping mall and casually begins predicting Armageddon.”
In this and many other projections, Lomborg is astonishingly certain about how things will be in the future. In a sentence italicized for emphasis, he writes that in 2200 - nearly 200 years from now - more people will still die from cold than from heat.
Flannery predicted two years ago that Sydney’s dams could be dry by 2007. How’d that work out? Flannery concludes:
By empathizing with those who are concerned about climate change and poverty, and trying to persuade them to divert their energies, Cool It is a stealth attack on humanity’s future.
Flannery sounds astonishingly certain of this.