Skeptical Environmentalist

Most libertarians would disagree with me, but I generally agree with Bjørn Lomborg. The way government goes about things is all wrong. I think that spending a lot more money for energy research is an appropriate thing to do, once we get our financial house of cards in order.

I approve of research done by the private sector as the most efficient way to achieve progress. When the government interferes through subsidies, the inevitable result is to misallocate funds.

Onr reason we are in the mess we are in environmentally is the subsidies we give to the ownership of cars. Do away with all subsidies is a first step to environmental sanity.

This presentation of Lomborg's was done at Google Talks.

Comments

[eric anderson]

When you start from a poor premise, I cannot listen any longer. In the *first two minutes*, he discredits himself by citing IPCC estimate as authority. And when I say estimate, I mean *wild guess* based on computer models which are detached from reality. So basically, he lost me at point one, and thankfully I don't have to waste another hour having him tell us how to deal with a problem -- the degree and causes of which are currently unknown by the blinkered people he cites as a source. Thorium solves the problem of the scarcity debate. It is virtually limitless. And it doesn't produce carbon, for those caught in the phobia of CO2. I'm not sure what to do about transportation. But with 300 years supply of natural gas (an estimate by one of the largest natural gas companies), that's something we don't need to worry about. Convert cars, trucks to natgas. Thorium for the grid. Energy nirvana.