Most people are more worried about high gas and food prices, which green policies make green policies worse.
Bjorn Lomborg writes in the Wall Street Journal,
The ramblings of classes going to conferences in Davos or Aspen over the years have told the rest of us that our biggest immediate threats are climate change, environmental catastrophe. and loss of biodiversity. They point out that the current heatwaves that have killed thousands across Europe are the latest reason to radically change our society and economy by switching to renewable energy.
Such an argument is misleading. It is true that as temperatures rise, the world will experience more heat waves, but humans have adapted to such things as well. In Spain for example, rising temperatures actually lead to fewer heat deaths, because humans have adapted more rapidly than temperatures have increased. It’s simply air-conditioning, public cooling centers, and a better treatment for heat-induced or aggravated illnesses, such as heatstroke and heart disease.
The exclusive focus on heat death is also misleading. Around the world, low temperatures are much more dangerous higher than high: Half a million people die from heat each year, but more than 4.5 million people die from cold. While rising temperatures will increase heat deaths, they will also decrease cold deaths. A recent study by Lancet Find that the increase in temperature since 2000 has actually reduced the number of heat-related deaths. The researchers concluded that by the late 2010s, rising temperatures globally were responsible for an additional 116,000 heat deaths annually, but also resulted in a 283,000 reduction in cold deaths per year.
Furthermore, politicians focusing solely on climate change ignore that people are much more worried about rampant inflation, especially rising food and energy prices. And climate policies are making those problems worse.
Lomborg cites Sri Lanka as the latest prime example.
Sri Lanka is the epitome of misguided elite environmentalism. Driven by organic activists and the World Economic Forum, the government banned synthetic fertilizers in April 2021. Food production collapsed and currencies defaulted. Hungry and indignant citizens launched protests, flooding the presidential palace, and forcing the government to resign en masse and the president to leave the country.
Lomborg concluded.
Some elites are beginning to realize that their policies are creating political dangers. Frans Timmermans, vice-president of the European Commission, has said that many millions of Europeans may not be able to heat their homes this winter. He concluded that this could lead to “very, very strong conflict and conflict”.
He’s right. When people are cold, hungry, and broken, they rebel. If elites continue to push incredibly costly policies that are unrelated to the pressing challenges most people face, we need to face chaos.
Mr. Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus and is visiting colleagues at Stanford University’s Hoover Institute. His latest book is “False Alarm: The Panic of Climate Change Has Cost Us Trillions of Dollars, Hurt the Poor, and Failed to Repair the Planet”.
It’s a good commentary and well worth reading at the WSJ. It has a paid wall, but I read it with a free subscription.
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