Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming

Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming

First edition cover
Author Bjørn Lomborg
Cover artist Chip Kidd
Country United States
Language English
Genre Non-fiction
Publisher Knopf Publishing Group
Publication date
 2007-09-04
Media type Print (Hardcover)
Pages 272
ISBN 978-0-307-26692-7
OCLC 423500317
363.738/74 22
LC Class QC981.8.G56 L657 2007
Preceded by The Skeptical Environmentalist

Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming is a book by the Danish statistician and political scientist Bjørn Lomborg. The book is a sequel to The Skeptical Environmentalist (first published in Danish in 1998), which in English translation brought the author to world attention. Lomborg argues that many of the elaborate and expensive actions being considered to stop global warming will cost hundreds of billions of dollars without the same return on investment, often are based on emotional rather than strictly scientific assumptions, and may have very little impact on the world's temperature for centuries. Lomborg concludes that a limited carbon tax is needed in the First World as well as subsidies from the First World to the Third World to help fight ongoing humanitarian crises.

Media

The New York Times says

“ In his short new book, “Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming,” Mr. Lomborg reprises his earlier argument with a tighter focus. He tries to puncture more of what he says are environmental myths, like the imminent demise of polar bears. ”

—The New York Times, [1]

“ He therefore took on the Augean stables undertaking of checking every one of the hundreds of citations in Cool It. Friel's conclusion, as per his book's title, is that Lomborg is "a performance artist disguised as an academic."

I don't want to be as trusting as the reviewers who praised Lomborg's scholarship without (it seems) bothering to check his references, so rather than taking Friel at his word just as they took Lomborg at his, I've done my best to do that checking. Although Friel engages in some bothersome overkill, overall his analysis is compelling.

 ”

—Sharon Begley, Newsweek[2] [3]

Reviews and critique

Economist Frank Ackerman of Tufts University and the Stockholm Environment Institute, wrote a review of Lomborg's book.[4] In it, Ackerman criticised Lomborg for his views on the economics of climate change, including the costs of the Kyoto Protocol and the use of cost-benefit analysis.

IPCC lead author Brian O'Neill[5] wrote a mixed review of Cool It, concluding:[6]

[...] Bjorn Lomborg is like the Oliver Stone of climate change. He has written a book that sets out to support a certain point of view, and, unless you are an expert, you will never know which facts are correct and appropriately used and which are not. You might not be aware that large (and crucial) chunks of the story are skipped altogether. But like a Stone movie, it is a well-told tale and raises some questions that are worth thinking about. So if you are going to read only one book on climate, don’t read this one. But if you are going to read ten, reading Lomborg may be worthwhile.

The Lomborg Deception by Howard Friel offers a critique of Cool It, which traces Lomborg’s many references and tests their authority and substance. Friel has said he found "misrepresentation of academic research, misquotation of data, reliance on studies irrelevant to the author’s claims and citation of sources that seem not to exist".[7]

The Lomborg Deception appears to be aimed primarily at the popular version of Cool It as opposed to the longer more thoroughly cited edition.[8]

Documentary film

Main article: Cool It (film)

On 12 November 2010, Lomborg released a feature-length documentary film Cool It in the United States.[9][10][11]

The Atlantic says Cool It is "an urgent, intelligent, and entertaining account of the climate policy debate, with a strong focus on cost-effective solutions".[12]

Literature

See also

References

External links