16 October, 2007

Al Gore and the IPCC

Al Gore and the IPCC may have shared the Nobel Peace Prize for their work on global warming, but they’re actually strange bedfellows. The IPCC is all about science; Gore is more about polemic. Bjorn Lomborg writes in the Boston Globe:

Gore told the world in his Academy Award-winning movie to expect 20-foot sea-level rises over this century. He ignores the findings of his Nobel co-winners, who conclude that sea levels will rise between only a half-foot and two feet over this century, with their best expectation being about one foot. That’s similar to what the world experienced over the past 150 years.

Likewise, Gore agonizes over the accelerated melting of ice in Greenland and what it means for the planet, but overlooks the IPCC’s conclusion that, if sustained, the current rate of melting would add just 3 inches to the sea-level rise by the end of the century. Gore also takes no notice of research showing that Greenland’s temperatures were higher in 1941 than they are today.

The politician-turned-moviemaker loses sleep over a predicted rise in heat-related deaths. There’s another side of the story that’s inconvenient to mention: rising temperatures will reduce the number of cold spells, which are a much bigger killer than heat. The best study shows that by 2050, heat will claim 400,000 more lives, but 1.8 million fewer will die because of cold. Indeed, according to the first complete survey of the economic effects of climate change for the world, global warming will actually save lives.

Lomborg isn’t saying that global warming doesn’t exist. His position is that the effects of it are vastly exaggerated, and that the world faces other problems that require urgent intervention. Given that we have limited resources to tackle these problems, it is important to prioritize. That’s precisely what Lomborg’s initiative, the Copenhagen Consensus, set out to do.

Also read: my earlier post on the subject, Global warming (or will it rain this weekend?).