Blinded by the Light

Mar 13, 2013 Bjørn Lomborg

On March 23, a billion or more people will participate in “Earth Hour” by turning off their lights from 8:30-9:30 in the evening. The organizers say that they are providing a way to demonstrate one’s desire to “do something” about global warming, but the stark reality is that Earth Hour will increase carbon emissions.

NEW YORK – On the evening of March 23, 1.3 billion people will go without light at 8:30, and at 9:30, and at 10:30, and for the rest of the night – just like every other night of the year. With no access to electricity, darkness after sunset is a constant reality for these people.

On the same evening, another billion will participate in the environmental event “Earth Hour” by turning off their lights from 8:30-9:30.

The organizers say that they are providing a way to demonstrate one’s desire to “do something” about global warming. But the stark reality is that Earth Hour teaches all the wrong lessons, and actually increases CO2 emissions. It may inspire virtuous feelings, but its vain symbolism reveals exactly what is wrong with today’s feel-good environmentalism.

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Bjørn Lomborg

Writing for PS since 2005
181 Commentaries

Bjørn Lomborg, a visiting professor at the Copenhagen Business School, is Director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center. His books include The Skeptical Environmentalist, Cool It, How to Spend $75 Billion to Make the World a Better Place, The Nobel Laureates' Guide to the Smartest Targets for the World, and, most recently, Prioritizing Development. In 2004, he was named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people for his research on the smartest ways to help the world.

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David Lewis Apr 1, 2013

@Godo Stoyke: "In February 2003, Lomborg filed a complaint with the Ministry, and in December 2003, the Ministry found that the DCSD's handling of the investigation in the case had been improper, and remitted it for re-examination. In March 2004, the DCSD stated that since its finding had been to acquit Lomborg of the charges of scientific dishonesty... there was no basis to re-open the investigation, and dismissed the case."
- Kaare Fog Apr 19, 2013
  
  @ David Lewis, Godo Stoyke, and others:
  If you want to understand what actually happened concerning the complaint to the DCSD, I suggest that you study this:
  
  www.Lomborg-errors.dk/lomborgstory.htm
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jimmy rousseau Mar 26, 2013

Why Mr. Lomborg continues to have a forum to try to denigrate any actions to contain and stop anthropegenic global warming is beyond me. Once again he proves to be uncanny in the deceptions he will practice to help fossil fuel consumption.
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Bruce Katz Mar 24, 2013

The answers tend to be a little more complex than what is described. Let's start with global warming, or is it global cooling? Are temperatures on Earth affected more by C02 emissions or the output of the sun and other conditions throughout the solar system and universe?
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Jeffrey Scofield Mar 23, 2013

Again Bjørn Lomborg misses the point entirely, and not by accident. The real issue is that climate denial and myths being perpetuated by both religious fundamentalists and free market fundamentalists like the CATO institute and Donors Trust. The problem is that there are few people who understand global warming and it's consequences because they do not have relevant training in these disciplines.

Bjørn Lomborg is not an ecologist or a climate scientist, he actually has no relevant degree, but rather is an economist pushing an ideological agenda. Notice how carefully he evaded discussing how water dependent many of our current forms of electricity are? Awareness is the goal, of the both the reality of anthropogenic climate change and that consumption must be reduced severely to limit more long term consequences such ocean acidification. The real goal is to understand waste and resource misallocation. Many people consume far too much, and waste too much to justify our current level dependence of on dirty energy. And as a nation, we are already subsidizing fossil fuels and nuclear energy in a multitude of ways that hide the true cost of this waste.
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Michael Zanette Mar 23, 2013

I tend to agree with most pundits here when it is stated that Lomborg's factual basis for some of his claims are negligible.

However, in a skewed way, Lomborg is right about one thing: "Earth Hour" is a rich person's feel good moment. There are politics at play here. The asymmetries in wealth and power across the world do situate billions of people in positions where the environment is far behind in a long line of concerns.

Although I am not a fan of Lomborg for a multitude of reasons, this piece does raise issues concerning global ethics--of which the environment is a key concern.
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Pete Nowner Mar 21, 2013

Reading an article from Lomborg for the first time. Can't believe he is so famous in this field. This article is not professionally written (as commented by other readers) and has a tinge of cynicism.
"Instead, we should focus on inventing new, more efficient green technologies to outcompete fossil fuels." I wonder what are the more efficient green technologies that he talked about?
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Godo Stoyke Mar 19, 2013

Bjorn Lomborg doesn't know what he is talking about. The Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty (Danish ministry group) found his writings "clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice", but he could not be accused of gross negligence due to his lack of scientific expertise. Germany already gets 25% of its electricity from renewables, and the cost per installed watt (PV) is half of that in the US, creating 250,000 jobs on the side. Solar (electric) costs have been dropping by a factor of 100 in the last 40 years, and are already lower than capital costs for grid installations in 100 (developing) countries around the world. Plus, efficiency is mostly CHEAPER than any form of energy. While research is almost always a good thing, waiting to act when technological solutions are ready to be deployed is not. Oh, yes, and the "Institute" Lomberg quotes and that falsely claims that the rising German energy costs can be blamed on renewables ("800,000 German households ...") is actually funded by Exxon Mobil ( http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_for_Energy_Research) and similar organizations. Interesting that Lomberg doesn't mention that, isn't it?
- Mike Cherepov Mar 28, 2013
  
  @Godo Stoyke: A recent Economist article says that in sunny places like California photovoltaic is already competitive with the more expensive parts of the traditional market. So it's quite hard to believe that in cloudy Germany photovoltaic can be competitive with the average traditional sources. Furthermore, Wikipedia says: "However according to the OECD factbook 2011-2012, Germany attains 9.3% of its total energy requirements(including electricity and other energy needs) from renewable energy sources, which is below the world average of 13.1%." This is at odds with your claim that Germany gets 25% from renewables, it seems.
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- Michael Zanette Mar 23, 2013
  
  Good background research. Thanks!
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Kaare Fog Mar 18, 2013

Here in Denmark in a relatively northern climate, I recently bought a house of 140 m². It is heated entirely by electricity - two new very efficient air-to-air heat pumps, and modern efficient electric heat panels. I had solar panels installed on the roof 1½ motnh ago. At the start of February, in the cold winter, with a dim sunlight not quite penetrating through the clouds, the panel produced enough energy to more than compensate for the whole electricity consumption in the entire house. Even though this happens only at daylight, it is still a splendid idea.
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Kaare Fog Mar 18, 2013

The link about the 800,000 German households refers to the Institute for Energy Research, which is said to be funded by the Koch Industries. So it is not necessarily very reliable. Energy prices have risen partially because Germany started phasing-out nuclear power after the Fukushima disaster.

Peak costs are the biggest costs power companies face. Renewables help significantly reduce these costs.

http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/sad1109Jaco5p.indd.pdf

http://www.skepticalscience.com/renewable-energy-baseload-power-advanced.htm

In the US, lighting is 12% of electricity use:
http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=99&t=3
Assuming that the ratio is the same elsewhere, cutting 12 % of all electricity use in the world for one hour would certainly save much much more than 4 minutes of energy consumption in China.

Should we abandon subsidizing solar and wind ? Subsidizes favoring the fossil fuel industry are larger, so more would be won by abandoning those first.
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Bill Thomas Mar 18, 2013

Lomborg is at it again with his usual mix of lies, distortions, and fallacious reasoning.

> "Earth Hour teaches us that tackling global warming is easy."

Lie. It does no such thing. Earth Hour works to raise awareness about the need to take urgent action on climate change. It's really not hard to understand - and the rightwingers and science deniers have it explained to them every year but never understand for some reason.

> "rising energy prices from green subsidies"

Lie. The average German household is paying 9 Euros per month for the Energiewende. Energy prices are rising primarily because of fossil fuels which Germany are now increasingly avoiding due to renewables: OneTrillion Savings From Renewable "...Germany is saving EUR 8 billion a year in fossil fuel import costs right now (about 10 percent of the whole bill) and expects that the cumulative savings up to 2040 will reach more than EUR one trillion."

In fact, the article Lomborg cites says this: "Anyone who blames renewable energy for rising electricity prices is deceiving consumers ... more than two thirds of the price increases have nothing to do with renewable energy."

And one page is even called **Gazprom fleeces German customers**. This is typically dishonest cherry picking from Lomborg, exactly as he does with his climate science denial.

> "In the UK ... the country’s electricity regulator now publicly worries that environmental targets could lead to blackouts in less than nine months."

Lie. There's a pattern forming here.

> "Focusing on green R&D"

Lomborg's usual call to do nothing to curtail GHGs - just keep renewables in the lab indefinitely until some unspecified breakthrough is made. Fortunately, the markets are not paying any attention to this has-been attention disinformer because renewables are growing exponentially.
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Hottie McCool Mar 18, 2013

The Earth Hour doesn't ask anybody to "eat dinner by candlelight". Now you're just making things up.
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Hottie McCool Mar 18, 2013

Did stomach cancer rates actually drop, or is it simply no longer the most prevalent cancer? Per capita cigarette consumption in the U.S. is double what it was in the 1930's, so even in the absence of refrigeration I'd be shocked if stomach cancer remained the top men's cancer.
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Hottie McCool Mar 18, 2013

Earth Hour is in late March. Who runs their heating or air conditioning in late March, anyway?
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Alexander Stingl Mar 14, 2013

I agree with the author, that the "wrong lessens (sic!)" are really to be avoided; yes, I, like the author or like Zizek, am not the biggest fan of this feel-good environmentalism. At the same time, pure polemics and "counting individual peas" - to transport a German idiom - is no better. While I often enjoy and appreciate Lomborg's perspectives, this one is yet another one of those unfortunately increasing number of pieces that leads me to doubt his scholarship has general merit, despite the occasional gem of wisdom. What's next? should we stop riding bikes, because bikers breathe heavier and therefore are a CO2 risk? Well, lucky for Lomborg, a Washington State Republican beat him to the punch on that one.... As for facts, among others, it isn't the 'green costs' in and of themselves that have led to ridiculous energy prices in Germany. It is an effect of the creation of an oligopoly thanks to a sloppily executed privatization of the sector, and the material energy net-transfer costs, etc. The recent green energy subsidies, etc. are only a tip of an iceberg of costs that the post-democratic creation of the illusion a free market in the energy sector has sent towards the path of consumer shipping lanes.
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Zsolt Hermann Mar 13, 2013

I agree with the author, such "feel-good", romantic action cannot achieve anything, not even raising awareness as people only remember negative experience not a "mildly positive" action.
Moreover actions here cannot really help since the problem is not what we do, but how we thing, our attitude towards each other and the world.
Here is an example: at the moment in New Zealand there is such a drought, that in the capital, Wellington for example the water supplies are enough only for another 19 days, and any meaningful rain until then is uncertain.
Most of the country already looks like a desert.
But individual people are happy with the unprecedented warm and dry summer, they keep on watering their gardens, joking how they forgot to turn off the tap overnight only realizing in the morning that it was on, etc.
Our awareness, concern does not even go beyond the fence of our own garden.
Even the threat that perhaps in 3 weeks I have no tap water cannot disconnect me from my usual comfort.
Unless we change basic self centered human nature, behavior, attitude, no changes will occur possibly until true suffering, "within our fences" will force us to reconsider how we live.
People cannot comprehend that in a global, interconnected world I belong to the whole world, and the whole world belongs to me. There are no fences or boundaries, enemies or friends, we are all cells, organs of the same body.
But we cannot blame people, such a notion is completely against our instinctive nature.
But still, instead of waiting for imminent disasters, or existential threat we should still need to try to "reprogram" human beings, making them aware of the true reality we live in, so we can all exit our own closed, black boxes, merging with everybody else to mutually working together, complementing each other instead of destructive, selfish competition, solve our pressing crisis situations.
And this can only happen through a global, integral education program which explains the nature and laws of the global, interconnected and natural world system we evolved into, and the attitude, behavior humans could adapt to such system.
Any action without such awareness and attainment is futile and causes further crisis.
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Flint O'Neil Mar 13, 2013

Despite the incorrect factoid, I like this article. Populists owned once again
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walter palmetshofer Mar 13, 2013

from "has resulted in up to 800,000"

http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2012/10/30/germanys-energy-policy-man-made-crisis-now-costing-billions/

refers to

Besonders für schmale Haushaltskassen sind die Energiekosten – bei seit Jahren mehr oder weniger stagnierenden Realeinkommen – kaum noch tragbar. Im Jahr 2009 gaben die Deutschen ungefähr 100 Milliarden Euro für Energie aus – das waren im Schnitt 2500 Euro je Haushalt. Sozial- und Verbraucherverbände klagen, dass bis zu 800 000 Haushalte in Deutschland ihre Stromrechnung nicht mehr bezahlen können....

http://www.focus.de/immobilien/energiesparen/tid-27705/strom-und-heizkosten-ueberfordern-verbraucher-wenn-das-geld-nicht-mehr-zum-heizen-reicht_aid_838837.html
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walter palmetshofer Mar 13, 2013

fact-check not done by Bjorn Lomberg

hilarious original source additional to wrong interpretation and translation

as usually ...
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