Copenhagen Consensus Center Takes on Gore on Climate Change

I think this may be the most impassioned and greatest rebuttal to the climate change zealots that I have ever read.

There is another way to respond to climate change. Instead of putting arbitrary, expensive caps on carbon emissions, we can and should immediately spend more money on researching and developing alternative energy. This means renewable sources of energy like wind, solar, geothermal, and wave. These are all promising but in their current forms are incredibly inefficient compared with fossil fuels. It also means developing second-generation biofuel from biomass. It also means investing in energy efficiency, fission and fusion, and carbon capture and storage. Unless we make a much bigger investment in these areas right now, fossil fuels are going to maintain their stranglehold on all the economies of the world.

I agree with this Bjørn Lomborg guy 100%. If we spent even a 10th of the money that will go into this whole carbon trading scheme on R&D then solutions will come that much quicker. If we can find a more efficient solar cell, a closed fuel nuclear reactor cycle, or some carbon capture system then we can solve the problem just like that.

Then spend all the rest of the money that would go into carbon trading on getting poor nations to be richer. I don't think millions of people need to die because they don't have enough micro-nutrients or are forced to burn dung to heat their food. Hell, even sustainable farming practices could prevent millions of people from starving.

China and India don't want to sign of to some carbon trading scheme because they know that their economies will be handicapped by it. Why should rich nations tell China and India to reduce their GDP when that growth is pulling millions of their citizens out of abject poverty?

In fact the first thing we should do is create a global alternative energy R&D center. Make it run out of the UN and it is funded by a certain amount from every one of the G20 nations and contain the brightest scientists from all over the world. Have an appointment to this center be so prestigious that it would be like winning a Noble Prize. Then have these people work their entire career on alternative energy solutions. The ideas coming out of this place could not just help climate change but make lives better for decades to come.