Do you remember the Danish professor Bjorn Lomborg? He rose to questionable stardom in the Climate Change world as a Climate Change skeptic with his book “The skeptical environmentalist” and has been a prolific person in this field ever since.
This week he announced a u-turn in his opinion whether Climate Change is happening or not.
Headline: Bjørn Lomborg: $100bn a year needed to fight climate change
‘Sceptical environmentalist’ and critic of climate scientists to declare global warming a chief concern facing world.
This is the article in the Guardian.
The reaction so far
The reaction so far to his change in point of view has been mostly negative. What is he intending to tell us? From what I can see of the articles I read about this recent announcement people are just surprised about his change of mind.
My view
I have been amazed how much attention this story has received over the past days. Far too much attention for my taste.
So should we care about this at all?
My suggestion is: Absolutely not. Let him do his thing. What this is, is nothing more than marketing of an individual that does not have the science in mind just the publicity. All of this can be very damaging for anyone advocating action to tackle Climate Change and everyone working in the Sustainability field.
In a way I always liked his viewpoint as a Climate Change skeptic. It brought some new ways of looking at the issue of Climate Change to the table. Something refreshing. But this latest publicity stunt is is too much for me. Let’s forget about his latest book and move on to tackle the problems of Climate Change by not focusing on publicity and profiling but the issues we need to solve today.
Picture Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/buggolo/311128680