Environmental Priorities vs. ‘Climate Change’

Classic articles are worth remembering. One in the environmental field was a prioritization of environmental issues back in 2020 by Bjorn Lomborg, “Welfare in the 21st century: Increasing development, reducing inequality, the impact of climate change, and the cost of climate policies“

“What is the world’s deadliest environmental problem?,” asks Bjorn Lomborg. The answer:

Not climate. Outdoor and indoor air pollution. Let’s not get so scared about climate that we forget the much bigger problems. Read more in my peer-reviewed article: https://sciencedirect.com/…/article/pii/S0040162520304157.

This result explains why today, climate alarm is just not resonating with the public to the chagrin of the alarmists. Bill McKibben faults the New York Times and Democrats for throwing in the political towel. “I’m saddened to see how little our representatives in DC seem to really care, even the Democratic ones,” he begins:

Too many Democratic leaders are feeling comfortable waving off climate concerns, because of a feeling that it might be a political problem for them. That was exemplified this morning in the New York Times when center-right pundit Matt Yglesias issued a strident call for liberals to ‘support America’s oil and gas industry’.

So is the voting public dumb, miscalculating their own self-interest? Or are the alarmists fooling themselves? This is a question that not only Bill McKibben but also Joe Romm and many others need to ask themselves as the mitigation failures mount, leaving adaptation as the one viable alternative.