Bjorn Lomborg On Global Warming From A Bangladeshi's Perspective

One time Greenie, now rationalist Bjorn Lomborg wrote a priceless editorial in a recent edition of the Wall Street Journal concerning the view on global warming from Bangladesh.


He visited the country to find out how people in a poor, low-lying country feel about what the richer countries propose to do to mitigate the presumed, yet unproven effects of global warming.

Sorry. "Global climate change," since as soon as WarmBoy Al Gore began making the former phrase popular, the damned planet began to cool.

Anyway.....

Lomborg writes,

"For Mrs. Begum, the choice is simple. After global warming was explained to her, she said:

"When my kids haven't got enough to eat, I don't think global warming will be an issue I will be thinking about."

One of Bangladesh's most vulnerable citizens, Mrs. Begum has lost faith in the media and politicians.

"So many people like you have come and interviewed us. I have not seen any improvement in our conditions," she said."

So much for patrician UN-types deciding to soak the rich in developed countries for the presumed benefit of the poor in places like Bangladesh. As Lomborg noted,

"Getting basic sanitation and safe drinking water to the three billion people around the world who do not have it now would cost nearly $4 billion a year. By contrast, cuts in global carbon emissions that aim to limit global temperature increases to less than two degrees Celsius over the next century would cost $40 trillion a year by 2010. These cuts will do nothing to reduce the number of people with access to clean drinking water and sanitation."

Lomborg's work has consistently shown that the simplest, cheapest things that can be done by the developed world, e.g., providing clean water and working on basic diseases in the third world, offer the best returns in terms of lives improved and productivity of people around the world.

Now, he's shown that even the very people who would be affected agree with him.