A groundbreaking book that transforms the debate about global warming by offering a fresh perspective based on human needs as well as environmental concerns.
Bjorn Lomborg argues that many of the elaborate and expensive actions now being considered to stop global warming will cost hundreds of billions of dollars, are often based on emotional rather than strictly scientific assumptions, and may very well have little impact on the world’s temperature for hundreds of years. Rather than starting with the most radical procedures, Lomborg argues that we should first focus our resources on more immediate concerns, such as fighting malaria and HIV/AIDS and assuring and maintaining a safe, fresh water supply—which can be addressed at a fraction of the cost and save millions of lives within our lifetime. He asks why the debate over climate change has stifled rational dialogue and killed meaningful dissent.
Lomborg presents us with a second generation of thinking on global warming that believes panic is neither warranted nor a constructive place from which to deal with any of humanity’s problems, not just global warming. Cool It promises to be one of the most talked about and influential books of our time.
Editorial Reviews
“Brimming with useful facts and common sense. . . . [Lomborg presents] a calm analysis of what today’s best science tells us about global warming and its risks. . . . His analysis is smart and refreshing, and it may bridge at least one divide in our too divided culture.” —Kimberley Strassel, Wall Street Journal
“Cool It is a highly valuable contribution to the climate-policy literature. In clear and concise prose, Lomborg diagnoses the problems plaguing contemporary climate policy, injecting a needed tonic of realism and common sense into the climate debate. And for that very reason, it is sure to make Lomborg’s critics hot-under-the-collar.” —Jonathan Adler, National Review
“A reasoned addition to the debate about what to do about climate change. And it is sure to provoke just as much controversy as his last book.” —Esquire
“Bjorn Lomborg is the best-informed and most humane advocate for environmental change in the world today. . . . [He] is only interested in real problems, and he has no patience with media fear-mongering. . . . In the end, his ability to put climate in a global perspective is perhaps the book’s greatest value. Lomborg and Cool It are our best guides to our shared environmental future.” —Michael Crichton
“Bjorn Lomborg’s rational and compassionate suggestions would save more lives, preserve more wilderness and have a better chance of eventually halting man-made global warming than hysterical catastrophism, global treaties, and high-minded energy rationing. Read this ingenious book.” —Matt Ridley, author of The Origins of Virtue
“Lomborg affirms that the planet is warming, but questions why so much of the policy debate is framed around the idea of imminent catastrophe. This book dares to offer straightforward new thinking about how best to respond. Indispensable.” —Clive Crook, associate editor, Financial Times; senior editor, The Atlantic Monthly
“At last we have a book that puts the hype of global warming into perspective. Bjorn Lomborg’s eye-opening book, Cool It, examines and meticulously documents climate change’s effects and proposed solutions. An extraordinarily timely and supremely useful book.” —John Naisbitt, author of Megatrends
“Brilliant! A devastating critique of the prevailing climate change hysteria. This book provides an overwhelming case for re-assessing where exactly our policy priorities should lie if we are genuinely concerned with world welfare rather than with making noble—if futile—gestures that, at best, make us feel good but actually do a lot of harm.” —Wilfred Beckerman, professor emeritus of economics, Oxford University
About the Author
Bjorn Lomborg is the author of The Skeptical Environmentalist and has written for numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and USA Today. He was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2004. In 2008 he was named “one of the 50 people who could save the planet” by The Guardian; one of the top 100 public intellectuals by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazine; and one of the world’s 75 most influential people of the 21st century by Esquire. He is presently an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School, and in 2004 he started the Copenhagen Consensus, a conference of top economists who come together to prioritize the best solutions for the world’s greatest challenges.
Visit the author's website at www.lomborg.com.
