The Skeptical Environmentalist in Dublin Wednesday 15th June

BrendanBurgess

Meeting Global Development Challenges:
Ireland's White Paper on Development Cooperation

To be held in Trinity College, Dublin

Wednesday 15 June 2005

Bjorn Lomborg, The Skeptical Environmentalist will be speaking at this conference. I asked if could attend just the Lomborg talk, and I got the ok.


More information here

Obni

I would have liked to attend the meeting as I am currently dragging myself through the book, however the demands of work mean I only check the board every few days and I missed your post. Any chance of a quick summary?

I know from questions you've asked at meetings that you're involved in environmental science, so what did you make of the book as an informed reader?

DadaKopf

I went along to his thing in Trinity on Wednesday. It was about development aid, not the environment. He was utterly wrong on the most basic premises about how to analyse and eradicate poverty. A perfect example of how statisticians and economists do not live in the real world. They are *not* natural sciences.

There's an entry on him on Wikipedia.

Neuro

DadaKopf wrote:

He was utterly wrong on the most basic premises about how to analyse and eradicate poverty. A perfect example of how statisticians and economists do not live in the real world. They are *not* natural sciences.

What were his premises and in what ways were they wrong?

BrendanBurgess

Hi Obni

You missed a great presentation on the rough topic of Global Problems and Global Solutions, which is the title of his new book.

In a project known as The Copenhagen Consensus, he gathered together teams of economists, all experts in their own area of development. They were given the challenge of how to spend an extra $50b dollars on solving global problems. They had to prioritize. And then they argued and came up with a fair consensus on the following orders of priority:
1) Disease - control of HIV/Aids
2) Malnutrition - Micronutrients
3) Trade Liberalization
4) Disease - control of malaria

All the projects relating to Climate Change were declared to be "Bad Projects". It's not that Climate Change isn't recognized as a problem, it's simply that we can do so little about it. It's good economics and rational thinking - what is the best way to allocate limited resources.

Lomborg is a great speaker. Very clear thinking and very happy to challenge the world to think seriously and clearly about the problems we are facing.

Brendan

robindch

Not sure if anybody was listening to Radio4 this morning at five to nine, but the useful and energetic Dick Taverne turned up to debate the merits of organic food with somebody from the food-scare industry. The link is available here.

Obni

Thanks Brendan.

I'm still struggling to finish the Skeptical Envir., so I guess I'd better get a move on before the next book appears.