Unlikely occurrence: I agree with Bjorn Lomborg

Human nature is to be comfortable, rich, greedy, and never to plan for the future until it rears up and bites us on the buttocks. Which is why countries that supposedly commit to emissions cuts won't honor them. It's a shell game and a sham game. We are truly going to screw our grandchildren (subject of an essay that I'm going to write).

So... the thing is, a carbon-based energy economy will keep getting more and more expensive. That's what will change things. Which is why stop-making-sense Bjorn Lomborg actually makes sense in the soon-to-be-defunct New York Times, when he says:

"The Copenhagen agreement should instead call for every country to spend one-twentieth of a percent of its gross domestic product on low-carbon energy research and development. That would increase the amount of such spending 15-fold to $30 billion, yet the total cost would be only a sixth of the estimated $180 billion worth of lost growth that would result from the Kyoto restrictions."

And I also agree with him here:

"No green energy source is inexpensive enough to replace coal now. Given substantially more research, however, green energy could be cheaper than fossil fuels by mid-century".

But in between those two paragraphs, he unfortunately said this:

"Kyoto-style emissions cuts can only ever be an expensive distraction from the real business of weaning ourselves off fossil fuels. The fact is, carbon remains the only way for developing countries to work their way out of poverty. Coal burning provides half of the world’s electricity, and fully 80 percent of it in China and India, where laborers now enjoy a quality of life that their parents could barely imagine."

The other fact is -- and I saw this on my one and only business trip to China -- more on that tomorrow -- coal burning is making the citizens of China gag on their own industrial exhalations. Unless there's a lucky breeze, the entire country is enshrouded in a pervasive, appalling gray haze. (Beijing actually got better for the Olympics because they throttled back so much.) No, I disagree with Lomborg -- despite the expense, China and India need non-carbon energy or the people will rise en masse in revolt against the environmental injustice they are forced to endure in the name of progress and growth.

Here's the article:

Don’t Waste Time Cutting Emissions

One other thing he doesn't mention: a carbon tax will force the pace of innovation faster. Oh yeah, I almost forgot!

Lab finds new method to turn biomass into gasoline

Bjorn, the future is not carbon, even for growing Third World economies. Yes, we should invest in green energy, because the future is nearly now.