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Earl Aagaard’s opinions about everything that interests him. Og also enjoys gardening, travel, reading, woodbutchery, and lots of other stuff.

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IS THE SKY FALLING? OR ARE THINGS MUDDLING ALONG PRETTY WELL, ENVIRONMENTALLY?

Foreign Policy magazine has published a DEBATE between Carl Pope, the executive director of the Sierra Club, and Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist and Global Crises, Global Solutions.

Fascinating reading. Carl Pope:

You ask for my priorities. We should stop cooking the books, make those who take from the global commons pay, and invest that revenue as wisely as we can. The result of these steps will not be Dr. Pangloss’s “best of all possible worlds.” But I am shocked that anyone believes we will get better results by continuing to treat the Earth as if it were Enron.

and Bjorn Lomborg:

You end by repeating your claim that we are cooking the environmental books. No. We know there are environmental problems. But we face other challenges, too. Let’s tackle the ones where we can do the most good first. The rich world is dealing with many of its environmental problems because it can afford to. If the poor world became wealthier, they would follow suit. Tackling pressing issues such as disease, hunger, and polluted water will do obvious good and give the poor the chance to improve the state of their world.

We’ll all be mightily affected in various ways, depending on who wins the philsophical battle here. READ the whole thing

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/08 at 09:24 AM

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