Abbott, T Pm aus

ref btb

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2010-09-03/bjorn-lomborg-performance-artist-extraordinaire/

BJORN LOMBORG: PERFORMANCE ARTIST EXTRAORDINAIRE

By Richard Bell, originally published by Energy Bulletin

September 3, 2010

One of the most successful performance artists of the 21st century has returned to the stage—and we’re not talking about Lady Gaga here.

Instead, I draw your attention to Bjorn Lomborg, who has just unleashed a dramatic reverse back-flip of his stance on global warming that may very well restore him, at least briefly, to the heights of the media firmament he first enjoyed in 2001, when he announced his apostasy from his (alleged) environmental roots with the publication of the global best-seller, The Skeptical Environmentalist.

On August 30, 2010, the British paper The Guardian published an “exclusive interview” with Lomborg with the following rather breathless opening:

The world’s most high-profile climate change sceptic [sic] is to declare that global warming is “undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the world today” and “a challenge humanity must confront”, in an apparent U-turn that will give a huge boost to the embattled environmental lobby.”

Bjørn Lomborg, the self-styled “sceptical environmentalist” once compared to Adolf Hitler by the UN’s climate chief, is famous for attacking climate scientists, campaigners, the media and others for exaggerating the rate of global warming and its effects on humans, and the costly waste of policies to stop the problem.

In what may have been a very sly editorial comment, the article’s next sentence very helpfully points out that Lomborg has “a new book to be published next month.”

GET ME CENTRAL CASTING: For those of you who weren’t there at the beginning, a little historical context: back in the summer of 2001, a heretofore unknown and little-published Danish statistician made a huge media splash with the publication of The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World. The author, Bjorn Lomborg, was as mediagenic as he could be: , a good-looking, tall, blond, politically-left, gay, vegetarian, and to top it all off, a self-described former member of Greenpeace.

Lomborg argued that we had been misled by the scientific community and environmental organizations into thinking that the threats to the global environment were far worse than the “facts” justified. His critique was especially aimed at the ever-growing consensus about the dangers posed by global warming. He never flat-out denied the existence of global warming, but the media were quick to anoint him as the leading global warming skeptic because he claimed that there were far more urgent environmental problems than global warming.

IT’S ALL IN THE FRAME: How you frame a story makes a great deal of difference in how successful you can be in getting the media to pick up your story and repeat it. Lomborg played to one of the classical frames in the environmental arena, the former environmentalist who had “seen the light,” going through a conversion experience to become a truth-teller whom we should trust even more. (The ur-model for this frame is Saul’s conversion on the road to Damascus.)

Lomborg claimed to have been a supporter of Greenpeace, although he has never documented this claim. Nonetheless, the claim positioned Lomborg to execute his first back-flip, joining a small group of similar apostates who had parlayed experience in the environmental world as a credential for attacking their former colleagues and organizations. (Greenpeace has been an especially potent starting-point. Patrick Moore, who was with Greenpeace Canada. in the early 1970s, was one of the first to demonstrate the value of executing the back-flip, becoming a well-paid consultant for the nuclear power industry and the timber industry..)

The scientific community has long struggled with how to handle attacks in the media on scientific findings, a weakness that the oil and coal industries have exploited to the hilt since the early 1990s. And in 2001, it took months for the scientific community to respond to the media onslaught which Lomborg unleashed, but when it came, the criticism was harsh and unrelenting.

Scientific American weighed in with 4 major articles. on Lomborg’s errors, mistakes, and omissions on global warming, energy, population, and bioidiversity, entitled “Misleading Math about the Earth: Science defends itself against The Skeptical Inquirer.” Nature published an editorial. criticizing the book.

But as with most effective performance art, the swelling drumbeat of criticism had the paradoxical effect of burnishing Lomborg’s credentials, elevating him far above his previous status as a mere statistician.

And like good performance artists everywhere, Lomborg was quick to capitalize on his success, using his burst of visibility to pull together a new organization, The Copenhagen Consensus. The title alone demonstrates Lomborg’s artistic talent, given that the purpose of this new group was to put out research supporting Lomborg’s by now notoriously anti-consensus positions about major environmental issues.

HOW MANY MADONNAS CAN YOU NAME? Performance artists do not, by definition, rest on their laurels. They cannot stop; they must perform. The world is constantly changing, starting most intimately with the changes that a given performance artist introduces, which then become part of the background against which this artist, and all subsequent artists, will be measured. Ignoring such change will almost certainly lead to a loss of one’s audience, and of one’s income.

And in 2010, ignoring the evidence of global warming has become increasingly difficult (notwithstanding the higher level of ignorance which has been showing up in recent polls of the American people.) And lo and behold, we find Lomborg with a new book and a new position.

You’ve seen earlier how the media are now presenting Lomborg’s new claims as a reverse back flip, as if it were important “news” that this former alleged Greenpeacer-turned-climate skeptic is now turning his back on his adopted comrades and returning to his roots.

Here again, we have only to turn to Lomborg himself to see what a master craftsman he is. In his interview with The Guardian, he rejects having executed any flips at all!

Lomborg denies he has performed a volte face, pointing out that even in his first book he accepted the existence of man-made global warming.

“The point I’ve always been making is it’s not the end of the world,” he told the Guardian. “That’s why we should be measuring up to what everybody else says, which is we should be spending our money well.”

And just as Lomborg’s first flip provoked outrage among the scientific community, his back-flip is generating plenty of heat from the world of global warming skeptics and deniers. Here’s a sample from comments on a Yahoo News story:.

“A newly recruited lib puppet to further extend the lies of anthropogenic global warming.”

“This clown is looking for a pay check from obama and his liberal crew of Zombies, follow me follow me to the United States of America Tax money.”[sic]

“All it means is that someone’s in the Green ongoing criminal enterprise, has gotten to him & his price (for his reversal of sides) has been met…Mr.Lomborg can now be called Mr. “SELLOUT”…cause that’s all he is !!”

At the same time, critics of Lomborg’s first flip are showing plenty of skepticism of their own. Here’s Joseph Romm, author of the widely-read Climate Progress. blog, who doesn’t take long to cut to the chase:

Instead of titling the book Smart Solutions to Climate Change, the Danish chameleon should have called it The Bjorn Identity.

Of course, Lomborg doesn’t really know anything about the solutions and most of the people he got to write essays for his book don’t either — and there’s no way of telling if in a few years Lomborg won’t just stick his finger in the wind and flip flop again if that seems like the way to get attention. So I can’t imagine why someone would want to buy this book.

This type of criticism only boosted sales of The Skeptical Environmentalist, which soared to the number 1 environmental book spot on Amazon for weeks. We will have to watch and see whether his latest act has the same staying power.

Note: For a book-length critique of Lomborg’s previous work, see Howard Friel’s book, *The Lomborg Deception: Setting the Record Straight About Global Warming*, published in March 2010. I first wrote about The Skeptical Environmentalist for the Worldwatch Institute in 2002, here, and here.

Richard Bell is a writer and online activist. He served as a board member of Post Carbon Institute, and vice-president for communications for the Worldwatch Institute. He is a winner of the :{George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution for Honesty and Clarity in Public Language:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:. from the National Council of Teachers of English.

punked GUK then

https://yyy.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/sep/24/bjrn-lomborg-centre-got-640000-for-report-saying-limiting-warming-rise-to-2c-not-worth-it

guk no lnx

Bjørn Lomborg centre got $640,000 for report saying limiting warming rise to 2C not worth it

This article is more than 3 years old

Exclusive: Revealed under freedom of information, cost came before Copenhagen Consensus Centre’s controversial $4m Australian program dropped

Paul Karp

@Paul_Karp

Fri 23 Sep 2016 18.03 EDTLast modified on Wed 14 Feb 2018 12.09 EST

Bjørn Lomborg

Bjørn Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus Centre was paid $640,000 before its Australian program was dropped. Photograph: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images

Australia’s education department paid Bjørn Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus Centre $640,000 to help produce a report that claimed limiting world temperature increases to 2C was a “poor” use of money.

The $640,000 cost, incurred before the CCC’s controversial $4m Australian program was junked, is revealed in the 2016 incoming ministerial brief published under freedom of information laws.

An education department spokeswoman told Guardian Australia the $640,000 represented the Australian government contribution to the CCC for the Smarter UN Post-2015 Development Goals project.

Bjørn Lomborg's $4m centre rejected by Flinders University academics

The project concluded that for every dollar spent on keeping global temperatures to the 2C target, less than $1 of social, economic or environmental benefit resulted, which it described as a “poor” result.

Other spending with “poor” returns included cutting outdoor air pollution, increasing protected biodiversity areas, better disaster resilience for the poor and reducing child marriages.

Projects with “phenomenal” returns included reducing world trade restrictions through the Doha trade round, which it said would produce $2,011 for every dollar spent, and universal access to contraception which would return $120 on the dollar.

Some environmental projects rated as good investments, with “more energy research” rating an $11 return, and phasing out fossil fuel subsidies likely to yield $15 or more.

The education department spokeswoman said the CCC had provided a comprehensive report on 169 funding possibilities across 22 core issues, which was published as the Nobel Laureates’ Guide to the Smartest Targets for the World, 2016-2030.

Australian taxpayers funding climate contrarian's methods with $4m Bjørn Lomborg centre

Graham Readfearn

The project explained its conclusions were “based on peer-reviewed analyses from 82 of the world’s top economists and 44 sector experts”.

Its brochure notes financial support was provided by the Australian government. A spokesman for the CCC said the $640,000 was for costs incurred and that the intended work of the Australian Consensus Centre, which included the development goal project, was a matter of public record.

In April 2015 Guardian Australia revealed the then Abbott government’s plan to spend $4m over four years to bring the Copenhagen Consensus Centre methodology to Australia at a new centre in the University of Western Australia’s business school.

UWA rejected the funds after a public backlash leading to a search for a new home for the Australian Consensus Centre.

The project was axed later in 2015 when Malcolm Turnbull became prime minister, which the brief explains was caused by the government’s conclusion it was “unlikely to enjoy success and that the funds could be better utilised elsewhere”.

Flinders University staff and students keep fighting Bjørn Lomborg centre

The brief notes the centre’s Australian program was to cost $4m to provide “policy information and advice on smart, cost-effective solutions to national and international challenges” before it was dropped in mid 2015.

“The department has negotiated a funding agreement which will provide a one-off payment to the CCC for a total of $640,000 to cover costs incurred in relation to the establishment of the Australian Consensus Centre prior to the decision to cancel this project,” it said.

The shadow innovation, industry, science and research minister, Kim Carr, questioned why the government had “felt the need to keep [the $640,000] secret”.

“The department of education needs to explain why in one document the secretary is told that this money was establishment costs around the centre, but now states that the $640,000 was for a specific research project,” he said.

The Liberals must explain their actions.

Kim Carr

“When government research money is in such sort supply for Australia’s best and brightest scientists and researchers, the Liberals must explain their actions here.”

Carr accused the Abbott and Turnbull governments of “using taxpayers’ money in an attempt to promote an anti-science conservative agenda”.

An education department spokeswoman refuted the suggestion it had sought to hide the payment, and cited the fact the $640,000 grant was also disclosed in a log of education grants created on 2 July 2015 and made public on 22 April 2016.

http://www.globalpossibilities.org/tony-abbott-is-a-climate-change-villain-says-canadian-author-naomi-klein/

Tony Abbott: Windfarms May Have 'Potential Health Impacts' (Guardian) 6/15

Sir Anthony Fisher is sort of the international Johny Appleseed of thinktanks, pal of Hayek who founded the Mont Pelerin Society in 1947, libertaian so ties to Koch/Cato, booster of free marketeer Friedman, allied also with FREE which pioneered the dude ranch junket for judge indoctrination (180 on _). late to denauilism, but a mamber, Maurice Newman, the man hand-picked by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to be the government’s top business advisor” has been peddling the idea of AGW as new religion (note mirroring) in Australia (which junked its progressive carbon tax, and prepared but narrowly averted finishing off the Great Barrier Reef by dumping toxic coal ash on it).

desmog

THERE’S a popular talking point coming from climate change denialists that all people who accept the science and the need to act on it are somehow blinded by faith.

In Australia, climate science contrarian columnists can barely touch their keyboards without typing out the words “global warming faith” or explaining how human-caused global warming is some sort of “new religion”.

This “climate religion” narrative often goes hand-in-hand with another favourite denialist talking point where climate scientists are only doing what they do because there’s a dollar in it.

Presumably the laws of physics, the melting ice sheets, the increasing risk of bushfires, the hottest decades on record and the acidifying oceans are also waiting for their cash.

Maurice Newman, the man hand-picked by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to be the government’s top business advisor, loves both of these debating points.

Newman has described climate scientists as being a “global warming priesthood” and belonging to a new “religion”. In a second opinion column in two weeks in The Australian, Newman repeats his cynicism over the IPCC and climate scientists, describing them as a “cartel” that “will deny all contrary evidence”. Newman even repeats the myth that in the 1970s scientists were certain the world was heading for global cooling, when in fact, asthis study shows, a healthy majority of scientific papers were predicting the opposite.

Yet Newman has a deep belief system of his own, having long been associated with a form of “classic liberalism” – a particular world view which advocates small government and low regulation of the activities of businesses.

Not only that, but he is a member of a global society of influential business people, academics and think tank associates known as the Mont Pelerin Society who share the same broad ideology.

The Mont Pelerin Society

The Mont Pelerin Society was established in 1947 by free market economist and philosopher Friedrich von Hayek.

Maurice Newman, a Mont Pelerin member since 1976, has long been an admirer of the work of Hayek and fellow free market economist Milton Friedman, a past president of the Mont Pelerin Society.

Newman was responsible for bringing Friedman to Australia in the mid-1970s, at a time when Newman was helping to set up the Centre for Independent Studies – a Sydney-based free market think tank.

Mont Pelerin’s website explains that while all members don’t agree on everything, “they see danger in the expansion of government, not least in state welfare, in the power of trade unions and business monopoly, and in the continuing threat and reality of inflation.”

The Society, which holds a meeting annually in different parts of the world, also explains how its members see their society “as an effort to interpret in modern terms the fundamental principles of economic society as expressed by those classical economists, political scientists, and philosophers who have inspired many in Europe, America and throughout the Western World.”

To become a member, individuals have to be nominated by a current member and then seek endorsement by the membership committee before being endorsed.

DeSmogBlog has obtained a full list of the society’s members that includes senior representatives of many of the world’s foremost “free market” think tanks actively pushing back on proposed policy solutions to tackle climate change.

The list, from 2010, includes almost 500 people from 52 countries, with the bulk of members coming from the United States and the United Kingdom. The 70-page list includes private contact details. DeSmogBlog has decided to publish only extracts with contact details redacted.

Among the notable members is Charles Koch (list excerpt here), the US oil billionaire who has been a Mont Pelerin Society member since 1970.

Australia's Tony Abbott Still Determined to Kill Renewable Energy Target

Aug 19, 2014

Source:

(RenewEconomy)

Tony Abbott's Renewable Energy Target review panel appears destined to do what it was created to do – to recommend closure of Australia's last significant climate and clean energy scheme to new entrants.

The Australian Financial Review, in a front page report, on Monday confirmed the worst fears of the renewable energy industry when it said that the panel had been "instructed" by Tony Abbott to look at ways for the scheme to be folded.

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