False Alarm

The author has already been criticized in the past for his view on climate change which he published in The Skeptical Environmentalist. This book claims to be heavily sourced and represent the actual scientific consensus, which the author claims is not accurately represented by the media. The main claim of the book is that people will adapt to climate change and that it will be cheaper than reducing carbon emissions. However, its sources seems to be cherry-picked, and the general conclusion seems to be inconsistent with the IPCC reports from 2014, which I trust to represent the scientific consensus much more than some non peer-reviewed book. The book uses as example studies making the hypotheses of no adaption being used as face-value by the media, but it is not representative of all of the media's dealings with climate change. For example most risk estimations in the IPCC reports show both the risk and the potential for adaptation. Some of the claims regarding coastal flooding and its mortality are also contradicted by the WHO. Victims of floods have increased in the recent years. The book fails to address the migrations that will arise due to climate change and many other factors where adaptation will be much tougher than just buying AC, for example the IPCC mentions droughts, and lower food productivity.

Takes on the largely one-sided proposed solutions to climate change with many excellent analogies and a fair amount of facts. Makes excellent points that have yet to be refuted by those who believe elimination of fossil fuels is the ONLY way to solve this problem. Clear, concise, and recommended.

Lomborg tends to rile people up, and people who try to tear down his arguments mostly get things wrong. This book outlines a good approach to measuring and balancing costs vs benefits, and argues yet again that there are multiple solutions - we will end up using more than one. The facts he relies on (Nordhaus) have been questioned in the past, and this book doesn't answer those questions unfortunately. For that matter, the questions Lomborg has for the zero carbon emissions folks are not new either, and also haven't been answered.

The first book of his that I read (Cool It!) took Al Gore and others to task for knowingly exaggerating the problem - trying to scare people into a solution. This book continues to fight that trend, and thus the title. Everyone needs to stop telling people they'll be dead and the planet will be uninhabitable if we really want them to change. Seems obvious to me, but please read this book if that is somewhat less obvious for you. We aren't living the 1950s all over again - both science and economics are much improved.