The fact the Siberian permafrost is melting for the first time in 11,000 years and releasing vast quantities of methane is indicative of some sort of problem that goes beyond "cycles of hundreds of years".

The effect of the release this quantity of methane (70 billion tons)will have far more impact on the environment than the current debate which seems to be fixated on C02 emissions only.

This wasn't even a factor when the last major climate change report was drawn up in 2001.

I'm a little surprised that people still imagine that humanity is having only a negligible (if any) effect on the environment.

“Lomborg has made a name for himself by trying to spruik the calculations and the consensus of the world's scientists.”

Gecko, Lomborg does not dispute that global warming is happening or that human activity is contributing to it, and in this piece he defends the IPCC’s range of temperature projections against Stern’s use of higher increases. He’s defending not attacking the consensus.

The case against Stern is that he’s used some dodgy methods to come up with conclusions that overstate the cost of climate change and understate the cost of some measures to address it. Lots of other serious commentators agree with Lomborg’s assessment of that.

I don’t entirely agree with Lomborg’s conclusions – I think Stern has done a useful job in outlining the “worst case scenario” for climate change, and also that the risk of the effects of climate change being worse than our “best guess” estimates makes action to mitigate climate change worthwhile. But I with Lomborg agree that the costs of those actions must be weighed honestly, and also that the debate on responses to climate change should give more weight to adaptation (given that climate change will happen no matter what we do now, but its effects can be lessened).

Lomborg’s broader thesis is that there are better things we can spend money on to improve human welfare than mitigating climate change. These include tackling Aids and malnutrition (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_Consensus). That’s also open to debate, but raises some really important questions that tend to be eclipsed by the greenhouse debate in developed countries.

This Lundborg bloke's book of 2001 was widely discredited, from memory. How does someone who teaches in some obscure Copenhagen business school get an article attacking the Stern report spread so widely around the planet almost overnight ? even to our not-so-famous-yet OLO ? are the coal companies so eager to bury Stern ?? anyway someone is certainly working overtime to get this piece out and about. Or perhaps he has an Australian girl friend who just happens to subscribe to OLO ? If so I take it all back.

Who is this .....dude called Stern. ?. Persious,when Eurospiv Stern wrote his report, he was discussing and stating environmental issues,affecting the whole global population scenario. He would be aware that not everyone lives a "Waltons" lifestyle occupying a homestead in the hills. However i guess ur efforts are commendable.

gecko, what's with the attitude?

>>Correction. There is plenty of space for sober assessment of the facts. The IPCC is such a place<<

This is not offered in the spirit of enquiry, is it? You are trying to put me in my place, as do all your fellow doom-mongers, despite the fact that I tried very hard to let you know that in my view, the arguments - on both sides - are unconvincing.

Open your mind for a moment. This should not be a battle of competing ideologies. It should be a concerted and cooperative search for common ground, through which an agreed position may be reached that we can all see the sense of, and hence buy into.

All this "look at me" stuff is extremely tiresome. By praising one camp and denigrating the other, you are displaying the signs of a classic follower. No need to think for yourself, is there, when you have a mighty international Quango to tell you what ideas to have.

IPCC, and all its chairs, vice-chairs and co-chairs is about as credible as my auntie Edith on the topic. Not because Edie knows squat about climate change, but because she is not paid to know about climate change.

Once you have scored a position as co-chair of the "count the sunbeam" committee, are you likely to find a single scrap of evidence against global warming? Fat chance.

This was the gist of my original point. There are so many vested interests, some in the status quo, some in new technology, some in the opportunity for political advancement and so on, what chance is there that anything rational will emerge?

Buckleys.

As Rhian points out, Lomborg doesn't deny that there is a climate problem, but does say that there are more important problems. The following paragraph, which appeared in the original Wall Street Journal article and makes this clear, was omitted by The Australian:

"Last weekend in New York, I asked 24 U.N. ambassadors--from nations including China, India and the U.S.--to prioritize the best solutions for the world's greatest challenges, in a project known as Copenhagen Consensus. They looked at what spending money to combat climate change and other major problems could achieve. They found that the world should prioritize the need for better health, nutrition, water, sanitation and education, long before we turn our attention to the costly mitigation of global warning."

As for kang's question about how someone "who teaches in some obscure Copenhagen business school" gets so much attention, the Copenhagen Consensus referred to in Lomborg's omitted paragraph, which first met in 2004, was sponsored by The Economist newspaper and the Danish government. It set out to answer the question, "How would you spend $50 billion?" Its web site is at http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/Default.aspx?ID=675

Since the 2006 conference in New York last month, chaired by Lomborg, drew ambassadors and diplomats from 24 countries, perhaps Lomborg is not as obscure as kang thinks.

What Nicholas Stern has done is to take a fresh look at the economics with the benefit of more recent information, and come to a different view from Lomborg.