Both Brown and Flannery believe in subordinating individual beliefs to a superior authority. Plato would approve. His focus was on perfecting society.

Lomberg is more like Aristotle. He doesn’t want to perfect society, he just wants to improve the existing one. The entire purpose of society is to enable each person “to attain a higher and better life by the mutual exchange of their different services.”

Where the Greens see ‘a set of shared beliefs’, Lomberg sees the value of a multitude of diverse ideas rising from the culture and knowledge of individuals.

It’s an argument that’s been going on for more than two thousand years, and it’s fundamental. That’s the real context.

Hi Peter,

Fascinating.

On the notion of State versus individual, I don't have a very good understanding of the philosophical principles involved, but Popper has a wonderful article (originally a lecture in Christchurch in 1940) which teases out the potential conflicts and links between

* State and individual,

* altruism and egoism, and

* individuality and collectivism.

He concludes that altruism is certainly compatible with the assertion of individuality, actually essential for it, and that in that context, the State must serve the individual rather than the other way around. The total subordination of the individual to the state leads to fascism, even via Plato.

Even though I grew up as a Marxist-socialist, I am very much a convert to Popper when he asserts that:

* individuality, creativity, freedom of expression, all spring from similar sources, and are indeterminate, nobody knows where they may lead; but

* subordination to some dominant ideology, the State and the so-called 'collective' quite inevitably to fascism - unless some other socialist can demonstrate where that hasn't happened ?

I have no doubt that Bob Brown is a good-hearted man, but any attempt to bring the world under one system of rule, no matter how benevolent it may sound, is bound - if it could even occur, given the current slight differences between major players such as the US, China, Russia, ISIS - to move towards authoritarian means to achieve its ends. And therefore towards totalitarianism, some form of rule which is intolerant of any dissent - from there the step to fascism, by whatever name, is inevitable.

Long may people in the world strive for better lives. Long may the outcomes of their struggles always be imperfect.

But always perfectible.

Hi Peter McCloy

Lomborg describes himself as an environmentalist and a former Greenpeace supporter. Many of the policies he advocates aim at improving the environment, including significant amounts of state aid and intervention. You point out that “green” covers a wide spectrum. I think it’s fair to describe Lomborg as part of that spectrum, albeit part that many greens repudiate.

Where he differs from more extreme greens is willingness to explore the factual evidence rather than start from a presumption that humans are trashing the planet. He also has a pragmatist’s approach to aid and environmental policies, trying to direct our efforts to areas that yield the most advantage for the least expenditure: hence his use of cost-benefit analysis to determine which aid programs yield the best bang for a donor’s buck.

Personally I think his cost-benefit approach works very well on policies like aid programs, but less so for climate change policies. Cost benefit approaches work best when the likely costs and benefits of a measure are fairly readily understood and quantified. With climate change modelling and projections there is a large measure of uncertainty, including some unlikely but extreme outliers. Lomborg tends to argue that the costs of adjusting to and mitigating climate change are manageable and spread over a long period, so we have plenty of time to adjust. Meanwhile, spending money now on more immediate problems will yield larger net benefits in human welfare. He could well be right, but there is also a small but significant risk that the effects of climate change will turn out to be far worse than Lomborg expects. In this case, I think a risk management rather than a cost-benefit approach is more appropriate. Even if the probability of humans trashing the planet is less than the climate models suggest, its consequences would be so deleterious that it’s worth acting to avoid them.

Hi Rhian,

Discussions such as you raise are precisely why there should be some sort of Centre, where Lomborg's notions can be teased out, perhaps in response to those of other environmentalists.

As for risk-aversion, i.e. avoiding the risk of the production of ever-more CO2, and thus boosting global warming:

* how much CO2 is produced in the production of wind-towers and solar panels, over their lifetimes ? If they were so efficacious, then why not produce them using primarily wind power and solar power, before they are put to any other use ?

Because, you are justified in saying, the technology is improving so fast that soon, perhaps in a generation, wind power and solar power will be cheaper than fossil-fuel-generated power.

Yes, and by the same logic, carbon capture technology etc. may also improve so fast that soon, clean power will be generated from fossil-fuels. Sauce and goose .....

* fossil fuels have boosted the economic well-being in Western countries immeasurably, a benefit that we have no right to deny other parts of the world.

Yes, there have been costs but see last paragraph above.

We come down to a very difficult issue in discussions of energy and development: do we think that people in Africa and Asia have the same rights to a comfortable life as we do ? Those vast areas - a dozen Australias with a hundred times the rainfall - could feed the world ten times over if their resources were harnessed, and harnessed in an environmentally sensible way, massively improving health and living standards across the continent in the process. Of course, there are some slight modifications that might need to be made, such as ending corruption, and putting in adequate infrastructure.

But of all continents, Africa could ultimately be the ideal place for environmentally-friendly technologies, with massive hydro and solar potential, once the appropriate infrastructure has been put in place, probably by Chinese firms, over the next fifty years.

These are the sorts of issues that a 'Lomborg Centre' could tease out in order to generate appropriate research on a massive scale.

Hi Loudmouth

I agree that the centre would have been a good idea. As a West Australian I was particularly disappointed at UWA’s decision. The centre he proposed would have sparked some interesting debates, and we don’t have many institutions here in the west that do that.

Your questions about Africa are also very important. Implicit in the deep green agenda is the implication that we should try to prevent people in poor countries from matching western living standards – so-called “lifeboat ethics”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifeboat_ethics

I don’t think that’s either practical or morally tenable. The alternative is to find ways of raising living standards that don’t cause unsustainable environmental damage. That’s where Lomborg’s ideas have a lot to contribute.

On greenhouse gases, I partly agree. Technological change is indeed making low-emission energy cheaper and more practical, but there’s a long way to go before we could rely on it without massively more expensive and unreliable energy. And, as you say, even "green" technologies have a lot of hidden emissions. I’d like to see a carbon tax or emissions trading scheme to encourage changing technology and behaviour.

I’m not generally a fan of the “precautionary principle”, as it seems to be used as an excuse to never risk anything, just in case. But in this case a precautionary approach seems reasonable. Even if the “luke warmists” are right, and the models are probably overstating the risk of major and damaging AGW, “probably” is not a good enough reason to defer action. I probably won’t be in a major accident next time I drive the car, but I’ll still wear a seatbelt.