While Lomborg is quite attuned to the pathologies of the climate-policy debate, he pays little attention to the pathologies of climate policymaking. To be sure, spending billions on alternative energy R&D could result in significant technological breakthroughs, but it is not as if governments have not tried this for years. The problem is that government subsidies are doled out according to political criteria, not the advice of technical experts like Lomborg. Given the power of the corn lobby, millions of taxpayer dollars go to ethanol in the name of environmental protection, but the environment is hardly better off.
Despite these flaws, Cool It is a highly valuable contribution to the climate-policy literature. In clear and concise prose, Lomborg diagnoses the problems plaguing contemporary climate policy, injecting a needed tonic of realism and common sense into the climate debate. And for that very reason, it is sure to make Lomborg’s critics hot-under-the-collar.
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