AGENDA
- Bjorn Lomborg
Bjorn Lomborg -- Copenhagen Consensus, PhD in political science
- some mitigation-- carbon tax
- more focus on adaptation, such as....
- also geoengineering (debate Friday)
- should focus more on other urgent problems in the world today--poverty, lack of education
Can adaptation (and a little mitigation) solve the problem of climate change?
0-2:50 (Intro)
13:09 - 17:27 Bjorn Lomborg
17:27 - 21:35 Kaveh Madani (Iran, former vice president of UN, systems science)
Mitigation--kill the wolf
Adaptation--build the brick house
A more data-rich presentation by Bjorn Lomborg
About flooding: 12:45 - 18:11
How could Lomborg add more ethical substance to his case for YES (we can adapt)?
Using John Broome's distinction between duties of justice (to specific people) and duties of goodness (not to specific people)
- Duty to adapt is a duty of justice--it's a duty to people who exist now and will continue to exist in the near future
- Duty to mitigate is a duty of goodness--it's a duty to whoever will wind up existing in the far future
- Duties of justice are stronger, other things being equal.
- So the duty to adapt always takes priority, for each generation.
Using issues about social discount rate (in a way he may/may not agree with)
- Adaptation projects yield higher value, because benefit is received in the nearer future
- Mitigation projects yield lower value, because benefit is received in the farther future
How could Kaveh Madani add more ethical substance to his case for NO (we should focus on mitigation, not adaptation)?
Environmental justice concepts
- Poor nations will suffer more if we don't mitigate (distributive injustice)
- High consumption nations will continue to harm low consumption nations (Wenz's PCBB)