Lynas vs Lomborg: the result... 14 April 05

This was a useful debate. It will help each side – the “Lomborgians” and the “Gaians” – see each other’s perspectives better. Bjorn Lomborg was more subtle and less econocentric than I expected. The facilitator was about as ignorant, unsophisticated and noisy as I feared. Mark was quicker on his feet than I had expected. Mark’s answer to the trick question “What is the ideal temperature for the planet?” was – despite the assessment of the facilitator – very good. In fact Lomborg gave a similar answer – though it may be too much to hope that the facilitator noticed this!

Lomborg still displayed a limited view of the place of humans in nature. His view of the human/environment interface appears to be one where humans live partly in some sort of virtual world where they are not impacted by the environment and where humans do not impact on and interact with the environment. Mark mentioned on a number of occasions “ecosystem services”, an important concept which he appears to understand better than does Bjorn: Mark’s understanding is more dynamic and four-dimensional than Bjorn’s. Bjorn used the economist’s concept “opportunity cost” (one of the most genuinely useful concepts to come out of economics), but his view of the “opportunity costs” and the “oppportunity benefits” was more limited than Mark’s. I could see that Mark was struggling with this throughout the debate; Mark must have been thinking “How do I make my point without taking Bjorn and the audience through a one-semester course in human ecology so they understand what I’m talking about?”

Analysis of this debate will help to bring the thinkers from both sides closer together. Bjorn and Mark are both thinkers. Unfortunately, some of the questioners from the audience (from both sides) were less thoughtful. So too were the e-mailed questions – for that, again, I blame the facilitator who was too concerned with keeping things moving and showing how assertive she was.

The Dana Centre approach with its ‘voting’, ‘scoreboard’, immediate audience participation and setting up the debate as a spectacle – their answer to “Survivor” or “American Idol” – undermined the debate and, sadly, even the issue. Mark and Bjorn should each jointly have a say in setting the parameters and conditions if they meet again in public.

However, the fact that Bjorn is an appealing personality and a downright nice guy should not distract us from the fact that his work is used and abused by people, organizations and governments who are far less thoughtful, appealing and open to debate than he is.

I mostly agree with your assessment.

I did like the polling of the audience in that it may have been revealing of how the debate affected their views about GW/CC.

With that said, the results of that polling indicated that the audience seemed to not have changed their opinion to be more or less concerned about climate issues except the “I do not know” category increased significantly which means that the audience was more confused at the end of the debate then at the beginning.

Now, was it Lomborg? Mark?, or the wine which they consumed which caused this?

I did notice that the audience was encouraged to go to the cash bar quite often by the facilitator. Maybe it explains why that one fellow could not articulate a question after his long discourse!

Best Regards,

Dan