“Cool It” is the kind of film I wish everyone could see. I just happened to catch one of the two-night, mid-January showings at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. The award-winning documentary provides a calm, intelligent look at the global warming issue, pushing politics to the background and science front and center.
Danish professor Bjorn Lomborg is the central character as he brings Nobel Laureate economists together in a think tank to evaluate solutions, speaks to the U.S. Congress regarding policy, and visits scientists all over the world working on new technologies to address the problem. Lomborg captured attention with his first book, “The Skeptical Environmentalist.” However, he is not a “denier”; he is a realist.
More than ever it seems we Americans want to feel guilty about problems then throw money and policy at them so we can claim we did SOMETHING and we tried. The question posed is which direction do we throw our taxpayers’ money this time? Or in the noble words of the think tank’s mission statement: We promote the use of sound economic science to make sure that with limited resources, we achieve the most good for people and the planet. (I think “economic science” is another phrase for “common sense.”)
American Guilt is such a waste of time and energy. The two largest contributors to global warming right now are India and China, who is experiencing a sort of Industrial Age on Steroids. Are we going to successfully convince these global neighbors to revert back to their prior poverty-stricken, Dark-Ages existence? No.
This is where those smart economists come in. They suggest that if every person in the U.S. began driving a Prius, we would only reduce carbon dioxide emission by one-half of one percent. Lomborg is trying to get everyone to see that this sort of policy represents a huge monetary investment with ridiculous, even laughable, results. Isn’t it nice to know some energetic young person like Lomborg is urging governments to spend money wisely for a change?
Lomborg takes the same amount of money proposed to fund a recent environmental bill in America and shows a better way to spend it. The film organizes ideas into three categories representing different time frames inside the problem (with different funding allocations). For example, the first category addresses increased support for new energy sources (wind, solar, wave, etc.) and examines the challenges inherent in each. My favorite category explored ways to adapt to an already compromised environment (painting cities white, manipulating clouds, etc.).
One project made me smile. The scientist described his device as a big straw reaching up to the stratosphere…I could just imagine in my head a conversation with Ben Franklin going something like this: “Dude, you hold one end of this string and go out in that lightning storm over there…” You just never know what crazy idea will evolve into a world-saving technology.
The path to new innovation is actually cheaper for a government to pursue and far more effective in changing a society than shame and fear. My favorite line of the movie was: “the Stone Age ended, not because we ran out of stones.” Going backward to undo what’s been done is inefficient and ineffective. We are smart enough to move ahead.
NOTE: California’s new law banning traditional 100-watt incandescent light bulbs went into effect this month in an effort to address global warming.
Danish professor Bjorn Lomborg is the central character as he brings Nobel Laureate economists together in a think tank to evaluate solutions, speaks to the U.S. Congress regarding policy, and visits scientists all over the world working on new technologies to address the problem. Lomborg captured attention with his first book, “The Skeptical Environmentalist.” However, he is not a “denier”; he is a realist.
More than ever it seems we Americans want to feel guilty about problems then throw money and policy at them so we can claim we did SOMETHING and we tried. The question posed is which direction do we throw our taxpayers’ money this time? Or in the noble words of the think tank’s mission statement: We promote the use of sound economic science to make sure that with limited resources, we achieve the most good for people and the planet. (I think “economic science” is another phrase for “common sense.”)
American Guilt is such a waste of time and energy. The two largest contributors to global warming right now are India and China, who is experiencing a sort of Industrial Age on Steroids. Are we going to successfully convince these global neighbors to revert back to their prior poverty-stricken, Dark-Ages existence? No.
This is where those smart economists come in. They suggest that if every person in the U.S. began driving a Prius, we would only reduce carbon dioxide emission by one-half of one percent. Lomborg is trying to get everyone to see that this sort of policy represents a huge monetary investment with ridiculous, even laughable, results. Isn’t it nice to know some energetic young person like Lomborg is urging governments to spend money wisely for a change?
Lomborg takes the same amount of money proposed to fund a recent environmental bill in America and shows a better way to spend it. The film organizes ideas into three categories representing different time frames inside the problem (with different funding allocations). For example, the first category addresses increased support for new energy sources (wind, solar, wave, etc.) and examines the challenges inherent in each. My favorite category explored ways to adapt to an already compromised environment (painting cities white, manipulating clouds, etc.).
One project made me smile. The scientist described his device as a big straw reaching up to the stratosphere…I could just imagine in my head a conversation with Ben Franklin going something like this: “Dude, you hold one end of this string and go out in that lightning storm over there…” You just never know what crazy idea will evolve into a world-saving technology.
The path to new innovation is actually cheaper for a government to pursue and far more effective in changing a society than shame and fear. My favorite line of the movie was: “the Stone Age ended, not because we ran out of stones.” Going backward to undo what’s been done is inefficient and ineffective. We are smart enough to move ahead.
NOTE: California’s new law banning traditional 100-watt incandescent light bulbs went into effect this month in an effort to address global warming.
Movie trailer: http://coolit-themovie.com/videos
