New Book on Global Warming

The March 28, 2011 issue of C&E News has a book review by Jovana J. Grbic. The book is entitled, "Cool It" by Bjorn Lomborg.

This is my commentary on both the review and the book. Since it is a review of the review, it is third hand and may be susceptible to some errors from lack of facts and interpretation of the original work.

Basically, Mr. Lomborg says that there is great exaggeration in attitudes concerning the effects of the global warming discussion. Some persons strongly deny the existence of anthropogenic global warming. Others strongly believe in its existence and predict dire consequences. Mr. Lomborg takes the position that anthropogenic global warming does exist but is neither inconsequential nor dire.. He does not specify how much anthropogenic global warming exists. He estimates that if the $$20 trillion, which is proposed to fight anthropogenic global warming, is actually spent, the global warming reduction would be only 0.1°F. I don't know where or how Mr. Lomborg gets his figures. Perhaps they are in his book.

I generally agree with Mr. Lomborg that there is anthropogenic global warming. Even though he acknowledges global warming at a level lower than those who have radical claims and predict dire consequences, he appears to believe that it is somewhat higher than I do. I claim it is insignificant.

I base my conclusion on laboratory results which show that the passage of infrared radiation through carbon dioxide is only slightly more impeded than passage through either nitrogen or oxygen. I further point out that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, even if doubled from its present value, would be so low as to impede heat radiation from the Earth to only a negligible extent. This procedure seems to have been ignored, even though it is standard practice in determining R values of building insulation materials.