written 5 July, 2026
published 12 July, 2026
On July 1st, 2026, the Ukiah Daily Journal published a critique of Al Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth", written by Bjorn Lomborg, president of the Copenhagen Consensus, a visiting fellow at the Stanford Hoover Institute. The Hoover Institute is an American public policy think tank which promotes personal and economic liberty, free enterprise, and limited government. The Copenhagen Consensus seeks to establish priorities based on rational prioritization by economic analysis, assuming the validity of free markets to achieve the best outcomes.
The article stated that Gore's climate concern was fear based, leading to wasted climate investment, which has produced no discernable benefit. It acknowledged there is some change in climate, but proposed solutions like sea walls, drought tolerant crops, and early warning systems, while investing in "advanced nuclear" and fusion to be able to undercut fossil fuel prices. It touted as fact that climate change might reduce global GDP by a few percent by 2100, and a UN report that by that time an average person will be 450% richer. Nothing to worry about here.
However, money is a societal convention, while the environment is the reality we inhabit. It is understandable that monied interests downplay climate concerns, because money is easily divorced from reality, as the long history of financial bubbles demonstrates. Consider the concept of a "limited liability corporation", which makes financial sense for the corporate owners, but allows unlimited damages to be pushed off onto others, who don't gain any profit from the business.
It should be remembered these are the folks where gushing about Enron right up until a few weeks before it declared complete bankruptcy in October, 2001. These were also the people driving the subprime housing boom that crashed in 2007. That little mistake cost about 40% of GDP in production and income losses, and took 7 years to regain job losses.
Even if wealth for the average person grows, there is no indication it will be evenly distributed. With a trillionaire and almost 500 billionaires, income inequity in the U.S. is now 3 times greater than the Gilded Age in the late 1800's, while 60 percent now live pay check to pay check.
Furthermore, stock market levels don't tell the whole economic story. Almost half of S&P 500 valuation comes from AI companies, most of which have yet to show a profit. In the last 4 years, AI power demands have increased by 40 percent, much faster than the grid can expand production. The AI economic bubble is vulnerable, running up against real world power and water limitations.
Beyond the questionable economics presented as the foundation of the article, we have real world information about the increasing climate impact. Last week, extreme heat made global headlines. Europe, now warming faster than other parts of the inhabited planet, had two heat waves so far this summer. The last one killed 1,300 people and forced several nuclear power plants to close during the peak power demand.
In the U.S., fourth of July was the hottest on record, with half the country experiencing extreme heat. The heat index (temperature and humidity impact) was 113°F in Washington, DC, forcing the Great American State Fair to close midday, and extreme rains delayed the fireworks by two hours.
Fire dangers are increasing, along with fire insurance bills. This year in the U.S., over 35,000 fires burned 4,700 square miles, exceeding the 10 year average. The atmospheric content of carbon dioxide keeps increasing every year, guaranteeing this kind of fire damage will get worse over time.
This is a direct consequence of the big money interests focusing only on short term profit, with no regard for larger impacts or long-term consequences. Within economic thinking, the future is devalued relative to the present.
There was a recent report that the worst case scenario for future climate impact had been downgrade a bit. The president, in his infinite wisdom, claimed this proved the entire climate crisis is a hoax. However, what the report actually recognized was the impact of the global investments away from fossil fuels. Despite American's head in the sand approach to the issue, the world sees renewables as the path forward, not primarily because of the climate crisis, but because renewables with storage are already cheaper than fossil fuels. By renewables I mean wind, solar, geothermal, and storage, not the still fictional fusion, nor any form of nuclear, which has a waste problem that hasn't been addressed for 80 years.
