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  • False Alarm

  • How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet
  • By: Bjorn Lomborg
  • Narrated by: Jim Seybert
  • Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
  • 4.9 out of 5 stars (113 ratings)

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False Alarm

By: Bjorn Lomborg
Narrated by: Jim Seybert
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Publisher's Summary

The New York Times best-selling "skeptical environmentalist" argues that panic over climate change is causing more harm than good

Hurricanes batter our coasts. Wildfires rage across the American West. Glaciers collapse in the Artic. Politicians, activists, and the media espouse a common message: climate change is destroying the planet, and we must take drastic action immediately to stop it. Children panic about their future, and adults wonder if it is even ethical to bring new life into the world.

Enough, argues best-selling author Bjorn Lomborg. Climate change is real, but it's not the apocalyptic threat that we've been told it is. Projections of Earth's imminent demise are based on bad science and even worse economics. In panic, world leaders have committed to wildly expensive but largely ineffective policies that hamper growth and crowd out more pressing investments in human capital, from immunization to education.

False Alarm will convince you that everything you think about climate change is wrong - and points the way toward making the world a vastly better, if slightly warmer, place for us all.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2020 Bjorn Lomborg (P)2020 Hachette Audio

Critic Reviews

"Bjorn Lomborg is that rare thing: a clear-sighted realist about climate change. In False Alarm, he argues that it would be foolish to do nothing to prepare for a warmer planet, but it would be more foolish to pretend that we are doing things that will significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions when we are not. At the same time, getting serious about cutting CO2 emissions will have a cost. As Lomborg says, vastly more people die as a consequence of poverty and disease each year than die as a consequence of global warming. As in the past, we humans are capable of adapting to climate change in ways that can significantly mitigate its adverse effects, without choking off economic growth. To learn how, you must read False Alarm." (Niall Ferguson, the Hoover Institution, Stanford University)

"Bjorn Lomborg's new book offers a data-driven, human-centered antidote to the oft-apocalyptic discussion characterizing the effect of human activity on the global climate. Careful, compelling, and above all sensible and pragmatic." (Jordan Peterson, author of 12 Rules for Life)

"[Lomborg] follows his previous critiques of climate change policy...with a hard-hitting analysis of failing strategies for addressing what he acknowledges is 'a real problem.'...A serious, debatable assessment of a controversial global issue." (Kirkus)

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    3 out of 5 stars

A bit dated

Some solid analysis however his acceptance without challenge of the CO2 being the cause of global warming and related is no longer a valid base. It’s clear nowadays that is fake news and the metrics used are doctored to control and continue the funding paid to groups like IPCC

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    5 out of 5 stars

Thank you so much for writing this book!

As a leftist gen zer I am constantly arguing about social and political issues. For the past couple years I have been arguing basically his point that climate change is real but the media’s cooption of the term and it’s use unscientifically only goes to increase anxiety for the future. I have found this to be a pretty even handed account of climate science and explanation of what has actually been said by mainstream scientists rather than doomsday rhetoric or climate change denial rhetoric that is so frequently seen on the left and right respectively. I especially liked the points about how the poor governance of certain places is a much greater threat to their populations medium and long term than climate change, this is often forgotten or carefully avoided when talking about the racist impact of climate change. Also the fact that natural disasters cannot be considered to be ‘caused’ by climate change, and that there is a certain bias in the way that leftist folks interpret natural disasters given that there has continued to be variety in the extremity of them and that there are many examples of worse natural disasters in history that we don’t call the product of climate change was well articulated. The point that people are living in more and more risky places such as coastal parts of the us is super key too. Yeah, anyway I think it is a really good book and quite helpful for me as a means to judge the most important issues to spend time talking about. I have not finished the book yet, so I don’t know if this will be covered, but ending barriers to migration, as well as having a negative income tax can aside have the additional impact as being a partial remedy for some of the worst impacted parts of the world affected by human induced climate change; but we will see.

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Science based not emotional rhetoric.

If only there were more people listening to the science based facts about the effects of climate change, as outlined in this well written book the present and the future would be a lot better.

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Finally the real truth

it's refreshing to read about the real costs of climate change, yea the so called science is constantly debated but no one ever talks costs and what it will look like for our lives to really get there. it turns out some of the ideas to finding solutions have costs higher than what Im willing to bet most of the developed world won't accept.

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    5 out of 5 stars

An alternative to the typical media spin

I was worried this book would be anti climate change but it's anything but. The author gives scientifically backed alternatives to the typical message spread by the media, and has the studies and figures to back it up. I wasn't all that interested in the topic before listening to this book, but I'm really glad that I did.

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3 people found this helpful

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A balanced approach to climate change

A good discourse aimed at removing the heat from climate alarminism, including a practical approach to improving life for all

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2 people found this helpful

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  • pat
  • 09-09-2020

Very informative

I enjoyed how the author accepted that global temperatures will increase over time and how he was able to put into context a range of potential responses. I found it particularly enlightening to hear how the focus on CO2 reduction is not the only solution, but it is one of the most costly. I would highly recommend listening to this book if you are at all interested in a more balanced view on this topic.

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a different side to the debate

this book is a good read for anyone on any side of the climate change debate.

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A broader perspective on how to improve our world.

Today's media fixate on climate change, and promotes a unrealistic approaches to resolving what this book demonstrates is an important issue for humankind, but not our only problem. This group-think dominates the debate, and excludes much that this book reveals as competing issues of concern. The avalanche of numbers is daunting at times, and the listener needs access to the figures that are referred to throughout the dialogue. A picture is worth a thousand words.

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Narration was dry but research depth was awesome

A bland, factual expose of the moral bankruptcy and herd mentality of current climate change imbalance. A must listen. However, be prepared for some quite boring narration.

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