Why Bjorn Lomborg must be silenced

When the Abbott government announced funding for a Bjorn Lomborg Consensus Centre at the University of WA it met with predictable and voluminous protest. Within weeks the University announced that it would not proceed with the proposed Centre.

"The scale of the strong and passionate emotional reaction was one that the university did not predict," UWA vice-chancellor Paul Johnson said.

The UWA Student Guild said the $4 million in "politically motivated" federal government funding should be rejected.

"While Dr Lomborg doesn't refute climate change itself, many students question why the centre's projects should be led by someone with a controversial track-record," Guild president Lizzy O'Shea said. "Students, staff and alumni alike are outraged."

Professor Johnson pointed out that Dr Lomborg was not leading the research and was not being paid as an adjunct professor.

"Lomborg is a contrarian but he is not a climate change denier… His contrary stance is around the use of economic efficiency and effectiveness of mitigation and adaptation strategies... Contrarians are, I think, useful, particularly in a university context."

The students, staff and alumni won the day, of course. The idea of even acknowledging a contrarian view of climate change is simply too threatening.

What is a contrarian? In The Death of Adam Pulitzer Prize winning author Marilynne Robinson defines the term: "In one way or another… the prevailing view of things can be assumed to be wrong, and… its opposite, being its image or shadow, can also be assumed to be wrong… there are other ways of thinking, for which better arguments can be made."

The last thing Lomborg's opponents want is a different way of thinking. You're either with them or against them, and confining the argument to whether you're for 'the science' or are a 'denier'is manageable, rewarding and profitable. To broaden the argument, to question our approach to solving the challenges of climate change is too uncomfortable, intellectually and politically difficult.

Lomborg believes that in a world where 800 million people go to bed hungry every night, where millions die every year from preventable causes, where even achieving the targets argued for by climate 'scientists' will have no immediate effect, we can think of better things to do with our money than is currently envisaged.

Arrayed against Lomborg is a formidable alliance of Greens, the 'big end of town', politicians, climate 'scientists' and academics, all with a vested interest in confining the argument to the well established 'us v them' rut in which they flourish.

The Greens have a different agenda. Their objective is to save the planet, people are the problem, expendable in pursuit of their primary objective. Lomborg's emphasis on the short term benefits to people is anathema to them.

Dr Rajendra K. Pachauri, the somewhat discredited former head, for 13 years, of the IPCC, said 'For me the protection of Planet Earth, the survival of all species and sustainability of our ecosystems is more than a mission. It is my religion and my dharma.'

At its extreme, Green objectives are starkly presented in remarks attributed to David Foreman, co-founder of the appropriately named Earth First: "My three main goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with its full complement of species, returning throughout the world… The human race could go extinct and I for one would not shed any tears… The optimum human population of earth is zero… Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental… We must all work together in order to save the environment and the world that we live in from further change."

To achieve these goals it will be necessary to abandon our current political system. Bob Brown, founder of the Australian Greens says: "The future will either be green or not at all… For comprehensive Earth action, an all-of-the-Earth representative democracy is required. That is, a global parliament."

Our own Klimate Kardashian and founding member of the Climate Council, Tim Flannery, is even more scary: "We will form a global community with a set of shared beliefs… In an ant colony only a few ants can reproduce... very true in human society as well"

In the immediate future, Green policy calls for a target of 100% renewable energy, which simply cannot be achieved in Australia without radical changes in the way we live. To advocate this target, while fighting hydro-electricity (more dams) and nuclear power is far more radical than most people realize.

The argument that people are causing climate change, and that people, and therefore climate change, can be controlled by appropriate legislation, as determined by an international and unelected parliament, is irresistible to the Greens.

Many of the solutions advocated by Lomborg rely on small scale projects carried out at the grass root level by people, not governments – the antithesis of Green policy.

The 'Big End of Town', the supposed enemy of the Greens, is actually in full agreement with them. They provide most of the capital required to achieve renewable energy targets, and they profit from having a guaranteed market at a guaranteed and highly subsidised price for their product. They are naturally reluctant to lose their subsidies.

When Tony Abbott announced that he had instructed the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation not to finance new wind power projects, an industry spokesman said: "The decision is another blow for the multibillion-dollar wind industry, which has just started to recover from the uncertainty created by the government's Renewable Energy Target review. Analysts say $8.7 billion is expected to be invested in wind power in the next five years, while the corporation has invested about $300 million in wind projects to date."

The Clean Energy Finance Company was set up by the Gillard government, to provide capital investment in all sorts of renewable energy. It started investing two years ago, making contracted investments of $900 million in its first year.Its investment mix is 33 per cent solar, 30 per cent energy efficiency, 21 per cent wind and 16 per cent other technologies.

The Minerals Council of Australia states that: "[a] report undertaken by economic consultancy Principal Economics, found that Australia's renewable energy sector received subsidies (including the Renewable Energy Target, feed in tariffs and other green policy costs) worth $2.8 billion in 2013-14. This dwarfed the public support for research and demonstration projects for low emissions coal technologies being conducted by the CSIRO and other research bodies (and matched by the coal industry).

"On an output basis, these renewable subsidies translated into almost $412 per megawatt

hour (MWh) for solar technologies, $42 per MWh for wind and $18 per MWh for all other

renewable sources (including hydro).

"By comparison coal fired power received less than $1 per MWh and natural gas less than 1

cent per MWh delivered.

"In 2013/14, these renewable energy subsidies added between 3 to 9 per cent to the average

household bill and up to 20 per cent for some industrial users."

54% of CEFC funding goes to solar and windpower, well established and highly profitable technologies.

Oceania is an interesting case study in the efficacy of both technologies, demonstrating where energy subsidies usually end up. Most South Pacific islands are not part of an interconnected system – they must rely on local power networks.

The UN Climate Summit in 2014 announced their commitment to the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) Lighthouses initiative, which aims to accelerate transition to a sustainable energy future. Over the next five years they will 'mobilise' $US500 million to 'deploy' 100MW of new solar PV, 20MW of new wind power, and significant quantities of small hydropower and geothermal energy, together with a number of marine technology projects.

I did not see a single solar panel or wind farm on a recent visit to the Marquesas Islands. Throughout Oceania 76% of generating capacity depends on fossil fuels. About 20% is hydro-electric, the remaining 4% is from renewable energy sources. The use of PV and wind power has proven to be unreliable and very expensive.

Almost all of the SIDS dollars will go to expand existing and proven technologies in medium to large interconnected markets, where they will generate profits for multinational energy companies and kudos for the IPCC. As in Australia most of the money will go to solar and wind power. Manufacturers of PV cells include Bosch, BP, DuPont, Mitsubishi, Panasonic and Sharp. China supplies about 80% of the market. GE, Hyundai, Samsung, Siemens and Subaru are some of the major manufacturers of wind turbines. They will be enthusiastic supporters of the IPCC and SIDS.

The development of small scale technologies for non-interconnected communities threatens the status quo, and will not receive the imprimatur of the IPCC or the multinational 'big end of town'.

Electricity of Tahiti (EDT) generates and distributes electricity throughout French Polynesia. EDT has found that hydro-electricity is the cheapest form of generation, ranging from $US0.28 to $0.44 / kWh. Diesel costs $US0.28 - 0.50, wind $US0.33 - 0.55, photovoltaic (PV) $US0.50 - 0.67.

Contrarians like Lomborg see better ways of spending available funds, far cheaper and of great benefit to local communities. For example:

The high costs of transporting fuel to the smaller islands, and the need for sub-optimal size of generators significantly increases the costs of electricity. Reliance on oil imports is a major drain on the economy and is a barrier to development.

Copra (dried coconut) is a major export for many South Pacific Islands. Falling prices have reduced the return on labour from the harvesting and processing of the nuts.The use of coconut oil as a fuel is well proven - it can replace diesel fuel using blends, straight coconut oil or using biodiesel. However it has proven uneconomical to transport the oil, to be economical it must be produced on site.

A typical small scale extraction mill costs about $US25,000 and requires skilled operators. Such a mill can be powered by the oil it produces.

A hand operated press is much cheaper, and produces a higher quality oil. Certainly this process is very labour intensive, but this should not be a problem in the islands, where unemployment is running above 40%.

Perhaps some of the $500 million SIDS initiative could be deployed to investigate projects that would benefit small non-interconnected communities where solar and wind power are more a liability than an asset. But that seems extremely unlikely.

The small presses for producing coconut oil are an Australian invention, but I doubt the manufacturers receive too many dollars from the government.

There are many examples of projects similar in nature, and Tony Abbott might like to see more of the research dollars go to Australian companies developing alternative technologies, in which Australia genuinely has the initiative and knowledge to lead the world.

Not, of course, in the best interests of either the Greens or the energy companies.

Twenty years ago Henry Kissinger said "We should not kid ourselves that there isn't a crisis of democracy in the West. In most Western countries, politicians are almost abjectly trying to give the public what they want, and the public has contempt for them." In Australia 67% of people said they could not rely on big companies or government. Around the world politicians were struggling to differentiate themselves from their opposition: "If we tell the electorate what needs to be done, we won't be elected."

Climate change is the ideal political issue. It is caused by people, and can be solved politically. The results won't be known in our lifetime. Short term phenomena can be interpreted to their political advantage – if things improve it's because of their policies; if things don't improve it's because their policies were not followed.

The 'science' v 'deniers' argument presents a handy dividing line for the adversarial system in which politicians thrive.

Climate 'scientists' and academics are probably the professions most determined to confine the terms of the debate – 'climate science' v 'deniers'. They tread a delicate line, caught between their dogma and the logical extension of their beliefs. They have encouraged the belief that it is already too late, but insist that we need to do something anyway. They rely on the predictions of computer models, but need to hide the fact that these models predict that even if carbon 'pollution' reduction targets are met, it will make virtually no difference to the outcome.

They speak of the future death of many as predicted by their interpretation of their models, and ignore the certainty of the millions who will suffer death and illness now.

Of all the groups I have mentioned, this is the group most dependent on government funding, and the tradition of scientific scepticism will be sacrificed to the cause of tenure and maintenance of the status quo.

The GFC showed that some businesses were too big to be allowed to fail.

Now there is 'consensus' regarding the 'science' of climate change, and this 'consensus' cannot be allowed to fail. There are too many parties benefitting from the resulting flow of dollars. There is no room for 'contrarians'.

Even discussion of his thinking is dangerous – the future of the planet is at stake. Bjorn Lomborg must be silenced.