Bjorn Lomborg: The Alarming Thing About Climate Alarmism

Bjorn Lomborg: The Alarming Thing About Climate Alarmism - WSJ
It is an indisputable fact that carbon emissions are rising—and faster than most scientists predicted. But many climate-change alarmists seem to claim that all climate change is worse than expected. This ignores that much of the data are actually encouraging.
The latest study from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that in the previous 15 years temperatures had risen 0.09 degrees Fahrenheit.
The average of all models expected 0.8 degrees.
So we’re seeing about 90% less temperature rise than expected.

Facts like this are important because a one-sided focus on worst-case stories is a poor foundation for sound policies. 
Yes, Arctic sea ice is melting faster than the models expected.
But models also predicted that Antarctic sea ice would decrease, yet it is increasing.
...In short, climate change is not worse than we thought. 

Some indicators are worse, but some are better.
That doesn’t mean global warming is not a reality or not a problem.
It definitely is.
But the narrative that the world’s climate is changing from bad to worse is unhelpful alarmism, which prevents us from focusing on smart solutions.

...Alarmism has encouraged the pursuit of a one-sided climate policy of trying to cut carbon emissions by subsidizing wind farms and solar panels. 

...In other words, for at least the next two decades, solar and wind energy are simply expensive, feel-good measures that will have an imperceptible climate impact. 
Instead, we should focus on investing in research and development of green energy, including new battery technology to better store and discharge solar and wind energy and lower its costs. 
We also need to invest in and promote growth in the world’s poorest nations, which suffer the most from natural disasters.

Climate-change doomsayers notwithstanding, we urgently need balance if we are to make sensible choices and pick the right climate policy that can help humanity slow, and inevitably adapt to, climate change.