Kære Uffe, tak for din ærligt mente bekymring. Jeg er lige igang med vores projekt for at sætte bedre prioriteringer i Ghana — håber jeg kan nå det i vores kaffepause graphic.com.gh/business/busin…
Jeg forstår godt, at du tænker BNP er bare et abstrakt mål, men grunden til at jeg (og mange andre) bruger det, er fordi det er en af de bedste og simpleste mål for menneskelig velfærd (livslængde, skole, livstilfredshed etc) sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
Og BNP er ikke et nul-sumspil. Over de sidste 200 år er verden gået fra at have 90%+ fattige til <10% fattige. Det er en fantastisk udvikling.
Hvis det var et nulsumspil så ville det bare være et spørgsmål om hvilke 90%, der skulle være fattige ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-…
Du mener, at man skal vælge standpunkt efter hvem, der også har det standpunkt. Meget postmoderne
Jeg vælger at vælge standpunkt efter, hvad der faktisk vil gøre mest godt for verden
Lad mig vise dig en enkelt pointe fra mit nye videnskabelige paper (og bog)
Du bekymrer om klima of Afrika. Godt!
Se FNs egne scenarier. Du foretrækker grøn udvikling
Mindre opvarmning og færre klimaproblemer
Men langt flere fattige, langt mindre total velfærd for fremtiden
Climate alarmists are annoyed that global climate-related disaster deaths have declined dramatically
Then they discovered how to cherry-pick deaths to look like they’re increasing
— just (indefensibly) remove the top 50 most deadly mega-disasters and rig the scales
🧵+refs
After manipulating their stats, they have the temerity to claim “Misinterpreting statistics could be harmful if it supports a discourse minimizing the importance of climate action”
I’m pretty sure misinterpreting statistics is wrong no matter what
They show low death numbers from 1900s and 1910s, but these are likely wrong ()
They have left out at least two major catastrophes, likely missing at least 20-25 million deaths from the Chinese flood in 1906, leading to famine in 1906-07, and at least 2-10 million deaths from the Persian drought leading to famine in 1917-19
But global climate-related disaster costs are declining
This decline is not just evident globally but also for rich and poor countries, and for flood, flash flood, coastal flood, cold, drought, wind, and all damage
Why don't we hear this?
Notice, damage is measured in % GDP, as even the UN insists on measuring it (e.g. SDG 11.5.2, )
This is because the same flood or storm will create much more damage in a much richer world:
If there are twice as many houses, a flood will tend to damage twice as many houses