Bjorn Lomberg's op-ed in the Washington Post's explaining how to handle global warming without actually reducing carbon output certainly seemed wrong when I read it, but without access to a computer, I couldn't check the numbers. Turns out it actually is wrong. Midway through the piece, Lomberg says that "Nobody knows for certain how climate change will play out. But we should deal with the most widely accepted estimates. According to the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)..."
So, to be clear on the rules, we're using the IPCC's estimates. Lomberg goes on to say, "research shows that the cold is a much bigger killer than the heat. According to the first complete peer-reviewed survey of climate change's health effects, global warming will actually save lives. It's estimated that by 2050, global warming will cause almost 400,000 more heat-related deaths each year. But at the same time, 1.8 million fewer people will die from cold. So global warming, shockingly, will be a net positive!
But here, via Brad Plumer, is what the IPCC says about that: "Studies in temperate areas have shown that climate change is projected to bring some benefits, such as fewer deaths from cold exposure. Overall it is expected that these benefits will be outweighed by the negative health effects of rising temperatures worldwide, especially in developing countries."
That's a pretty significant mislead. You'd think that the Washington Post would fact-check their lead Sunday op-ed, particularly when it's written by a career contrarian and it's central thesis flies in the face of what every global warming expert appears to believe (namely, that we must rapidly reduce carbon emissions). Apparently not. Better to be interesting and catastrophically wrong than right and a little bit dull.