Dr. Bjørn Lomborg, author of Cool It! The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming, says that we all need to think a little more dispassionately about climate change.

We should take action on climate change, but we need to be realistic. The U.K has arguably engaged in the most aggressive rhetoric about climate change. Since the Labour government promised in 1997 to cut emissions by a further 15 percent by 2010, emissions have increased 3 percent. American emissions during the Clinton/Gore administration increased 28 percent.

And he reminds us of some other inconvenient truths, like how sea levels have risen a foot in the last century, but that didn’t seem to ruin too many days at the beach, and how rising sea levels in the future won’t bring calamity.  Or how the use of fossil fuels to grow more vegetables has increased nutrition and thus decreased cancer rates.  He offers a few more counterintuitive insights, but I suggest his books for a broader and more balanced approach to the issue.