In False Prophets, Bad Economics, Bjorn Lomborg pooh-poohs headlines predicting extreme environmental changes caused by global warming. Megadroughts? Famine? The shutting down of the Gulf Stream? He believes such headlines are "fiction, the stuff of Hollywood imaginations." In fact, he simply does not know what lies ahead. Neither he nor anyone else really knows how the planet will react to mankind's continued abuse. But based on a growing body of data, such possibilities cannot be ruled out.

He then cites a U.N. projection for the year 2100 as justification for essentially ignoring the Kyoto Protocol and doing nothing to fight global warming in this century, and instead concentrating on poverty reduction: According to the U.N., developing countries will be two to four times richer in 2100 than they are today. By Lomborg's logic, that means that a country like Bangladesh -- one that is vulnerable to rising sea levels -- will be a "rich Netherlands" by 2100 if we fund development projects today. Therefore it will be able to take care of its own global warming problems. This raises two questions: