On Friday's episode of HBO's “Real Time,” host Bill Maher acknowledged that climate policy over the past 20 years has essentially asked people to lower their standard of living in the name of the environment.
“One of the things we've been trying to do in climate policy for the last 20 years is basically tell people it's ok to be poor, to be poorer, to be uncomfortable, to have a little hotter summers and a little colder winters,” author Bjorn Lomborg said.
“Exactly,” Maher replied.
Lomborg continues, “That doesn't work. What works is innovation. Think about Los Angeles in the 1950s. It was very polluted. And the standard way to deal with that was to [people]”Can we just walk there instead of driving?” Maher agreed.
Lomborg continues: “Obviously, that wouldn't work in Los Angeles or anywhere else. But instead we invented the catalytic converter, a little device that you put on the exhaust pipe of your car that lets you drive much further and pollute much less. That's how we solve the problem of air pollution and, in the long run, the problem of climate change.”
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