Menos mal que nos queda Lomborg

Infatigable, Bjorn Lomborg, autor, como saben, de The skeptical environmentalist, se presta una y otra vez a discutir con los representantes del ecologismo más acendrado. En la revista Foreign Policy pueden ver una conversación entre Lomborg y Carl Pope, director ejecutivo del Sierra Club, una de las principales organizaciones ecologistas de EEUU. Lomborg no se cansa de repetir un argumento que, creo, acabará calando, el de las prioridades: los recursos son escasos y los problemas muchos, pero unos son claramente más graves que otros y, por tanto, habrán de ir antes en la escala de prioridades. Un ejemplo:

"In the developing world, environmental indicators are getting worse, as you note. In Bombay and Bangkok, air pollution is only getting thicker. But countries in the developing world are simply prioritizing in the same way the West did 100 years ago. They care first about feeding their kids, not cleaning up the air. And if you look at the West, that strategy works. Today, London’s air is the cleanest it has been since medieval times. Some of the richest developing countries are already following suit. In Mexico and Chile, air pollution is going down.

We need to keep environmental problems in context and prioritize the ones to solve first. Despite a dramatic drop in U.S. air pollution, it still constitutes the United States’ most serious environmental hazard—and kills roughly 135,000 people each year. But you talk about mercury, which is far less detrimental and far less beneficial if cleaned up. That is what I mean by prioritization. The same is true for the developing world. Yes, water is important. But you focus on scarcity, which is a management issue. Why not talk about access to clean drinking water? Despite dramatic improvements, 1 billion people today live without it, resulting in more than 2 million (otherwise preventable) deaths each year. You mention that 37 million more people will be malnourished in sub–Saharan Africa by 2015, but you neglect to point out that the number of well–fed people will increase 10–fold, by more than 374 million."

Como dice el refrán, léanlo entero.

ACTUALIZACIÓN. Joseba Louzao me recuerda que el texto también está en castellano en la versión española de Foreign Policy. Pues eso, como dice él, para los "comodones".