Bjorn Lomborg

President, Copenhagen Consensus Center · 1 appearance on the record.

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Bjorn Lomborg uses economic cost-benefit analysis to rank global development priorities, prioritizing high-return interventions in healthcare, nutrition, and poverty reduction. He has authored several books on global policy, including The Skeptical Environmentalist and Best Things First.

18statements → 15claims → 10claims resolved → 90%fully supported → 3.72/5average certainty → 2.72/5average debate potential → ≈4.0/5argument clarity, estimated →

9 supported 0 partly supported 1 contradicted 1 not yet assessed 4 not checkable as stated how the 15 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

3 predictions · 12 assertions · 3 opinions · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 15 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 10 are resolved, 1 is not yet assessed, and 4 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Bjorn argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Lomborg: Top 12 global aid policies return $52 per dollar spent
“So we find 12 amazing things that the world should be doing. We find an average, they will give you 52 dollars back per dollar spent.”
Bjorn Lomborg Feb 29, 2024 ▶ 2:28 Ep 79: Bjorn Lomborg and the 12 Best Ideas to Help the World · Joe Lonsdale

Their most notable contradicted claim

Assertion Contradicted
Lomborg: UN projects global life expectancy will reach nearly 100 by 2100
“The UN estimate by the end of the century, we'll all on average live almost a hundred years on average.”
Bjorn Lomborg Feb 29, 2024 ▶ 43:00 Ep 79: Bjorn Lomborg and the 12 Best Ideas to Help the World · Joe Lonsdale

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
100% certainty 3
89% certainty 4
none yet certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Bjorn Lomborg on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

Everything Bjorn Lomborg said on American Optimist that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lomborg: Education returns $65 per dollar versus roughly $2 for climate spending
“Should I be spending money, for instance, on education and get 65 dollars for every dollar spent? Or should I spend it on environment? And if we're very lucky on climate, you can get a couple of dollars back on the dollar.”
Bjorn Lomborg Feb 29, 2024 ▶ 5:27 Ep 79: Bjorn Lomborg and the 12 Best Ideas to Help the World · Joe Lonsdale
Prediction Open · timeframe Dec 2100
Lomborg: Inaction on climate change will cost about 3-4% of GDP
“Climate change, if we don't do anything about it, will probably cost us, say, three, four percent of GDP”
Bjorn Lomborg Feb 29, 2024 ▶ 28:04 Ep 79: Bjorn Lomborg and the 12 Best Ideas to Help the World · Joe Lonsdale
Opinion
Lomborg: Solving Developing World Indoor Pollution Requires More Fossil Fuels
“So this is where one of those very, very simple solutions that require development, and that require more fossil fuels.”
Bjorn Lomborg Feb 29, 2024 ▶ 36:39 Ep 79: Bjorn Lomborg and the 12 Best Ideas to Help the World · Joe Lonsdale
Assertion Supported
Lomborg: Top 12 global aid policies return $52 per dollar spent
“So we find 12 amazing things that the world should be doing. We find an average, they will give you 52 dollars back per dollar spent.”
Bjorn Lomborg Feb 29, 2024 ▶ 2:28 Ep 79: Bjorn Lomborg and the 12 Best Ideas to Help the World · Joe Lonsdale
Assertion Supported
Lomborg: Cold kills 170,000 annually in US and Canada, versus 20,000 heat deaths
“Every year in Canada and the U.S., about 20,000 people die from heat. That, we should absolutely recognize that. But every year, a 170,000 people die in Canada and the U.S. From cold.”
Bjorn Lomborg Feb 29, 2024 ▶ 34:41 Ep 79: Bjorn Lomborg and the 12 Best Ideas to Help the World · Joe Lonsdale
Assertion Supported
Lomborg: Cheaper gas prevents 12,500 cold deaths annually in the US
“We estimate cheaper gas Meant that 12,500 people did not die from coal every year in the US.”
Bjorn Lomborg Feb 29, 2024 ▶ 35:15 Ep 79: Bjorn Lomborg and the 12 Best Ideas to Help the World · Joe Lonsdale
Opinion
Lomborg: UN Sustainable Development Goals lack priorities and dilute aid spending
“If you promise everything, it's like having no priorities. And of course that's exactly what the world has ended up doing. We just spread the money out thinly on everything.”
Bjorn Lomborg Feb 29, 2024 ▶ 4:44 Ep 79: Bjorn Lomborg and the 12 Best Ideas to Help the World · Joe Lonsdale
Assertion Supported
Lomborg: 80% of 10-Year-Olds in Poor Countries Lack Basic Reading Comprehension
“And so, 80% of kids in poorer countries, when they're 10 years old and they've gone to school for three or four years, cannot answer this question.”
Bjorn Lomborg Feb 29, 2024 ▶ 7:13 Ep 79: Bjorn Lomborg and the 12 Best Ideas to Help the World · Joe Lonsdale
Assertion Supported
Lomborg: Doubling Indonesian Teacher Pay Did Not Improve Student Learning
“They doubled the pay for teachers. It made the teachers much happier, but it didn't actually increase The productivity of the kids. They didn't learn anymore.”
Bjorn Lomborg Feb 29, 2024 ▶ 7:48 Ep 79: Bjorn Lomborg and the 12 Best Ideas to Help the World · Joe Lonsdale
Assertion Supported
Lomborg: $31/Year Educational Tablets Deliver Three Years of Learning Gains
“So if you do this tablet one hour a day, remember that means You don't get to have the tablet. You share it with a lot of other kids. It cost about 31 dollars per kid per year. But the benefit is that this kid will learn about three years of normal schooling j…”
Bjorn Lomborg Feb 29, 2024 ▶ 10:11 Ep 79: Bjorn Lomborg and the 12 Best Ideas to Help the World · Joe Lonsdale
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lomborg: Tuberculosis interventions yield $46 of good per dollar spent
“Now that has costs, but it's very, very small cost compared to the fact that we could actually stop about a million people dying each and every year. It'd be one of the best things we could do for every dollar spent. We estimate we could do 46 dollars worth of…”
Bjorn Lomborg Feb 29, 2024 ▶ 14:33 Ep 79: Bjorn Lomborg and the 12 Best Ideas to Help the World · Joe Lonsdale
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Lomborg: $3B Annually Would Save 166,000 Mothers and 1.2M Newborns
“We estimate for about three billion dollars a year, you could save a 166,000 moms each and every year, and you could save 1.2 million kids' lives each year.”
Bjorn Lomborg Feb 29, 2024 ▶ 20:47 Ep 79: Bjorn Lomborg and the 12 Best Ideas to Help the World · Joe Lonsdale
Assertion Supported
Lomborg: Indoor Air in Developing World Huts Is 10x More Polluted Than Beijing
“So the indoors in most huts around the world is typically 10 times more polluted than Beijing or New Delhi outdoor.”
Bjorn Lomborg Feb 29, 2024 ▶ 36:23 Ep 79: Bjorn Lomborg and the 12 Best Ideas to Help the World · Joe Lonsdale
Opinion
Lomborg: Effective Altruism prioritizes existential risks over immediate global health
“Effective altruism is obviously a great idea. And they're very, very much in the same wavelength as what we are. But my senses are we often disagree because see, they have sort of gone off on this more interesting rich world trend of saying, oh, but the big th…”
Bjorn Lomborg Feb 29, 2024 ▶ 38:50 Ep 79: Bjorn Lomborg and the 12 Best Ideas to Help the World · Joe Lonsdale
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Lomborg: Technological innovation, not current spending, will solve climate change
“The problem is most of the things that we're spending money on in climate are very ineffective. What we should be spending more money on It's innovation. Innovation is what's going to solve climate change, just like it's the thing that solved most other proble…”
Bjorn Lomborg Feb 29, 2024 ▶ 39:43 Ep 79: Bjorn Lomborg and the 12 Best Ideas to Help the World · Joe Lonsdale
Assertion Supported
Lomborg: 138,000 people were lifted out of poverty daily for 25 years
“Over the last 25 years, every day, every newspaper in the world could have carried the following story. In the last 24 hours, we lifted a 138,000 people out of poverty. Every day for 25 years.”
Bjorn Lomborg Feb 29, 2024 ▶ 43:51 Ep 79: Bjorn Lomborg and the 12 Best Ideas to Help the World · Joe Lonsdale
Assertion Supported
Lomborg: A quarter of TB patients in Kenya lose their marriage
“In, in Kenya, for instance, if you get tuberculosis, it has so much social stigma. That a quarter of everyone who gets diagnosed lose their marriage.”
Bjorn Lomborg Feb 29, 2024 ▶ 13:44 Ep 79: Bjorn Lomborg and the 12 Best Ideas to Help the World · Joe Lonsdale
Assertion Contradicted
Lomborg: UN projects global life expectancy will reach nearly 100 by 2100
“The UN estimate by the end of the century, we'll all on average live almost a hundred years on average.”
Bjorn Lomborg Feb 29, 2024 ▶ 43:00 Ep 79: Bjorn Lomborg and the 12 Best Ideas to Help the World · Joe Lonsdale

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
Ep 79: Bjorn Lomborg and the 12 Best Ideas to Help the World · Joe Lonsdale Feb 29, 2024 30m
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