ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today’s five OFF-SET questions is Bjorn Lomborg, revolutionary thinker and writer.

Lomborg is the author of “The Skeptical Environmentalist” and “Cool-It”, and was the subject of the “Cool It” documentary. Lomborg is an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen BusinessSchooland Director of the CopenhagenConsensus Center. He was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME magazine, one of the 75 most influential people in the 21st Century by Esquire magazine, one of the 50 people who could save the planet by the British newspaper The Guardian, and one of the 100 Top Global Thinkers of 2010 by Foreign Policy magazine.

In a Washington Post Op-Ed essay, you wrote, “China indeed invests more than any other nation in environmentally friendly energy production: $34 billion in 2009, or twice as much as the United States.” At the same time, you explain that China “is beleaguered by severe pollution and generates more carbon emissions than any other nation.”

To what degree do the Chinese want to become environmental world leaders?

Like any other nation, China wants to make its citizens better off. This decade they are going to lift 200 million people out of abject poverty - an incredible achievement - through economic growth that is mostly powered by coal.

It's important to realize that green goals only really become attainable and prioritized when green technology becomes affordable. This is as true for China as it is for the US. But there's a big problem now, which is that solar panels, wind turbines and other renewable energy sources are considerably more expensive and less effective than fossil fuels. We see them subsidized heavily in rich countries, but that's not a long-term answer to global warming. FULL POST

Bjorn Lomborg, revolutionary thinker and writer, says closing nuclear plants in the wake of a huge tsunami in Japan will actually cause more deaths.

Lomborg is the author of “The Skeptical Environmentalist” and “Cool-It”, and was the subject of the documentary “Cool-it.” Lomborg is an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School and Director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center. He was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME magazine, one of the 75 most influential people in the 21st Century by Esquire magazine, one of the 50 people who could save the planet by the British newspaper The Guardian, and most recently one of the 100 Top Global Thinkers of 2010 by Foreign Policy magazine.

Climate change skeptic Bjorn Lomborg (featured in the documentary film "Cool It") says we're so panicked about climate change we can't think straight.

"Al Gore was good in getting our attention to global warning, "said Lomborg.  "And Global warming is real, but he did so by scaring the pants off of us and that's not a good way to go down if you are going to make good decisions."