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Why has Bjorn Lomborg created such a stir among
environmentalists?
"I'm afraid
there isn't much scientific controversy about Mr Lomborg. He occupies a very
junior position in Denmark (an 'associate professor' does not exactly mean the
same thing that it does in the United States), he has one possibly very flawed
paper in an international journal on game theory, no publications on
environmental issues, and yet manages to dismiss the science of dozens of the
world's best scientists, including Nobel Laureates, Japan and Crawford
prize-winners and the like. As any sensible person would expect, his facts are
usually fallacies and his analysis is largely non-existent." Those contemptuous words from Stuart Pimm, a professor of
conservation biology at Columbia University, are fairly representative of the
response from many environmental scientists and activists to Bjorn Lomborg's
recent book, "The skeptical Environmentalist". In the weeks since the
book's release, virtually every large environmental group has weighed in with a
denunciation. Numerous heavyweights of science have penned damning articles and
reviews in leading journals. Dr Pimm, for one, railed against Dr Lomborg in Nature,
while Scientific American recently
devoted 11 pages to attacks from scientists known for their environmental
activism. Dr Lomborg's critics protest too much. They are rattled
not because, as they endlessly insist, Dr Lomborg lacks credentials as an
environmental scientist and is of no account, but because his book is such a
powerful and persuasive assault on the central tenets of the modern
environmental movement. Just the facts
Curious about the true state of the planet, the
author-who makes no claims to expertise in environmental science, only to
statistical expertise-has scrutinised reams of official data on everything from
air pollution to energy availability to climate change. As an instinctive green
and a former member of Greenpeace, he was surprised to find that the world's
environment is not, in fact, getting ever worse. Rather, he shows, most
environmental indicators are stable or improving. One by one, he goes through the "litany", as he
calls it, of four big environmental fears:
In each case, he demonstrated that the doom and gloom is
wildly exaggerated. Known reserves of fossil fuels and most metals have risen.
Agricultural production per head has risen; the numbers facing starvation have
declined. The threat of bio diversity loss is real but exaggerated, as is the
problem of tropical deforestation. And pollution diminishes as countries grow
richer and tackle it energetically. In other words, the planet is not in peril. There are
problems, and they deserve attention, but nothing remotely so dire as most of
the green movement keeps saying. Nor
is that all he shows. The book exposes-through hundreds of detailed,
meticulously footnoted examples-a pattern of exaggeration and statistical
manipulation, used by green groups to advance their pet causes, and obligingly
echoed through the media. Bizarrely, one of Dr Lomborg's critics in Scientific American criticises as an affectation the book's
insistence on documenting every statistic and every quotation with a reference
to a published source. But the complaint is not so bizarre when one works
through the references, because they so frequently expose careless reporting and
environmentalists' abuse of scientific research. The replies to Dr Lomborg in Scientific American and elsewhere score remarkably few points of
substance*. His large factual claims about the current state of the world do not
appear to be under challenge - which is unsurprising since they draw on official
data. What is under challenge, chiefly, is his outrageous presumption in
starting a much-needed debate. Some argue that scientists who favour stronger policies
to improve the environment must use the same tactics as any other political
lobby-from steel companies fighting for tariffs on imports to farmers demanding
more subsidies. The aim, after all, is to win public favour and government
support. Whether such a view is consistent with the obligation science owes to
the truth is debatable, at best. If scientists want their views to be accorded
the respect due to science, then they must speak as scientists, not as
lobbyists. Dr Lomborg's work has its flaws. He has made some errors
in his statistical analysis, as he acknowledges on his website. And there are
broader issues, especially to do with the aggregation of data and the handling
of uncertainty, where his book is open to challenge. For instance, his approach
of examining data at a global level, while statistically sound, tends to mask
local environmental trends. Global marine productivity has indeed risen, as he
says-but this disguises collapses in particular species in particular places. Dr
Lomborg argues that such losses, seen in a long-term perspective, do not matter
much. Many would disagree, not least the fishermen in the areas affected. Allen Hammond of the World Resources Institute (WRI)
makes a related point. He accepts Dr Lomborg's optimistic assessment of the
environment, but says it holds only for the developed world. The aggregate
figures offered in the book mask worsening pollution in the mega-cities of the
poor world. Dr Lomborg agrees that there are local and regional environmental
pressures, and that these matter a lot, but it is fair to point out that the
book has little to say about them, except to argue that rising incomes will
help. The book gives little credit to
environmental policy as a cause of environmental improvement. That is a
defensible position, in fact, but the book does not trouble to make the case.
And another important question is somewhat skated over: the possibility that
some environmental processes involve irreversible "triggers", which,
once pulled, lead to sudden and disastrous deterioration. Climate scientists
believe, and Dr Lomborg does not deny, that too much warming could lead to
irreversible bad outcomes such as the collapse of the mid-Atlantic
"conveyor belt" (an ocean current that warms Europe). The science here
is thin: nobody knows what level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would
trigger such a calamity. But the risk argues for caution. Dr Lomborg's assessment of the science in this area leads
him to venture that warming is more likely to be at the low end of the range
expected by leading experts than at the high end. He argues that the most-cited
climate models misjudge factors such as the effects of clouds, aerosols
and the solar cycle. That is plausible, and there is science to support it, but
the conclusion is far from certain. Again, it is reasonable to argue that such
uncertainty makes it better to err on the side of caution. Sensible people will disagree about the course that
policy should take. Dr Lomborg - a courteous fellow - seems willing to talk calmly
to his opponents. For the most part, while claiming in some cases to be men of
science, his opponents do not return the compliment. Homo ecologicus
Despite its limitations, "The Skeptical
Environmentalist" delivers a salutary warning to conventional thinking. Dr
Lomborg reminds militant greens, and the media that hang on their every
exaggerated word about environmental calamity, that environmental policy should
be judged against the same criteria as other kinds of policy. Is there a
problem? How bad is it? What will it cost to fix? Is that the best way to spend
those resources? This is exactly what Tom Burke, a leading British
environmentalist, denied in a debate he had with Dr Lomborg in Prospect,
a British magazine. "What I find most egregious [in] your
climate-change argument, however, is the proposition that the world faces a
choice between spending money on mitigating climate change, and providing access
to clean drinking water and sanitation in the developing world. We must and can
do both. Such artificial choices may be possible in an academic ivory tower
where ideas can be arranged to suit the prejudices of the occupant, but they are
not available in the real world and it is dishonest to suggest that they
are." On the contrary, Mr Burke. Only in an ivory tower could choices such as these be called
"artificial". Democratic
politics is about nothing but choices of that sort. Green politics needs to
learn that resources are not unlimited. reprinted from The Economist 2nd Feb 2002 * See the criticisms and Dr Lomborg's replies on his website.
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