Attack on Lomborg -
When Bjorn Lomborg's
book The Skeptical Environmentalist was published a little over a year ago it
caused an immediate sensation in the United States and Europe for its
unconventionally optimistic take on environmental matters.
At the time, I asked Ronald Bailey, the author and editor of two books on the
environment and the foremost expert in the United States on the intersection of
science policy and political controversy, what he thought of the book.
"Lomborg doesn't have a clue what's about to happen to him," Bailey
said. "I feel sorry for him."
Bailey was right.
In a little over a year, a global smear campaign has attempted to discredit the
Danish academic who had the audacity to question the hysterics and distortions
of the modern day environmental movement. So threatened were the professional
environmental pessimists in academia, NGOs and think tanks by Lomborg's
arguments and ideas, they lashed out and
viciously attacked him, seeking to destroy his credibility. The attack included
a one-sided smear in the pages of Scientific American, protesters throwing pies
at him at speaking engagements, and a website, www.anti-lomborg.com,
devoted to discrediting him.
The smear has now reached a new low, with the Danish Committees on Scientific
Dishonesty (DCSD) playing the 17th Century Catholic Church to Lomborg's
heretical Galileo. The DCSD has written a 16-page book report denouncing the
Dane for publishing a book that they say falls "within the concept of
scientific dishonesty."
"The publication is deemed clearly contrary to the standards of good
scientific practice," the Committees concluded. This smear was then picked
up and amplified by The New York Times, Washington Post, and other publications.
But the Committees' report is nothing more than a rehashing of the complaints
already lodged against Lomborg, complaints that are largely without merit or
that he has refuted. For example, the Committees rely heavily on Stephen
Schneider's complaint about Lomborg's treatment of climate science in The
Skeptical Environmentalist. The Committees describe Schneider as "a
particularly respected researcher who has been discussing these problems for 30
years."
But Schneider is hardly always a paragon of scientific integrity. In a now
famous interview with Discover magazine, Schneider showed his true colors:
"On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific
method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
- which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands
and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as
well. And like most people, we'd like to see the world a better place, which in
this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially
disastrous climate change. To do that, we need to get some broad-based support,
to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of
media coverage. So
we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and
make little mention of any doubts we might have. … Each of us has to decide
what the right balance is between being effective and being honest."
Would the Committees deem that admission within "the standards of good
scientific practice"? It is those "scary scenarios … simplified,
dramatic statements" that Lomborg sought to address in his book. But
what the Committees and others who perpetuate the smear against Lomborg don't
realize just yet is they have a bigger problem on their hands. The extreme
pessimism of the environmental movement doesn't stand up to scrutiny, and more
and more scientists who refuse to be cowed by academic bullies and their lapdogs
in the press are speaking out.
This April, Jack Hollander, the distinguished emeritus professor at Berkeley, is
publishing a new book "The Real Environmental Crisis: How Poverty, Not
Affluence, Is the Environment's Number One Enemy." An early draft of the
book shows it deepens our understanding of many of the same themes Lomborg
discussed in The Skeptical Environmentalist and denounces
in convincing fashion the extreme pessimism of the environmental movement
typified by Schneider and others who have attacked Lomborg.
In the meantime, in the effort "to capture the public's imagination,"
as Schneider so honestly put it, the smears against Lomborg and others will no
doubt continue.
By
Nick Schulz, Tech Central Station, January 8, 2003 click here
for original
