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The Skeptical Environmentalist

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The Skeptical Environmentalist is a controversial book by political scientist Bjørn Lomborg published in 2001 which argues that claims made by environmentalists about global warming, overpopulation, energy, deforestation, species loss, water shortages, and a variety of other issues are exaggerations unsupported by a proper analysis of environmental data.

Lomborg is a Danish political scientist with a background in statistics. He is a former Greenpeace supporter. He states that he originally started work on the book as an attempt to counter what he saw as anti-ecological arguments by Julian Simon in an article in Wired, but changed his mind after starting his research. Lomborg describes the views he attributes to environmental campaigners as "the Litany", which his book attempts to correct.

The Skeptical Environmentalist has many references to primary and secondary material, but much of its methodology and integrity has been subject to criticism from scientists who argue that Lomborg has distorted the various fields of research he covers in his book.

The book attempts to challenge and refute many popular examples of extreme environmentalist claims, by examining the data and revealing the sources on which they are based.

The Litany

Lomborg's Litany comprises four widely publicized and popularly held environmental fears. He refers to statistics to refute the general claims in all four areas. His cites accepted mainstream sources, like the US government, UN agencies and the like. His preference is for global long-term data, as opposed to regional and short-term. The book is extensively footnoted.

  1. "Natural resources are running out." Lomborg's findings show increasing availability and lower cost over time of fossil fuels, and minerals, other natural resources.
  2. "The population is ever growing, leaving less and less to eat." Lomborg finds that population growth is not skyrocketing and, overall, hunger is down.
  3. "Species are becoming extinct in vast numbers: forests are disappearing and fish stocks are collapsing." Here, Lomborg finds the situation highly exaggerated as to the number of species disappearing.
  4. "The planet's air and water are becoming ever more polluted." According to Lomborg's figures, pollution is decreasing in developed nations; for developing nations where pollution is increasing, it is likely to steadily decrease as their economic situation improves.

It is probably fair to say that environmental activists are the main target or affected group, in that their claims are being challenged in The Skeptical Environmentalist.

It is interesting to note that many of Lomborg's conclusions are not simply based on analysis of figures, but also depend on continuing advances in technology and steady economic growth (eg: advances in industrialized agriculture feed people more efficiently; advances in oil and mineral exploration and extraction create increased supplies; pollution goes down as nations get wealthier).

Criticisms

Environmental groups as well as members of the scientific community have criticised the book for what they claim to be a selective use of statistics—essentially, taking the most optimistic view on the environmental damage being caused by current human activity, and the most pessimistic view of the adjustment costs of changing to less environmentally-damaging technologies.

The January 2002 issue of Scientific American contains, under the heading "Misleading Math about the Earth", a set of essays by several scientists about Lomborg's thesis, claiming that Lomborg is misrepresenting both scientific evidence and scientific opinion. The magazine refused Lomborg's request to write in his own defence and has, in turn, been criticized for, in the views of some, failing to deal with the issue objectively.

Nature also published a harsh review of Lomborg's book. In the review, Stuart Pimm of the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation at Columbia University and Jeff Harvey of the Netherlands Institute of Ecology wrote: "the text employs the strategy of those who, for example, argue that gay men aren't dying of AIDS, that Jews weren't singled out by the Nazis for extermination, and so on."

Lomborg has published an annotated response to both articles and many others on his website. Later, the magazine also printed a response to the rebuttal [1].

Other critics have questioned Lomberg's academic status, and knowledge of the issues he discusses. For example, the Australian economist John Quiggin notes that Lomborg has not published any articles on environmental issues in peer-reviewed journals, and that Lomberg's only peer-reviewed paper is on games theory.

Lomborg has also been criticised (in, for example, a 2002 review in the UK journal Local Environment) for using straw man arguments. These critics claim that many of the claims which he includes in his "litany" of environmental doom-mongering do not accurately represent the mainstream views of the contemporary green movement.

UCS Union of Concerned Scientists examines and expresses their opinion on The Skeptical Environmentalist, saying:
These separately written expert reviews unequivocally demonstrate that on closer inspection, Lomborg’s book is seriously flawed and fails to meet basic standards of credible scientific analysis. The authors note how Lomborg consistently misuses, misrepresents or misinterprets data to greatly underestimate rates of species extinction, ignore evidence that billions of people lack access to clean water and sanitation, and minimize the extent and impacts of global warming due to the burning of fossil fuels and other human-caused emissions of heat-trapping gases. Time and again, these experts find that Lomborg’s assertions and analyses are marred by flawed logic, inappropriate use of statistics and hidden value judgments. He uncritically and selectively cites literature -- often not peer-reviewed -- that supports his assertions, while ignoring or misinterpreting scientific evidence that does not. His consistently flawed use of scientific data is, in Peter Gleick’s words "unexpected and disturbing in a statistician". [2]

The previous statement comes not from the individual "expert reviews" but from an editorial description of them. In fact, the statement itself contains a number of inaccuracies.

For example it claims that "separately written expert reviews unequivocally demonstrate that... Lomborg’s book is seriously flawed and fails to meet basic standards of credible scientific analysis" and yet the actual reviews contain more moderate language. Peter Gleick's review, for example, states "Many of [Lomborg's] criticisms have appeared... even in the work of environmental scientists themselves". Jerry Mahlman's review of the chapter he was asked to evaluate, states "I found some aspects of this chapter to be interesting, challenging, and logical . For example, the author's characterizations of the degree of difficulty in actually doing something meaningful about climate change through mitigation and coping/adaptation are perceptive and vaulable"

The statement above also implies that climate change is caused exlusively by "global warming due to the burning of fossil fuels and other human-caused emissions of heat-trapping gases" when even the IPCC admits that human activity is only responsible for a portion of global warming and even the portion for which humans are responsible is debated.

In addition, the editorial goes on to characterize Lomborg's book as a "lie", lavishes praise on critics of the book while denouncing the author.

In spite of criticism from some scientific sources, the book generally received positive reviews from the mainstream press, including The Economist, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Rolling Stone. Many individual scientists, and some of the hardcore environmentalists whom the book is seen as attacking, also supported Lomborg.

Investigation

Complaint to the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty (DCSD)

Several enviromental scientists brought a complaint to the DCDS.

6 January 2003: The DCDS reached its decision in the complaint against Bjørn Lomborg’s book The Sceptical Environmentalist. The book was published by the Cambridge University Press in 2001.

The main point of the DCDS’s decision of 6 January 2003 is that from an objective point of view, it was a question of scientific dishonesty on the part of Bjørn Lomborg, because, among other reasons, the book was based on what they believed was a systematic bias.

Because of what they felt was Bjørn Lomborg’s lack of scientific expertise in the themes treated in the book, the DCDS did not find that he had shown intentional or gross negligence. He was therefore acquitted of the accusations of having acted in a scientifically dishonest manner. But the DCDS stated, at the same time, that they believed he had clearly acted contrary to good scientific practice.

13 February 2003: Bjørn Lomborg filed a complaint with the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation against the DCDS’s decision of 6 January 2003.

17 December 2003: The Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation finds that the DCDS has made a number of procedural errors, specifically:

— The DCSD did not use what the Ministry believed to be a proper standard for deciding "good scientific practice" in the social sciences.
— The DCSD did not evaluate its authority to decide the case in regards to the requirement that "The case must be of importance to Danish research.".
— The DCSD did not document where the defendant (Lomborg) was biased in his choice of data and his argumentation, and that the DCSD decision lacked any argumentation for why DCSD found that the complainants were correct in their criticisms of Lomborg's working methods. It is not enough, they said, that criticism of a researcher's scientific working methods exists. The Ministry reiterated that the DCSD must adopt an attitude to the criticism and take a stand to whether or not the criticism is just, and why. The Ministry indicated that it is exactly these tasks that are DCSD's primary duty to solve, and since they didn't believe this had occured, the decision was remitted to DCSD, cf. what has been quoted above from administrative law of the consequence of neglecting the investigative principle. The Ministry further explained that what they believed to be such a considerable breach in DCSDs consideration of the case is in itself to be critiqued.

The Ministry therefore remitted the case to the DCDS. Furthermore, the Ministry’s decision stated that it was up to the DCDS to determine whether it would re-examine the case.

The Ministry explained at a later date that their finding must be taken to mean that the DCDS’s decision of 6 January 2003 is invalid.

12 March 2004: The Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty (DSCD) ended their case, rejecting the original complaints. They have decided that the original decision is invalid and have ended any further inquiry.


References

  • Bjørn Lomborg, The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World, Cambridge University Press 2001, ISBN 0521010683
  • Stuart Pimm and Jeff Harvey: "No need to worry about the future". Nature vol. 414, November 8, 2001
  • Stephen Schneider, John P. Holdren, John Bongaarts, Thomas Lovejoy: "Misleading Math about the Earth". Scientific American, January 2002
  • Julian Simon article in Wired magazine

Reviews of the book

For:

Against:

Mixed:

See also

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