What values are implied in this debate? What is the imbedded environmental ethic expressed by the parties involved?
What has happened to environmental science in the market place? Is this inevitable?
The Lomborg Controversy
ENV120 - Environmental Ethics and Land Management
Syllabus
Timothy C. Weiskel
Questions for Class Discussion:
    The publication by Cambridge University Press of the book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, has raised some controversy in scientific, journalist and environmental activist circles.  The work appeared in August of 2001, and as a result it was somewhat hidden in the sweep of events surrounding September 11th.  It is now, however, re-emerging, in part as a result of a well coordinated multi-media campaign on the part of the book's publisher -- Cambridge University Press.
    On the surface this debate may appear to be a scientific controversy, but in reality it goes much deeper than that.  It has to do with a dramatic, public conflict between different worldviews on the nature of the global ecosystem and the appropriate human role within it.  Answers to these seemingly scientific debates lie as much in the realm of philosophy, history and the humanities more generally, as the comments (linked below) on Lomborg's "hidden agenda" make abundantly clear.
    In scientific circles, individual book reviewers and commentators are being drawn -- often unwittingly -- into different levels of this controversy, often without realizing how the positions they take reveal their underlying value systems and publicly display their personal understanding of environmental ethics.  Few scientists think of themselves as ethicists, but none can avoid expressing an effective ethic in the stance they take on issues like these.
    To think through some of the dimensions of your own effective environmental ethic, consider some of the following opinions expressed from a range of sources, and be prepared to discuss in class these questions:
  • Why has the appearance of this book at this time caused so much controversy?
  • In your opinion, do Lomborg's credentials as a statistician qualify him to offer the judgments he does on matters of environmental science?  environmental policy?  economic development?  Third World environmental circumstances?  global economic history?
  • Which of his arguments do you find attractive? Are you convinced?  Why?
  • Which of his arguments fail to convince you?  Why?
  • Much of his over all presentation draws upon an argument of implied analogy that depends upon a highly debatable reading of Western (Northern) economic history and development economics.  Does the historical narrative he presumes withstand an ecological critique the history he presumes to know?
  • Is his globalizing vision of history compatible with history as it is understood in large parts of the Third World?
  • What values are imbedded in Lomborg's depiction of global history?  Are these values widely shared in the West? among the rest of humanity?  Are they contested?  If so, where? and why?
  • Does Lomborg recognize a tension or contradiction between economic growth and ecological sustainability?
  • What are the policy consequences of adopting Lomborg's point of view?
  • What is referred to by Kathryn Schulz (see below) as Lomborg's "hidden agenda?"
  • What ecological circumstances would be ignored or considered unimportant if one were to adopt Lomborg's analysis to formulate public environmental policy?
  • What do you think of the Cambridge University Press presentation of a free "course" on the book through Fathom?  (see links to Fathom's "free course" below).
  • Why would a serious university press publish this work?  Who do you think reviewed it for them?  Who do you think should they have asked to review it for publication?  Do you think the press sought to promote the controversy in order to stimulate sales of the book?
  • What is the appropriate relation between science and the market place?
Initial News Coverage:
Got to admit it's getting better
Tuesday, 21 August, 2001, 11:02 GMT 12:02 UK
        What sort of world will we leave to our children? Probably a cleaner, healthier one than we inherited, says academic Dr Bjorn Lomborg, author of the controversial new book The Skeptical Environmentalist.
In the first of three-part series focusing on claims made in the book, Dr Lomborg explains why we should chill-out about global warming.  Europeans willing to back President Bush's rejection of the Kyoto climate control agreement are pretty thin on the ground.

Should we care less about the environment?
Tuesday, 21 August, 2001, 13:11 GMT 14:11 UK
        We are not decimating the environment, we are not running out of natural resources, and implementing the Kyoto agreement on global warming is a waste of money. In a radical new book, Danish statistician and former environmental activist Bjorn Lomborg, argues that the outlook for the world is not as grim as we think it is. To some extent, he says, we've been duped by the green lobby and by a sensationalist press.

Dr Lomborg, you've got to be kidding
Wednesday, 22 August, 2001, 11:32 GMT 12:32 UK
        Don't worry about climate change, the world will get along just fine. That, in a nutshell, is the thrust of a controversial new book by academic Bjorn Lomborg. In the second of a three-part series focusing on claims made in the book, Dr Lomborg's critics hit back at some of his most provocative pronouncements.

Bjorn Lomborg's wonderful world
Thursday, 23 August, 2001, 09:44 GMT 10:44 UK
        Melting ice caps, deforestation, acid rain, mass extinction - statistician Bjorn Lomborg has done his sums and says it's all untrue or overblown. In the last of a three-part series, BBC News Online's environment correspondent Alex Kirby weighs up the claims made in Dr Lomborg's controversial new book. Bjorn Lomborg, a former Greenpeace member, now calls himself a sceptical environmentalist.

Should we care less about the environment?
Sunday, 26 August, 2001, 15:53 GMT 16:53 UK
  Talking Point. (Full Program) [See link above for posted exerpts].
        We are not decimating the environment, we are not running out of natural resources, and implementing the Kyoto agreement on global warming is a waste of money. In a radical new book, Danish statistician and former environmental activist Bjorn Lomborg, argues that the outlook for the world is not as grim as we think it is.
        To some extent, he says, we've been duped by the green lobby and by a sensationalist press.
 

The Fathom "Course"
The Skeptical Environmentalist Fathom Course
From: Cambridge University Press | Taught By: Bjørn Lomborg
         In an age of mounting human consumption and depleting natural resources, it seems as though our
responses to the impending environmental crisis are too little or too late. But is this picture of doom an accurate
representation of reality?
        Bjørn Lomborg, a statistician from the University of Aarhus, Denmark, maintains that it is not. In this free
seminar, Lomborg draws from his forthcoming book from Cambridge University Press, The Skeptical
Environmentalist, and puts forth the grounds for his argument. Far from being pessimistic about the state of the
world, he holds that we have every reason to be optimistic about the future. This seminar outlines some of the
controversial arguments and provides commentary from the author.
        This "distance learning course" -- offered in conjuction with Columbia University and a whole range of
otherwise quite respectable universities and research institutions -- presents the very same interviews about the
book that are posted on the Cambridge University Press publicity and sales pages.  See for example
http://uk.cambridge.org/economics/lomborg/video.htm
and the publicity at: http://uk.cambridge.org/economics/lomborg/

Compare both sources for these clips:
  Cambrige University Press - Video Clip 1: Bjørn Lomborg outlines the reasoning behind his ideas expressed in The Skeptical Environmentalist.
Fathom Clip 1

  Cambrige University Press - Video Clip 2: Bjørn Lomborg discusses the issues surrounding non-renewable resources.
Fathom Clip 2

  Cambrige University Press - Video Clip 3: Bjørn Lomborg talks about the issues surrounding air pollution.
Fathom Clip 3

  Cambrige University Press - Video Clip 4: Bjørn Lomborg describes the Greenhouse Effect and discusses issues surrounding the Kyoto Agreement.
Fathom Clip 4

What does this online juxtaposition of these video clips suggest to you?  What is the difference between the Cambridge University Press's publicity web site and the Fathom "online course?"  In your opinion should there be a difference between a sales tool and something presenting itself as a "course?"
 
 

Denmark Debate:
There has been a range of debate for the last 2 years in Denmark on this issue:
See: Some replies from Danish scientists to a contrarian
    http://www.au.dk/~cesamat/debate.html
        Because most of the points he is making in this book are not new or so partial and incomplete in the scope
of the range of issues that need to be discussed, many are asking why both Cambridge University Press and the
BBC have "fanned" the fires of this non-controversy.  Clearly the Press and the BBC stand to gain from the sales
and viewership (audience) it can generate from this, but it is a sad day when these otherwise reputable institutions
seem to be driven by this kind of commercial imperative.

Subsequent News Coverage & Debate:
Something Is Rotten in the State of Denmark : A skeptical look at The Skeptical Environmentalist (Cambridge University Press, 2001)
    Grist Magazine, 12 Dec 2001
Before the terrible events of Sept. 11 nudged our national mood towards nouveau-earnestness, skepticism was the disposition of the day. Bred in the swamps of transparent consumer manipulation, untrustworthy political leaders, and information overload, skepticism stamped a permanent question mark onto the brows of Generation X and seemed poised to become the watchword of our nation.
    The cultural tides may have turned somewhat in recent months, but skepticism remains central to our national character. In the opinion of Grist Magazine, that's a good thing: No mind should be above changing, and no precept should be protected from scrutiny. Hence this special issue on Bjorn Lomborg's The Skeptical Environmentalist.
    Lomborg, an associate professor of statistics at Denmark's University of Aarhus, applies the doctrine of doubt to environmentalism and concludes that most of the movement's sacred cows are, to put it bluntly, bull:

We will not lose our forests; we will not run out of energy, raw materials, or water. We have reduced atmospheric pollution in the cities of the developed world and have good reason to believe that this will also be achieved in the developing world. Our oceans have not been defiled, our rivers have become cleaner and support more life. ... Nor is waste a particularly big problem. ... The problem of the ozone layer has been more or less solved. The current outlook on the development of global warming does not indicate a catastrophe. ... And, finally, our chemical worries and fear of pesticides are misplaced and counterproductive.
    Lomborg claims that these and other worries are "phantom problems" created or inflated by the environmental movement for its own ends, with the result that time and money are diverted from other, needier causes.
The Lomborg and Short of It  -- Links related to The Skeptical Environmentalist
    Grist Magazine, 12 Dec 2001
        by Sherry Bosse
For those of you who still haven't gotten enough of the Lomborg controversy, look no further than your browser. We've compiled a collection of links to sites that praise the man, haze the man, and walk the middle ground.
 
Something Is Rotten
On extinction - E.O. Wilson
On climate - Stephen H. Schneider 
On species diversity - Norman Myers 
On population - Lester R. Brown 
On forests - Emily Matthews
On statistics - Allen Hammond 
On human health - Devra Davis
On energy - David M. Nemtzow
So what? - Kathryn Schulz
Links
Zed
Ha.

You Gotta Love the Guy

Washington Post book review
Denis Dutton's blurb-eriffic review of The Skeptical Environmentalist in the Washington Post reads as if it were calculated to drive a green-leaning (or even moderate) reader's blood pressure up into the Dick Cheney range. Smitten with Lomborg's "movie-star" looks and in awe of his 3,000 footnotes, Dutton waxes rapturous over a book he calls "the place from which environmental policy decisions must be argued." Dutton may have found the book faultless, but Jonathan Lash, president of the World Resources Institute (whose stats are "debunked" in The Skeptical Environmentalist), finds plenty of faults with Dutton's review in his letter to the editor.

Greening Earth Society
The Greening Earth Society, a nonprofit organization founded, funded, and housed by the Western Fuels Association, a coal-producing and -procuring electric-utility cooperative, agrees with Lomborg's conclusions but still finds a bone to pick: GES already knew -- has for ages -- that global warming and all those other environmental worries were nothing but lies and exaggerations.

Bjorn Lomborg's website
The official website for Bjorn Lomborg and The Skeptical Environmentalist is light on content, but you'll find a few variations on the author's sexy book jacket photo, links to book reviews and interviews, and a sample chapter.

Where it all began
Legend has it that Lomborg was a dyed-in-the-wool environmentalist until he read an interview with anti-enviro Julian Simon, set out to debunk him, and wound up confirming his claims. For those who want to go straight to the source, this is the 1997 Wired interview with Julian Simon that supposedly started Lomborg on the path to writing The Skeptical Environmentalist.

You Gotta Loathe the Guy

Anti-Lomborg website
The anti-Lomborg website is run by "a bunch of environmental writers, academics, and activists in Oxford, England, who were mildly irritated by the publication in the Guardian newspaper of a series of 'green wash' articles written by Bjorn Lomborg." Here, you'll find a critique of the Lomborg articles that appeared last summer in the London Guardian, -- and a great photo of Lomborg getting a pie in the face.

TomPaine.com
TomPaine.com, a truth-seeking online periodical known for its weekly ads on the editorial page of the New York Times, wags its finger at the media for going gaga over Lomborg. Upstanding Cambridge University Press, publisher of the The Skeptical Environmentalist, also takes a hit. Check out the related ad (with its swell mention of Grist).

World Resources Institute
For those of a green persuasion, the World Resources Institute offers up a handy kit for tackling Lomborg's work, including "Nine things journalists should know about The Skeptical Environmentalist" (a critique by the WRI and World Wildlife Fund), as well as a similar list geared toward environmental educators, and yet another set of links (in case you still can't get enough).

Union of Concerned Scientists
The Union of Concerned Scientists has more than a few things to say about The Skeptical Environmentalist: The organization plans to run a series of reviews by experts on water resources, biodiversity, and climate change. The first review, by Peter Gleick, takes on Lomborg's arguments on water resources.

Replies from Danish scientists
The Skeptical Environmentalist was published in Denmark in 1998. In response, a group of Lomborg's colleagues at the University of Aarhus assembled this collection of critiques of the book by Danish scientists (writing in English) to give readers a taste of the debate Lomborg sparked in his home country.

The Middle Path

London Guardian book review
The London Guardian helped stoke the controversy over The Skeptical Environmentalist by running a series of articles by Lomborg last summer. Some people considered those articles so outrageous that they developed a website to debunk them (see above). Following the publication of The Skeptical Environmentalist, the Guardian, perhaps chastened by its earlier experiences, ran this fairly balanced assessment. Reviewer Chris Lavers is knowledgeable and cynical, and manages to give both environmentalists and Lomborg a dressing-down.

New York Times profile
This interview with Lomborg appeared in the New York Times science section last August. While Lomborg is the feature attraction, some of the scientists whose numbers he crunches get a brief chance to respond to his claims.

E.O. Wilson
Talk of the Nation
January 14, 2002
Guest:
    Edward O. Wilson
Research Professor in Biology at Harvard University
Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner for On Human Nature and The Ants *His latest book is called The Future of Life (Knopf, 2002)
and Bjorn Lomborg
Associate Professor of Statistics at the University of Aarhus in Denmark
author of The Skeptical Environmentalist (Cambridge University Press, 2001)
        The new Talk of the Nation theme
        What treasures of the natural world are we about to lose forever? Newly discovered plants and animals whose potential benefits are still unknown are being threatened by human activity. Neal Conan talks with Edward O. Wilson about his book, The Future of Life, about how to save the Earth's biological heritage.
 

Poverty is 'real pollution'
Wednesday, 22 May, 2002, 15:50 GMT 16:50 UK
Dr Bjorn Lomborg
"We under-worry about developmental problems"
  The BBC's Tom Heap
"It is a medical for the world"
     The United Nations report on the state of the planet paints a grim picture (in the main) of the Earth's future.
    The Global Environment Outlook-3 (Geo-3), the work of more than 1,000 authors, says the human "footprint" is having an increasingly adverse impact, especially in poor countries.
    It suggests, for example, that almost a quarter of the world's mammals could be extinct within 30 years.
    But this is a picture of our immediate future that is repudiated by many scientists who have found a standard bearer in the form of Bjorn Lomborg, the head of the Institute for Environmental Evaluation in Aarhus in Denmark.

Bjorn Lomborg - Web Site

Bjørn Lomborg Rebuts Scientific American Article.
         Intro by Patrick Moore, Ph.D

Scientific American exchange:

Greenspirit's Collection of Bjorn Lomborg's Material
    Scientific American Threatens to Sue Bjorn Lomborg for Daring to Defend Himself. Now They Threaten Greenspirit, Too