Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Q1. What’s all the fuss about Bjorn Lomborg’s new book?

richardbell — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 20:02:15 -0700

Lomborg’s Cool It: A Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming is the most sophisticated volley to date in a struggle by major oil companies, large right-wing foundations, and a very small group of scientists funded by these companies and foundations who have fought against the scientific consensus on global warming for more than a decade, initially by denying the existence of global warning at all.

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

The Best Lomborg Bio

richardbell — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 18:44:00 -0700

Danish biologist Kare Fog has written an 11,000 word history of the controversial rise of Bjorn Lomborg. This article is the most comprehensive review online, especially good on how scientists in Denmark disputed Lomborg's claims.

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

The Denial Machine

richardbell — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 08:50:40 -0800

Bjorn Lomborg continues to surface in newspapers around the globe. There is, he claims, "a tsunami of nonsense" out there about global warming, and he's here to set us all straight. As a phrase, "tsunami of nonsense" is attention-grabbing. Clever though it may be, I found that Lomborg was not the first to use the phrase. In November of 2003, the phrase popped up in a discussion of the game Halo. And in 2005, in an interview in Washingtonian magazine, CNN terror analyst Peter Bergen said that "A tsunami of nonsense has been written about [Osama] bin Laden." The title notwithstanding, Lomborg just repeats the same arguments from Cool It that you will find refuted elsewhere on this page.

What keeps Lomborg and the deniers of climate change going? The Canadian Broadcast Corporation program The Fifth Estate has produced a documentary, updated last fall, called "The Denial Machine" that gives an excellent introduction to the decades-long effort by the oil and coal industries to confound and confuse the public debate about the science behind global warming. I was especially struck by the direct links between the tobacco industry's denial campaign and the global warming deniers, including some of the very same scientists. Here's how The Fifth Estate describes this show:

"The Denial Machine investigates the roots of the campaign to negate
the science and the threat of global warming. It tracks the activities
of a group of scientists, some of whom previously consulted for Big
Tobacco, and who are now receiving donations from major coal and oil
companies.

Who is keeping the debate of global warming alive?

The documentary shows how fossil fuel corporations have kept the global
warming debate alive long after most scientists believed that global
warming was real and had potentially catastrophic consequences. It
shows that companies such as Exxon Mobil are working with top public
relations firms and using many of the same tactics and personnel as
those employed by Phillip Morris and RJ Reynolds to dispute the
cigarette-cancer link in the 1990s. Exxon Mobil sought out those
willing to question the science behind climate change, providing
funding for some of them, their organizations and their studies.

The Denial Machine also explores how the arguments supported by oil
companies were adopted by policymakers in both Canada and the US and
helped form government policy."

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Sea Level Rise Swamping Lomborg Claim

richardbell — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 18:25:57 -0800

One of the most common attacks that Lomborg and his supporters make is to accuse people concerned about global warming of being “alarmists.” Take the case of global sea level rise, to which he devotes considerable space to in his book Cool It.
Lomborg writes he is relying on the findings of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Using the IPCC’s findings, Lomborg wrote that: “... sea-level increase by 2050 will be about five inches—no more than the change we have experienced since 1940….”[p.61]

Lomborg presents this finding as if it were rock-solid fact. What readers do not know is that Lomborg has omitted the IPCC’s own qualifications about this estimate. And when Lomborg attacks Al Gore and others for suggesting scenarios of much greater rises in sea level, Lomborg mentions Gore’s predictions are based on hypotheticals, but then goes on to condemn them nonetheless as “so dramatically removed from the best science.” (p.62)

Here’s how Lomborg’s critique gets refracted through the mainstream media, from a news story in the Vancouver Sun. The Sun reporter writes:

“Gore and others have been guilty of hyperbole, if not outright deception, in their attempts to raise red flags about climate change…A good local example was the set of alarmist maps created by the Sierra Club of B.C. last year that purported to show how Victoria and Vancouver would look after being flooded by a rise in sea level of six to 25 metres.”

What Lomborg (and this Sun report) does not tell his readers is that the IPPC acknowledged that there was an important uncertainty in this estimate. Here’s the IPCC’s disclaimer:

“An important uncertainty relates to whether discharge of ice from the ice sheets will continue to increase as a consequence of accelerated ice flow, as has been observed in recent years. This would add to the amount of sea level rise, but quantitative projections of how much it would add cannot be made with confidence, owing to limited understanding of the relevant processes.”

And what are scientists finding as they look closer at the flow of ice in Greenland and Antarctica? The emerging evidence points in the direction of ice melting at faster rates than were used in calculating the IPCC’S estimates, findings which only further highlight how misleading Lomborg’s omission of the IPCC’s qualifications can be.

A study published in January 2008 found that “recent warm summers have caused the most extreme Greenland ice melting in 50 years.”

Meanwhile down in Antarctica, another study published in January, 2008 found that record amounts of ice were melting into the sea. The leader of this study, Dr. Eric Ringot, told the New Zealand Herald:

"We have also established that most of this loss, if not its entirety, is caused by glacier acceleration. The IPCC focused on the surface mass balance component. We find this component is not indicative of the true mass balance."

The acceleration in ice loss over the past 10 years could increase in coming decades, he added.

"As some of these glaciers reach deeper beds, their speeds could double or triple, in which case the contribution to sea-level rise from Antarctica could increase quite significantly beyond what it is now."

The sound you hear is not just the sound of glaciers crumbling increasingly quickly into the sea: it is the sound of Lomborg’s fragile methodological apparatus falling apart under the pressure of these new findings.

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

The Denial Machine

richardbell — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 18:13:49 -0800

The Bush administration appears to be succeeding in its efforts at the world climate change meeting in Bali to block any meaningful action. And back in Washington, the House and Senate, despite being in the hands of a party that claims to take climate change seriously, are throwing section after section of the once highly touted energy bill over the side, in a thus far desperate attempt to whittle the bill down far enough to at least get 6o votes in the Senate, if not survive a threatened Bush veto.

These non-actions are exactly what the latest generation of global warming delayers like Bjorn Lomborg have been calling for. How could such a small handful of naysayers have such an enormous effect on policy?

If you want to see one of the best answers around, check out The Denial Machine, a recently updated show on the Canadian Broadcasting Company's "the fifth estate." In a 40-minute show, host Bob McKeown does an outstanding job of going back in time to show us a detailed history of the birth and rise of the oil-industry funded group of global deniers.

Early on in the show, I thought something had gone wrong. Instead of talking about oil and energy, McKeown went off into the history of how the tobacco industry fought back for decades against claims that cigarettes caused cancer. Very nice Bob, ,but what did a panel of tobacco industry CEOs lying to a Congressional committee have to do with global warming deniers.

Everything. McKeown makes a solid case that the oil industry adopted the tobacco industry's denial model, lock, stock, and barrel. APCO, the international public relations agency, worked for the tobacco industry. Then the oil industry hired APCO to manage the global denying fight. Some of the same men who appeared as scientific experts for the tobacco industry pop up years later, only now they are testifying that global warming is a hoax. One of the best known of these labile scientists is S. Fred Singer. McKeown also shows how the oil companies used a variety of foundations and front groups to wash their money, making it hard for the public to understand that it was the oil companies who were actually funding prominent denier scientists.

The other principal villain that McKeown pulls out of the mud is Republican pollster/strategist Frank Luntz. Luntz wrote a famous 16-page memo in which he explained to Republican candidates, on a word-by-word basis, how to confuse the voters about global warming. For example, Luntz said that Republicans should never use the term "global warming," that they should say "climate change" instead. As Luntz tells McKeown in an interview, warming sounds bad, while climate change sounds less threatening, like something that will happen over a long period of time. Never call yourself an environmentalist: too "radical." McKeown then showed a clip of President Bush talking about "climate change" in which Bush refers to himself as a "conservationist."

The Denial Machine is a great show, far and away the single best visual presentation I've seen of why the United States continues to be the world's biggest obstacle to dealing with global warming.(The show was first broadcast in 2006, and updated and rebroadcast on October 24, 2007.)

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Climate Panel Does Not Want Us to "Cool It"

richardbell — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 19:29:07 -0800

The recently released report (formally known as the AR4 Synthesis Report) from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has a clear message, and "cool it" is not it. (This is the same IPCC that just shared this year's Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore.) In his book Cool It, Lomborg repeatedly emphasizes his reliance on the IPCC. But if he wants to continue to cite the IPCC, he will have to make some serious changes in his conclusions after reading the final report, which was released in Valencia, Spain on November 17th.

At a press conference on November 17th, IPCC panel chair Dr. R.K.Pachauri did not mince words. Here are a few quotes:

“Climate change is a serious threat to development everywhere”

"Today, the time for doubt has passed. The IPCC has unequivocally affirmed the warming of our climate system, and linked it directly to human activity”

"Slowing or even reversing the existing trends of global warming is the defining challenge of our age”[my italics]

Just look at the contrast between the IPCC's "defining challenge of our age" and Lomborg's repeated suggestions of other issues that we should be paying attention to instead of global warming.

You can get the Summary for Policymakers as a pdf file, as well as the three Working Group reports on which the Synthesis is based.

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Is It Real or Is It....

richardbell — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 08:53:28 -0800

We've all been warned not to believe everything we find on the Internet, but how careful are you?

For example, take a look at the Journal of Geoclimatic Studies, published by The Institute of Geoclimatic Studies at Okinawa University. There are the usual elaborate set of requirements for submitting scientific papers, and all the other scholarly apparatus, including the table of contents of the current issue with a live link to the lead article, "Carbon dioxide production by benthic bacteria: the death of manmade global warming theory?"

Only one small problem.

There is no Okinawa Unversity.

And none of the authors of the "Death of Global Warming" paper are listed at their respective universities. In fact, the whole site is one delicious hoax!

For more, including news on sites which swallowed this hoax whole, see DeSmogblog.com.

And don't forget, as I've mentioned elsewhere about Lomborg's use of selective quotations, even when you see a reference to a website or publication that you know exists doesn't mean that what you're looking at is an accurate representation of what the original author said or meant.

Studying global warming can get a bit grim at times, so thanks to whoever did all this work for putting a little fun into the day!

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Censoring Health Impacts of Global Warming

richardbell — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 19:11:07 -0700

One of Lomborg's more disarming claims is his assertion that global warming will save human lives because the number of people killed by higher temperatures will be more than offset by the number of people who live through less severe winters.

Evaluating such claims depends on having access to the best available data. But the Bush administration has just been caught blatantly censoring the testimony of the testimony written by Dr. Julie Gerberding, Director of the Centers for Disease Control for an Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on the impacts of global warming on public health.

For example, Gerberding wrote that the "CDC considers climate change a serious public concern," a concern which disappeared in the White House version.

As you can see in the graphic from the Washington Post, Bush's operatives deleted half of the pages of the testimony which Dr. Gerberding submitted. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, was not pleased:

“The White House continues to say that science should guide us on global warming legislation. The Director of the Centers for Disease Control is one of the country’s leading voices on public health. The Administration should immediately release Dr. Gerberding’s full, uncut statement, because the public has a right to know all the facts about the serious threats posed by global warming.”

As a loyal Bush foot soldier, Gerberding claimed that the editing had not affected her major points, but Boxer (and other scientists who are familiar with some of the claims that were excised) was not satisfied. Boxer has sent a letter to President Bush asking for all of the documents involved in the censoring of Gerberding's testimony, setting up yet another collision between Congressional demands for transparency and the Bush administration's reliance on extreme secrecy.

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Congrats to Al Gore and the IPCC!

richardbell — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 10:58:33 -0700

Great news from Norway this morning: the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 would be split "... between the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr. for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."

The Nobel Committee left no doubt that this award was intended as a spur action:

By awarding the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 to the IPCC and Al Gore, the Norwegian Nobel Committee is seeking to contribute to a sharper focus on the processes and decisions that appear to be necessary to protect the world’s future climate, and thereby to reduce the threat to the security of mankind. Action is necessary now, before climate change moves beyond man’s control.

Here's Al Gore's statement from his blog:

I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. This award is even more meaningful because I have the honor of sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change--the world's pre-eminent scientific body devoted to improving our understanding of the climate crisis--a group whose members have worked tirelessly and selflessly for many years. We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level.

My wife, Tipper, and I will donate 100 percent of the proceeds of the award to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a bipartisan non-profit organization that is devoted to changing public opinion in the U.S. and around the world about the urgency of solving the climate crisis.

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Markey's Select Committee Blasts Lomborg Op-Ed

richardbell — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 06:34:41 -0700

After his opening shot at Lomborg's op-ed in Sunday's Washington-Post, Rep. Markey has had the staff of his Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming prepare a detailed refutation of the claims Lomborg makes in this article, many of which even a high school intern at the Post's fact-checking department could have found.

Here's one example from the Committee's analysis:

Lomborg: "according to a wealth of scientific literature," damage from a ton of carbon is $2.

Rather than a wealth of scientific, this $2 figure appears to come from Lomborg pressing one economist as related on page 31 of his book Cool It. In reality the academic literature shows a wide range of estimated costs of the damage from a ton of carbon ($16 - $62 per ton), with the cost increasing over time and as heat-trapping gases accumulate in the atmosphere.

Markey has been a crusader in Congress for more than 3 decades for better energy policies, and has been the most devastating critic in both Houses of Congress of the fiscal, environmental, and nonproliferation threats of investing in nuclear power. The Select Committee's website is new, but is already a site for anyone interested in stopping climate change.

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Markey Calls Out Lomborg in the Washington Post

richardbell — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 21:22:27 -0700

In an act of editorial irresponsibility, the Washington Post gave over the better portion of the front page of its Sunday "Outlook" editorial section to an article by Bjorn Lomborg, under the title "Chill Out. Stop fighting over global warming--here's the smart way to attack it." The paper featured a giant photo of two of Lomborg's totem animal, the polar bear. The article was Lomborg's usual misleading fare, without even a scintilla of response to the devastating criticism of his work over the last two months (see the reviews on this site for examples.)

Looking at Lomborg's article and its display, you would think that no one at the Post has access to Google. The article is an insult to all of the scientists and journalists who have taken the trouble to expose the misleading arguments in Lomborg's work. How, for example, could anyone authorize using polar bears to illustrate such a spread after reading Kevin Burger's devastating interview with Lomborg in Salon, an interview that ran on August 29, more than a month ago? Burger had done his own peer review of the literature on polar bears, which enabled Burger to show that Lomborg had ignored findings that did not fit his rosy picture of the polar bears' future, and that Lomborg had doctored a key quote by eliminating a phrase that would have weakened Lomborg's case.

In light of his admissions to Burger on this point, Lomborg's unaltered repetition of his polar bear argument in the Post is an act of shamelessness. Real scientists correct their work when their peers demonstrate mistakes, errors, or omissions. Lomborg does not. Publicly correcting his errors on polar bears would destroy the first chapter of his book, which would in turm cast doubt on the rest of the work.

Representative Ed Markey (D-MA), the head of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, got off a reply press release Sunday afternoon taking Lomborg to task for offering what Markey called "false choices" and ignoring the high costs of inaction. Here is Markey's release in full:

Markey: False Choices on World's Challenges Solves Nothing: Lomborg Op-ed ignores Steep Cost of Inaction

WASHINGTON (October 7, 2007) –
Chairman Edward J. Markey of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming criticized Bjorn Lomborg’s op-ed in today’s Washington Post as pushing false choices in the fight to solve our world’s greatest challenges.

The economist Sir Nicholas Stern has found that every dollar invested now to curb global warming will avoid a cost of five to twenty times more than if global warming pollution is left unchecked.

Below is the statement of Chairman Markey:

“Mr. Lomborg would have us treat symptoms--more malaria--instead of the disease--heat-trapping carbon pollution--because he views it as cheaper in the short run. The most thorough economic analysis to date of the cost of capping carbon emissions versus the cost of not doing so says this ratio is 1 to 5. For every dollar invested now, we are preventing 5 being spent later to head off this disaster. Mr. Lomborg’s answers are penny-wise, pound foolish, and a prescription for widespread calamity in areas of the world least responsible for the problem and least able to avoid it.

“Mr. Lomborg seems to think there are limits to ingenuity, compassion, and action. These are renewable resources that only increase with the size and importance of the challenges we face. We can fight malaria while cutting the emissions that cause more infectious diseases. We can save low-lying countries while stopping the sea-level rise that threaten their very existence.

“Lomborg's fog of false choices can obscure real solutions, solutions we know are available today. It's time to make a positive choice toward a cleaner, safer, more prosperous world.”

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

"He should know how the numbers work"

richardbell — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 08:16:11 -0700

Post Carbon's most far-flung staffer is Andi Hazelwood, who manages PC's Global Public Media site from her home in Australia. Yesterday she caught up with Dr. Tim Flannery, Australian author of The Weather Makers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change , and got his latest take on the reception of Lomborg's Cool It. Here's a transcript of the exchange--you can listen to the whole interview on Global Public Media.

Hazelwood:"Even with issues we're already facing due to climate change, Bjorn Lomborg's very popular new book tells us that it's not all that bad. Will this damage your efforts at all?"

Flannery: "It could, because Bjorn Lomborg is telling very much a half truth there. He's taking, really, the lower end of the risk profile and saying, you know, that's what we're facing. In fact there is a broad band of probabilities and here in Australia we're seeing events, you know, at the very upper end of that band. So I'm not comfortable that we're not facing quite significant change in the future. And Lomborg's a statistician, he should know that. He should know how the numbers work and I think he's deliberately misleading us in his new book, Cool It."

Flannery also wrote a review of Lomborg's book for the Washington Post in September where he noted that:

"The deepest flaw in Cool It is its failure to take into account the full range of future climate possibilities. The computer models project outcomes ranging from mild, which he acknowledges, to truly catastrophic, which he ignores."

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Say It Ain't So, Dilbert

richardbell — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 18:24:01 -0700

I love Dilbert. But after reading Dilbert creator Scott Adams' recent blog entry on Lomborg, I can see that Adams doesn't necessarily share Dilbert's wonderful skepticism when it comes to evaluating a salesman like Lomborg.

Adams saw Lomborg on Bill Maher's show, where Lomborg was appearing via satellite (Maher show transcript here). As per usual, Lomborg ran through his grossly misleading arguments about polar bears, and the like, all the while insisting that he brought "a sense of proportion" to the debate over climate change:

"And I'm saying climate change has good and bad things happening. Overall, there'll be more bad things than good things. But we both need to get a sense of proportion." [Click here for more on the fallacy of the Mythical Middle.]

Writing on the Dilbert blog, Adams finds Lomborg entirely reasonable, swallowing the Mythical Middle argument hook, line, and sinker:

"The Danish economist's argument doesn't fall into the established views about global warming. He wasn't denying it is happening, or denying humans are a major cause. But he also wasn't saying we should drive hybrid cars, since he thinks it won't be enough to help."

Notice how easily Adams slips into equating climate change deniers with people who promote driving hybrid cars, as if both groups were equally extreme, while Lomborg's analysis places him above this ignorant clash of armies in the night.

Since Dilbert the comic character usually keeps his wits about him, I can only conclude that, in one of those obscure signs of the true glory of human creativity, it's possible for a comic character to sometimes be smarter than his own creator.

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

When Is a Cowpat A Lump of Chocolate?

richardbell — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 19:39:55 -0700

Australian environmentalist Xavier Forrest (aka Harry Shortz) takes a spirited whack at the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) on his blog, Typing is Not Activism. Forrest goes after one of the fundamental goals of writers like Lomborg, the creation of doubt, and the complicity of mainstream media in not rejecting, or at least clearly identifying, the distortions Lomborg presents.

"What all lobbyists for unpopular causes aim to do is to create doubt- if not actual doubt, the appearance of doubt will do just fine. Confusion is a beneficial side effect, as are hesitation, anxiety, ridicule, resentment, resistance, conflict - ooh, conflict. Conflict is gold. [Emphasis in original]....

"Lomborg, like any lobbyist for a thoroughly erroneous position, must argue that a cowpat is in fact a lump of chocolate. In our self-defeating state of confusion as to the purpose of tolerance and plurality, we accept this as a viewpoint to be aired, one which by its very existence indicates the need for a reasonable delay before committing to a course of action.

"But it’s not chocolate. It never will be chocolate. The time for considering that it may be a lump of chocolate is long gone. All that Lomborg and his ilk really offer is more bullshit and the fact that they call it anything else is the context in which his efforts should be presented by his host - in this case SMH."

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Around the Web

richardbell — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 15:24:41 -0700

The number of blogs and websites covering climate change has exploded, and the list below is in no way intended to be exhaustive. Please use the Comments below to share the URLs of sites that you use and why you like those sites.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENERGY NEWS SITES

Energy Bulletin

Energy Bulletin is my favorite one-stop daily news site for energy updates. The editors do a great job of sifting through the issues and picking out the day's most important developments, as well as pulling together stories about emerging trends.

The Oil Drum: Discussions About Energy and Our Future

The Oil Drum is one of the most widely read energy sites, a group blog whose readers leave very well-informed comments on a wide spectrum of energy issues.

Daily Kos Energy Writers

A. Siegel and The Cunctator post frequent reports on climate change on the very busy Daily Kos news site. Siegel also hosts his Energy Smart blog. The Cunctator posts the most complete and up-to-date schedules of U.S. House and Senate hearings on all energy issues, as well as hosting Hill Heat, a separate website covering global warming developments on Capitol Hill. Also see reports from Jerome a Paris, who provides a European perspective.

Global Public Media

Global Public Media, founded in 2001, is an internet broadcasting station streaming long format audio and video interviews with leading researchers in
developing alternative technologies, urban planning, and social
arrangements to deal with the intertwined problems of climate change and Peak Oil. GPM is a project of the Post Carbon Institute, the sponsor of this site.

SCIENCE, POLITICS, AND PR

DeSmogBlog

DeSmogBlog is dedicated to clearing "the PR pollution that is clouding the science on climate change." Co-founder Jim Hoggan, president of a Canadian PR firm, knows whereof he speaks. See his manifesto "Slamming the Climate Skeptic Scam."

Chris Mooney

Chris Mooney covers the intersection of science, politics, and media. He is the author of The Republican War on Science, and the recently published Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming. He blogs at Intersection.

CLIMATE CHANGE ORGANIZATIONS

It's Getting Hot In Here

It’s Getting Hot in Here is a student-oriented global online community focused on stopping global warming. IGHH is one of more than 40 groups that belong to a larger Energy Action Coalition.

Step It Up

Step It Up is a new national organization founded by author and now activist Bill McKibben. After having written a widely acclaimed series of powerful books about the world's growing environmental problems, McKibben has stepped out from behind his computer and launched Step It Up, which will be holding its 2nd round of national actions on November 3, 2007.

Al Gore and An Inconvenient Truth

Al Gore and the various incarnations of An Inconvenient Truth have done as much as anyone or anything (excepting Hurricane Katrina) to change the debate about climate change and move people towards taking action: "Political will is a renewable resource."

CLIMATE CHANGE LEGISLATION

Energize America

Online groups activists on Daily Kos worked together to create Energize America, a comprehensive 20-point plan to get the U.S. off fossil fuels, with a
2020 deadline for energy security, and a 2040 deadline for "energy
freedom." This plan is the most sophisticated product of what might be called citizen legislators (in keeping with citizen journalists.)

Climate Progress: An Insider's View of Climate Science, Politics and Solutions

Insider is right. Climate Progress is the blog of Joe Romm, currently a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.
During the Clinton Administration, Joe was acting assistant secretary
of energy for energy efficiency and
renewable energy, so he knows his way around the inner corridors of the
overlapping federal agencies that handle climate issues.

GREEN BUSINESS

Greenbiz.com

Joel Makower was once a voice crying in the wilderness, but he is now chairman and executive editor of Greener World Media, Inc., which publishes Greenbiz.com, one of the leading voices for green businesses since 2000. GWM also publishes Climatebiz.com, a free (no nasty firewalls here), Web-based resource to help companies of all sizes and sectors understand and address climate change.

PEAK OIL

The Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas--USA

The Association for the Study of Peak Oil&Gas--USA is the premier U.S. organization looking at the problem of peak oil, the point at which the world will have pumped half of all the world's oil reserves. The U.S. peak was in 1970-71, and many geologists believe that we are either at or close to a world peak, after which the price of oil will escalate rapidly. ASPO-USA publishes a great daily and weekly review of energy news, edited by Tom Whipple.

The Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas

The Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas is the international home for more than 10 national ASPO organizations.Sign up for a newsletter here edited by Dr. Colin Campbell, one of the founders of the study of peak oil and gas.

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

How Long Does It Take for the Truth to Get Its Pants On?

richardbell — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 10:13:53 -0700

Kudos to Amanda Witherell at the San Francisco Bay Guardian for her long article on Lomborg and Cool It. She raises a question that always comes up around discussing a politician or a position with whom you disagree. Are we giving unnecessary publicity to this person by taking on his/her arguments in public forums like this website, or should we spending our time instead on positive alternatives. In the final sentence of the piece, Witherell concludes that:

"... Cool It becomes more of a distraction than a contribution at a time when environmentalists
should be busy promoting solutions, not debunking the carefully crafted fables of Lomborg's dollar-driven theses."

It's a good question, especially for this site! If only ignoring the arguments of fabulists like Lomborg were sufficient to make them go away, to prevent them from getting their message in front of people. As a matter of grand strategy, it would be a mistake to assume that every attack has to be met with a massive counterattack. There are times when it's better to let sleeping dogs lie, or least to wait a bit and see if the dogs bother to get up off the porch and start heading for the yard.

But in a 24/7 media world, the waiting-to-respond strategy has a nasty way of turning around and biting you. False claims move as quickly as true ones: to quote an old adage attributed to Churchill (and he didn't have the Internet!):

"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."

How can you tell when a lie is gaining traction? It was harder in Churchill's day. Now you can just pull up Amazon and see exactly how well a book like Cool It is doing. At 1:04 PM EDT today, Lomborg's book was at #108 overall on Amazon, and continued to lead Amazon's rankings for books on Public Policy, Climate Changes, and Conservation.

As to Witherell's point about solutions, you can do both. Just because you're raising questions about what Steven Colbert so aptly calls the "truthiness" of a book like Cool It doesn't mean you can't promote solid information and real solutions--see the Climate Change Resources section for an expanding list of books, DVDs, and websites that treat climate change as a very serious problem that we can solve if we get started quickly. (BTW, "truthiness" was Merriam-Webster's 2006 "Word of the Year.")

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

McKibben "Eviscerates" Cool It

richardbell — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 02:44:47 -0700

Bill McKibben takes Cool It apart in the latest issue of the New York Review of Books. (The article was online earlier by special permission of the NYR on Grist. Thank the editor of the NYR for letting Grist rush this article into print. Also note that you can leave questions until September 28th for McKibben to answer on the NYR site here.)

McKibben, who debated Lomborg last May, does not think much of Lomborg's work, from The Skeptical Environmentalist on. Lomborg's arguments are:

"...tendentious and partisan in particularly narrow ways....Lomborg's actual arguments turn out to be weak, a farrago of straw men and carefully selected, shopworn data that holds up poorly in light of the most recent research, both scientific and economic."

McKibben notes Lomborg's frequent appearances on right-wing radio and TV programs, and his appearance before Congress as a rebuttal to Al Gore earlier this year, an appearance arranged by Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), best known for his claim that "global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."

McKibben is especially good at showing how the most recent reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) "eviscerates Lomborg's argument " that there's not much we can do about global warming and doing anything would cost too much.

I love McKibben's use of language. "Eviscerate" doesn't leave much to the imagination, does it?

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Welcome to Putting the Heat on Lomborg

richardbell — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 01:20:14 -0700

There’s a new entrant into the long and twisted struggle to prevent the people of the world from fully appreciating and acting on the threat of global warming: a book by Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg called Cool It: A Skeptical Environmentalist Looks at Global Warming.

On this webpage, we seek your help in building a thorough archive of the book’s factual distortions, misquotations, and misleading arguments. The book is already a big seller in the U.S., so there is every reason to push back hard against the insidious and distorting impact it will have on the prospects for taking strong, immediate steps to stop global warming.

We also will use this book and its coverage in mainstream media to better understand how political struggles over science-based issues play out in today’s world, a case-study unrolling in real time.

We welcome your participation! Join in the conversation, share your ideas, and use the links to other organizations and resources wherever you are working to stop global warming, at home, school, church, workplace, or community.

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Q2. But it’s just a book

richardbell — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 20:00:05 -0700

Yes, it’s just a book, but it’s a book that is going to have an impact on the public debate. Look at the sales numbers for this book: On September 23rd at 7:05 PM EDT, Amazon.com reported that Cool It was the 85th most popular book of all the books the company was selling at that moment.

And the book topped Amazon’s lists for books in these 3 important categories of public debate over global warming:
#1 in Books > Science > Earth Sciences > Climatology > Climate Changes
#1 in Books > Outdoors & Nature > Environment > Conservation
#1 in Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Political Science > Public Policy

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Good Books and DVDs

richardbell — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 19:20:52 -0700

Authors and videographers are producing a torrent of good books on global warming and how to change the world to stop a disasterous increase in the temperature of our planet. If you've got a favorite book or DVD that's not on this list, please post a comment with the name and a sentence or two about why you like it. (Yes, we know, there's lots of things not on this list yet!) Most of the links below will take you to pages focused either on the book or DVD or the author.

The Weather Makers: How Man is Changing the Climate and What It Means, by Tim Flannery (2006)

Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming, by Chris Mooney

Boiling Point: How Politicians, Big Oil and Coal, Journalists and Activists Are Fueling the Climate Crisis--And What We Can Do to Avert Disaster, by Ross Gelbspan

An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It, by Al Gore

Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change, by Elizabeth Kolbert

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Q3. How can this website help me be a better communicator about the dangers of global warming?

richardbell — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 20:28:57 -0700

This website is focused on Lomborg’s book because the book shows us what arguments the opponents of taking action on global warming think are the most effective in today’s world. By teasing out these arguments, we can “reverse engineer” the millions of dollars in polling and market research which right-wing think tanks have done to discover the rhetorical weak points in the public debate over global warming.

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Q4. Is Lomborg just another global warming denier?

richardbell — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 19:59:00 -0700

Lomborg represents a new generation of deniers. The first generation denied that global warming was happening at all. When too much evidence came in, 2nd generation deniers appeared. They argued that global warming was happening, but that human activities had nothing to do with. The evidence has overwhelmed this position. Now we have Lomborg pioneering a 3rd generation denial argument. He says global warming is happening, human activities are at least in part responsible, but that the threat of global warming is over-rated, and might even be good for us.

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Q6. What’s your position on global warming?

richardbell — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 19:57:00 -0700

I believe that the overwhelming and ever-increasing body of scientific knowledge shows that global warming is taking place, that human activities are increasing the rate of global warming, and that the failure to stop global warming will cause large, unpredictable, and potentially devastating changes in the atmosphere and on the earth. As for my own environmental and political policy background, I was vice president for communications at the Worldwatch Institute in the late 1990s, research director at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and interactive media director at the Democratic National Committee. I was active in the antinuclear power movement in New England in the late 1970s (the Clamshell Alliance), and the nuclear freeze movement in the early 1980s. In 1982, I won the National Council of Teachers of English George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language for Nukespeak: Nuclear Language, Myths, and Mindset, a book I co-authored for Sierra Club Books with Stephen Hilgartner and Rory O'Connor.

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Q7. What makes you so sure you’re right?

richardbell — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 19:56:00 -0700

I base my views on the overwhelming scientific consensus that global warming is a very serious problem. This consensus has become stronger as more data have come in, as demonstrated in the most recent updates from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC’s reports are based on input from a broad range of disciplines and go through a rigorous peer-review process, a process that is inherently conservative, in the sense of eliminating extreme examples on which there is no scientific consensus.

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Q8. What’s the fundamental misleading argument in Lomborg’s book?

richardbell — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 19:55:00 -0700

The fundamental misleading argument in Lomborg’s analysis is his assertion of a phony “center” or “middle” occupied by the clear-thinking author, surrounded to his left by people who want to take immediate action against global warming (“extremists”), and to his right by people who deny that global warming is happening (“deniers.”). The metaphor suggests an old-time balance beam, with Lomborg balancing carefully in the middle between equal but opposing forces.

But in science, one is looking not for balance, but for the best possible explanation of the phenomenon at hand. If the evidence suggests that global warming is happening, then in the end, there is no “center” no “middle” position. Lomborg’s use of this metaphor has the effect of confusing his readers, because only a small number of scientists disagree with the IPCC consensus that global warming requires our species to make an unprecedented effort to stop before we cause irreparable damage to the entire planet.

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Q9. Where did Bjorn Lomborg come from?

richardbell — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 19:54:00 -0700

For this one, I’m going to ask you to read a piece I wrote in 2002 while I was at the Worldwatch Institute, when Lomborg had just burst onto the scene with the publication of his first book, The Skeptical Environmentalist. Lomborg took on almost all of the major environmental issues at the time, claiming that his reading of the data (he was a statistician) revealed that the planet was in much better shape than the environmental groups would have us believe. Scientists from the various fields blasted Lomborg’s claims. Scientific American even put out a special issue taking Lomborg to task. Click here to read “Media Sheep: How did The Skeptical Environmentalist pull the wool over the eyes of so many editors?"

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Q10. Why is Lomborg’s first chapter about polar bears? I thought polar bears were in grave danger from the melting of the Arctic

richardbell — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 19:53:00 -0700

The image of polar bears setting out in the open ocean towards ice floes too far for them to reach has become the most emotionally powerful image of global warming and the horror of the massive extinction of species that global warming will accelerate.

Given the power of the drowned polar bear metaphor, Lomborg had to disarm this image first to protect the rest of his arguments.

Lomborg cites studies showing that the number of polar bears has increased from 5,000 in the 1960s to 25,000 today, a gain he attributes to “stricter hunting regulation.” As sea ice disappears, polar bears “may eventually decline, though dramatic declines seem unlikely.” He quotes a single Canadian government polar-bear biologist, who tells Lomborg that polar bears “are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at the present.” And as for the photos of floating dead bears, “Actually, there was a single sighting of four dead bears the day after ‘an abrupt windstorm’ in an area housing one of the increasing bear populations.”

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Q11. So is Lomborg not giving the whole truth about what’s happening with polar bears?

richardbell — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 19:52:00 -0700

No.

In a late August interview in Salon with Lomborg, David Berger methodically destroys Lomborg’s argument about polar bears. This exchange shows a number of the techniques Lomborg uses throughout the book, including downplaying scientific findings, doctoring quotes, and the reliance on a single expert who just happens to agree with Lomborg’s position.

For those of you who are interested in any kind of journalism--citizen journalism, mainstream journalism, etc.--this piece is an outstanding example of why it is so important for reporters of whatever stripe to do good research before sitting down with someone for an interview. (I know, some of you are saying, Duh, but all too often, editors give reporters far too little time to research a complex story like this one adequately. As a result, it's easy for the subject to get away with assertions that slide by the underprepared interviewer. Kudos to David Berger (and Salon) for having enough facts in hand to expose the gaping crevasses beneath Lomborg's smooth prose.

Here’s the exchange with Berger:

Berger: You start "Cool It" by boldly stating that polar bears illustrate the exaggerated claims about global warming. You write that polar bears "may eventually decline, though dramatic declines seem unlikely." Yet the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report, which you use to support your thesis, concludes: "As the amount of sea ice decreases, seals, walrus, polar bears and other ice-dependent species will suffer drastically." Don't you think that sounds like there will be dramatic declines?

Lomborg: I'm just saying that it will be harder for the polar bears but that they will not decline, and they're not going to be extinct or even appear to be affected at present.[the downplay scientific findings gambit--RB]

Berger: But according to the report, they are showing signs of decline, and decreasing sea ice does threaten extinction. You write that what the Polar Bear Specialist Group of the World Conservation Union, whose research fed the Arctic climate report, "told us was that of the 20 distinct subpopulations of polar bears, one or possibly two were declining in Baffin Bay; more than half were known to be stable; and two subpopulations were actually increasing around the Beaufort Sea."

About bears in the Beaufort Sea area, the report says that "declines in cub survival, and other ecological evidence are consistent with a changing sub-population status. Also, observations of changes in polar bear body condition and unusual hunting behaviours in polar bears (e.g. cannibalism, digging through solid ice to find seals) suggest a sub-population that may be under nutritional stress. These observations parallel those made in western Hudson Bay, where changes in sea ice, caused by warmer temperatures, have caused sub-population reductions. These observations, therefore, mandate increased vigilance in the southern Beaufort Sea region." That doesn't sound stable to me.

Lomborg: My sense, as I read this, is that it may be a problem for polar bears, but we do not see this in the data now, and that it certainly does not seem reasonable to assume that they will go extinct. They may go down in size, but what we've seen over the last 40 years is actually a dramatic increase in the number of polar bears.

Berger: But you are making the point that a stable polar bear population is a sign that global warming is overblown. But it's not stable.

Lomborg: No. I'm saying that if we believe the strong assumption that this is all due to climate change, then we will see declines. But it seems unlikely that we are going to see dramatic declines, as has been posited. What we're likely to see is a decline in some populations, but we haven't seen that decline in all populations. Moreover, we can much better deal with this through regulation of hunting of polar bears. That's basically the main point of the whole story. That we worry about helping them very little through climate change policies, whereas we could help them an enormous amount, if we wanted to, through cessation of shooting them. In the Hudson Bay, the best-studied area, 16 bears are dying from climate change, but we're shooting 49. Maybe we should stop shooting 49 and that would be a much better way of helping the bears. By trying to help through climate change policies, we can only save about .06 bears a year.

Berger: That just seems so shortsighted, Bjørn. The report concludes: "Future challenges for conserving polar bears and their Arctic habitat will be greater than at any time in the past because of the rapid rate at which environmental change appears to be occurring." Now, you write that polar bears "will increasingly take up a lifestyle similar to that of brown bears." Then, in a footnote, you quote from the report: "The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment finds it likely that disappearing ice will make polar bears take up 'a terrestrial summer lifestyle similar to that of brown bears, from which they evolved.'" Are you saying that polar bears will be OK, that the species will survive if they evolve backward?

Lomborg: Yes, that's certainly how I read it.

Berger: But you edited the quote. [the edited quote gambit--RB] The whole thing goes like this: "It is difficult to envisage the survival of polar bears as a species given a zero summer sea-ice scenario. Their only option would be a terrestrial summer lifestyle similar to that of brown bears, from which they evolved. In such a case, competition, risk of hybridization with brown bears and grizzly bears, and increased interactions with people would then number among the threats to polar bears." That sounds like the species faces much more dire chances to survive, wouldn't you say?

Lomborg: They're saying that it's difficult. Their only option would be this summer lifestyle. So this is what they can do. Yes, this is not going to be easy, but this is exactly what they can do.
Berger: It's possible. But Ian Stirling of the Canadian Wildlife Service, who studies polar bears, has said: "We have seen with our own eyes that climatic warming is causing the ice to break up earlier, and that is affecting the survival of the bears." He stipulates that climate change is happening too fast for the bears to revert to a summer lifestyle. "They don't have time to evolve backwards."

Lomborg: OK. But I've talked to a different expert [my single expert trumps all other scientific findings gambit--RB] that's up in Greenland, who works for the Danish government, and he has looked over my chapter, and said that it's OK.

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Q12. What else did Lomborg get wrong about polar bears?

richardbell — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 19:49:00 -0700

Over at Grist, Joseph Romm has also been sniffing around Lomborg’s polar bear chapter. Like Daniel Berger at Salon (see Question 11), Romm has also done his homework, reeling off study after study that make mincemeat of Lomborg’s claim. (“Debunking Bjorn Lomborg: Part 1: The great polar bear irony,” September 18, 2007). For example, Romm cites a recent U.S. Geological Survey report on the state of polar bears, which concludes:

“Projected changes in future sea ice conditions, if realized, will result in loss of approximately 2/3 of the world’s current polar bear population by the mid 21st century. Because the observed trajectory of Arctic sea ice decline appears to be underestimated by currently available models, this assessment of future polar bear status may be conservative.”

You can read more of Romm's coverage of polar bears, global warming, and Lomborg here and here.

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Q13. Didn’t anyone check over Lomborg’s claims?

richardbell — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 19:48:00 -0700

Lomborg credits a few people by name for having read and responded to some or all of the book. In a curious aside in the acknowledgments, Lomborg says that “For various reasons, many [of the climate scientists and social scientists Lomborg says read the book] did not want to be thanked.”

Why not? One of the foundations of science is transparency. It would be helpful to know exactly which climate scientists and social scientists reviewed the book before publication, and what kinds of suggestions or criticism they offered.

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Q14. Was there any formal peer-review of Lomborg’s book?

richardbell — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 19:47:00 -0700

Lomborg does not mention having submitted his book to any kind of formal peer-review process.

The book's U.S. publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, is in business of making money, not publishing peer-reviewed scientific literature. Knopf could have checked Lomborg’s facts; the New Yorker magazine is renown for its fact-checking department. But fact-checking costs money. So the reader is on her own, stuck with some of the smallest-type footnotes that I have ever seen in a mass market hardback. Few readers have the time to go through the references to discover Lomborg’s distortions and quotes edited to favor his argument. (See Q11 above for an example.)

For reasons that are not very explained, the Knopf American edition is considerably shorter than the edition published in Britain. The American edition lacks some of the more scholarly apparatus of the British version, including charts and graphs. Perhaps Knopf thought that American readers would turn away from such stuff, finding the book too fusty and academic.

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Media Sheep: How did The Skeptical Environmentalist pull the wool over the eyes of so many editors?

richardbell — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 08:03:20 -0700

by Richard Bell, World Watch Magazine, March/April 2002
Last summer, a now-infamous book called The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World caused a great splash in the media. Written by a young Danish statistician, it was presented as a shocking reexamination of the “facts” about the world's great environmental issues-it claimed that environmental scientists and organizations were falsely alarming the public about such problems as global warming, deforestation, and pollution. The gist of the book, echoing a now-familiar claim of the late Julian Simon and such right-wing organizations as the Competitive Enterprise Institute, was that whatever environmental problems exist will solve themselves, and no interventions by governments are needed.
Serious environmental scientists who looked into the book to find out how the author had come to such conclusions quickly dismissed it as a foolish polemic written by a non-scientist, and did not bother to respond to it. Much to their dismay, however, editors at the Economist, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and the New York Times all published glowing reviews by writers who were apparently unfamiliar (whether willfully or through lack of reading) with what peer-reviewed scientists say. Taking Lomborg's words at face value, the world's media jumped on the bandwagon, issuing a plethora of derivative stories "revealing" that Lomborg had exposed environmentalists as wrong about virtually everything they were saying.
These stories took environmental scientists by surprise (most had never been asked by the reporters for their views), and months passed before the scientists realized they would have to respond-or else watch Lomborg's claims confuse legislators and regulators, and poison the well of public environmental information.
But respond they did, demonstrating in field after field that it is Lomborg's book, not the work of tens of thousands of their colleagues, that has duped the public. On these three pages, we have summarized just a few of the main claims Lomborg makes, and what the experts have to say about them. The summaries are followed by some brief comments about how such a fraud could have occurred, and what dangers it signals about how environmental information is being disseminated to the public in today's media.
Lomborg's Claims-and the Scientists' Responses
On Forest Cover
Lomborg writes that according to what he calls “the longest data series” available, forest cover has expanded since 1950. To make this claim, he uses an agricultural data series that the U.N. discontinued in 1994 because of inaccuracies, according to the head of the U.N.'s Forest Resources Assessment, who also notes that this agriculture production data was never intended to determine forest cover in the first place.
The record: The U.N.'s Forest Resources Assessment actually says that since 1980 an average of 16 million hectares of natural forest has been converted to other uses each year. During the 1990s alone, the assessment reports that the world lost 4.2 percent of its natural forests. And because the U.N. only reports what has been permanently converted, not what is logged and left to, perhaps, regenerate, the actual amount is much greater. According to the World Resources Institute, “almost half the world's original forest is gone, much of it since 1970.”
On Fisheries
Lomborg writes that “marine productivity has almost doubled since 1970.”
The record: Eleven of the world's 15 most important fishing areas have declined in fish populations, and catches of the most commercially valuable species have declined by one-fourth since 1970. Lomborg's deceptive “doubling” is based on the fact that fishing operations now rely heavily on landing species that were considered “trash” in the 1970s, and on landing juveniles because the full-sized fish are now increasingly scarce. (See also this issue's Environmental Intelligence disclosure that much of the presumed increase in global productivity was based on falsified data issued by Chinese government officials.)
On Biodiversity
Lomborg says that biodiversity loss will be “0.7 percent over the next 50 years.”
The record: Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson notes that even the most conservative species extinction rates published by authorities in the field are at least 10 times higher than that.
On Global Warming
Lomborg claims, repeatedly, that the Kyoto Agreement to reduce CO2 emissions is a waste of time and money because it would not prevent global warming, but merely “buy the world six years." He cites calculations that if the Kyoto agreement were implemented in full, "the temperature increase that the planet would have experienced in 2094 would be postponed to 2100.”
The record: This argument is a classic straw man. The treaty does not cover a 100-year span; it goes only through 2012. Everyone involved in the Kyoto process knows that the agreement falls far short of forcing the deep cuts in CO2 emissions that are necessary to significantly slow global warming over the next century, and that the Kyoto agreement is only a first step, not a 100-year policy.
On Water
Lomborg says that we do not have to worry about running out of fresh water because we will be able to cheaply desalinize ocean water. To support this claim he says that the “price today to desalt sea water is down to 50-80 cents per cubic meter.”
The record: Peter Gleick, one of the world's leading experts on fresh water, notes that Lomborg's “price today” is an estimate based on a plant that has not yet been built. The actual prices for desalination, on which scientists have worked for many years, are between $1 and $2 per cubic meter, and “even if they were to drop by a factor of two, they would remain well out of reach of most water users.”
How Did This Happen?
It has been said that it is easier for a very respectable-looking man in a suit to steal $10 million by sitting down with a bank officer than for a shabbily dressed man with a gun to rob one percent of that amount from a teller. In the Lomborg case, what may have thrown book review editors off at first was that the book was published by Cambridge University Press-one of the most hallowed names in scientific publishing. In retrospect, though, it appears that someone did an “end run” around Cambridge's usually rigorous procedures. Lomborg's book was not published by the natural sciences division of the press, whose editors would have quickly identified the book's ineptness. Instead, the project was quietly spirited through the social sciences division, reportedly without the natural sciences people even knowing of its existence until late in the game. Why that happened is a story waiting to be uncovered.
Then, once the book came out, there was the appeal of Lomborg's utopian refrain that any problems that do exist will easily be solved by future technology or future human ingenuity-and that no present intervention is therefore needed. This argument is music to the ears of the many business interests who oppose government regulations or interventions. The industry-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute, one of the leading right-wing opponents of the Kyoto process (and, indeed, of all efforts to reduce fossil fuel emissions to slow global warming), rolled out the red carpet for Lomborg when he came to Washington last fall on his book tour. On October 4, a CEI-sponsored anti-Kyoto group, the Cooler Heads Coalition, hosted a congressional and media briefing for Lomborg at the U.S. Capitol.
Finally, there was the problem of media obliviousness to the process of scientific review. You might expect that publications reviewing the book would seek out leading scientists in all the relevant fields, especially when the author himself was “not myself an expert as regards environmental problems.” But instead of seeking scientists with a critical perspective, many publications put out reviews by people who were closely associated with Lomborg. In the October 2 Wall Street Journal, the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Ronald Bailey (who had earlier written a book called The True State of the World, from which much of Lomborg's claims were taken) wrote a rave review of Lomborg's book, calling it “superbly documented and readable.”
The Washington Post supplement Sunday Book World took a tack that was a bit more difficult to detect, assigning the book review to Dennis Dutton, identified as “a professor of philosophy who lectures on the dangers of pseudoscience at the science faculties of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand,” and as the editor of the web site, Arts and Letters Daily. The Post did not tell its readers that Dutton's web site features links to the Global Climate Coalition, an anti-Kyoto consortium of oil and coal businesses, and to the messages of Julian Simon-the man whose denial that global warming was occurring apparently gave Lomborg the idea for his book in the first place. It was hardly surprising that Dutton anointed Lomborg's book as “the most significant work on the environment since the appearance of its polar opposite, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, in 1962. It's a magnificent achievement.”
At Worldwatch, we had direct experience with the failure of the media to check out Lomborg's "facts." In July of 2001, Nicholas Wade of the science section of the New York Times called Worldwatch and asked for our response to Lomborg's book, including his claim that global forest cover was not decreasing.
As it happens, Worldwatch senior researcher Janet Abramovitz is well versed in this area. She explained to Wade that Lomborg was using discontinued data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization that was never intended to measure forest cover in the first place. She gave Wade the name and phone number of the official in charge of these statistics at FAO in Rome, so that Wade could check whether Lomborg's choice and interpretation of the data were correct. But Wade told Abramovitz that he “did not have time to check every original data source.”
More than three weeks went by, however, before the New York Times story appeared. Wade wrote that Lomborg had used “the longest data series of annual figures available” from the FAO to show that forest cover had increased slightly between 1950 and 1994-the very data series that Abramovitz had warned Wade was incorrect. After the article appeared, the FAO official confirmed to Worldwatch that Wade never called to check whether Lomborg was using the right data.
The Full Critiques
Harvard's Edward O. Wilson expressed the exasperation of many of his colleagues when he wrote: “My greatest regret about the Lomborg scam is the extraordinary amount of scientific talent that has to be expended to combat it in the media. We will always have contrarians like Lomborg whose sallies are characterized by willful ignorance, selective quotations, disregard for communications with genuine experts, and destructive campaigns to attract the attention of the media rather than scientists. They are the parasite load on scholars who earn success through the slow process of peer review and approval.”
Nonetheless, many scientists took time away from their studies to set the record straight about what the condition of the world is-and what work must be done to achieve a sustainable future. Here's where you can find the most comprehensive critiques of Lomborg's claims in each of the major environmental fields covered (or not covered, in some cases) by The Skeptical Environmentalist:
Scientific American, January 2002: “Misleading Math about the Earth: Science defends itself against The Skeptical Environmentalist,” with articles by Stephen Schneider on global warming, John P. Holdren on energy, John Bongaarts on population, and Thomas Lovejoy on biodiversity.
Nature, 8 November 2001, pp. 149-50, volume 414: “No need to worry about the future,” Stuart Pimm and Jeff Harvey.
Science, 9 November 2001, 294: 1285-87: Michael Grubb, “Relying on Manna from Heaven?”
Union of Concerned Scientists: “UCS Examines The Skeptical Environmentalist,” with articles by Peter Gleick on water, Jerry D. Mahlman on global warming, and E.O. Wilson, Thomas Lovejoy, Norman Myers, Jeffrey A. Harvey, and Stuart L. Pimm on biodiversity.

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Events

veggieryan — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 00:23:14 -0700

Richard.. please edit and put events here.

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Lomborg FAQ

veggieryan — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 00:05:19 -0700

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Sourcewatch

richardbell — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 18:59:05 -0700

Another general overview site of Lomborg's pre-Cool It career, produced by Sourcewatch, a project of the Center for Media and Democracy. Good collection of articles written by Lomborg, plus links to much criticism.

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Correcting Lomborg's Myths

richardbell — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 18:30:15 -0700

Jim Norton pulled together in one sprawling list many articles and links on Lomborg's first book, The Skeptical Environmentalist.

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

The Mythical "Middle"

richardbell — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 17:57:12 -0700

One of Lomborg's rhetorical conceits is his claim that he is standing in the middle between global warming "extremists" and global warming deniers. As the Wall Street Journal put it, "Standing in the practical middle is Bjorn Lomborg, the freethinking Dane...."

Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Bjorn Lomborg feels a chill

veggieryan — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 15:21:02 -0700

In an interview with Lomborg in Salon, Kevin Berger picks Lomborg apart. Especially good demolition of Lomborg's claim that global warming poses little threat to polar bears.