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Not one single paper asserting otherwise, huh?
http://www.lomborg.com/books.htm

http://www.lomborg.com/books.htm Or any of the following reviews or responses in Nature and Science?

http://www.lomborg.com/critique.htm

Oh right, those don't count because refuting environmental destruction claims isn't politically correct! Look, I don't agree with much of what Bjorn says, but the point is he compiled some statistics, came to some conclusions, and was then ostracized by the political machine for being "irresponsible" for advocating what a very liberal Euro nation dubbed "wreckless science". The critique of his science (that wasn't much of that) was second to the smear campaign leveled against him for being irresponsible. His work didn't "count" I guess in however cooked up his stupid statistic also.

This is the same thing John Stewart was talking about during his CNN Crossfire talk, we're so right or left now we can't have an honest debate about real issues, which we really need. No papers are published because its career death because a very liberal academia has decided anyone going against this trend is scum, without even looking at the science. Nature would not accept a paper from someone that claimed otherwise, but this is a debate we really need to have folks.

Jeff

http://www.lomborg.com/books.htm Or any of the following reviews or responses in Nature and Science?

http://www.lomborg.com/critique.htm

Oh right, those don't count because refuting environmental destruction claims isn't politically correct! Look, I don't agree with much of what Bjorn says, but the point is he compiled some statistics, came to some conclusions, and was then ostracized by the political machine for being "irresponsible" for advocating what a very liberal Euro nation dubbed "wreckless science". The critique of his science (that wasn't much of that) was second to the smear campaign leveled against him for being irresponsible. His work didn't "count" I guess in however cooked up his stupid statistic also.

This is the same thing John Stewart was talking about during his CNN Crossfire talk, we're so right or left now we can't have an honest debate about real issues, which we really need. No papers are published because its career death because a very liberal academia has decided anyone going against this trend is scum, without even looking at the science. Nature would not accept a paper from someone that claimed otherwise, but this is a debate we really need to have folks.

Jeff

What good is peer review when scientists are persecuted when they disagree with the scientific orthodoxy on the environment?

You might as well write a story saying all Republicans are stupid, ask 5 Democrats if they agree, and call it peer-reviewed when they say yes.

"global cooling"? At least that's the scare I remember when I was a kid. Chicken little science sure produces a lot of research grants and fame, and the people who get in the way get smeared.

Chalk up one more for these guys.

I gave up on SciAm after the nasty hatchet job they did on bjorn lomborg.

They used to have real live science; now it seems like it's politically biased in favor of the accepted dogma. Sad really.

And the Danish government? You can read about Bjorn Lomborg and the troubles he's faced in a number of places.

The more I see stories like this, the more I think it's time to (re)ask the question "what counts as a scientific claim?" When is it legitimate to claim an assertion as knowledge or fact or scientific? How much weight should such claims be given?

Consider the fate of Bjorn Lomborg, the author of the Skeptical Environmentalist. This man was beaten up by the environmental community and even his government. He was called unscientific. It was even suggested that because he is a statistician, he wasn't a "real" scientist - as if being a statistician meant spending all day taking the mean of 100 random numbers.

Yet, when it comes to issues concerning legitimate belief and knowledge, statistics has much more to say than physics, chemistry, or environmental science. Only in philosophy is there more discussion about what counts as legitimate belief or knowledge.

So again I ask, what counts as science? Do scientists even know? Are we at the point when we simply defer all judgement to people that call themselves scientists? Is science simply whatever such people say?

I hope not.

After Canada's ratification of the treaty in late 2002, environmentalists had every reason to believe that few climate experts would dare continue to publicly oppose Kyoto's science, Russia would quickly ratify the accord and it soon would become international law. Instead, as illustrated at this month's World Climate Change Conference in Moscow, exactly the opposite has happened. The growing number of scientists who dispute the treaty's scientific foundation have become increasingly vocal, regularly pushing their case in the media as groundbreaking studies continue to be published that pull the rug out from under Kyoto's shaky edifice.

Sounds to me like the author of this story on USA today probably never did any scientific research or even understood the basic theory of it; it's entirely expected that they'd continue to dispute it even more. The whole function of science is to "disprove" rather than "prove" things, that's why you have that carefully crafted thing called the "null" hypothesis, that people agonize over for ages, and that sounds something like... "there is no difference between A and B" (simplification) that you set out to disprove, so that if you get a difference you calculate the likelihood that such difference was the result of chance, and if such likelihood is very small and chance very improbable then that's the best of your evidence. The whole idea of "scientifically proven" is such a complete misnomer, there's nothing that's "scientifically proven", it's more that it's "null hypothesis" is "disproven", which again is no certain terms and just an exercise in probability and correlation, in engineering it might be up to 99% and in medicine it might be as low as 80%.

The other thing is... those of you who might find this story interesting might wanna have a look at the controversial work of Danish Statistician Bjorn Lomborg and his book; "the skeptical environmentalist, measuring the real state of the world". Just notice two things... like the key figure in this study, an economist, lomborg was neither an ecologist or an environmentalist, and just like him, if you read the reply of Professor Mann who aims to discredit the work of the authors of this study with quite apparent anger, Lomborg's work has been disputed heavily, and he even had things physically thrown at him by an academic scholar when he was invited to speak at Cambridge.

The swedes probably have a point! The major problem in making such a statement is that it will immediately be used as ammunition by "anti-recyclers". A similar issue arose when Bjorn Lomborg wrote "The Skeptical Environmentalist", claiming that the global environment was not getting worse. In both cases the statements probably have a lot of truth in them depending on interpretation, but the damage caused in the line of policy making is detrimental. The world really do not need people who will sign a carte blanche for policy makers for a few minutes of fame.

Just perusing the TechCentralStation link posted above and to Mr. Lomborg's page of links to critiques of his work on his site provides some more:

• Philip Stott, Emeritus Professor of Biogeography in the University of London
• Richard S. Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT
• Steve Budiansky, former Washington editor for Nature
• The leadership of the Danish Space Research Institute

In the meantime, you bring us critiques from `scientists' such as Steven Schneider, who famously told an interviewer from Discover magazine:

On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but - which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people, we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change. To do that, we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.

Now that's dishonesty and unscientific behavior. And to think that a man like that is accusing Lomborg...

Just perusing the TechCentralStation link posted above and to Mr. Lomborg's page of links to critiques of his work on his site provides some more:

• Philip Stott, Emeritus Professor of Biogeography in the University of London
• Richard S. Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT
• Steve Budiansky, former Washington editor for Nature
• The leadership of the Danish Space Research Institute

In the meantime, you bring us critiques from `scientists' such as Steven Schneider, who famously told an interviewer from Discover magazine:

On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but - which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people, we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change. To do that, we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.

Now that's dishonesty and unscientific behavior. And to think that a man like that is accusing Lomborg...

Just perusing the TechCentralStation link posted above and to Mr. Lomborg's page of links to critiques of his work on his site provides some more:

• Philip Stott, Emeritus Professor of Biogeography in the University of London
• Richard S. Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT
• Steve Budiansky, former Washington editor for Nature
• The leadership of the Danish Space Research Institute

In the meantime, you bring us critiques from `scientists' such as Steven Schneider, who famously told an interviewer from Discover magazine:

On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but - which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people, we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change. To do that, we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.

Now that's dishonesty and unscientific behavior. And to think that a man like that is accusing Lomborg...

Please reconfirm your "facts" on desalination. There is not a lot of info online, but I managed to scrape up a few costs.

• In the Sept 14, 1999 Trinidad Express, they refer to two bids at US$0.536 and US$0.736 per m3 of industrial water (water for drinking is a tiny proportion of what we actually use)
• In Cyprus in 2000, desalination unit costs were 0.997 USD (0.54 Cyprus pound, which is divided into cents, not pence)

FYI, Peter Gleick is the President of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security, which "strives to improve policy through science-based research and dialogue with action-oriented groups from the international to local level"They claim to be non-partisan, but he appears to have a radical green bias. Let's look at what else Gleick says about desalination:

But desalination cannot yet be considered a reasonable solution to domestic water shortages in most regions, even wealthy ones. Whether it will eventually become sufficiently cheap for large-scale use remains uncertain.( Gleick, 2000)

kuro5hin had a better article on Lomborg a while ago. The Economist just had another one as well. And of course, you should read Lomborgs response to SciAm , which is posted in it's entirety on Patrick Moore's website. SciAm threatened legal action if Lomborg included their article in his line-by-line response, although they felt free to include Lomborg's response on their website with more SciAm comments - hypocrisy worthy of RIAA or MPAA. So, Patrick Moore, a founder of Greenpeace posted Lomborgs response to SciAm, with the following comment:

"Scientific American did not give Lomborg any opportunity to respond to his critics, even though they gave him a copy of the editorial before it went to press. They said they would give Lomborg one page in a future edition to reply to 11 pages of full-on attack. Lomborg's response was to publish the text of the Scientific American article on his own website and to intersperse it with a detailed response to every point raised by his critics. Scientific American then threatened to sue Lomborg over copyright. In response to my complaint Scientific American wrote "This is an infringement of our copyright and interferes with our business of selling the article." Does Scientific American really think that they will lose readership because Lomborg has posted a response to a publication that is already off the newsstands? I believe they acted out of political motivation and are purposefully stifling Lomborg's efforts to defend himself. And I don't blame Lomborg for giving in to such a huge organization when threatened with legal action. (If you go to Lomborg's website www.lomborg.com and look under Critiques you will find he has removed the offending text, thus gutting the effectiveness of his response.)

" I think we should defy Scientific American's blatant attempt to muzzle Lomborg. Anyone who reads his response to the Scientific American attack will have to agree that it is thoughtful and thorough. Here is a link to the entire response complete with Lomborg's comments."

People like you will eventually make me buy Lomborg's book, just so I can bitchslap you properly.

dschl

If you think hunting is barbaric, you should visit a chicken farm someday

The paper is written signed by the minister of environment of the former social democratic gouverment in 1999. The new gouverment (Currently presidents of the EU) has a very different perspective on the environment. During their first month in power they hired the infameous Bjoern Lomborg to create a and Institute of Environmental assessment . For further information on Bjørn Lomborg see here

Andrew Sullivan's Book Club discussion of the book

Bjorn Lomborg's responses to critics

Third-party response to Scientific American's attack on the book

These are the same folks who predicted that the world would run out of food by 1980, then predicted we'd run out of oil by 1985.

And of course Thomas Malthus predicted imminent mass starvation in the early 1800s.

In the 1970s, they predicted:

"The world as we know it will likely be ruined before the year 2000
and the reason for this will be its inhabitants' failure to comprehend
two facts. These facts are (1) World food production cannot keep pace
with the galloping growth of population. (2) 'Family planning' cannot
and will not, in the foreseeable future, check this runaway growth."

"Agricultural experts state that a tripling of the food
supply of the world will be necessary in the next 30
years or so, if the 6 or 7 billion people who may be
alive in the year 2000 are to be adequately fed.
Theoretically such an increase might be possible, but it
is becoming increasingly clear that it is totally
impossible in practice."

Except, here we are in 2002 and those 6 or 7 billion people are eating better than any of their ancestors in all of human history, even in the poorest countries.

For more info, see The Ultimate Resource by Julian Simon, and The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg.

If you think you are running out of oil, Iceland, instead of acting like a silly celebrity thinking the sky is falling, call my friends down in Texas. I am sure they will be happy to sell you some oil from the massive underwater oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico. Its so abundant in the Gulf that if you SCUBA dive to the bottom you can see oil leaking from the sea floor all by itself. After that call, give Sting a ring and see where all that money that was donated to his Amazon forest campaigns went because it sure didn't go to the trees (the trees have no wallets or bank accounts...believe it or not).

By coincidence I was reading Lomborg's site yesterday. He trieds to answer criticisms in his critiques section. I found a lot of the articles by his detracters rather offensive in their tone (especially for the Nature, where they criticise for only using Nature papers as 1% of his sources-how petty). But check out the exchange in The Prospect, his opponent becomes progressively more snide and shrill.

Also, if any of you have done debate, will notice how he simply avoids Lomborg's rebuttals and simply attacks him on another point. This reminds me a lot of Creationists in my debates with them-they bring up a problem with evolution-then ignore you when you respond in kind and attack you on some other point, ad infinitum.

Conservatives and liberals tend to have their axes to grind of course. Liberals believe we should accept worst case scenarios in the context of environmentalism, but not social policy, while conservatives accept the opposite. On the other hand-please note the respone to the book Arming America which purported to show that America's gun culture is a post-Civil War thing-it came out to glowing reviews in the popular and academic press. In hindsight-a lot of its reviewers now have retracted their endorsement after find out the author seems to have citied sources that never existed (call the libraries or archives where the sources exist, and they say they never exist). Two years ago-I found the book very interesting, and though it didn't make me re-think my pro-gun orientation I accept it has a civil liberties, not historical issue, I didn't see anything wrong with it since I'm not an archival specialist. Contrast this with the Bell Curve which was torn to shreds for every tenditious citation (personally-I think they should ignored all the international sources since they aren't as well documented as the American ones were).

'Junk science' according to the the US edition only. The Italian edition praised it! If give have a fig for some semblance of clarity on the issue, read the rebutals by Lomberg on his site, along with clearly-stated support from some other Fine Fellows. Take it up with them. Otherwise, if you already Know It All, go ahead and smoke some pot and hand out leaflets in Harvard Sq... ; )