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Debunking a Climate-Change Skeptic

Posted by kdawson on from the so-many-notes-mister-mozart dept.

DJRumpy writes "The Danish political scientist Bjørn Lomborg won fame and fans by arguing that many of the alarms sounded by environmental activists and scientists — that species are going extinct at a dangerous rate, that forests are disappearing, that climate change could be catastrophic — are bogus. A big reason Lomborg was taken seriously is that both of his books, The Skeptical Environmentalist (in 2001) and Cool It (in 2007), have extensive references, giving a seemingly authoritative source for every one of his controversial assertions. So in a display of altruistic masochism that we should all be grateful for (just as we're grateful that some people are willing to be dairy farmers), author Howard Friel has checked every single citation in Cool It. The result is The Lomborg Deception, which is being published by Yale University Press next month. It reveals that Lomborg's work is 'a mirage,' writes biologist Thomas Lovejoy in the foreword. '[I]t is a house of cards. Friel has used real scholarship to reveal the flimsy nature' of Lomborg's work."

6 of 807 comments (clear)

  1. How brave of Yale! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    This is the same Yale University that prints a book about the Muhammad cartoons but removes the cartoons from the book!

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32732243/

    Maybe Lomborg should just threaten to behead a few Yalies......that sure seems to work if you're Muslim.

  2. faster than intended? by Jorgandar · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    This statement concerns me: "But its chairman, Josef Fendt, said later that the track was far faster than its designers ever intended it to be." How could designers NOT be aware of how fast a person would be flying down the track? Do they not have rudimentary knowledge of physics?

    1. Re:faster than intended? by Tsunamio · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      "It came to the point where we were getting customer complaints from women who found the content getting too degrading and objectionable, as well as parents who were upset with what their kids were able to see."

      I for one am sick of every open medium being censored in the hopes of keeping kids from learning about the naughty bits. Couldn't they just keep these in a separate, awesome part of the app store?

  3. Politics, Politics, Politics by Dthief · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    If you read through the article you realize that both sides are whiney little children. As a scientist I'm offended by all of this.

    --
    www.RacquetUp.org - Helping Detroit Youth
  4. Re:Absence of Evidence by WegianWarrior · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Going on a tangent, but it just occured to me how so many of the climate change deniers arguments echoes those of creationists. It would be interesting to know what the overlap between the two groups are - they certainly seems to share more than a few traits IMNSHO

    --
    Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
  5. Absence of Evidence of Moderator objectivity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I wasn't going to say anything before, but since I've noticed that such an obvious Troll was upgraded to +4 Insightful, I must relieve myself by saying that the Moderation system is broken. It's better than nothing, but it's sad to see such uninspired bias and mediocrity be up-moderated so high. Please note that I don't mind OPINION, so I'm not bashing the post so much as the Moderation.

    Keep on stirring the bucket Pudge! -:)