Michael Crichton review of "Cool It..." by Bjorn Lomborgs

[dude1394]

Michael Crichton's codicil in his last novel really made me think about the global warming hysteria. Here he provides an Amazon review.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/030...SIN=0307266923


Bjørn Lomborg is the best-informed and most humane advocate for environmental change in the world today. In contrast to other figures that promote a single issue while ignoring others, Lomborg views the globe as a whole, studies all the problems we face, ranks them, and determines how best, and in what order, we should address them. His first book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, established the importance of a fact-based approach. With later books, Global Crises, Global Solutions and How to Spend $50 Billion to Make the World a Better Place, this mild-mannered Danish statistician has steadily gained new converts. Not surprisingly, Time Magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming will further enhance Lomborg’s reputation for global analysis and thoughtful response. For anyone who wants an overview of the global warming debate from an objective source, this brief text is a perfect place to start. Lomborg is only interested in real problems, and he has no patience with media fear-mongering; he begins by dispatching the myth of the endangered polar bears, showing that this Disneyesque cartoon has no relevance to the real world where polar bear populations are in fact increasing. Lomborg considers the issue in detail, citing sources from Al Gore to the World Wildlife Fund, then demonstrating that polar bear populations have actually increased five fold since the 1960s.

Lomborg then works his way through the concerns we hear so much about: higher temperatures, heat deaths, species extinctions, the cost of cutting carbon, the technology to do it. Lomborg believes firmly in climate change--despite his critics, he's no denier--but his fact-based approach, grounded in economic analyses, leads him again and again to a different view. He reviews published estimates of the cost of climate change, and the cost of addressing it, and concludes that "we actually end up paying more for a partial solution than the cost of the entire problem. That is a bad deal."

In some of the most disturbing chapters, Lomborg recounts what leading climate figures have said about anyone who questions the orthodoxy, thus demonstrating the illiberal, antidemocratic tone of the current debate. Lomborg himself takes the larger view, explaining in detail why the tone of hysteria is inappropriate to addressing the problems we face.

In the end, Lomborg’s concerns embrace the planet. He contrasts our concern for climate with other concerns such as HIV/AIDS, malnutrition, and providing clean water to the world. In the end, his ability to put climate in a global perspective is perhaps the book’s greatest value. Lomborg and Cool It are our best guides to our shared environmental future.

--Michael Crichton

[Dr.Zoidberg]

backgrounder
UCS examines The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjørn Lomborg
Background

A book by Bjørn Lomborg, a political scientist and professor of statistics at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, has created quite a stir since its 2001 release. Lomborg accuses scientists and environmental organizations of making false and exaggerated claims about the world’s environmental problems. He concludes that population growth is not a problem, that there is plenty of freshwater around, that deforestation rates and species extinctions are grossly exaggerated, that the pollution battle has been won, and that global warming is too expensive to fix. A self-proclaimed environmentalist and skeptic, he claims that his reanalysis of environmental data measures "the real state of the world."






in global environment
Peter Gleick's review (PDF)
Jerry D. Mahlman's review (PDF)
E.O. Wilson et al's review (PDF)
Author biographies

off-site
WRI debunks Lomborg
Grist Magazine review


The heavily promoted book, published by Cambridge University Press, has received significant attention from the media and praise from commentators writing in The Economist, The New York Times, and Washington Post. For example, the Post’s reviewer (a philosophy professor from New Zealand) concluded that it was "a magnificent achievement," and "the most significant work on the environment since the appearance of its polar opposite, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, in 1962." Meanwhile, groups with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo are using the book to promote their "no need to take action to address global environmental problems" agenda. For example, the "Cooler Heads Coalition" -- formed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute and others to "dispel the myths of global warming" -- featured Lomborg in a Capitol Hill briefing on global warming.

Does this book merit such positive attention? Does Lomborg provide new insights? Are his claims supported by the data? A healthy skepticism towards the claims of others is, after all, one of the hallmarks of good science. And, at first glance, Lomborg’s book appears to be an objective and rigorous scientific analysis. It is published by a leading academic press, and contains an extensive bibliography and nearly 3,000 footnotes.

To answer these questions, UCS invited several of the world's leading experts on water resources, biodiversity, and climate change to carefully review the sections in Lomborg's book that address their areas of expertise. We asked them to evaluate whether Lomborg’s skepticism is coupled with the other hallmarks of good science – namely, objectivity, understanding of the underlying concepts, appropriate statistical methods and careful peer review. Reviewing Lomborg’s claims are Dr. Peter Gleick, an internationally recognized expert on the state of freshwater resources; Dr. Jerry Mahlman, one of the most highly regarded atmospheric scientists and climate modelers; and top biologists and biodiversity experts Dr.’s Edward O. Wilson, Thomas Lovejoy, Norman Myers, Jeffrey Harvey and Stuart Pimm.

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

These reviews show that The Skeptical Environmentalist fits squarely in a tradition of contrarian works on the environment that may gain temporary prominence but ultimately fail to stand up to scientific scrutiny. Others, such as Julian Simon and Gregg Easterbrook, have come before him, and others no doubt will follow. Correcting the misperceptions these works foster is an essential task, for, as noted above, groups with anti-environmental agendas use these works to promote their objectives. It is also an unfortunate, time-consuming distraction, for it pulls talented scientists away from the pressing research needed to help us understand the environmental challenges we face and their prospective solutions.

Winston Churchill once said, "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on", reminding usof the parable of the Tortoise and the Hare. Like the Hare, Lomborg’s lie has raced out in front of the truth. With the help of these careful scientific peer reviews, UCS hopes that the truth, like the Tortoise, will catch up and emerge the ultimate victor.

Editor’s note: In addition to these UCS-solicited reviews, critiques of Lomborg’s book have also been published in Scientific American, Nature, Science, and other scientific journals, as well as on several web sites (see Related Links).

Link

Something Is Rotten in the State of Denmark
A skeptical look at The Skeptical Environmentalist
12 Dec 2001

Before the terrible events of Sept. 11 nudged our national mood towards nouveau-earnestness, skepticism was the disposition of the day. Bred in the swamps of transparent consumer manipulation, untrustworthy political leaders, and information overload, skepticism stamped a permanent question mark onto the brows of Generation X and seemed poised to become the watchword of our nation.

The cultural tides may have turned somewhat in recent months, but skepticism remains central to our national character. In the opinion of Grist Magazine, that's a good thing: No mind should be above changing, and no precept should be protected from scrutiny. Hence this special issue on Bjorn Lomborg's The Skeptical Environmentalist.

Lomborg, an associate professor of statistics at Denmark's University of Aarhus, applies the doctrine of doubt to environmentalism and concludes that most of the movement's sacred cows are, to put it bluntly, bull:

We will not lose our forests; we will not run out of energy, raw materials, or water. We have reduced atmospheric pollution in the cities of the developed world and have good reason to believe that this will also be achieved in the developing world. Our oceans have not been defiled, our rivers have become cleaner and support more life. ... Nor is waste a particularly big problem. ... The problem of the ozone layer has been more or less solved. The current outlook on the development of global warming does not indicate a catastrophe. ... And, finally, our chemical worries and fear of pesticides are misplaced and counterproductive.

Lomborg claims that these and other worries are "phantom problems" created or inflated by the environmental movement for its own ends, with the result that time and money are diverted from other, needier causes.



The Skeptical Environmentalist
By Bjorn Lomborg
Cambrige University Press, 496 pages, 2001


That is a serious charge, and as such it must be taken seriously. To date, the mainstream media have done just that -- but they have also taken the book at face value, with little or no critical analysis. A Washington Post reviewer raved about its "magnificent achievement"; the New York Times, the Economist, and others were equally gushing.

Grist wondered how the book would hold up under more rigorous scrutiny, and asked respected scientists and leaders in their fields to address the allegations in The Skeptical Environmentalist. By bringing a healthy dose of skepticism to Lomborg's own claims, the resulting compilation fights fire with fire; we leave it to our readers to determine who gets flambeed.


Extinction
Biologist E.O. Wilson -- two-time Pulitzer prize winner, discoverer of hundreds of new species, and one of the world's greatest living scientists -- debunks Lomborg's analysis of extinction rates.

Climate
Stephen H. Schneider, one of the foremost climate scientists in the United States, discredits Lomborg on global climate change and takes Cambridge University Press and the media to task for publishing and praising a polemic.

Species diversity
Norman Myers, an Honorary Visiting Fellow of Oxford University, a member of the U.S. National Academy of the Sciences, and a recipient of several of the world's most prestigious environmental awards, looks at Lomborg on biodiversity and concludes that he lacks even "a preliminary understanding of the science in question."

Population
Lester R. Brown, founder of the Worldwatch Institute and the Earth Policy Institute, reviews Lomborg on population and concludes that his analysis is so "fundamentally flawed" that other professionals would do well to disassociate themselves from his work.

Forests
Emily Matthews, a forest expert and senior associate with the World Resources Institute, shows that Lomborg reaches wildly inaccurate conclusions about deforestation by fudging data or failing to interpret it correctly.

Statistics
Al Hammond, senior scientist at World Resources Institute, criticizes Lomborg for mischaracterizing the contemporary environmental movement and committing precisely the sins for which he attacks environmentalists: exaggeration, sweeping generalizations, the presentation of false choices, selective use of data, and outright errors of fact.

Human health
Devra Davis, a leading epidemiologist and environmental health researcher, acknowledges that environmentalists have made some errors but argues that Lomborg, too, is seriously mistaken about how the environment affects public health.

Energy
Energy expert David Nemtzow, president of the Alliance to Save Energy, says Lomborg wastes his time battling a straw man: Virtually no one in the contemporary environmental movement disputes that fossil fuels are abundant, Nemtzow argues; in fact, it's precisely their abundance and their impact on our ecosystems that's the trouble.

So what?
In a review of the politics behind the statistics, Grist Assistant Editor Kathryn Schulz argues that Lomborg's real goal is to divide the left and discredit the environmental movement.

Links
Scientists, pundits, policy makers, and everyday folk extol and excoriate The Skeptical Environmentalist,elsewhere on the web.

And last, but not least, Santa Claus and Zed, last of his species, lament the way that Lomborg and his like have left them the opposite of high and dry.

Link

Could be interesting if he gives some feedback in his new book "Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming" to the criticisms from the scientists of the above mentioned book. Should be a very interesting book. Thanks for posting!

[dude1394]

Nice to see MSM waking up to the religious-like furor that they've been promoting issues.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20226462...wsweek/page/0/

Robert Samuelson

We in the news business often enlist in moral crusades. Global warming is among the latest. Unfortunately, self-righteous indignation can undermine good journalism. Last week's NEWSWEEK cover story on global warming is a sobering reminder. It's an object lesson of how viewing the world as "good guys vs. bad guys" can lead to a vast oversimplification of a messy story. . . . But the overriding reality seems almost un-American: we simply don't have a solution for this problem. As we debate it, journalists should resist the temptation to portray global warming as a morality tale—as NEWSWEEK did—in which anyone who questions its gravity or proposed solutions may be ridiculed as a fool, a crank or an industry stooge. Dissent is, or should be, the lifeblood of a free society.