Bjorn Lomborg

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Bjorn Lomborg is associate professor of statistics in the Department of Political Science at the University of Aarhus, Denmark who has published little or no peer-reviewed research on environmental or climate policy. He believes we should delay climate action until after tending to other environmental or public health problems.

The errors and misrepresentations in his books, which are aimed at a lay readership, have led to his characterization as "a performance artist disguised as an academic."

Background

Lomborg earned his Ph.D. in political science - specifically, game theory - at the University of Copenhagen in 1994.. He got an M.A. in political science in 1991 from University of Aarhus, with the thesis "An evolution of Cooperation"; it is unclear whether he has a bachelor's degree..

From 2002 - 2004 he was head of the Environmental Assessment Institute. In 2004, following the Copenhagen Consensus, he resigned the post to return to academia.

Scientific papers

Lomborg's only published work is in "game theory and computer simulations", according to the Skeptical Environmentalist frontispiece. Australian National University academic John Quiggin, writing in the Australian Financial Review in March 2002, pointed out the number of refereed publications Lomborg has produced on statistical or other scientific analysis of environmental issues "is zero".

Books

The Skeptical Environmentalist

In 2001, Cambridge University Press published an English translation of The Skeptical Environmentalist: measuring the real state of the world. In it Lomborg argued that a statistical analysis of key global environmental indicators revealed that while there were environmental problems they were not as serious as was popularly believed:

The world is not without problems, but on almost all accounts, things are going better and they are likely to continue to do so into the future. The facts and information presented here should give us an opportunity to set free our unproductive worries and allow us to focus on the important issues, so that we may indeed help make an even better world for tomorrow".

In particular, Lomborg argued that while global warming is occurring, projections of its magnitude "are rather unrealistically pessimistic" and that "the typical cure of early and radical fossil fuel cutbacks is way worse than the original affliction and moreover its total impact will not pose a devastating problem for our future".

Reception in the media: Acceptance

The Skeptical Environmentalist received widespread and largely favourable coverage as a critique of global environmental policies and priorities. Much of the commentary embraced Lomborg's claim that scientists and environmentalists were being unduly pessimistic and making claims that were not based on good science.

The 'lapsed environmentalist' narrative

Routinely, journalists reported that Lomborg had -- before he undertook the research for his book -- been a supporter of Greenpeace. However, Greenpeace has no record of Lomborg ever being actively involved in the organisation. When challenged on this point on ABC Radio National's Earthbeat Lomborg said "I'm a suburban kind of Greenpeace member, your stereotypical person who contributes and nothing else."

Participating in a panel on the Earthbeat program, Dr Tom Burke, a member of the Executive Committee of Green Alliance in the UK and an environmental adviser to Rio Tinto and BP, challenged the suggestion that that made Lomborg an environmentalist: "That doesn't make you an environmentalist Bjorn, I mean that would make me a statistician because I've done some calculations".

Reception among scientists - Rejection

Scientific American

The extensive and uncritical acceptance of Lomborg's claims prompted a reaction from many in the scientific community. In January 2002 Scientific American's editor, John Rennie, wrote the preface to a ten page critique written by four specialists. Rennie commented that "the errors described here, however, show that in its purpose of describing the real state of the world, the book is a failure". [1]

Copyright infringement or persecution?

When Lomborg reproduced the Scientific American critiques on his website with his responses interleaved, the magazine threatened to sue him for copyright infringement. Lomborg withdrew the file from his website but it was later re-published on the Patrick Moore's website. Scientific American stated that the unauthorised reproduction was damaging its ability to sell copyrighted material, while Moore portrayed Lomborg as being persecuted for his views.

John P. Holdren, author of one of the rebuttal articles in Scientific American, noted:

"Bjørn Lomborg has posted on his Web page a long response to the critiques (http://www.lomborg.com/critique.htm)that appeared in Scientific American of four of the chapters in his book,The Skeptical Environmentalist, including my critique of his chapter on energy. No part of my critique escapes rebuttal. Perhaps Lomborg felt obliged to use all of the submissions he received in response to the appeal for help he broadcast to a long e-mail list after the Scientific American critiques appeared. It is instructive that he apparently did not feel he could manage an adequate response by himself. (In this, at least, he was correct. But he could not manage it with help, either.) Just as the book itself betrays the seeming inability of its author to discriminate sensible arguments from nonsensical ones, so also does the posted response to my critique suggest that Lomborg just tossed in, uncritically, whatever replies popped into his head or into his e-mail 'in' box."[2]

"In a "Dear Sir or Madam" broadcast e-mail sent out by Lomborg on December 18, he wrote, inter alia, "Naturally, I plan to write a rebuttal to be put on my web-site. However, I would also love your input to the issues -- maybe you can contest some of the arguments in the SA pieces, alone or together with other academics. Perhaps you have good ideas to counter a specific argument. Perhaps you know of someone else that might be ideal to talk to or get to write a counter-piece." [3]

Schneider on misrepresentation of IPCC

Stephen Schneider, a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and Senior Fellow at the Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, criticised Lomborg for inaccurately portraying the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and misrepresenting the Kyoto Protocol. (Schneider is also editor of Climate Change and lead author of several of the IPCC chapters and the IPCC guidance paper on uncertainties).

The IPCC produced a range of six equally ranked paths of climate change spanning an increase in carbon dioxide concentrations from doubling in 2100 to well beyond a tripling in the 22nd century. "Lomborg, however, dismisses all but the lowest of the scenarios," he wrote. [4]

Raven on distortions

Dr Peter Raven, President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2002 said of Lomborg: "...he's not an environmental scientist and he doesn't understand the fields that he's talking about so in that case, if you have a point to make and you want to get to that point, which is: everything's fine, everybody's wrong, there is no environmental problem, you just keep making that point. It's like a school exercise or a debating society, which really doesn't take into account the facts". [5]

"Raven said that the success of Lomborg's book 'demonstrates the vulnerability of the scientific process -- which is deliberative and hypothesis driven -- to outright misrepresentation and distortion.'" [6]

The Danish Committee for Scientific Dishonesty

The concern over Lomborg's misrepresentation of the science was so great that three complaints were lodged with the Danish Committee for Scientific Dishonesty, which Lomborg describes as "a national review body, with considerable authority". [7]

The committee found "the publication is deemed clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice". [8] They stated "there has been such perversion of the scientific message in the form of systematically biased representation that the objective criteria for upholding scientific dishonesty ... have been met".

In the wake of the decision the conservative Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, requested a review of the work of the Institute for Environmental Valuation (IEV) which Lomborg had been appointed to head in February 2002. [9]

Subsequently, the Danish government appointed a panel of five scientists to evaluate the reports produced by IEV. In August 2003 the committee announced that "the panel must conclude that none of the reports represent scientific work or methods in the traditional scientific sense". [10]

In December 2003, the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (a branch of the government that had appointed Lomborg) repudiated the findings of the Danish Committee for Scientific Dishonesty, saying its treatment of the case was "dissatisfactory", "deserving criticism" and "emotional" and contained a number of significant errors. [11]. It told the DCSD to reconsider their verdict.[12]

In March 2004, the Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty declined to reconsider its verdict against Lomborg. [13]

"Cool It", on climate change

In 2007, Lomborg published the book "Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming."

Salon review's criticisms

A Salon.com review was critical of the book's assumptions and conclusions: [14]

Lomborg presents scientific and economic debates as much more settled than they are....

The glaring error in "Cool It," and the one that disqualifies the book from making a serious contribution, is that Lomborg ignores the main concern driving the debate. Incredibly, he never mentions even the possibility that the world might heat up more than 4.7 degrees. Although he claims IPCC science as gospel, in fact the scientific body gives no single "standard" estimate as its official forecast for this century's warming. Instead, the IPCC provides a range of up to 10.5 degrees -- more than double the number on which Lomborg bases his entire argument.

Misleading citations

Sharon Begley of Newsweek noted that "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" in reviewing Howard Friel's book The Lomborg Deception, which exposes Cool It's citations as consistently misleading.,

Lomborg and the Philanthropy Roundtable

In November 2004 Lomborg was the after dinner speaker at a special pre conference environmental meeting ahead of the annual meeting of the Philanthropy Roundtable, the coordinating committee of conservative foundations.[15]

"We need to stop our obsession with global warming", says Lomborg

In May 2004, Lomborg's Environmental Assessment Institute hosted the Copenhagen Consensus, an attempt to redirect global priorities away from current environmental concerns. As expected the majority of the conference participants agreed that climate change was less important to take action on than a range of other priorities such as combatting HIV/AIDS or providing clean drinking water.

In mid-December 2004 Lomborg attended the Conference of Parties meeting on the Kyoto Protocol in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In both an opinion column in the British newspaper the Telegraph and public presentations Lomborg argued that the outcome of the Copenhagen Consensus demonstrated why calls for action on climate change should be ignored.

Unlike earlier climate change sceptics, Lomborg accepts the reality of climate change but adopts a triple track argument for doing little. First, he adopts a fatalistic position that little can be done. "Global warming is real and caused by CO2. The trouble is that the climate models show we can do very little about the warming," he wrote in the Telegraph.[16]

Then, he argues, the first round of commitments in the Kyoto agreement for the period to 2012 are too little to make much difference by the year 2100. (This ignores the understanding that additional cuts will be negotiated in subsequent committment periods). "Even if everyone (including the United States) did Kyoto and stuck to it throughout the century, the change would be almost immeasurable, postponing warming by just six years in 2100," he wrote.

Finally, he argues that the costs are too great compared to other initiatives that have broad public appeal. "Likewise, the economic models tell us that the cost is substantial. The cost of Kyoto compliance is at least $150billion a year. For comparison, the UN estimates that half that amount could permanently solve the most pressing humanitarian problems in the world: it could buy clean drinking water, sanitation, basic health care and education to every single person in the world," he wrote.

"We need to stop our obsession with global warming, and start dealing with the many more pressing issues in the world, where we can do most good first and quickest," Lomborg concluded.

While Lomborg's views are dismissed by the overwhelming majority of those researching climate change, his attendance in Buenos Aires ensured that his views where not only projected into the 'echo chamber' by conservative news sites such as CNSNews.com, but picked up by the BBC as well.[17]

Others don't think the outcome of the Copenhagen Consensus should be taken all that seriously. Not only were the invited presenters all economists, critics of the process point to the constrained choices they were presented with in ranking priorities that the global community should address.

"Climate strategies are compared with measures to address problems that everyone agrees are crucial. But climate strategies should also be compared with other goals that society spends (or wastes) money on. One relevant example is to ask what can be delayed with the least harm: climate measures or exploration of Saturn’s rings? Or what about ranking climate measures in relation to spending tens of millions of dollars a year developing new kinds of nuclear weapons, as the Bush administration seems prepared to do?," wrote Pål Prestrud and Hans Seip from the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research (CICERO).[18]

Affiliations

• "Thought Leader", Project Syndicate

Articles and Resources

Related SourceWatch Articles

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• Climate change sceptics
• Geosequestration
• Nutrients for Life Foundation
• The Lomborg Deception

External articles

Moved to Bjorn Lomborg (external articles)

Wikipedia also has an article on Bjorn Lomborg. This article may use content from the Wikipedia article under the terms of the GFDL.