http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?Story_
ID=718860 Article by Bjorn Lomborg summarising his book,
The Skeptical Environmentalist. The book argues
that: (1) the threat to the environment isn't as serious as
environmentalists have been making out; and (2) that some of the
money spent on the environment might be better spent on other
things, such as providing clean water to those that don't
currently have it.
Of course, not everyone agrees with his conclusions. What's inexplicable, though, is the character of the responses. Scientific American's contribution (a special section in the January 2002 issue) was titled "Science Defends Itself Against the Skeptical Environmentalist"--as if science was one thing, and Lomborg was another. This is very unbecoming. Lomberg may well be wrong, but he's certainly following scientific method. And today, on the Science Show, one anti-Lomborgist asserted that Lomborg must be wrong about the environment, simply because there were 2 billion people in the world in 1950, and 6 billion today... How can 6 billion fit where 2 billion were before?
No-one seems to want to grapple with his statistics, which are in many instances taken from UN publications. One of Lomberg's most surprising claims is that even if the Kyoto Protocol is ratified by the entire world, we'd still, in 2100, get to the same point, in 2094, that we would have had it not been ratified. (In terms of temperature change, at least.) Is anyone disputing this? Because if it's true, it's not worth the money. 12:16
