http://www.scientificamerican.com/explorations/2002/041502lomborg/
rennie.html Scientific American editor John Rennie responds to Lomborg's
rebuttal. (Background)
His reponse is not very satisfying. A pull-out quote (i.e. one that is designed to serve without the support of context) reads: “The discussion is not about whether his statements are correct; it is about whether his arguments are correct—the plans of thought he develops from those statements.” Does Rennie mean to say that he does not dispute the facts? I'm sure he doesn't, but this goes perilously close.
More interesting is the discussion involving the Kyoto Protocol. Rennie more or less agrees that the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol would only have a “trivial effect” on global warming: environmentalists, he tells Lomborg, only ever thought of it as being a “first step.”
I don't think Lomborg has a problem with the Kyoto Protocol being a first step. What he does have a problem with is the cost—is this the most appropriate use of resources? Lomborg claims it could (if “implemented inefficiently”) cost $1 trillion, or “more than five times the cost of worldwide water and sanitation coverage.” Is this right? (How much does Rennie think it will cost?) Over what period of time?
How much do we value (other people's) lives? How much to we value the environment? How much do we value the arts? (Museums? Libraries?) How much do we value sport? How much do we value health? (AIDS?) How much do we value beer? An environmentalist's list of values has the environment ranked highly—and so they try to persuade others to devote more resources to the environment; others may not rank it quite so high.
(By the way, I don't like the way Lomborg is usually described as an “ex-environmentalist.” It doesn't mean anything, and it certainly doesn't add credibility. (The title of his book has the same problem.) This form of argument is almost always wrong. “I'm not sexist, my own mother was a woman.”) 12:55