The Skeptical Environmentalist [Paperback]

When the book was first published (1998 in Danish, 2001 in English). There were many people with a strong vested interest in faulting those arguments. They were given the opportunity in major magazines and scientific journals and, so far as I have been able to track down, failed comprehensively to do so. For example, Scientific American, in an extremely unscientific exercise, let four of Lomborg's strongest critics off the leash in an eleven page review. The arguments that Lomborg uses are not difficult, nor is the data obscure. If he had made major mistakes in any of his many assertions that contradict the orthodoxy, it would have been easy to expose them. But his critics concentrated instead on attacking the man and on nibbling around the edges of the considerable body of data which he had assembled. They found a few minor errors, since put right, and sometimes revealed their own lack of understanding. But they didn't disturb the central arguments. It is worth reading the original Scientific American review and Lomborg's rebuttal, which are available on the web. I found they gave confidence in the integrity of the book but left me a little depressed about the state of science. Incidentally, the years since publication have provided nothing to shake the book's conclusions.

As a Professor of Statistics, Lomborg was criticised for entering the environmental arena, and covering areas of science in which he was not qualified. However, this book is about the interpretation of data much more than about science per see. I think he is ideally qualified for the task he has chosen and, coming as he does with a 'green' background, his credibility is higher than that of many of his critics. Many of them have a strong personal stake - economic or emotional - in the answers which make re-evaluating their positions especially difficult. Lomborg does not examine the scientific judgements in, for example, climate models. But he does question the public policy interpretation of the results and add a measure of economic good sense. Moreover, it should be no surprise that environmental organisations, governmental agencies and scientific institutions are just as capable as big business of becoming wedded to a particular stance, and selecting or interpreting the data to suit. Some of them come out of this with little credit, and no credible excuses.

I understand why Lomborg did not delve deeper into source data. But I would like to know whether issues like publications bias and data dredging, which distort scientific results elsewhere, are problematic in these areas. If they are, and I would be surprised if they are not, that fact would almost certainly strengthen his arguments further. In that sense, I wonder if he is sceptical enough. But it would also have stirred up another hornets nest, so perhaps he is wise to have avoided the issue.

In summary, it is nonsense to class this book as anti-environmental. It does not criticise environmentalism, it criticises abuse of information leading to a misunderstanding of the environment. This, Lomborg believes, should lead to a more rational assessment and better policy options. I think it is an outstanding and illuminating piece of work which you should approach with an open mind and, as always, a degree of healthy scepticism.

Lomberg's thesis is that a lot of what he terms "the Litany" - a view that humans are steadily sending the global environment to hell in a handcart and things will get catastrophically bad some time soon -is based on very shoddy use of the available data. He provides numerous cases of misleading conclusions that have reached the public. He does not claim that all is well, just that an accurate picture of what is going on is needed if we are to make the correct decisions about how much to do to reduce human impact on the globe. And that the current picture is not accurate.

I give this book 5 stars because having read it you will have to think hard about what you believe to be the truth and what kind of evidence would convince you (and why). This critical thought is something easily avoided on an issue where ready-made opinions are handed down by lobbyists of both camps. Personally I find it convincing that many environmentalists are guilty as charged of allowing their own preconceptions of what is happening to influence how they handle the available data. If this book leads to a higher standard of debate, great.

I agree with another reviewer that it is fascinating how the negative reviews of this book seem to concentrate on "Lomberg is a heretic" - a profoundly unscientific (and revealing?) reaction to what you'd suppose is a scientific debate.

The book is structured nicely into summaries (if you're one of the 83% who don't question) and much detailed argument if you're in the remaining 17% (and it looks as if more of us should be)

* One final note : I made that "83%" figure up as a joke when discussing this book with friends, to see if they'd challenge that "statistic" (no-one has yet). But creepily enough, having bandied this entirely bogus figure about a few times I almost begin to believe in it. It seems to be taking on a life of its own. It can only be a matter of time before I see it on the web...

I think this is an excellent book, and for me its strength are the meticulously researched references which back up almost every paragraph in the book (the references and the index make up 30% of the pages).

Not being any kind of environmental expert, I find one of the one-star reviewers' comments useful: is it possible that Lomberg is falling into the trap of presenting selective data, which he himself warns against? I do not know the answer to this question, but this book has at least piqued my interest to find out.

Can I make a suggestion to potential one-star reviewers: Your arguments against the book would be much more convincing if you could point out specific, major errors (ie. not typos etc.), with references to primary research. The current one-star reviews are emotional in tone, and not fact-based.

Dr Victor Chua, MB BChir, MRCS