Denmark Backs Maverick Environmentalist, Bjoern Lomborg

[Stilgar]

Last month, the government declared the panel had failed to back up its criticism of Lomborg or to give him a fair hearing. It said the rebuke of Lomborg was "completely void of argumentation," and contained "condescending or emotional language." It also claimed the book had not undergone peer review when it had been vetted by four scientists before being published by Cambridge University Press.

(link at bottom goes to list of reasons)

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-environmental-battle,0,1935552.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines

[blindpig]

1. he's not an environmentalist

see hatrack's thread on page 2 for link to Scientific American review. Wasn't it Mencken who said "lies, damned lies and statistics"? Also check out Grist. There's something rotten in Denmark.

[ochazuke]

2. Right!

I remember hearing him on the radio. He's out of touch with both reason and reality.

[Buzz Clik]

3. Lomborg was neither vindicated nor backed.

He was initially accused of intentionally misleading his readers with biased and inaccurate information. Further consideration, after an appeal by Lomborg, found that his initial censure was not the result of following proper procedures and did not definitively provide evidence of intentionally providing inaccurate information. Thus, neither he nor his critics were found to be right or wrong.

I very much agree that Lomborg is not an environmentalist. He lays claim to the environmentalist label because he wants clean water and air, but so does Rush Limbaugh. More telling is Lomborg's very own statement in The Skeptical Environmentalist (pg 12) when discussing hypoxia and the loss of aquatic organisms in the Gulf of Mexico as a result of pollution from agricultural chemicals: "We have no option but to use humans as a point of reference. How can we otherwise avoid an ethical dilemma? When Americans argue for cutting nitrogen emissions to the northern Gulf of Mexico to save the bottom dwelling animals from asphyxiation, this is a statement of the human desire or preference for living sea-floor fauna. It is not that such a cut is in itself mandated to save the sea-bed dwellers -- not because they have inalienable rights in some way." Lomborg has no understanding or appreciation of ecosystems, large or small. In his vision, if humans would be inconvenienced by an environmental protection measure, then the measure is bad.

Lomborg an environmentalist? No.

[enki23]

4. "vetted by four scientists"?

that could mean almost any idiots skimmed it and said "uhh... ok." it was *not* "peer-reviewed" in the way the term is meaningfully used in the scientific community. getting four buddies, or even four guys in the field, to look something over is not the same process that's called "peer review."

it would help, however, if they could say who the "scientists" were, what their own views were, what their relationship to lomborg is, and then maybe throw in a bit about how it's not quite the same as having your work reviewed anonymously by experts in the field for publication in a reputable journal.

still... it's really a quibbling remark. peer review doesn't end with publication. when lomborg's book is bashed by *other* scientists, it *is* being peer reviewed, at least in the sense that they're using here. apparently the reviews aren't all good. also apparent is that the split seems to fall largely along political/ideological lines. what else is new.

[Buzz Clik]

5. Political split?

"...also apparent is that the split seems to fall largely along political/ideological lines."

Apparent? How is this apparent? I have absolutely no way of knowing the political/ideological orientation of any of the scientists involved. Lomborg allowed himself to be described as a "sandals wearing leftie". I find the scientific rigor in his book horribly inconsistent and generally weak, but I've voted for more Republicans than Democrats.

Lomborg's book is sloppy, and that's the biggest problem.

[blindpig]

6. yeah

I'm pretty familiar with 2 workers who trashed Lomborg: E O Wilson and Thomas Lovejoy. Neither of whom could be considered a leftie by any stretch of the imagination. Lovejoy works for the World Bank! Lomborg is nothing but a propagandist bent on muddying the water, forestalling action.

[milliner]

7. Lomborg was slapped down

on appeal the finding was that those doing the slapping had no evidence of the charges they leveled at Lomborg. Someone may want to take an issue that Lomborg disscussed in the book and point to the factual errors. Denmarks Government found that the entity that slapped down Lomborg lacked this evidence.