Rating: 
Summary: Denmark's Ministry of Truth
Review: Worth a read, particularly if you are looking for balance. Despite what you might think based on a vindictive and amateurish slam by the clearly biased and not particularly scientific Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty (the DCSD which looks more than anything like George Orwell's "Ministry of Truth"), Lomborg makes his argument from the facts provided by his detractors. The DCSD built most of its case on a special section in the January 2002 'Scientific American' titled, "Science Defends Itself Against 'The Sketpical Environmentalist.'" This section was an embarrassment to the scientific community in general and to 'Scientific American' specifically. Quoting from a review of the book and DCSD's position in TechCentralStation, "He (Lombard) had set out to prove that the rosy scenarios promoted by the late University of Maryland scholar Julian Simon were wrong. But he found they were right, and actually changed his mind." And, Lomborg "is modest, reasonable and cheerful. He is just a statistician, after all. He claims to be nothing more. All he wants is fairness. To have a civil debate over his ideas, his facts, his point of view. But the other side, with an intellectual brutality and singlemindedness that recalls Leninism, can't stand such an approach. Free speech is what the Ministry of Truth hates." It isn't a riveting book. But the war being waged against it alone makes it worth looking into. If only to find out what Lombard's opponents are so afraid of.
Rating: 
Summary: a great research title
Review: It is a great and informative book. Its value can not be hurt by various Danish witchburning committees, which pronounce their entirely subjective "pronouncements" while being completely unable to refute any single specific claim from this book. It's not an article in a scientific journal, of course, it is a discussion-provoking book where the author demonstrates his opinion and provides ample proof of it, unlike most of his opponents some of whom do not even hide the fact that their public statements have nothing to do with the science and are pure PR and exaggeration in order to get more public support.
Of course various committees are not conserned with those....
Rating:
Summary: In defense of himself...
Review: The ruling on the matter of scientific dishonesty from the DCSD
- a comment by Bjørn Lomborg
In the beginning of last year several complaints regarding my book 'The Sceptical Environmentalist' were handed in to the Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty (the DCSD). Naturally, I have been looking forward to being cleared of the charges of scientific dishonesty. Therefore I have submitted my comments on many of the accusations to DCSD.
Unfortunately the DCSD has made their decision without taking a position to the content of the complaints. The DCSD has ruled that 'it is not DCSD's remit to decide who is right in a contentious professional issue'. I find this ruling inexplicable and it means that there is still no ruling about the numerous complaints put forth in public. So I maintain that the complaints of the plaintiffs are unfounded.
The main conclusion by DCSD finds that my book is 'clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice' because of systematically biased selection of data and arguments. But since the DCSD has neglected to take their position on the technical scientific disputes their conclusions are completely unfounded. The DCSD does not give a single example to demonstrate their claim of a biased choice of data and arguments. Consequently, I don't understand this ruling. It equals an accusation without defining the crime.
The DCSD, however, refers to the criticism of my book put forth by 4 scientists in Scientific American. This is a one-year-old discussion, which I participated in at that time, e.g. by writing a 34-page response ([website]). But in spite of the fact that the DCSD received a copy of my response, they refer to none of my arguments. In fact the only thing that the DCSD does is to repeat the Scientific American arguments over 6 pages, while only allowing my arguments 1½ line. This seems to reflect an extremely biased procedure. On top of that the DCSD has failed to evaluate the scientific points in dispute outlined in Scientific American article.
My initial response when I read the conclusion of the DCSD was one of surprise and discomfort. But when reading through the complete ruling I found it to be: ·Inexplicable in its negligence to take a position on the complaints of the plaintiffs
·Undocumented by ruling the book to be systematically biased without documenting this with a single example
·Biased by its reference to only one side of the comprehensive discussion concerning my book (the plaintiffs side)
Rating:
Summary: Thought control
Review: I agree 100% with "The Economist" point of view: THE Bjorn Lomborg saga took a decidedly Orwellian turn this week. Readers will recall that Mr Lomborg, a statistician and director of Denmark's Environmental Assessment Institute, is the author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist", which attacks the environmental lobby for systematically exaggerated pessimism. Environmentalists have risen as one in furious condemnation of Mr Lomborg's presumption in challenging their claims, partly no doubt because he did it so tellingly. This week, to the delight of greens everywhere, Denmark's Committees on Scientific Dishonesty ruled on the book as follows: "Objectively speaking, the publication of the work under consideration is deemed to fall within the concept of scientific dishonesty."How odd. Why, in the first place, is a panel with a name such as this investigating complaints against a book which makes no claim to be a scientific treatise? "The Skeptical Environmentalist" is explicitly not concerned with conducting scientific research. Rather, it measures the "litany" of environmental alarm that is constantly fed to the public against a range of largely uncontested data about the state of the planet. The litany comes off very badly from the comparison. The environmental movement was right to find the book a severe embarrassment. But since the book was not conducting scientific research, what business is it of a panel concerned with scientific dishonesty? One might expect to find the answer to this question in the arguments and data supporting the ruling-but there aren't any. The material assembled by the panel consists almost entirely of a synopsis of four articles published by Scientific American last year. (We criticised those articles and the editorial that ran with them in our issue of February 2nd 2002.) The panel seems to regard these pieces as disinterested science, rather than counter-advocacy from committed environmentalists. Incredibly, the complaints of these self-interested parties are blandly accepted at face value. Mr Lomborg's line-by-line replies to the criticisms (see www.lomborg.com) are not reported. On its own behalf, the panel offers not one instance of inaccuracy or distortion in Mr Lomborg's book: not its job, it says. On this basis it finds Mr Lomborg guilty of dishonesty. The panel's ruling-objectively speaking-is incompetent and shameful.>>
Rating:
Summary: Enviro-[...]
Review: It is interesting to see all the usual suspects attacking Bjorn Lomborg now that a Committee in Denmark has attacked his book. If these zealous envirnmentalists would take time to read the UK Daily Telegraph, The Economist and several other publications that can be found by a simple search on the web, they would find that the so-called findings of this committee are completely laughable. Mr Lomborg's arguments were ignored, the main witness has gone down on the record as suggesting in public that environmentalists should lie for their cause, and the Committee could only find, oxmoronically, that Mr Lomborg was "unintentionally dishonest".
Mr Lomborg's real crime was to prick the pretensions of those who see their way to power and wealth from riding on the environmental bandwagon. If the world isn't such a parlous state as these people say, then their grants might start drying up, the press wouldn't talk to them any more and they might have to go and do some real work.
Rating:
Summary: Excellence in journalism!
Review: An excellent survey of environmentalist literature. Ever since Malthus, there has been scaremongering about overpopulation, dwindling resources, etc. but fears have always been proven vain. Remember the scientific predictions of the 60's that we'd be living on a barren earth by the year 2000? Truth is, everything we use has gotten better and better and cheaper and cheaper: we have more food than ever before, we have more energy resources, we get more and more metals and chemicals from the earth. Not everything is perfect in the world, but the problems aren't nearly as bad as the green movement makes it out to be. The attacks on Mr. Lomborg are political rather than reasonable. The 1-star reviewers should be ashamed of themselves for sinking to this level. I give the book the full five stars in support of Mr. Lomborg and for having done with his book what he set out to do. He has re-ignited the debate.
Rating:
Summary: An important book
Review: I bought the book on the strength of a review in The Economist and did not regret my purchase. This is not a scientific treatise, nor does it claim to be such; it is a timely and thoughtful critique of the environmentalist cause. I found it refreshing that for once someone took a closer look at the scientific assumptions, procedures and figures underlying our latest ideological orthodoxy. It only adds to the credibility of the work that the furious responses tend to concentrate on the author (the old ad hominem tactics) rather than on any factual basis -- possibly because Mr Lomborg uses the very same data used by the environmentalists. One may not agree with Lomborg and his views, but if his book makes the reader revisit and check his (received) opinions, then its purpose has already been fulfilled. One important aspect of science is criticism, and on environmentalist issues this has been sadly lacking so far. To quote one of the strident critics of Mr Lomberg: "[We] are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a better place...To do that we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have...Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest."
(interview for "Discover" magazine, Oct 1989) This book counteracts such attitudes, and is all the more important for it.
Rating:
Summary: Scopes Trial, the sequel
Review: This book has vaulted from a book to read if one has the time, to a book one must make time to read. I was somewhat skeptical of his thesis, and it seemed duplicative of the work of Julian Simon, the first maverick to note the systematic exaggeration in the environmental sciences, until I observed the extraordinary attempt by the earth science community to silence this young voice. The first shot was the Environmental Caliphate review in Scientific American which, breaking with tradition, refused to give Bjorn Lomborg any space in which to respond, not in that issue nor in subsequent issues, even though they reviewed him on four occasions. His work had already been published in the Italian language version of SA, Le Scienze, a peer reviewed publication, so he was likely to respond as the scholar that he is. However when he responded on HIS OWN WEBSITE to Scientific American they went to court to enjoin him from doing so! Fortunately they were not successful, however using the courts to interfere with a scientific debate had not been seen since the Scopes trials, a malicious prosecution staged to prevent John Scopes from teaching evolution in the public schools. Now in the latest bizarre installment of this saga, an academic group in Denmark--where Bjorn Lomborg is head of their Environmental Review Agency--delightfully named "Committees on Scientific Dishonesty" has belched their decree: "Objectively speaking, the publication of the work under consideration is deemed to fall within the concept of scientific dishonesty." (Please tell me that this is a bad English translation of Danish and that no one "deemed to fall into a concept") They have since admitted that their haughty conclusion was based on the aforementioned SA articles, further they had not reviewed his response, and their report cannot, and does not, cite a single instance of a fallacy or distortion in Lomborg's book, not one! Americans love a good scrap and rarely agree on much other than everyone gets to speak, and we can spot those that would quash free speech a mile coming. Buy this book, if you don't like it throw it away, and then buy it again to put those who would gag this writer on notice.
Rating: 
Summary: Are people really this stupid?
Review: That is why we, as a planet, are in danger. The utter stupidity that people get away with these days! Anyone who buys into these so-called statistics is simply blind and in their head too much. Open your eyes and look around. Pollution and over population, and the scarcity of resources isn't an abstract statistical thing if you open your eyes. Walk outside in any city - it's harder to breath than it was when I was a kid, a mere couple of decades ago, for one example. The fact that every damn idiotic couple has way too many kids, a lot more than just replacing their own two selves, makes it an obvious fact that the world will run out of space and resources for us. Having 6 kids is down right irresponsible and stupid. But the world will take care of this problem for us if we don't become intelligent about it. When the pressures become too great, the planet will simply create a "black plague" or some such thing to bring our population down. Anyway, these are just a few thoughts. The bottom line is that over population, pollution, and the destruction of our enviornment is OBVIOUS to any one willing to get their heads out from where the sun don't shine!
Rating:
Summary: Don't believe the critics . . .
Review: As was pointed out recently by the magazine "The Economist", Denmark's Environmental Assessment Institute's highly publicized critique failed to actually comment on any of the "science" in the book. Instead, the report simply summarized some very biased responses that came out in "Scientific American." Critics will have you believe Lomborg's sold out and opponents like the Danish EAI and other scientists are the objective voices in this dabate. Thus, the opinion of 10-20 environmental scientists are to be believed over Lomborg's. Yet, think about it. The critics are a part of the same academic environment that Lomborg seeks to reform and their goals, career prospects, and beliefs run counter to much of what he says. Who is the "ojective" voice in this debate: the accused or the whistleblower who has left their ranks to pursue what he believes is a more honest path? Don't accept the criticism blindly. Read the book and judge for yourself. . .
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