Rating: 
Summary: The book that has outed the extremists
Review: Lomborg's book is interesting not simply because it devastates so many of the popular icons of the deep ecologists and chicken littles. Those familiar with *both* sides of the debate will be familiar with many of the relevant facts. This book is important because it has helped reveal how anti-rational many members of this community are. The Amazon.com reviews themselves exemplify this. Notice the repeated ad hominem fallacies--Lomborg isn't relevantly credentialed; he only wrote it to make money; he has an ideological agenda; he is simply serving corporate interests. Apparently logic isn't highly prized in this community, since none of these points, even if true, has any relevance to the truth of his evidence or the validity of his arguments. Notice the repeated appeal to authority. They declare: "Just read the credentialed, world renowned scientists who critique him in the Scientific American and elsewhere." Why, one wonders, does no one bother to summarize those "devastating" arguments from Scientific American? Perhaps it is because anyone who reads them will recognize them as, for the most part, ad hominem rants. So please, dear enquirer, read Lomborg's book for yourself, and by all means, read all those "devastating" reviews in Scientific American, Nature, Science, etc. Compare the quality of argumentation and evidence for yourself. And then ask: Why do I trust these people who claim to speak for science? Science etymologically means "knowledge," and we gain knowledge of nature by way of empirical evidence and rational argument based on that evidence, not by cowing to raw appeals to authority.
Rating:
Summary: Repudiating "The Litany"
Review: According to Lomborg, "statistics offers us a way to see the world more clearly. Indeed, statistics is in many areas the only way we can make a scientifically sound description of the world." Moreover, in this book he suggests, "My aim has been to give a description of the approaches to [environmental] problems, as the experts themselves have presented them in relevant books and journals, and to examine the different subject-areas from a perspective as allows us to evaluate their importance in the overall social prioritization." Finally, Lomborg suggests, "The key idea is that we ought not to let the environmental organizations, business lobbyists or the media be alone in presenting truths and priorities. Rather, we should strive for a careful democratic check on the environmental debate, by knowing the real state of the world -- having knowledge of the most important facts and connections in the essential areas of the world. It is my hope that this book will contribute to such an understanding."Lomborg organizes his material as follows. Part I: The Litany (as indicated in the Oxford University Press's Young Oxford Books: "The balance of nature is essential for life. Humans have upset that balance, stripping the land of its green cover, choking the air, and poisoning the seas."); Part II: Human welfare (Lomborg concludes that, despite various serious problems, "unprecedented human prosperity" calls The Litany into question.); Part III: Can prosperity continue? (Lomborg asserts that "our society certainly seems to be sustainable" and thereby, again questions The Litany.); Part IV: Pollution: does it undercut prosperity? (According to Lomborg, "As far as the vast majority of significant areas are concerned, we have reduced pollution and increased environmental quality."); Part V: Tomorrow's problems (Given the facts rather than subjective assumptions, Lomborg asserts, "if we want to leave a planet with the most possibilities for our descendants, in both the developing and developed world, it is imperative that we focus primarily on the economy and solving our problems in a global context rather than focusing -- in the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] lingo -- on the environment in a regionalized context."); and Part VI: The Real State of the World ("Thus, this is the very message of the book: children born today -- in both in the industrialized world and developing countries -- will live longer and be healthier, they will get more food, a better education, a higher standard of living, more leisure time and far more possibilities -- without the physical world being destroyed. And that is a beautiful world.") Lomborg also includes 173 "Figures" to support his conclusion (just quoted) concerning "the real state of the world." The reader is also provided with 81 pages of Notes and a 70-page Bibliography. My hope is that this book will help to generate an extensive and rigorous debate of his essential assertion that "the state of the world" is not rapidly deteriorating nor has already deteriorated to a degree that seriously threatens the continuation of human life. Lomborg would be among the first to admit that there are serious environmental problems which must be solved or at least alleviated, and, that efforts to date have proven much less effective than others may insist. Those who oppose his position, and no doubt there are many who do, are challenged to provide sufficient evidence in support of "The Litany."
Rating: 
Summary: Fuel for the fire of blindness
Review: Statistics in and of themselves prove very little outside of the context of interpretation. In order to interpret the statistics that Lomborg has assembled, one would need thorough scientific training in a number of different disciplines. The people who actually HAVE such training (research scientists in those fields) have thoroughly refuted Lomborg's findings in reputable publications such as NATURE. The state of the environment is a very emotional issue, however, and a lot is at stake. In order to take the steps necessary to counter the havoc being wrought on the ecosystem, governments, corporations, and individuals will have to take drastic measures, measures they may find inconvenient and economically harmful (at least, in the short term). In order not to have to face the unpleasant reality, many people unwittingly fall into a well-documented psychological trap called "denial." We see it all the time: "no, my son's not homosexual," "no, I'm not going to get laid off next year," "no, I don't have a drinking problem." It doesn't matter that the majority of scientists competent to decide these matters disagrees with you: as long as you find somebody to wave numbers around and manufacture bogus "proof", you can maintain your delusion indefinitely. Well, not indefinitely of course, only until reality slaps you on the face and perhaps takes your life in the bargain. Lomborg is just giving such people fuel for their fires, and being handsomely rewarded for it. What his readers have to ask themselves, however, is the following: is it better to err on the side of caution and take steps to counter potentially catastrophic disruptions in the ecosystem, or better to err on the side of making all decisions on the basis of short-term convenience and profit? How much is there to lose in each case if you make the wrong choice? This would the only sane standard to apply, even if Lomberg DID have a strong case (which, as the scientists have concluded, he does not).
Rating:
Summary: Misinformation About the State of the World
Review: Lomborg has no basis for the arguments he presents. Do not let the title of his work trick you- this analysis of the environment is actually false and puts pollution and the degrading state of our planet on the back burner to technology and economical interests. The "facts" that he uses are based on sketchy research done by scientists "sponsored" (ie: paid off) by large, polluting companies. This book should be taken with a grain of salt and not used by those who wish to destroy our environment as evidence because in fact it is not an accurate assessment. If there is anything to be skeptical about, it is Mr. Lomborg and the information he presents in his book.
Rating: 
Summary: SA Censorship
Review: Several reviewers have commented on Bjorn's lack of response to his critics. Apparently, Bjorn wrote a paragraph by paragraph refutation of the 10 pages of space the SA devoted to his critics and posted it on his website. Scientific American sent him an injuction to take down his refutation on the ground that it was "violation of copyright". You can read his refutation of his critics [at his website]. What is most interesting about the 'experts' attacks is that they do not debate him on the merits or the facts - instead they engage in personal attacks and appeals to authority -- he isn't an 'expert' in enviornmental affairs, etc. Funny. I thought science relied on demonstratable facts and methodologies. I suppose there is a lot of grant money at stake here. -- At least that's the only reason I can think of why the SA would be acting like this. The book is fairly interesting, but the muck it has dredged to the surface is infinitely more so.
Rating:
Summary: Dangerous and fascinating
Review: Excellent and fascinating expose of how the enviromentalist machine has made a cottage industry of apocalyptic and consistently wrong pronouncements of eco-collapse based on junk science. The current selection on libertarian Andrew Sullivan's book club, Lomborg's book is also the subject of an informed article in Reason magazine which exposes the tepid, hypocritical, and self-serving criticisms leveled at it by the incestuous enviromentalist/anti-industrial complex. A dangerous book indeed, in the best sense of the word.
Rating:
Summary: Just what people want to hear...
Review: Please people let's get real!!! This book is probably being sold for one reason only: It makes us feel a little better when we put our heads on the pillow. How can someone be so insensitive to the point of denying what is all around us to see? Go out! Travel! Go see with your own eyes the destruction that is out there! Go visit where the garbage is dumped in your city! Go see where the timber is cut! Where the fishes are caught... Listen beyond all to yourself, your body, it will tell you that there is something wrong, very wrong! But most of us prefer to pretend that there isn't, that everything is fine, or at least not so bad as most environmentalist say so. Then along the way we find some "said to be" scientist who has a mechanical, deterministic view of nature saying that it is not so bad, that many studies are wrong, misinterpreted or overreacted - and we choose to believe it, because it makes us feel a little better. There is no way to deny the six billion metric tons of waste produced each year by our society; the forty+ million tons of toxic pollutants created by industries in the USA alone; the 2.5 million pounds or pesticide and herbicidal poisons; the billions (I mean billions) of animals slaughtered for food; the ozone hole; the greenhouse effect, acid rain, nuclear waste... the list go on indefinitely... So you are skeptical? Get today's newspaper and look for evidence. It is all around. Or go with your own feet, see with your own eyes, feel in your own body what the human race is doing to the planet and all the creatures in it.
Rating:
Summary: A book to have mixed feelings about
Review: This book was put in the map by the raving review "The Economist" wrote on this book in September 2001 and by a series of other reviews which appeared in leading media. I remember reading a favorable review in a British newspaper in early February 2002, which "tricked" me into buying it. On the other hand, I'm glad I've bought this book before reading the 32 pages which appeared in Scientific American in January 2002, which does all but destroy the conclusions Lomborg makes throughout his book. Now that I have it, I think both sides have a point. Bjorn Lomborg has every right to be skeptical about the work done by environmentalists. He is probably right that they cannot prove many of the claims they make in absolute terms. So far, that is healthy skepticism. However Lomborg does more than that: he violates that basic rules of skepticism as you find them written down in "Fads and fallacies in the name of science", the skeptic bible Martin Gardner wrote in 1952 and repeated since on many other skeptic books such as "How we know what isn't so" by Thomas Gilovich (1991). My biggest regret is that Lomborg draws his own conclusions about many subdomains of environmentalism without having any authority in that field. In doing that (already lacking scientific credibility), regrettably, he makes many of the mistakes he accuses other scientists of. As an unfortunate result, environmentalists can easily refute the entire book, by pointing at the many mistakes he makes and in his reply to Scientific American in the April 2002 he fails to give a decent reply to the criticism. As a result, this book will only help to polarize the "believers" and "non-believers". Those that claim that the disaster is near are fighting those that there is no problem. Of course, the reality is more "balanced". In their attacks or praise for the book, to some extent both parties are generalizing and distorting sections of the text. But that is something that Lomborg has helped to create. Critics will say that his main aim was to create controversy, because this results in more copies sold, a claim that is supported by the sales figures of this book. If you read the last chapter of the book, you'll note that Lomborg concludes that "in many areas and over time it will make good sense to invest even more in sound environmental management", but he adds: "we should prioritize". In the rest of this last chapter he shows his bias: he is a clear proponent of "progress" and dismisses the environmental fears as "pessimism". Because of this bias, he moves from showing that "research is incomplete or inconclusive" to calling it "wrong" or "litany". An example: he shows (correctly) that the claims that the earths reserves are disappearing fast are overstated, but, it's not because the claim is overstated, that the claim is wrong. The truth is that oil reserves are limited, only in reality we found that we can keep postponing to take this problem serious, because oil reserves will probably last for our lifetime. However, Lomborg says in his conclusion: "we will not run out of energy". That's not a "balanced view" anymore: that sentence, taken separately, fails to acknowledge the reality is that one day the earth will run out of oil, and in stead of wanting to mine the oil fields under Alaska, we'd better look for alternatives today (even if Lomborg acknowledges that we should increase non-fossil fuel research). Moreover contrary to what Lomborg claims, spending more on "alternative energy" in developed countries will create progress, new learning, new research and will reduce our dependence of oil, which is a misused weapon by the oil countries in the middle-east since the 1970s. Also, it's naïve to think that if these developed countries would spend less on the environment that their savings would flow to more money for the developing world. This book would have been better served with a more balanced, and neutral conclusion, in which some of the sentences would have been written in a more "probabilistic" style, indicating "we cannot know for sure". As I've shown in my own book, and as many authors did, in case of conflict, this is the wrong approach when a conflict looms. Thus, for me Lomborg doesn't get my sympathy when he writes his own litany about being misunderstood in his reply to scientific Amaerican in April 2002. By not doing that carefully enough, Lomborg has given a powerful weapon to anti-environmentalists, even if he claims not be one of them. Moreover, as other review indicate, this ending chapter results in a completely dismissal of his book by environmentalists. Instead of bridging the gap between "progress" and "care for the environment", Lomborg only contributes in widening it.
Rating:
Summary: DANEROUS GREENWASH
Review: STASTICS DOES NOT EXPLAIN ALL LIFE the author has no qualifications in the subject area. those who deny environmental damage have been shown up to be cooperative workers for their industry funders. the well respected journal THE ECOLOGIST gave this book a very brief review stating that it had no foundation at all ,listed the web site of the environmental studies facaulty at the author's university,and stated that they had no intention of giving it any more publicity as it deserved none. this book is dangerous and there is no need to reward the unqualified writer by reading or buying it.
Rating:
Summary: Thoroughly and convincingly discredited
Review: This book is an excellent, pseudo-sophisticated example of the kind of work Darrell Huff had in mind when he wrote the classic, How to Lie With Statistics. It is full of a rhetoric that can easily be mistaken for well-informed debunking of mainstream economic, ecological and scientific thought and research on environmental issues. It has been thoroughly and convincingly discredited in the two most prestigious peer-reviewed scientific journals in the world, Science, published in the U.S., and Nature, published in Britain.
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