Rating: 
Summary: As Good As It Gets
Review: I was astonished to see the two somewhat hysterical reviews below. Lomberg has done a fine job here debunking much of the "received wisdom" from the environmental establishment.The vehemence of the attacks on Lomborg and his book, here and in the establishment journals, is a pretty good measure of how well he has done his job. Anyone seriously interested in the truth about environmental claims must read this book. Get it and decide for yourself.
Rating:
Summary: Most Important Nonfiction Book of the New Millennium
Review: With all of the hyped discussion about the global environment, everyone needs to become better informed concerning the truths and deceptions of this emotional issue. Mr. Lomborg is liberal and a member of Greenpeace, but more importantly he is a statistician and totally dedicated to the truth and the proper use of statistics in finding it. The book is not written as a boring statistical proof of his conclusions. He does illustrate his conclusions with numerous graphs and charts which you can study or ignore and he documents his facts with an almost unbelievable number of reference notes. It is a prodigious accomplishment by someone searching for and discovering the truth. The book is brilliant and powerful. If you only read one more nonfiction book in your lifetime, let it be this one. This is quite possibly the best book of the new millennium for people in the general public. Unfortunately this book vividly illustrates once more why you cannot trust the mainstream media for a fair and balanced treatment of any volatile societal issue. Mr. Lomborg's critics have already launched into their ad hominem attack mode because his rational conclusions do not agree with their left-wing extremist hysteria. Help decrease the ignorance and demagoguery about this very important subject. I cannot recommend this book too highly. Almost everyone who reads this book will be very glad he did and most will recommend it to a friend.
Rating: 
Summary: Worth the effort.
Review: Have you ever wondered whether or not you were answering the "paper or plastic?" question correctly at the supermarket, what current scientific research has to say about the trade-off in materiel use, energy consumption, and waste issues involved in best choosing between having your groceries bagged in plastic or paper, which environment-friendly lifestyle choices payoff in terms of intelligent management of our planet and its resources, or what public policies you should support or oppose to ensure a quality environment for future generations? Then, I recommend reading this book. I would have rated this book five stars, if the rating criteria was based on societal importance. The areas covered in this book are important to everyone who is dependent upon the Earth's natural resources. In the end, I was only able to give it four stars, because it tended to bog this reader down in parts with details of how conclusions are reached, and its treatment of the biodiversity vs. genetically engineered foods issues touched on only a few key points while overlooking others However (despite these flaws), I found Mr. Lomborg's book to be highly informative, and it has whet my appetite for further reading on environmental issues. I am as guilty as the next person in depending on the news media to provide all of my environmental issue information. After reading the "The Skeptical Environmentalist," I have resolved to turn to a wider variety of resources.
Rating: 
Summary: The Ignorant Destructionist: Measuring fantasy land
Review: Lomberg is a fraud, and the scientific community knows it. It is amazing how blind western society remains as our land is destroyed in the name of corporate profit. I am also amazed at how easily people are influenced by this one book. People must be so desperate to feel good about themselves as they drive their SUVs and they watch every acre of land developed, that they latch on to Lomborg as if he were a god, telling us mere mortals that everything is going to be OK. Why not research the points Lomborg makes with the worlds' top scientific journals, before being so quick to jump on his bandwagon. If Lomborg wrote that smoking does not cause cancer, would you believe him? Yet to the majority of the scientific community, Lomborg's assertions are just as ignorant. Don't believe me, why not e-mail a respected scientist and ask for his/her feedback. The truth may hurt, but until we are willing to accept responsibility for the environmental problems we are creating, change will be impossible.
Rating:
Summary: Probably the most important public-affairs book this year
Review: Whether you agree with Lomborg's analysis or not, this book
has opened up the debate about what is wrong (and right) about
public policies concerning the environment. No longer will the mandarins be able to sit back in their ivory towers and tell the rest of us what we ought to do without providing detailed analysis and policy arguments. On the other side of thing, no longer will people like me be able to pretend that (some) changes are not needed. Lomborg has provided us with a ractual framework upon to base the public debate. No matter that he may be wrong on various factual points: his opponents will have to make their countercases on Lomborg's framework.
Rating:
Summary: terrible
Review: as is shown (with real facts) in articles by reputed scientists in articles in scientific american, grist magazine and other publications, many of lomborg's facts are just plain wrong!
he uses words like unlikely, not plausible etc to back up his claims without giving any real statistics. strange, especially for a statistition.
Rating:
Summary: A Rational Look at the Environment
Review: Finally, a rational analysis of the environment and the world situation regarding population, food production, global warming, and energy. It is a refreshing challenge to the-sky-is-falling attitudes of radical environmentalists. This book is not an easy read, but Lomborg does an admirable job of turning hard facts into a readable and interesting book. His research is extensive and persuasive. As a natural skeptic and a graduate engineer, I appreciated his calm, reasoned approach to debunking many of the hysterical claims made by less scientific spokesmen for the radical environmentalists. For example, he shows how one author used a one-year rise in tuberculosis rates to put forth the argument that the disease is increasing in the world. Lomborg shows the entire 55-year graph which trended downward for the other 54 years. Only when you see the entire graph does it become evident that the projection is skewed.
His book is full of statistical analysis that shows how the chicken-little crowd selectively picks or excludes evidence to make their case. This is not science, but they don't care. This excellent book should be required reading in every statistics class, and a good reference book for the biological sciences.
.
Rating:
Summary: An Indispensable, Objective Survey
Review: Lomborg's book is the indispensable guide to evaluating our progress in reclaiming the planet. He is a dedicated green himself, but wrote the book because of his perception that much of the claims as to environmental problems involved data which seemed to be suspect or wrong. Lomborg's approach was simply to look at the data cited as to major environmental issues and to examine such data to determine whether it in fact supports the claims made on its behalf. As Lomborg sifts through the data, patiently and objectively, his message is at once upbeat, because we have made great strides over the past three decades as he documents, and cautionary, because, as he shows, there is still much to be done. Lomborg has done us all a great service in winnowing the immense amount of data on environmental issues and in evaluating the claims made in the environmental dialogue, much of which unfortunately has been more in the nature of mere propaganda. The book is very readable, and gives the person looking for an objective view of our environmental problems and challenges an important piece of bedrock upon which to stand and evaluate the public policy debate.
Rating:
Summary: Yet another propagandist for corporate destructiveness
Review: If I could give this less than one star, I would do it. It is a terribly written and even more terribly researched book. Yet it will continue to draw attention, and to sell, because it serves the purposes of corporate power. Julian Simon, Gregg Easterbrook, Alston Chase. Bjorn Lomborg is just the latest in a long line of those who make careers out of misusing quotes and statistics in order to serve those in power. If any environmentalist did such poor research as this, their reputation would be ruined. It reveals much about the destructiveness of our culture, and our deep state of denial about this destructiveness, that Lomborg has already been able to parlay his nonsense into a government job and an international bestseller.
Rating:
Summary: Pseudo-science
Review: Lomborg's book may appear to consist of logical arguments, and therefore appeals to many, but closer examination reveals this not to be the case. I would urge other readers of the book to treat Lomborg's work with the same view to skepticism as Lomborg himself...
| 
