The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World

Rating:
Summary: "I haven't read the book. I don't need to." Interesting.
Review: Well, unlike my esteemed reviewer below, I *haven't* read the correspondence between Lomborg and Scientific American, so instead of commenting on that, what I will comment on here is the *book* at the top of this page, to wit THE SKEPTICAL ENVIRONMENTALIST.

The environment is one of those areas like religion where it has become practically impossible to have a rational, reasonable debate or even a conversation, because there's so much rancor on both sides. (People commenting on the book without bothering to read it demonstrate the point: this subject is *so* emotional that there's an unwillingness to give an honest, open-minded look at the arguments being presented--on either side.) However, in this contentious area, Lomborg does two things that immediately got my attention: a.) he cites the hell out of his book (71 pages of sources) and b.) he hammers home the point that EVERYTHING IS A TRADE-OFF. *Nothing is for free.* Increased spending on the environment must come at the expense of other areas, including areas such as anti-poverty spending that most people--including environmentalists--would consider to be worthy goals. And given that we don't have unlimited resources, it is best to focus our resources where they will do the most good. (2000+ sources don't make for an unbiased book? I'd be curious to know, then, what exactly does...particularly as Lomborg pulled many of his figures and statistics from UN sources. And as for this book allegedly not having gone through peer review, I'd be interested to know whether prominent environmental tomes like EARTH IN THE BALANCE have gone through peer review.)

Lomborg also leans on the point that long-term forecasting is an incredibly tricky business (which it is--chaos theory, anyone?) and comments that today's computer models are not complex enough to carry this out accurately, which I find thoroughly plausible (in fact I would find it unrealistic to argue otherwise! the idea that we understand everything about the environment--or indeed, *any* subject under the sun--smacks of hubris to me.) He asserts that natural climate change probably plays a large part in global warming while not denying that humans are having an effect and that restriction of greenhouse gases is an important part of the strategy to deal with it (in fact, his position is that current efforts, including the Kyoto treaty, are too lax to have much effect), but also states that serious efforts must include imposing more penalties on the developing world and our resources might be better spent attempting to assist them. In fact, the second point he hammers home throughout his work--that it would probably be best from a cost-benefit analysis for us to spend our resources alleviating poverty, in particular Third-World poverty--hardly enshrines him in the first rank of Evil Capitalists.

Are there problems with this book? Sure. Lomborg's assertions that we will continue to find new deposits of natural resources in the future seem just a tad too blithe to me, for one (although he is right in pointing out that we can probably find new and more efficient ways to extract resources from less-desirable sources, should we have to) and he doesn't address that there might be other considerations as to whether we use the ones we have. For example, I'm originally from Michigan. The Great Lakes represent a rich and varied ecosystem, as well as a tremendous tourist resource and state symbol, and I think I speak for most Michiganders when I say that I would not like to see the Great Lakes drained to provide drinking and irrigation water. Not that Lomborg suggests this, understand, but this is an example of one of the problems with access to this type of resource that he doesn't really discuss. I would also like to have seen more of an examination of the ways in which various types of environmental effects might "stack" with each other--for example (not increased population, since the "population bomb" has apparently fizzled--another example of the difficulties of long-term forecasting) but water usage with land usage, for instance. From a literary/historical standpoint, I think he could have tied the popularity of the "Litany" and "sky-is-falling" scenarios into a long tradition in Western thought of viewing the world as in a state of decline and degeneration (for example the ancient Greeks with their ideals of the Golden Age down through to the Iron Age, and medieval Christianity viewing the world as having degenerated from the days of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden--primarily as a punishment for human sinfulness. Hmmm. But that's more of a literary criticism.) His deconstruction of the tone of press releases and of some of the motives behind environmental claims was interesting and on-target, and I would have liked to see more. And I certainly intend to do some snooping through the sources he provides, primarily to check for context, especially of some of the quotes he pulls out. But the fact that he provides these sources at all is a huge mark in his favor, as is his cool-eyed appraisal of a very heated subject.

Rating:
Summary: Lomborg, Keep your eye on oil prices.
Review: I haven't read the book. I don't need to. I have read the correspondence between him and Scientific American.

Naturally, each two-sided argument has two bodies of thought. The question as to whether the earth is at the brink of some sort of collapse, environmentally and economically, (those terms have the same meaning here, will also have two bodies of separate thought. Where, oh where, can we find somebody to disprove the overwhelming body of scientific, naturalistic, and innate understanding that we are treating the natural systems, our own physical bodies included, like our dumping grounds.
Well, we've found a guy. He doesn't have much understanding of the environment, nor does he have an understanding of ecological systems, nor does he have an holistic understanding of how our human bodies and the environment are one in the same, nor does he understand that his graphs are meaningless and simply wrong. However, he does know statistics and formualas. Whether they work or not in reality it doesnt matter. Lomborg is sitting at his computer telling us that outside everything is well. If somebody tells you the woods are not on fire but they aren't looking towards the woods, do you believe them? IF they say statisically that it looks like the woods are not on fire, do you believe them? You feel the heat, you see the flames, does it mean that 10 years ago there was no fire, so there shouldn't be one now? of course not.

Lomborg is a theoretician, and only that. His theories don't hold up when tested. What can you say? I guess somebody has to take the other side in this issue, not surprisingly, it's incredibly weak and it's by sombody outside of the field.

So sad that this book is so heavily read. Wake up.



























We won't survive this is we are like the laboratory rats who keep on pressing the pleasure/orgasm button right on until they die, with a dishful of food on the other side of the cage.