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I saw this Bjorn Lomborg headsup from BBC news, programme will be at 2100 tonight Barbelith time. He's the author of 'the Skeptical environmentalist' (wikipedia on it), if you remember that: quoting from the above-linked page:
... in early January 2003 when the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty issued a decision that declared Lomborg's research "to fall within the concept of scientific dishonesty," and to be "clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice." The committee, however, did not find grounds that Lomborg "misled his readers deliberately or with gross negligence." Instead, the decision recommends that the book should be properly understood and interpreted as a "a provocative debate-generating paper."
The Danish decision and the reviews that have appeared in Scientific American, Science, and Nature strongly question the scientific merits of Lomborg's claims. He remains, however, highly regarded by conservatives and by the financial press. Last year, Lomborg was appointed director of Denmark's Environmental Assessment Institute by the newly elected right wing government, and among the many kudos emanating from the financial press, Lomborg was named one of the 50 stars of Europe by Business Week magazine.
Clearly, The Skeptical Environmentalist has fueled Lomborg's personal celebrity. So, how did a book authored by an obscure Danish academic with little or no expertise in environmental science become an international media event? Or more precisely, what was so newsworthy about this book?
Sketchy Science, Heavy Promotion
The critiques of Lomborg's claims by scientists can be summarized and categorized as the following:
* Lomborg misinterprets or misrepresents data. He criticizes the misuse of data by environmental groups and the media, but commits similar mistakes in his own work (Bongaarts, 2001; Gleick, 2002; Grubb, 2001; Holdren, 2002; Pimm and Harvey, 2001; Pimentel, 2002; Schneider, 2001; Wilson et al., 2002). Lomborg selectively examines issues or problems that support his thesis that the state of the environment is improving, while ignoring other issues that refute his claims (Bongaarts, 2002; Grubb, 2001; Pimentel, 2002). In other cases, he over-simplifies, commits gross-generalizations, or fails to discuss the issue of uncertainty and subjectivity in the data that he presents (Gleick, 2002; Schneider, 2001)
* He uncritically and selectively cites literature, much of it non-peer-reviewed, and misinterprets or misunderstands the previously published scientific research (Gleick, 2002; Grubb, 2001; Schneider, 2002; Wilson et al., 2002). Several scientists observe that most of Lomborg's 3,000 citations are to media articles and secondary sources (Pimm & Harvey, 2001; Schneider, 2002).
* Lomborg's research is conceptually flawed. He ignores ecology and connections among environmental problems, taking instead a "human-centered" approach (Gleick, 2002). In several cases he uses statistical measures that are not valid indicators of the problems he reports are improving (Pimm and Harvey, 2001). On the topic of biodiversity, E.O Wilson and a team of reviewers find that Lomborg's work is "strikingly at odds with what every expert in the field has stated..." (Wilson et al., 2002, pg. 5). The review appearing in Nature goes broader, and concludes that The Skeptical Environmentalist is "a hastily prepared book on complex scientific issues which disagrees with the broad scientific consensus, using arguments too often supported by news sources rather than by peer-reviewed publications" (Pimm & Harvey, 2001, p. 150).
The vast criticism of the book from credentialed scientists contrasts sharply with the early advance hype from the mainstream media. Just how so much glowing enthusiasm and credibility could be thrust upon a single book from an unknown author before experts could even begin to weigh its claims offers an excellent case study in the manufacture of news.
But anyway, what brings my attention here today is this quote from his BBC news article: Rather than questioning prioritisation itself, we should be asking: what should we do first? I think the question of how to prioritize, and hence co-ordinate, strategic collective human action in response to climate change is a really useful conversation. |
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