Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Apple
Android
Windows Phone
Android
To get the free app, enter your email address or mobile phone number.
2015 National Book Awards - Nonfiction Winner Get your copy of this year's National Book Award winner for nonfiction, "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Hardcover | Kindle book | See more winners
This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.
Worthy causes, whether religious, political or moral tend to see themselves as above the duty to provide evidence to substantiate both their claims about reality and the suitability of their proposed measures to improve said reality. To their believers, the state of the world is obvious (usually bad), and they are genuinely astonished to find that most people are unconcerned about the grave issues that drive them. Their natural reaction is to become even more feverish about their respective causes and to step up efforts to proselytise and convert the benighted masses. Bjorn Lomborg started working on the issues that would eventually make up the content of his book by leading some of his statistics students into debunking some claims made by University of Maryland's professor Julian Simon. Julian Simon had claimed that things were actually getting better rather than worse, and that most negative environmental indicators were connected to poverty, violence and bad government rather than consumption or wealth. To their surprise (for he initially took Simon's claims as evidence of typical American arrogance), Lomborg and his students found that Simon was roughly right.Read more ›
12 Comments
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
It is true that Lomborg's book does contain some errors. And that is why I am giving it only 4 Stars. But Lomborg has freely admitted them; More importantly, however, these minor mistakes do not undermine his main conclusion that the Earth's Environment is improving, rather than declining. We have had predictions of mass famine in the 1960's too due to the growing world population but the subsequent Green Revolution boosted crop production and supported the increased population. My point here is that Scientists and Prognosticators cannot predict the future. Personally, I do think that we should do more to curb Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions and increase Fuel Economy Standards in both Canada and the US. Having a higher gas or electric bill tends to focus one's mind on buying energy saving devices, light bulbs, etc. Having said that, we should equally NOT Demonise individuals such as Bjorn Lomborg who argue that the Earth's Environment is gradually improving rather than going to hell in a hand basket. Rather we should rationally examine the scientific facts first and then form a conclusion as Lomborg attempts to do in his book.
Some critics of Dr. Lomborg have referred to the January 2003 report by the Danish Commitee on Scientific Dishonesty(DCSD) as essentially discrediting the entire basis of The Skeptical Environmentalist. But, in fact, many lay people have pointed out serious flaws in the Methadology of DCSD's conclusions and on its refusal to give Lomborg prior to the release of their critical report. The Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation has now(December 2003) intervened to harshly criticised the DCSD's methadology and to repudiated their findings on Lomborg's book.Read more ›
Comment
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Contrary to what the critics are claiming, this book does not tell us "everything is alright". Basically what the book does is place al problems in context and then it tries to compare them so we can judge where our money makes the biggest difference. But some people apparently don't like the resulting priorities like "we could give all people in the world food and clean water forever for less than the yearly costs of Kyoto". Notice that the writers sympathy is with the sick and starving, not with the wealthy. What is so good about the book that the writer uses the most acclaimed sources in each field, so people that don't like the resulting priorities find themselves fighting their own conclusions. As you've guessed from the title I've carefully read the 11 page Scientific American article, Lomboks even larger rebuttal, Scientific Americans reaction to that and finally the ruling of the DCSD (the Danish group of scientists that ruled him biased). This Scientific American article uses a very heavyhanded and even rhetoric approach to stress that the critics are scientific heavyweights in their field, not te be disputed. But after the dust clears only two factual errors (that are never relevant to the main theme) remain: (1) the tekst contains the term catalyse where it should have been electrolyze (translation error according to Lombok) and (2) a "20% dependence" on nuclear energy in nations having nuclear power should have been a "20% dependence for electric use". So here's a book picked to pieces by heavywheights and these are the only factual mistakes they can find! In his rebuttal (DO read it: I'cant put in web adresses here but you'll find it in no time) Lombok comes up with a long list of errors on the part of his critics.Read more ›
Comment
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
![]({"http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/510TQSBRB1L._SX332_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg":[334,474],"http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/510TQSBRB1L._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg":[244,346]})
![B. Lomborg's The Skeptical Environmentalist(The Skeptical Environmentalist: MeasuringRealStateofWorld[Paperback])(2001)](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51DaWUAjbRL._AC_UL160_SR111,160_.jpg)
