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Bjørn Lomborg

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The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World Reprint Edition

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Bjørn Lomborg, a former member of Greenpeace, challenges widely held beliefs that the world environmental situation is getting worse and worse in his new book, The Skeptical Environmentalist. Using statistical information from internationally recognized research institutes, Lomborg systematically examines a range of major environmental issues that feature prominently in headline news around the world, including pollution, biodiversity, fear of chemicals, and the greenhouse effect, and documents that the world has actually improved. He supports his arguments with over 2500 footnotes, allowing readers to check his sources. Lomborg criticizes the way many environmental organizations make selective and misleading use of scientific evidence and argues that we are making decisions about the use of our limited resources based on inaccurate or incomplete information. Concluding that there are more reasons for optimism than pessimism, he stresses the need for clear-headed prioritization of resources to tackle real, not imagined, problems. The Skeptical Environmentalist offers readers a non-partisan evaluation that serves as a useful corrective to the more alarmist accounts favored by campaign groups and the media. Bjørn Lomborg is an associate professor of statistics in the Department of Political Science at the University of Aarhus. When he started to investigate the statistics behind the current gloomy view of the environment, he was genuinely surprised. He published four lengthy articles in the leading Danish newspaper, including statistics documenting an ever-improving world, and unleashed the biggest post-war debate with more than 400 articles in all the major papers. Since then, Lomborg has been a frequent participant in the European debate on environmentalism on television, radio, and in newspapers.

ISBN-10

9780521010689
ISBN-13

978-0521010689
Edition

Reprint
Publisher

Cambridge University Press
Publication date

September 10, 2001
Language

English
Dimensions

6.69 x 1.22 x 9.61 inches
Print length

540 pages
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"This is one of the most valuable books on public policy - not merely on environmental policy - to have been written for the intelligent general reader in the past ten years. The Skeptical Environmentalist is a triumph."
The Economist

"… a superbly documented and readable book."
The Wall Street Journal

"… it is a surprise to meet someone who calls himself an environmentalist but who asserts that things are getting better … Strange to say, the author of this happy thesis is not a steely-eyed economist at a conservative Washington think tank but a vegetarian, backpack-toting academic who was a member of Greenpeace for four years … The primary target of the books, a substantial work of analysis with almost 3000 footnotes, are statements made by environemtal organizations like the Worldwatch Institute, the World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace. He refers to the persistently gloomy fate from these groups as the Litany, a collection of statements that he argues are exaggerations or outright myths."
The New York Times

"The Skeptical Environmentalist should be read by every environmentalist, so that the appalling errors of fact the environmental movement has made in the past are not repeated. A brilliant and powerful book."
Matt Ridley, author of Genome

"Lomborg pulls off the remarkable feat of welding the techno-optimism of the Internet age with a lefty's concern for the fate of the planet."
Rolling Stone

"Bjørn Lomborg is an outstanding representative of the 'new breed' of political scientists - mathematically-skilled and computer-adept. In this book he shows himself also to be a hardheaded, empirically oriented analyst. Surveying a vast amount of data and taking account of a wide range of more and less informed opinion about environmental threats facing the planet, he comes to a balanced assessment of which ones are real and which are over-hyped. In vigorous and what needs not to be done about those turning out to be pseudo-problems."
Jack Hirshleifer, University of California, Los Angeles

"Bjørn Lomborg raises the important question whether the costs of remedying the damage caused by environmental pollution are higher than the costs of the pollution itself. The answer is by no means straightforward. He has written a pioneering book."
Richard Rosecrance, University of California, Los Angeles

"When Lomborg concludes that 'the loss of the world's rainforests, of fertile agricultural land, the ozone layer and of the climate balance are terrible' I agree. But we also need debate, and this book provides us with that in generous amounts, incl 2428 footnotes. If you, like I do, belong to the people who dare to think the world is making some progress, but always with mistakes to be corrected, this book makes important reading."
Lars Kristoferson, Secretary General, WWF Sweden

"… probably the most important book on the environment ever written."
booksonline

"Lomborg is right on his points, that his critique of much green activism and its reporting in the media is just, and, above all, that where there is room for disagreement, Mr Lomborg invites and facilitates discussion, rather than seeking to silence it."
The Economist

Book Description

A controversial, wide ranging and clearly documented survey of the state of the global environment.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0521010683
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Cambridge University Press; Reprint edition (September 10, 2001)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 540 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780521010689
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0521010689
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.38 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.69 x 1.22 x 9.61 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #158,000 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #123 in Environmental Economics (Books)
- #230 in Ecology (Books)
- #263 in Environmental Science (Books)

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4.6 528 ratings

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About the author

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Bjørn Lomborg

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Dr. Bjorn Lomborg is an academic and the author of the best-selling "The Skeptical Environmentalist" and "Cool It". He challenges mainstream concerns about development and the environment and points out that we need to focus our limited resources and attention on the smartest solutions first. He is a visiting professor at Copenhagen Business School, and president of the Copenhagen Consensus Center which brings together top economists, including seven Nobel Laureates, to set data-driven priorities for the world.

Follow him on twitter: bjornlomborg

Lomborg is a frequent commentator in print and broadcast media, for outlets including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, CNN, FOX, and the BBC. His monthly column is published in 19 languages, in 30+ newspapers with more than 30 million readers globally.

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4.6 out of 5

528 global ratings

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Thomas Wikman

A very important master piece

Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2006

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I was introduced to "The Skeptical Environmentalist" and Bjorn Lomborg by Scientific American. I am a decade long reader of Scientific American, and I still enjoy reading Scientific American. It took me a few years before I decided to read this book. It is a thick book and I was afraid it would be biased. However, I was positively surprised once I read it. This book is one of the most important and interesting books I have ever read. After reading this book I went back and read the critique of the book in Scientific American. I am sorry to say this but the critique in Scientific American was misleading, off target, strong worded, and ridiculous. The critique had nothing to do with Science; it was just a few offended Professors mouthing off. If you read the book carefully, check some of the facts for your self, and then read the critique in Scientific American Bjorn Lomborg will end up looking like the Galileo of our time, or maybe a Giordano Bruno. Many of the claims you will see in the negative reviews below are simply false and many highly exaggerated. Some negative reviewers, however, admit they did not read the book.

Regarding his chapter on Global Warming. Contrary to what some reviewers and critics claim, Bjorn Lomborg does not deny the existence of Global Warming. Neither does he state that it is not partially human induced. However, he puts the effects of Global Warming in perspective and corrects many alarmist myths regarding this subject. He also statistically analyzes the effects of the Kyoto protocol and finds that it is a flawed protocol that does much more harm than good.

Why the book is so important is because the public has been made to believe so much outrageous nonsense with regards to the economy, health, resources, environment, and the state of the world. It is primarily the media and environmental activists that are responsible for this misinformation. However, environmental scientists have not been very eager to correct misconceptions that result in more grants for them. This book is a "just the facts mam" book, and many (I believe the vast majority) of the facts that will surprise you are also agreed on by the very experts that are critical of this book. This is very important to remember. The book contains 173 figures, mostly graphs, nearly 3000 references, and thousands of interesting facts. Some of the claims in the book are under dispute, but for the average reader this is not of great concern. You have been bamboozled and Bjorn Lomborg will set you almost entirely straight.

One great service the book does to the average reader is that it makes you aware of how statistics can be used to manipulate you (this was not a surprise to me). For example, a claim that more people are dying of cancer does not mean that there is a cancer epidemic. Cancer is an old age disease, and we are living longer but the overall mortality rate is still 100%(duh), so that a higher percent is dying from cancer is not strange. You have to adjust the cancer rate and mortality rates for age to see if it has become worse (and it hasn't). Watch out for statistics in the media. Lomborgs analysis of GM food scares/hoaxes was exceptionally interesting.

And finally, here are a few interesting facts selected by me.

>> In 1970 35% of all people in the developing world were starving. In 1996 the figure was 18% and the UN expects that the figure will have fallen to 12% by 2010.

>> The life expectancy in the whole world in 1900 was still around 30. In 1998 it was 65 in the developing world.

>> Water scarcity is a local and logistic problem, not a global resource problem.

>> So2 pollution in London in the mid 1800 was around 40 times higher than it is now. Also economic development leads naturally to less pollution (not the the other way around), except for the very beginning.

>> The price of the vast majority of the important minerals and metals keep going down, and the reserves up (we find more, or extract more efficiently).

>> The worlds known conventional oil reserves has gone up (not down) because we keep finding more. At the year 2000 it stood at 40 more years of consumption.

>> It is estimated that globally there is about 242 times more shale oil than the conventional petroleum resource (we could tap into this when the price goes up more)

>> Do you remember the acid rain scare, it was just that. Acid rain only damages trees under very rare conditions.

26 people found this helpful

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Walton Francis

The Witch Hunters Revenge

Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2003

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Ordinarily I wouldn't bother to write a review of a self-evidently useful book, but the latest developments begin to surpass the Salem witch trials in interest. The very people criticized in Lomborg's book are engaged in a mass lynching of him for simply speaking the truth.
Let's start at the beginning. This is by far the most useful reference on environmental issues and facts ever published. Lomborg has undertaken the Herculean task of locating, interpreting, and presenting the collective knowledge of the world on environmental issues. As a compendium of knowledge, The Skeptical Environmentalist is awesome and unequaled. To be sure, it is not uniformly excellent. For example, he devotes only a handful of pages to nuclear energy, incorrectly dismisses nuclear as unreasonably expensive and dangerous (relying on weak, tertiary sources), and unduly credits wind, solar, and other unconventional sources as likely to solve future energy problems. In fact, modern nuclear plant designs are immune from meltdown, cannot produce weapons-grade material, and are economical to build and operate. Anyone worried about global warming should be leading the fight to replace coal and oil-fired electrical power with nuclear power. Lomborg could also use some editing by a serious craftsman of the English language. But no book is perfect, and this one is hugely impressive.
Lomborg also aims at exposing what he calls the "Litany" of environmentally and politically correct extremists who dominate most popular, mass media organs. He accomplishes this effectively, though that is no great achievement, since environmental hype is so widespread and patently erroneous. Anyone with the slightest acquaintance with environmental data knows that things are improving rapidly on almost all fronts, and have been improving for decades, in most of the world. Julian Symons (The Ultimate Resource) long ago discredited the Malthusians. The Limits to Growth was exposed as a nonsensical sham thirty years ago. Yet, the Malthusians persist. Donella Meadows, one of the authors of Limits, won a so-called Genius award from the MacArthur Foundation for her misuse of modeling and demonstrably false predictions. The predictions of Paul Ehrlich, and of Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute, have been proven equally idiotic. When I first read Lomborg, I found his exposure of the "Litany" almost boring--sort of like hunting fish in a barrel.
But the "Litany" has struck back. A committee of Danish witch hunters, apparently Malthusians to the core, has taken charge of a Danish bureaucracy called "The Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty". Using Kangaroo Court techniques, they have found Lomborg guilty of scientific dishonesty because the environmental establishment disagrees with his views. Despite their inability to document a single important error of fact or inference in his massive work , they have condemned him as dishonest, based on the disagreement of the very people he criticizes and whom he demonstrates to hysterically misrepresent the scientific data. Their report, linked from his web site, condemns him for having criticized many environmental activists "of having misunderstood the basic concepts, of misrepresenting relevant facts, of understating uncertainties, of cherry-picking data, ... in a nutshell, at members of the research community being guilty of large-scale infractions of the researchers' code of conduct." Well, yes. That is exactly what Lomborg criticizes them for, quite thoroughly and quite effectively. And that, if you read the witch hunter report cover to cover, is apparently enough to convict him of a science (sic) crime. In a particularly Orwellian twist, he is condemned because he himself is a scientist, not a mere journalist, and is hence not allowed to "a provocative debate-generating publication" (never mind that his critics engage in the very behavior for which he is condemned). Precious. I can hardly wait for the next edition of his book. Bjorn, be sure to reserve some special praise for the mentally challenged chairman of the witch hunter committee, one Hans Henrik Brykensholt, as you tote up your increased royalties. With enemies like him, one hardly needs friends

33 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Mauro F Rebelo

Outstanding!

Reviewed in Brazil on November 20, 2019

Verified Purchase

Full of data and backed argumentation, he contests ‘intuitive’ interpretation and fake news (or data) inspired by other motivation. I’m sorry my brain cannot hold all that I’m learning

Cliente Amazon

Perfect service & conditions

Reviewed in Italy on March 17, 2016

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the book - not new - has been published in 2001. the conditions were very very good, as announced in the offer. delivery was very fast. supplier recommended.

Peter Elliott

Five Stars

Reviewed in Australia on March 16, 2016

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Every young person should read this, it will improve their whole outlook on the future.

C. C. Williams

World shaking and life changing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 10, 2003

Verified Purchase

There are some books that you read, 'The Selfish Gene', for example, that completely change the way that you see yourself and the world around you and this is one of those. This is a thoughtful, carefully argued, exhaustively researched and completely devastating refutation of what might be seen as the standard environmental model. Many have criticized that this book merely confirms its readers' prejudices. Possibly this is true - I was certainly sceptical myself of certain elements of received wisdom. For example, I simply could not believe that a planet, three fifths of which is covered by water more than a mile deep, was actually running short on water. Correspondingly if you hold that mankind is the greatest natural disaster that has ever befallen the planet then this book will not convince you that things are really OK.
He points out things which the reader should already know to be true. I know that the environment of the UK has visibly improved during my lifetime - I grew up in the 1970s - and Lomborg points out that this is true elsewhere. He points out that environmental legislation can only follow prosperity and that the greatest scandal in the world is not deforestation but lack of drinking water and adequate sanitation so that many people in the developing world are poisoned by their own filth.
So far so obvious. However, he gets much more subversive. Lomborg's strength is not that he can conduct primary research - he's not an oceanographer or meteorologist - but that he can analyse other people's data and see the patterns lying underneath. From his analysis, he shows that we are not living through a mass extinction unparalleled since the end of the cretaceous, that we are not running out of natural resources and neither are we likely to, that the world is not overpopulated, that the welfare of almost all people (and not just those in the developed countries) has improved greatly during the last century and will continue to do so, that deforestation is largely illusory, etc. Most importantly, he debunks a lot of myths about global warming and argues - persuasively I believe - that the Kyoto agreement is no more than an expensive and pointless act of public penance for our imagined sins.
His central message is not that controversial and it is this: the world is not perfect and many things can be improved but it is not as bad as many people would have you believe. This needs to be borne in mind by our legislators when they consider implementing policies which will have a negative impact not just on our prosperity but on the prosperity of developing nations as well.

35 people found this helpful

Allen Richard George

What we think we know vs. The facts

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 22, 2023

Verified Purchase

How could anyone think that what we see on the news and read in the press is the whole truth? I became convinced that I did not have anywhere near a complete environmental picture and ended up at this book. Whilst my edition is a 2004 update. The picture, I am sure, is not much changed in 2023. This book offers a very wide selection of data (with 80 pages of sources notes) that show that what we think we know (did I say 'fed' by the media, because bad news sells?) and the truth are two very different things. No-one is saying that humans are not changing, and in many cases damaging the Earth, but this book offers much needed context.

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