Asia Times: 'Sceptical Environmentalist' heats global debate


	October 6, 2001	atimes.com

Global Economy

'Sceptical Environmentalist' heats global debate
By Danielle Knight

WASHINGTON - A new book by a former member of the environmental group Greenpeace is drawing bravos from business groups and brickbats from greens because it claims the world's environment is improving.

Author Bjorn Lomborg, an associate professor of statistics at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, said at one time he thought the world was "going to hell." But after he started investigating environmental trends, he said he was genuinely surprised. According to his analysis of global statistics, "we have more leisure time, greater security, less pollution, fewer accidents, more education, more amenities, higher incomes, and fewer starving people," he said.

Lomborg's 352-page book The Sceptical Environmentalist makes the case that the problems of deforestation, global warming, poor air and water quality, and endangered species have been overblown by advocacy organizations in search of funding. "It doesn't mean that there are no problems, but things are getting better and better, despite what media and environmental organizations say," said Lomborg, a self-described politically left-leaning vegetarian.

The book, which contains almost 3,000 footnotes, has unleashed furious debate within the environmental community in Europe and the United States. Lomborg's publicists say the book has been the subject of more than 400 articles in newspapers and magazines. Industry organizations and conservatives have praised the book, especially for expressing doubts about scientific predictions on global warming. Lomborg asserts that implementing the Kyoto Protocol on climate change would be too expensive and that this money would save more lives if, instead, it went toward ensuring that poor people in developing countries have access to safe, clean drinking water.

The Cooler Heads Coalition, a right-wing group against the Kyoto Protocol, has sponsored a Congressional briefing on Lomborg's book. Lomborg "has added his name to the ever-growing number of sceptics who are debating how much the earth's temperature is rising and to what extent, if any, man is involved," said a promotional flyer released this week by the Washington-based Competitive Enterprise Institute.

On the other hand, Allen Hammond, chief information officer and senior scientist at the World Resources Institute, said that while the book contains some interesting ideas, it largely distorts environmental issues and the efforts of conservationists. "There is a fair amount in the book that is interesting and accurate," said Hammond. "But it also contains a fair amount that is wrong and distorted." The real question, he adds, is why the book is getting so much publicity. Ultimately, he said, the book only "gives credence to those who want to roll back environmental regulations".

Prominent environmentalists argue that the book fails to address several crucial points concerning global warming. "He misses the issue of equity, mainly that those who have caused climate change are not those who will suffer from it," said Gerd Leipold, executive director of Greenpeace International, based in the Netherlands. Leipold said the book overlooks examples of how heat-trapping greenhouse gases - which most scientists say cause global warming - can be reduced while benefiting the economy.

Lomborg's home country Denmark, for example, has reduced carbon dioxide emissions during the last ten years while thriving economically, said Leipold. Government programs in Denmark, according to Danish Energy and Environment Minister Svend Auken, have encouraged investment and research on renewable energy. As a result, the country is less dependent on fossil fuels and has generated some 15,000 jobs in the wind energy industry.

Environmentalists also take issue with the book's emphasis of global trends and say it pays little attention to regional and local environmental issues, especially as they affect developing nations. Air pollution has improved in some industrialized cities over the past hundred years, said Leipold, but "to say that water and air quality is not a problem in Beijing and Mexico City is absurd".

The Sceptical Environmentalist takes aim at the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), known as the World Wildlife Fund in the United States. Lomborg argues that the international organization wrongly over-emphasises how much forest cover is being destroyed worldwide. He said the group's report on fires in the rainforests of Indonesia and Brazil in 1997 ignored larger forest fires that same year in Russia.

David Sandalow, executive vice president of World Wildlife Fund-US, stands by his organization's study, arguing that fires in Russia, while larger, were in temperate forests, where fires normally occur and have a less devastating impact. Sandalow also takes issue with Lomborg's characterization of the extinction rate of flora and fauna worldwide as a small problem. Many wildlife biologists and ecologists say the current extinction rate is catastrophic, commonly comparing it to the era when dinosaurs, and many other species, disappeared. "I found the book disappointing and found some obvious errors and sloppy sourcing," he said.

Some conservationists in Europe have become so angry with "The Sceptical Environmentalist" that they've launched anti-Lomborg websites in Britain and Denmark. One frustrated British activist, Mark Lynas, threw a pie in the author's face during a book promotion event in Oxford September 5. "I wanted to put a Baked Alaska in his smug face," Lynas said, "in solidarity with the native Indian and Eskimo people in Alaska who are reporting rising temperatures, shrinking sea ice and worsening effects on animal and bird life."

(Inter Press Service)

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