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MAYORBOB's link contains a link to a letter to the editor criticizing the Washington Post article on Lomborg. Please note that the letter is just a personal attack on Lomborg, and doesn't prove that any of his claims are wrong.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27458-2001Nov1?lan guage=printer
Sunday, November 4, 2001; Page BW12
Skeptic Enough?
Healthy skepticism about extraordinary claims is a hallmark of good science. Just such skepticism would have been useful in Denis Dutton's review of Bjxrn Lomborg's The Skeptical Environmentalist (Book World, Oct. 21), which makes extraordinary claims indeed: that environmental quality is improving around the world and that the environmental community is not telling the truth for its own cynical reasons.
Your reviewer, who is identified as someone who lectures at the University of Canterbury on "the dangers of pseudo-science," is greatly impressed by a work that, unfortunately, exemplifies pseudo-science at its worst. In making the case for a more rational and scientific debate on environmental issues, Lomborg commits just the sins for which he attacks environmentalists. He exaggerates, makes sweeping generalizations, presents false choices, is highly selective in his use of data and quotations and, frequently, is simply wrong.
Lomborg paints a caricature of the environmental agenda based on sometimes mistaken views widely held 30 years ago but to which no serious environmental institution today subscribes. Unlike Lomborg, leading environmental groups are well aware of what biological and climate science tells us, they work with major corporations, and they pursue strategies based on providing information that allows people to make informed choices.
Moreover, despite its 3,000 footnotes, the book is riddled with misleading arguments and factual errors. For example, Lomborg asserts that "marine productivity has almost doubled since 1970." While tons of fish taken from the sea have indeed doubled, many marine fish stocks are now badly depleted as a result and harvests of cod, swordfish, halibut and many other commercially important species have crashed. There are literally hundreds of such deceptive statements.
Lomborg, who has never previously worked or published in environmental science or policy, is simply out of his depth, and your reviewer has mistaken a polemic for a work of scholarship. Readers should be forewarned.
– JONATHAN LASH
President, World Resources Institute
Washington, D.C.
Denis Dutton responds:
Jonathan Lash says that The Skeptical Environmentalist is riddled with "factual errors." His lone example? Lomborg's claim that "marine productivity has almost doubled since 1970" – which Lash then concedes is correct. In the 1960s and '70s there were many ominous predictions of massive declines in fishing harvests. These include, as Lomborg points out, Paul Ehrlich's 1974 prediction that the global fish catch would peak at 60 million tons. It has now passed 90 million tons.
In his book, Lomborg includes a detailed and illuminating analysis of periodic fish-stock collapses, which do not threaten halibut or cod with extinction and which play a relatively minor role in the overall global caloric intake, even though they may be very bad news for local fishing industries.
Lash's letter, full of abuse for any outsider who dares question Green dogma, shows that it's overdue for economists and statisticians to apply their analytical tools to the scientific data. Lobbyists have for too long been dining out on scare stories. Lomborg is knocking facts back into the debate.
© 2001 The Washington Post Company
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