Skeptical Environmentalist

By JOE GROSSMAN, UPI Science News

Sept. 19 (UPI) -- A new book about the planet's well-being is proving controversial. "The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World," makes the central argument that there are widespread misconceptions about environmental issues. The author, Bjorn Lomborg, believes that exaggerated environmental concerns are diverting crucial resources from other, more important, problems. Lomborg's book includes data and statistics presented in 182 charts, graphs and tables to bolster his arguments.

Lomborg, an associate professor of statistics at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, says that people in general have been conditioned by what he calls the Litany. Lomborg acknowledges that the Litany has some truth to it, but maintains that environmental issues need to take a back seat to more pressing social issues, such as hunger.

For Lomborg, the Litany is exemplified by a quote from Worldwatch Institute's 1998 annual "State of the World" report: "The key environmental indicators are increasingly negative. Forests are shrinking, water tables are falling, soils are eroding, wetlands are disappearing, fisheries are collapsing, rangelands are deteriorating, rivers are running dry, temperatures are rising, corral reefs are dying, and plant and animal species are disappearing," Worldwatch wrote.

Lomborg actually agrees with the statement. "The statements are technically true, but they are being placed there with no sense of what is important here," Lomborg told United Press International.

While these things are important for some people, Lomborg says that his priorities concern direct benefits to individuals. He says we must look at problems directly affecting humans, problems that are much more important than anything on the list of environmental indicators that Worldwatch Institute or other environmental organizations and the popular press often repeat. "When you speak in terms of people, penguins and pine trees, it's people that matter. . . . You need to have a sense of priority . . . How many children are we willing to sacrifice to save a butterfly."

Lomborg believes that governments should busy themselves more with providing essential services such as water, sanitation, education and adequate food to their populations, rather than trying to fix environmental problems which are not as intense as generally believed. Lomborg says that his argument is not with most scientists but with, in his view, overblown issues created by environmental groups and the media.

For example, Lomborg does not believe there is a global water crisis. He maintains that better management would solve the problem. But Sandra Postel, director of the Global Water Policy Project in Amherst, Mass., disagrees. "You can't just look at some global statistics and do some mathematical calculations and conclude there's not a scarcity problem," she told UPI.

The tremendous concerns about tropical forests are also misplaced, according to Lomborg. Tropical forests are being chopped down because of poverty in those countries, he says, adding that telling developing countries not to cut down their trees must seem incredibly hypocritical, seen from a third world point of view. "We chopped down most of our forests and we got rich in the process. So at least we should pay the third world if we want them to not do as we did."

Even at the rate of 0.46 percent decrease in tropical forest a year, or about 25 percent loss in 50 years, a rate he acknowledges, Lomborg says he is not concerned. When those countries get rich, which he says will probably happen by the end of the 21st century, they can replant, just as the developed world has done.

Lomborg admits that fisheries are collapsing, but says, "That's incredibly unimportant . . . within the discussion of generating food right now. Because we're not able to reorganize fisheries efficiently, we're probably losing about 10 million tons of fish every year." This is about 10 percent of the world catch, Lomborg says. Other areas of agriculture are advancing so rapidly that the effect is negligible, he told UPI.

With regards to pollution, Lomborg says, "As far as the vast majority of significant areas are concerned, we have reduced pollution and increased environmental quality." Our fears of pesticides are overblown, Lomborg maintains, and the net benefit of pesticides outweighs any thought of cutting back on their use.

Lomborg believes fears about species extinction are hugely overstated, although David Tillman, an expert on biodiversity and species extinction at the University of Minnesota, told UPI he thought Lomborg did not use representative data in his book.

As for the greenhouse effect, he believes that about a 2 to 2.5 degree rise will occur over the next century, but believes that the costs of preventing it far exceed the costs of adapting to any impacts.

A main point in "The Skeptical Environmentalist" is that human nutrition, on average, has improved dramatically in the last 40 years. "The doomsday vision has nothing to do with reality. On practically every count, humankind is now better nourished. The Green Revolution has been victorious," he writes.

As for energy, "The evidence clearly shows that we are not headed for a major energy crisis. There is plenty of energy." Natural resources? "All indicators seem to suggest that we are not likely to experience any significant scarcity of raw materials in the future."

As for air pollution, the developing world will follow in our footsteps, while getting rich. Acid rain is dismissed as an irrational fear. Water pollution problems are improving rapidly and as far as waste is concerned, "Garbage is something we can deal with. It is a management problem."

On essentially every point, environmentalists and scientists are lining up to disagree with Lomborg.

In his summing up chapter, Lomborg reiterates his main concern: "On the global level, it seems obvious to me that the major problems remain with hunger and poverty."

Supporters say that the book is thorough and points to the need for establishing new priorities.

Bob Hahn, an economist at the pro free-market Washington think-tank American Enterprise Institute, where Lomborg will debate his position on October 3, told UPI, "The point he is making, that contrary to what you read in the press every day about how the environment frequently is getting worse, when you look at he numbers in a number of areas things are getting better, and by quite a bit for most of the people on the planet. . . . If we don't look at the actual numbers, what the numbers are telling us, then we could make very poor decisions by misallocating billions of dollars."

Critics of Lomborg accuse him of misusing statistics and of being politically motivated. Websites have sprung up aimed at refuting his positions.

Christopher Flavin, president of Worldwatch Institute, one of the organizations most criticized by Lomborg, provided UPI with a statement saying that, "Lomborg's sanguine view of environmental trends is based on a few short years of misusing and misinterpreting data from numerous fields and agencies; contradicting the conclusions of peer-reviewed scientific assessments of issues such as climate change, and forest loss; and mischaracterizing the work of research organizations like the Worldwatch Institute."
Lomborg dismisses such attacks. "I have tried to continuously say I want to look at data. . . . I keep trying to make this into a discussion about data and not a discussion about ‘Do you like my arguments or not?,' " he told UPI.

Lomborg starts a speaking tour of the U.S. next week. His book, published by Cambridge University Press, should be in bookstores by early October.