A Skeptical Environmentalist

Image: Bjorn Lomborg

(Conspiracy Nation, 01/18/06) -- An article by Ian Kidd in the January 2006 issue of Fortean Times magazine covers the hostile hounding experienced by a dissenting statistician.

Bjorn Lomborg (image, left) is an associate professor of statistics at the University of Aarhus in Denmark. He had been a true believer in establishment environmentalism -- until his statistical studies convinced him something was amiss.

Lomborg dared to write a dissident book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, which was published in 2001. Since that time he has suffered relentless attacks from the priesthood of "science."

At his website, Lomborg's book is described. The Skeptical Environmentalist "challenges widely held beliefs that the global environment is progressively getting worse... the global environment has actually improved... Lomborg criticizes the way many environmental organizations make selective and misleading use of scientific data to influence decisions about the allocation of limited resources."

One rabidly reacting publication, Scientific American, could scarcely conceal its fury. They, writes Ian Kidd in "Against The Tide," launched "a vitriolic 11-page condemnation of the book and its author."

Scientific American's credibility in the affair is also questioned by Thomas Wikman, in a book review at amazon.com. "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," he writes.

Kidd relates "the hostility unleashed by the environmental establishment." Among the incidents...

These vicious attacks occurred in spite of widespread praise for Lomborg's book. The Washington Post Book World, for example, called The Skeptical Environmentalist "the most significant work on the environment since the appearance of its polar opposite, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, in 1962. It's a magnificent achievement."

The Green Meanies, seething with hatred, belong to a "politicisation of ecology that has created a dogmatic environmentalism." (Kidd, emphasis added) No less than some Christian fanatics, the environmental establishment brooks no "heresy."

Also rigidly dogmatic are the priests of "science," closed-minded to alternative explanations. There are good scientists out there, yet they tremble in fear lest their careers be ruined by arch-bishops of "science," scrutinizing against non-comformity.

Inevitably, the Young Turks of Science are disdaining the orthodoxy. "Bjorn Lomborg is an outstanding representative of the 'new breed' of political scientists," writes Jack Hirshleifer of UCLA, "mathematically-skilled and computer-adept."

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