I read Bjørn Lomborg's The Skeptical Environmentalist several years ago. It is a remarkable book. The key to understanding it is in understanding the title (although a background in statistics and a healthy attention span would be helpful, too). A skeptic is one who questions the reliability or validity of knowledge, values, etc. I have no idea how one gets from being a skeptic to some of the things Lomborg has been called. Being a skeptic, and in Lomborg's case an extremely well informed skeptic, does not make one anything other than a skeptic. It does not make one a conservative, a fundamentalist or even a Republican. Both Bjørn Lomborg and his book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, have been heavily and unfairly attacked.

The Skeptical Environmentalist does not attempt to repudiate environmental research. It does try to demonstrate: How the rhetoric within the environmental movement is too often exaggerated. How people believe things about the environment as fact when there is little or conflicting evidence to support such "facts." It warns against making hasty political decisions based on faulty analysis or while under the suasion of popular belief. And because Lomborg has questioned received wisdom, he has been attacked and the import of what he is saying, his skepticism, has been ignored.

"Scientific American" contributed to the attack against Lomborg with a lengthy critique. Link below to read Lomborg's reply. Apparently, "Scientific American" has been reluctant to give Lomborg an opportunity to respond. As I have learned, this sort of reluctance often speaks volumes. With the links below, please read more about this. Is "Scientific American" the magazine we think it is?

I do not have the resources, background, access or training to know that each graph or each citation is accurate or that within its related field it passes peer review. Nor do I believe that most readers do, including people trained in the sciences. There is simply too much information and fields of specialty are often quite narrow in scope. One of the main criticisms of books like The Skeptical Environmentalist (License to Steal, by Malcolm Sparrow, or Tender Loving Greed, by Mary Adelaide Mendelson) is that the data is old and that therefore the author's conclusions can be discounted. Sparrow pointed out that this is a perfect and infallible argument, inasmuch as no book can get to the market place without delays long enough to make sense of the attack. But one can read critically, assess how arguments are made and what is meant or intended by an author's conclusions. And one should listen to the political debate with same care.

Is Lomborg right or wrong? Perhaps the better question is why we cannot view the issues he raises, not dogmatically, but with an open mind. It is too easy, too politically successful a strategy, to say reflexively "we need new laws": new environmental laws, new nursing home laws, new Medicare regulations, new business accountability laws . . . . The stakes are very high when we are talking about regulating at these levels.

The Skeptical Environmentalist is an eye opening book, and the attacks on it appear indicative of the nature of belief versus the nature of knowledge, of acceptance of a premise versus critical thinking.

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