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From
http://www.booksonline.co.uk/booksol?ac=003384410226887&rtmo=fwasaow
s&atmo=rrrrrrvs&pg=/01/8/25/bogren25.html
}}>Begin
The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World
Bj�rn Lomborg
History, General
Matt Ridley
27 August 2001
CUP
27 August 2001
Hardback
0521010683
The Greens have got it wrong
Matt Ridley considers this to be 'probably the most important book on the
environment ever written'
EACH DECADE sees its new environmental obsessions. In the 1960s it was
pesticides and the population explosion. In the 1970s there was the oil
crisis, the imminent failure of the food supply and the fear of nuclear power.
In the 1980s the deserts were advancing, acid rain was killing trees, the ozone
layer was thinning and the elephant was on the brink of extinction. In the 1990s
we had retreating rain forests, falling sperm counts, plagues of new diseases,
genetically modified crops and, of course, climate change. How many of these
came true? If you take the trouble to examine the facts, you will find a
remarkable thing. On all but the most recent scares, where the jury is still
out, the alarmists were badly wrong. There has been no rise in cancer caused by
chemicals, population growth slowed rather than accelerated, oil reserves grew
rather than fell, food production per head increased even in poor countries,
nuclear accidents were few and minor, deserts did not advance, acid rain killed
no forests, the damage to the ozone layer was minimal, the elephant was never in
danger of extinction, rain forests are still 80 per cent intact, sperm counts
did not fall. The extreme greens have been so wrong for so long that you would
think somebody might have noticed. One American, Julian Simon, did try to point
this out in a series of books, but nobody wanted to listen. The temptation of
indulging in environmental guilt was too strong; repeating its message was
almost reassuring: the planet is in ever greater pain and it is all our fault.
Bj�rn Lomborg, a Danish statistics professor, came across Simon's argument and
set out to prove it wrong. Instead he ended up proving Simon right in almost
every respect. Four years later he has put his conclusions in a remarkable book,
probably the most important book on the environment ever written. Its importance
lies partly in its relentless statistics. With 173 charts, nine tables and a
staggering 2,930 footnotes, The Skeptical Environmentalist will be a source of
reference for years to come. But it is also a readable, accessible and simple
account of the state of the world, told as much in the illuminating charts as in
the text itself. And it is a fascinating polemic, too. Lomborg exposes the fibs,
half-truths and sleights of hand that have been used to sustain the
ultra-pessimism that so effectively gets us all reaching for our cheque books.
There is the 'evidence' for falling food supplies consisting of three bad years
but ignoring 50 good ones on either side. There is the widely cited soil erosion
statistic that turns out to be based on one study of a 0.11-hectare sloping plot
of Belgian farmland. There is the much-quoted figure of 40,000 species going
extinct each year, which started as an assumption for argument's sake and then
became a "fact". There is the endless citation by the press of worst-case
figures for global warming, rather than most likely. Does it matter? Perhaps
excessive alarmism alerts us to the fact that there is indeed a serious problem.
Lomborg argues that instead it leads us in the wrong direction. Greens from Al
Gore to George Monbiot are perpetually urging that we abandon consumerism so
that we can avoid eco-catastrophe. But actually it is by investing and inventing
that we avoid it. We replace copper wires with glass fibres, coal power stations
with gas, and wild with farmed salmon. Technology, not regulation, is the
solution to environmental problems. Lomborg is confident that cheapening solar
power will make fossil fuels and their emissions redundant long before they run
out or cause damaging global warming. He points out that then it would only
require 2.6 per cent of the Sahara desert to supply all our power needs. A
counsel of despair is wrong for other reasons, too. In the 1960s the best-
selling environmentalist Paul Ehrlich suggested that India should be denied
Western emergency aid because it was in such environmental straits: "sober
analysis shows a hopeless imbalance between food production and population".
Within years of his appalling claim, Western pesticides, fertilisers and new
("terminator") hybrid seeds had transformed Indian agriculture so that it now
supports twice as many people on one-third more calories per head. Thank
goodness we ignored Ehrlich. With many such dud forecasts coming home to roost
at the Millennium, global warming came as a godsend to alarmists. It will be a
century before we know if the alarmists are right, so they can paint doomsday
futures to their hearts' content and rely on a compliant press to repeat them.
Lomborg concedes that mankind probably is adding to natural warming trends by
producing greenhouse gases. But he is scathing about the exaggerated claims and
mistaken remedies offered by the environmental movement, and argues cogently
that we should be spending money now on improving the lot of the developing
world, rather than trying to limit carbon dioxide emissions by regulation.
"Global warming is not anywhere near the most important problem facing the
world". The Big Green organisations will not like it. They will accuse Lomborg
of defending Big Business, no doubt, as they did Julian Simon. But the charge
cannot stick. He has an impeccably Leftish background and a transparent
independence of mind. And he is not complacent: "By far the majority of
indicators show that mankind's lot has vastly improved. This does not, however,
mean that everything is good enough". Matt Ridley is the author of 'Genome'
(Fourth Estate).
End<{{
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and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all. Then accept it and live
up to it." The Buddha on Belief, from the Kalama Sutta + + + + + + + + + + + + +
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the
reconciled one is truly vanquished. -Johann Christoph Schiller,
German Writer (1759-1805)
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It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that
prevents us from living freely and nobly. -Bertrand Russell
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"Everyone has the right...to seek, receive and impart
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Universal Declaration of Human Rights
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--- Ernest Hemingway
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