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The Continuing Crucifixion of Bjørn Lomborg

By Jim Peron

I confess that I feel sorry for Bjørn Lomborg. He obviously had no idea what he was letting himself in for when he challenged the orthodox dogma of Green fundamentalists. He honestly thought that environmentalism is a matter of facts which can be verified by the statistics. Worse he thought that if the statistics don't support the Green agenda that merely showing them to the world would be sufficient to bring about a rethink on the issues. He was wrong on all counts.

From the moment his book,The Skeptical Environmentalist, was published, he has been subjected to a ruthless campaign of vilification and hatred. He's been assaulted by "Green activists" who are then praised on Green web sites for their attacks. He's been vilified by Green "scientists" who themselves, have admitted that they lie to the public so that they can push their own agenda. Green activists inundated Cambridge University Press with demands that they explain what right they had to publish Lomborg's book.

All in all, it's been a spectacle of hatred and demonisation from the Green Left. It shows that this cult will not tolerate anyone questioning their gospel. And they will resort to anything to support their agenda.

The most recent example of an attack on Lomborg comes from something called The Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty. Green activists had filed complaints with this Committee because Lomborg is Danish. The Committee made its ruling and Britain's Independent newspaper says that Lomborg "has been slapped down in a way that may leave him sputtering."

Of course that's not quite accurate but newspapers never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

Consider what the Committee actually said. Their conclusion is confusing, contradictory and, to be quite blunt, written as to obfuscate the meaning. Here is the verbatim conclusion:

"Objectively speaking, the publication of the work under consideration is deemed to fall within the concept of scientific dishonesty. In view of the subjective requirements made in terms of intent or gross negligence, however, the Bjørn Lomborg's publication cannot fall within the bounds of this characterisation. Conversely, the publication is deemed clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice."

Read it as many times as you like. It still seems to say that he's guilty, not guilty but that means he's really guilty. And I've had other people read the conclusion and they can't make heads or tails out of it either. Even the Independent seemed to have problems interpreting the conclusion: "The professor is not convicted of being deliberately misleading or negligent in argument himself; rather his work as a whole is regarded as a scientifically dishonest enterprise (if the distinction can be followed.)" If this isn't confusing enough the final report of the Committee says, just prior to the conclusion: "DCSD has not found-or felt able to procure-sufficient grounds to deem that the defendant has misled his readers deliberately or with gross negligence."

The Independent laid out the case for the prosecution quite well - as would be expected. Lomborg's own case got scant attention and when accusations were made that could be easily verified the reporter, Michael McCarthy, didn't seem to bother.

For instance, according to McCarthy, the Greens say Lomborg's book was guilty of "systematic one-sidedness in the choice of data and line of argument" which means he "clearly acted at variance with good scientific practice". The Committee chairman, Hans Henrik Brydensholt said: "He used sources in favour of his own position." Another Green prophet said, "he has based his conclusion on cherry-picking the studies he likes..."

Well, is this true? McCarthy doesn't bother answering that question. Yet whether it's true or not can be verified rather easily. First, inspect Lomborg's bibliography. Precisely what sources does he use?

Now this requires work. Perhaps more work than a typical journalist is willing to bother with. Lomborg's bibliography is massive. There are 70 pages of it and the print isn't what I'd call large. His footnotes total 2930 or an average of over 8 footnotes per page of text. The Independent admits this much: "You may agree with him or disagree - but what you can certainly do is follow his argument back to the original sources in each case" All Lomborg's claims "are precisely referenced".

And this is true. But if they are referenced precisely then why couldn't McCarthy tell us if the accusations were true or not? Is Lomborg guilty of "cherry-picking" his sources? After all the volume of his references alone is not a defense against selective bias.

We should remember that Lomborg did not support his own conclusions when he began the study. His goal was to debunk the writings and claims of Julian Simon, the gadfly to the Greens, who systematically dissected claims of doomsday around the corner. Lomborg started out with a bias but one that was the complete opposite of the conclusions he was forced to draw.

Second, the bibliography shows no evidence of "cherry-picking". Now it's a bit boring to throw out numbers. But it can be helpful. I picked up the book and started going through the bibliography. I noticed that United Nations publications, or publications from UN affiliates, abound. I found at least 53 UN publications listed along with another 11 from the World Health Organisation and 22 from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation. Other UN publications probably went by unnoticed. But that's 86 UN affiliated publications at a minimum. The environmental group Worldwatch has 18 publications listed and another 7 listed for their guru Lester Brown. The World Wildlife Fund has 11 publications listed, the Danish Environmental Protection Agency has 14 listed, Green guru Paul Ehrlich has 11, the World Bank has 24, the US Environmental Protection Agency has 28 and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has 22 publications listed.

Meanwhile on the other side of the debate Julian Simon had a total of 7 works listed in the bibliography. Lomborg's sources are clearly not the result of cherry-picking. And over the years, as I've written on the same subject, I've relied on UN reports and material from the International Food Policy Research Institute, the World Bank and similar groups. I'm on their mailing lists and I get notified about many of these reports. I routinely download them and read them. And over and over the statistics, gathered by people deemed to be unbiased experts, verifies what Simon and Lomborg had been saying.

Now if Lomborg's book is some example of a "vast right-wing conspiracy" then the Left should be very worried. Not only would this mean that the fringe right got hold of a good Leftists like Lomborg but that they have taken control of the United Nations, it's various agencies, the World Bank, the World Wildlife Fund, Paul Ehrlich, the Environmental Protection Agency and a host of other similar groups and individuals.

What Lomborg did is relatively simple in format though difficult to carry out in practice. He took Green claims and listed them. Then he went to the data which the Greens accept as valid. He compared the claims to the data and drew conclusions. As a statistician he is certainly qualified to do that.

Yet his book is deemed "dishonest" while Green diatribes, which are demonstrably one-sided, are ignored.

In fact the Committee itself seems guilty of the very thing for which Lomborg was attacked. It is said by the Greens that Lomborg is a statistician and thus unqualified to talk about "complex" environmental issues. Of course Green guru's routinely pontificate about fields in which they are unqualified but that's ignored. So presumably the Committee was stacked with hard core scientists who understand all the various issues which Lomborg discussed in his book. Well, actually no. The chairman of the "Working Party" to investigate Lomborg was an MD. Another has a DPhil, another has an LLD, another has a DPolSci and one has a DSc in Agronomy. So we've got a doctor, a lawyer, a doctor in philosophy and a political scientist investigating the claims. How convenient.

The Working Party report refers to anti-Lomborg critics as "leading experts". One such leading expert, whom they cite in their indictment, is Stephen Schneider. You may remember him. He's the one who said it's okay for Green scientists to distort the facts in order to push the Green agenda. I quote him:

"On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but - which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people, we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change. To do that, we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. Š Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest."

This alone should say something about the bias of the Committee. A Lomborg critic publicly admits that he offers up "scary scenarios" and "simplified, dramatic statements" with "little mention of any doubts" he has because he's promoting a political agenda and that man is called a "leading expert".

In the area of population growth and population statistics the Committee claims: "Bjørn Lomborg's view that the number of people is not the problem is simply wrong. The global population growth rate has declined slowly, but absolute growth remains close to the very high levels observed in past decades."

Now here is a field that I've written about and followed for some years (See Exploding Population Myths, Heartland Institute 1995 and Exploded Population Myths, Institute for Liberal Values, 2003). There are two factors revolving around population growth: birth rates and death rates. Birth rates have dropped so dramatically that they are in virtual free fall. The UN stated that "61 countries (with about 44 percent of the world's population) already have below-replacement fertility rates" and "the number or such countries are projected to grow to 87 by 2015.

The total fertility rate is the average number of children a woman will have in her lifetime. That's come down so fast it can make one's head spin. In 1950-1955 the TFR for "more-developed" regions averaged 2.8 children per woman. That has dropped to around 1.6. Replacement level is 2.1.

In the less-developed regions the 1950 TFR was 6.2. By the end of the century it was down to 3 and is expected to fall below 2.1 by 2045. In fact this decline has been faster than anticipated. In my first book on population I listed the TFR for various third world countries. My intention was to illustrate the decline from the late 60s and early 70s to the mid 90s. I picked 24 nations which had high TFRs in the 70s. These ranged from a low of 5.3 to a high of 8.3 children per woman. In twenty years these rates declined to a low of 2.6 to a high of 5.4. Every one of the nations listed saw massive declines in the TFR.

In an update to the book which was just published I used the figures from The State of the World Population 2001 published by the United Nations Population Fund. Of the original 24 countries one could not be updated. But from the remaining 23 nations the new low TFR was 2.25 and the high was 4.15. The high was in Kenya where the TFR dropped from 8.3 in 72-77 down to 4.15 for 2000-2005. The average TFR for those nations in the early 70s was about 6.5 children per woman. According to the UN the more recent average is around 2.99. That means that the TFR was more than cut in half in the span 25 years.

With birth rates dropping so dramatically the only reason that populations grow for many nations is because death rates have dropped even more dramatically. This is hardly bad news.

But the Committee says "growth in the poorest parts of the world continues virtually unabated". In fact that's simply false. The nations in my list were all poor, Third World countries. They include Kenya, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, Mongolia, Bangladesh, India, Philippines, Viet Nam, Kuwait, Qatar, Syria, Turkey, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. This trend exists now in Africa as well. The UN Population Information Network said, "evidence is growing that a broad-based fertility decline may have begun in Sub-Saharan Africa". They say, "what is certain is that sub-Saharan Africa no longer presents a picture of monolithically high and unchanging fertility levels as the case only a few years ago."

In fact the Committee seems virtually illiterate when it comes to economics and population. They attack Lomborg and in the process make claims that no competent economist would accept. They argue, " BL overlooks the fact that population growth contributes to poverty. First, children have to be fed, housed, clothed and educated - while economically non-productive - then jobs have to be created once they reach adulthood." In fact nations often experience the fastest amount of economic growth during times when population growth is high as well. Economic growth is negatively correlated with bad economic policies but not with birth rates. They also seem to think that every economic activity is bad. If a child's birth requires them to "be fed, housed, clothed and educated" then presumably those fields will experience economic growth and this lead to more jobs. But they also seem to think more jobs is a bad thing as well since they lament that "jobs have to be created once they reach adulthood".

The Committee says: "BL overlooks the fact that the favourable trend in life expectancy is due to intensive efforts on the part of governments and the international community" Again this is just so much hooey. The trend in life expectancy is one that can be traced back to the Industrial Revolution. Private production of goods and services increased the standard of living for all people leading to dramatic increases in life spans. Yet the Committe's bias is such that they attribute this trend over the last 200 years to "intensive efforts on the part of governments and the international community." In fact a reading of history tends to indicate that, if anything, this trend happened in spite of the "efforts on the parts of government and the international community."

The Committee also uses the attack on Lomborg that was carried out by Scientific American. But they ignored the disgraceful manner in which the publication behaved. Typically what has happened is that Lomborg rebuts Green extremists in his book. Then various Committees and publications rely on Lomborg's targets to evaluate his scholarship. Did anyone believe that the targets of Lomborg's documented assault would be unbiased when they evaluated his work?

Emeritus Professor Philip Scott, University of London, said that the Scientific American article on Lomborg "was surely nothing less than a disgrace to American science." Matt Ridley, author of Genome, and a regular science writer for respected newspapers, dismissed the Scientific American attack: "Šthe Scientific American articles are devastating not to Lomborg, but to his critics. Again and again, before insulting him, the critics concede, through gritted teeth, that he has got his facts right." Ridley called Lomborg's book "brilliant and powerful".

Professor Scott said that he was upset by the attack on Lomborg because he too is an editor of scientific journals and has been for 15 years and can't conceive of treating an author the way Lomborg was treated. He laid out the problem:

• First, the publication refused Lomborg "the right of reply in the same issue" which Scott says is taken "as a matter of course.
• Second, " the magazine initially refused to post his immediate response on its Web site, and then even threatened him with infringement of copyright if he tried to reproduce their articles, with his responses, on his own Web site. If so, this is not science, but pure bullying. I have never heard the like."
• "Thirdly, not only did the magazine run an editorial criticizing Dr. Lomborg, it gave space to four known environmentalists to write separate articles attacking him with no balancing articles whatsoever from senior scientists who are likely to support Dr. Lomborg's critique. Again, I have never heard the like. In a so-called scientific journal, such a course of action beggars belief. I would always give my worst enemy the right of reply."

Professor Scott immediately contacted Scientific American and requested the right to submit one article in support of Lomborg. His request was ignored. A second request was ignored as well. Scott said this was "a dark episode for cautious environmental science, and for American science in general..."

Now lets go back to the very beginning again. This Orwellian sounding Committee on Scientific Dishonesty said: "DCSD has not found-or felt able to procure-sufficient grounds to deem that the defendant has misled his readers deliberately or with gross negligence."

Now if Lomborg deceived people he either had to do it deliberately or negligently. Yet they admit they have not been able to find any "sufficient grounds" to support that accusation. In other words he neither deliberately nor unintentionally misled his readers. So precisely then how is his book "deemed to fall within the concept of scientific dishonesty"?

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Jim Peron is the Executive Director of the Institute for Liberal Values, the editor of the book The Liberal Tide, and the author of the forthcoming book 'The Road Not Taken: Resolving the Crisis on the Roads.'