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A LIGHTER SHADE OF GREEN
Denmark’s Bjørn Lomborg says the (environmental) sky isn’t falling.

Text: CRAIG TAYLOR

That sure got everyone’s attention. The world is not in terrible shape.

Contrary to the reports of excessive pollution, rain forest loss and large, frosty pieces of Antarctica breaking off into the ocean, we’re not edging closer to global disaster after all. We’ve been lied to. Environmental groups have made "selective and misleading use of scientific evidence." Or so says Bjørn Lomborg in his book The Skeptical Environmentalist.

It’s a bold claim for a statistics professor from Denmark, but in 352 pages, dense with facts and graphs, Lomborg sets out to "measure the real state of the world," surrounding his claims with more than 2,900 footnotes. In the wake of The Skeptical Environmentalist, he has become one of the most admired and hated figures in environmental circles. Lomborg is now the head of Denmark’s newly formed Institute for Environmental Evaluation. He’s also a pariah to environmental campaigners. Lomborg may brand himself a skeptic, but the names he’s been called lately have had a much more venomous ring.

"He’s a self-serving publicist," is how Greenpeace’s Ben Stewart succinctly describes him. "This book is a failure," says Scientific American magazine in its rebuttal to The Skeptical Environmentalist. When Lomborg stopped in Oxford to sign a few copies, an environmental campaigner threw a baked Alaska in his face. He was even given the name "Anti-Christ," making him perhaps the first devil to appear as a clean-cut 37-year-old blond Scandinavian. Though he’s been the target of constant criticism, Lomborg is hoping that his sunny Danish disposition will eventually win out. "People are going to realize I’m a nice guy," he says. "I don’t cut down rain forests, and I don’t eat small children."

Instead, it’s a pasta salad Lomborg is loading onto his plate in the cafeteria of the Institute. Lomborg is a vegetarian, and though diet choice should be as relevant to his scientific work as shoe size is to Stephen Hawking’s theories, he carefully portrays himself as a lefty. It makes the message more credible. Lomborg initially wanted the English version of his book to be "full of boring math." But "the publishers thought it was way too dull," he says after we take a seat at the far end of the cafeteria. "Then I realized most people don’t read your book. They don’t know the intricacies of the argument, so it’s very important to point out that I’m not a bad guy. That’s why I said I’m left wing. I’ve never owned a car. It just might make people think, ‘Perhaps he’s not being made to say these things by Big Oil.’"

Lomborg’s conversion to skeptical environmentalism began in 1997. While visiting Los Angeles, he came across an interview in Wired magazine with an economist named Julian Simon, who claimed that much of what we know about the environment is based on "preconceptions and poor statistics." Lomborg didn’t want to believe it, so he gathered a group of his students and tried to disprove Simon by checking his sources. "I honestly thought he was going to be wrong," Lomborg says. "But we found that a lot of what he said was actually true."

Lomborg’s findings were moulded into four articles published in Politiken, Denmark’s left-leaning paper. "Suddenly, it was the biggest debate we’ve ever had in Denmark," he says. "There were more than 400 articles; it spread into all the major papers." To challenge him, the Danish environment minister sent his articles to 2,500 civil servants, instructing them to report any mistakes. Criticism was heavy, but factual errors were few. "We indicated where every single statement came from," says Lomborg. "But people wouldn’t look at the data. They would say, ‘You’re wrong, you must be wrong.’"

Still, the furor wouldn’t subside. "I honestly thought, ‘Oh, this is going to take another month. Then we’ll be done and I can get back to my research.’ All this time, I’ve thought of this as something I’ve done on the side, kind of for fun."

The English translation brought even sharper criticism. Greenpeace’s official response, "Ten Pinches of Salt," chastised Lomborg for dangerous slip-ups ranging from the use of science fiction writers as sources to the omission of toxic, hazardous, industrial, agricultural and radioactive waste in his discussion of waste management. "Of course, Lomborg is free to enter the argument," says Greenpeace’s Stewart. "We don’t live in a country where we shut people up. But he is wrong. His case is deeply flawed. If we have 2,500 reputable scientists saying that climate change is happening, why do we pay attention to one statistics professor who says it’s not?"

Lomborg’s only comeback is that no one has done a convincing job of proving him wrong. An entire book was published in Denmark to refute The Skeptical Environmentalist. "It was like everybody felt that somebody else ought to write a book against me, but nobody really wanted to do it," he says. "So it had these odd chapters. It was clear that these scientists had something in a drawer that they pulled out. Then they added a couple lines about the book."

"There’s a famous saying in law," Lomborg continues. "‘If you have a good case you pound the case. If you have a bad case you pound the table.’ I don’t buy into their table-pounding argument. They say I lack the professional training to make these conclusions. I just say, ‘Tell me if my conclusions are wrong.’ They don’t seem to be able to do that."

The danger for green groups is that Lomborg’s book will be used to justify the actions of politicians who place oil above all else. Lomborg is determined not to let this affect him. "When you start saying, ‘I shouldn’t mention parts of the truth because it could be used by others,’ you stop being a scientist and start becoming a politician. I have enough confidence in democracy to try to tell the truth as best I can."

Neither side will back down, and both have statistics to prove their case. By the end of our meal, Lomborg admits that his book won’t bring about a radical change: "Most people will think, ‘He was not completely right, but he had some good points." The hope is that The Skeptical Environmentalist will provoke enough healthy skepticism for its readers to do exactly what Lomborg has done himself: sit down and look at the statistics. It may be the only way to determine which side’s "truth" is actually correct.

Outside the cafeteria, the sun is out in Copenhagen. The sky is a light shade of unpolluted blue. In the Kultorvet Square, two Greenpeace canvassers are smiling and initiating conversation with Danish shoppers. "Yes, I know Bjørn Lomborg," says Tommy, who wears a Greenpeace bib and is holding a clipboard in his hand. "Lots of people have an opinion about him, but I don’t think many have actually read his book."