From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Mon Aug 06 2001 - 15:01:07 MDT
Bill Douglass wrote,
> There's a great article in the new issue of _The_Economist_
> (August 2 issue) by Bjorn Lomberg, the former Greenpeace-type
> environmentalist who, in trying to debunk Julian Simon, wound up
> finding a new perpective on environmental issues himself.
>
> The article is re-printed in its entirety at this link on Economist.com:
>
> <http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=718860>
Is this the same Bjorn Lomberg who wrote "The Structure of Solutions in the
Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma" and other political tomes in the "Center for
International Relations Series"
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/102-3142263-8339311>?
This series seems to be specifically aimed at publishing statistical data to
support specific political viewpoints. I don't know how political either
the old book or the new book is. Has anybody seen either one? Are they
more scientific than political?
The article in the Economist gave the position pretty well, but it didn't
give any supporting references. I could tell that Bjorn Lomberg says that
the UN statistics are wrong and that his are right, but I couldn't find a
specific reason why he claims this.
I did notice that most of Lomberg's points did not directly contradict
environmentalists. If you read carefully, he seems to agree that most of
the environmental claims are really problems, but he claims that GreenPeace
exaggerated all of the problems out of proportion. The real problems are a
small fraction of the claimed problems. This may be good and may give us
more time, but it might indicate that the problems are not nonexistent. I
almost wonder if this will turn out to be a pro-environmentalist tome, but
at a much more realistic level of science without all the hype.
In any case, it should be interesting. I would love to hear any feedback
from anyone who knows more.
-- Harvey Newstrom <http://HarveyNewstrom.com> <http://Newstaff.com>
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