Lomborg was censured for his incompetence and lack of ethics. "The latest development took place in early January 2003 when the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty issued a decision that declared Lomborg’s research “to fall within the concept of scientific dishonesty,” and to be “clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice.” More on the CSICOP site…
"So, how did a book authored by an obscure Danish academic with little or no expertise in environmental science become an international media event? "
“The review appearing in Nature goes broader, and concludes that The Skeptical Environmentalist is “a hastily prepared book on complex scientific issues which disagrees with the broad scientific consensus, using arguments too often supported by news sources rather than by peer-reviewed publications” (Pimm & Harvey, 2001, p. 150).”
The thinking reader will understand why Lomborg got such an enthusiastic reception, and why it is universally rejected by credentialed scientists.
That would put him in some pretty good historical scientific company, wouldn’t it?
The Danish scientists may be getting their feathers ruffled by Lomborg’s findings and his book, but in 2002, the government of Denmark appointed Lomborg to head an agency that analyzes the cost-effectiveness of ecological spending proposals.
The report issued by the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty failed to cite even one specific example, but asserted that Lomborg’s book “although presented in the style of a scientific treatise, with copious footnotes and diagrams” was actually “a provocative debate-generating paper.”
Lomborg’s book is a comprehensive review of data on forests, climate change, food supplies, population growth and other issues, and the findings illustrated clearly contradicts the theories that environmental groups and many scientists have for a long time been warning us, particularly of coming ecological and climatic catastrophes, which have not yet occurred and which much evidence now fails to support.
Why then did you like the article so much?[/quote]
No need to apologize…
I liked the article because I thought it was quite insightful… while I disagree that the particular US acts referred to as examples, such as Kyoto, illustrate the US to be a selfish unilateralist unconcerned with the welfare of or the cares of the rest of the world, the author is correct in stating that this is indeed the perception created by the US rejection of Kyoto.
I disagree with the perception, but agree that there is this perception.
The report issued by the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty failed to cite even one specific example, but asserted that Lomborg’s book “although presented in the style of a scientific treatise, with copious footnotes and diagrams” was actually “a provocative debate-generating paper.”
Lomborg’s book is a comprehensive review of data on forests, climate change, food supplies, population growth and other issues, and the findings illustrated clearly contradicts the theories that environmental groups and many scientists have for a long time been warning us, particularly of coming ecological and climatic catastrophes, which have not yet occurred and which much evidence now fails to support.
I like Lomborg and the ideas espoused. Surprisingly, I’ve never seen him in any American media articles. I thought the Texans would at least roll him out as a poster child.
I think it’s important to look at a problem from multiple points of views. This is what Lomborg is offering, a different approach that can be researched and verified. A person can form their own opinion from the information presented. Who dared debate Thomas Malthus’s ideas? He has been proven quite wrong so far. I find the outright condemnation and persecution of Lomborg to be highly telling. An unfaithful spouse will normally accuse their partner of cheating to cover their own infidelities.
I have a question though. Was Kyoto treaty ratified by the Senate? Whether Bush signed it or not would of been a moot point had the Senate voted it down.
If Kyoto was so important why didn’t other countries agree to it without the US’s involvement. This would of been a marginalization of US power and influence, something so many of them want to see. I believe Kyoto was quietly shelved by most countries after Bush pulled the US out of it.
You’ve been reading the wrong news sources. He’s been lauded in several Wall Street Journal editorials. opinionjournal.com/
(Some free articles, but the main editorial page requires subscribing. My freebie from an ex-employer ran out last year. )
The ICC turns into a venue for harassing American allies.
Sunday, June 1, 2003 12:01 a.m.
“I condemn the American pressure,” George Soros thundered last week in Podgorica, Montenegro. He was referring to Washington’s insistence that its Balkan peacekeepers are not subject to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. A year ago President Bush withdrew the U.S. from participation in the treaty that created the ICC–a pact Bill Clinton had signed at the 11th hour of his Presidency, even though Mr. Clinton said it had “significant flaws” and urged his successor not to seek Senate ratification.
If any doubt remains that Mr. Bush did the right thing, the Athens Bar Association–that’s Greece, not Georgia–should put it to rest. The association announced Monday that it plans to file a complaint for “crimes against humanity and war crimes” in connection with the Iraq conflict. The target of the complaint, naturally, is not Saddam Hussein but Tony Blair and other British officials. The Athenians say they may also seek charges against Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, even though Madrid sent no combat troops to Iraq.
Yet the Greek complaint excludes the U.S., probably because the lawyers anticipate that they would lose any direct confrontation with the Bush Administration. The ICC claims jurisdiction even over countries that aren’t party to the treaty, but Mr. Bush has made clear that the Constitution authorizes him “to take actions”–presumably including military action–“to protect U.S. nationals from the purported jurisdiction of the treaty.”
Questions of “international law” often turn on arcane procedural matters. Mr. Blair’s Attorney General is reported to have advised the Prime Minister in March that while military action in Iraq was justified under the 17 existing U.N. resolutions, it would be illegal if the Security Council rejected an 18th. Under this theory, Jacques Chirac’s decision to veto would have made a criminal out of Mr. Blair. The Greek lawyers, of course, think ending Saddam Hussein’s oppression was a crime with or without France’s veto.
When Saddam or his henchmen are captured, they must face justice–either in a reconstituted Iraqi court system or in a special international tribunal set up for that purpose, a la the former Yugoslavia. The unaccountable ICC, however, is looking more and more like a venue for political grandstanding–a means for harassing U.S. allies while letting real criminals like Saddam get off on a technicality.[/quote]
If you can explain why it is a good idea for the U.S. to sign it, please do. I haven’t seen a single good reason yet. Efforts by leftists to indict Bush (Belgium referred the case to U.S. courts ) and Blair demonstrate that ICC supporters are the usual “useful idiots” and “fellow travelers” that the dictators and communists love.
In a conversation with some French friends last night, they suggested that the US stop playing on the defensive on Kyoto. Rather the US should set up a new environmental panel to emphasize the dangers of nuclear power and call for its phasing out by 2010. (France gets 75 percent to 80 percent of its power from nuclear power plants).
Or the US can set up a new agency to rate carbon emissions not per capita but by per kilometer of national territory, then nations like the Netherlands, France and Germany come out looking much worse. It is all about perspective.
Finally, the Economist is usually pretty objective and it had nothing but praise for the Danish ecologist’s findings. Not one of the criticisms against it could be backed up. Ironic though that many who were so support of that Michael Moore movie suddenly are great sticklers for the facts.
Clinton signed Kyoto knowing that the Senate would NOT ratify it. Subsequently, Clinton’s staff admitted that Kyoto stinks and that the Clinton argument for Kyoto was based on false or incorrect numbers.
Also, just recalled that the Economist was particularly scornful of the name of this organization. I believe that it was formed rather suddenly by a group that called itself “Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty” way ahead of any attempts to determine the validity of Lomberg’s findings. Sort of judge, jury and executioner all rolled up into one.
I believe that global warming is just the latest fad among environmentalists. During the late 1970s, National Geographic focused on the upcoming “Ice Age” talking about how land in Canada was being permanently covered by frost (never had been before) and then there was the great blizzard in Buffalo in the late 1970s. So then it was the New Ice Age
Then around the late 1980s we hear a lot about the ozone layers. Ain’t heard anyone talking too much about it these days? Was the problem solved? Now it is global warming. I cannot wait till we get to move onto a new subject, I nominate genetically modified crops. What say, a new subject to debate ad naseum?
Not sure if anyone noticed and perhaps this is irrelevant, but the author of this article, Minxin Pei was born and raised in the PRC all the way through undergraduate studies. In much of his writings that I could find on the internet he even has a perceivable Pro-China, Pro-Unificationist slant. In this article he even includes a somewhat irrelevant Pro-unificationist aside.
[quote]In the case of China, U.S. support for Taiwan, which the Chinese government and people alike regard as a breakaway province, is the most contentious issue in bilateral relations. The loss of Taiwan
The funniest thing is, both theories were started by the same man. He wrote a book called something like “Ice 1999” about how the ice age would destroy civilization, then turned around and wrote the first nonsense about “global warming”.
Global warming predated the ozone layer.
An acquaintance of mine is a research chemist; he absolutely hates the “ozone layer” people. When some Greenpeace activist knocked on his door to beg for money in the name of the ozone layer, he tore her a new @$$hole for promulgating that nonsense just as Dow Chemical’s patents on Freon were running out. He believes the whole thing was a front to give Dow another 20 years of patent-ownership on refrigerants.
He also points out that there was no research to show that the “hole” WASN’T there for decades before the environazis suddenly “discovered” it. His contention is that the layer builds and degrades naturally with the seasons – and always has, and always will – entirely due to the amount of sunlight (and hence UV) going through the atmosphere over Antarctica. The envirowhackos just happened to stumble onto it, and immediately turned it into a fundraising cash-cow.
Remember the “deformed frogs are proliferating!” nonsense of a couple of years ago? Supposedly due to increased UV – then suddenly they found out it was because of parasites in the water, and had nothing to do with thinning ozone, just a lack of brains on the part of the environmental groups that were using it as an excuse to flog legislators and demand more funds. . . .
Shameless the way corporations use and abuse wouldbe, wannabe do gooders. I wonder if this business with Freon and Dow can be proven? Interesting.
Yes, it certainly is enough to get one steamed up. I understand that many are eager to keep this issues alive to continue attracting funding, but that is not very ethical surely?
“Ethical” has absolutely nothing to do with “environmental groups” and their fundraising efforts / media blitzes. If they’re caught in a lie, they just claim they’re doing it for the good of the environment, which justifies all in their eyes and the eyes of their sheeplike supporters.
Just look at what happened in the U.S. Forest Service over the whistleblowing last year – biologists were caught submitting fraudulent lynx hair samples in an effort to expand the “protected range” of the lynx. They claimed to have “found” the samples in forest areas that are available for logging; if the lynx were actually there, nearly all human activity, especially logging, would be halted in these forests.
Turned out that the samples were from lynx in other areas, and had been planted.
The “study” was whitewashed, a few people involved were scolded, and the attempt to put a huge area of forest under ESA protections was stopped – at least for a couple more years, until the ignorant masses forget about it and some other USFS biologists do the same thing again.
No investigation was conducted into allegations that they’d done the same thing with grizzly bear data to “protect” other forests a few years ago. Of course.
I left this thread for a few days and all of a sudden there’s a huge environmental debate brewing…alright here’s my 100NT.
What happened? Uh…the Montreal Protocol happened. You know, one of those international environmental treaties that phased out ozone-destroying CFCs. The problem was solved, you’re very right, it was solved through the work of environmental groups and governments that agreed to ban ozone-destroying chemicals.
I am not ready to jump in on the global warming debate, I haven’t read much on the subject lately, but I first have to say that it’s unproveable either way. Global warming predictions are all based upon computer modeling that made zillions of assumptions. Like all models, those predictions are questionable and unproveable. So there’s always going to be debate, and I think global warming resembles religion in some respects because at the end of the day it’s a question of who you trust or believe in. Rightly or wrongly, that’s the nature of the beast.
My question to all the global warming skeptics is more of a motivation question. What do you think is motivating all these scientists, who I think we can all agree have considerably more education than we do and spend their every waking hour working on analyzing these environmental problems? Is it some sort of alarmist conspiracy of PhDs?
If you end up being right and there’s no global warming problem, then I’ll be just as happy as the next guy. But what if you’re wrong? Doesn’t that unsettle you a little? You and your children have to live with the consequences, if any. Just curious what you all think, because after all, we all have the same stake in this.
[quote=“Neo”]I left this thread for a few days and all of a sudden there’s a huge environmental debate brewing…alright here’s my 100NT.
What happened? Uh…the Montreal Protocol happened. You know, one of those international environmental treaties that phased out ozone-destroying CFCs. The problem was solved, you’re very right, it was solved through the work of environmental groups and governments that agreed to ban ozone-destroying chemicals.[/quote]
And if you believe that, you’ll believe anything. The “reduction” was at most a few percent; the agreement exempted the U.S. government and military (which had something like 75% of the emissions in the U.S. to begin with), not to mention ALL of the “underdeveloped” nations like India, Mexico, Thailand, Canada China . . . ok, so Canada didn’t really make the cut, but it was close.
If you want R-12, drive down to Tijuana and buy a case. It’s still available at the old price, around $6 per pound. You can still get it in the U.S. entirely legally through your refrigerator/air-conditioner service “technician”, albeit at about $100 per pound (they really rip people off for the stuff, because they can).
About the only thing that the agreement did was to stop kids from buying cans of R-12 to vent in their M-19A Annihilator BB Machine Pistols ($50 from L.A.R.C. Enterprises as of 1980, advertised in Playboy and other fine magazines). Oh yeah, and it made it impossible to buy a Halon fire extinguisher, which was one of the the most effective types available (especially for use around computer equipment, which other types of extinguishers often ruin).
But the enviroleftists were happy because more grannies will burn up in their beds and it hurts the U.S. economy, which is all they really care about. Well, that and getting laid by hot college bimbos who are too dumb to understand any of the stuff they’re prattling about.
mnh.si.edu/vikings/voyage/su … nment.html
"There is no question that the Norse migrated from their homelands in Scandinavia and the British Isles into the North Atlantic islands. The last stage of this movement, to Greenland, occurred at the end of the 10th century. Two hundred years later, either in northern Greenland or adjacent Helluland, the Norse met the eastward-moving Thule people, whose homeland only a century or less earlier had been the Bering Strait region in Alaska. It now appears that both of these movements had a common cause.
For many years it has been thought that climatic warming that began about A.D. 800 and continued until about A.D. 1300 facilitated Viking expansion and the establishment of thriving farming settlements in Greenland. This same warm period, which was probably five or six degrees (
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) and Blair demonstrate that ICC supporters are the usual “useful idiots” and “fellow travelers” that the dictators and communists love.