Scientific American beats up The Skeptical Environmentalist
Revered magazine asks four left-wing scientists to discredit Bjorn Lomborg's optimistic new book, The Skeptical Environmentalist.
Message? Skepticism will not be tolerated. Not about the environment. Maybe the four scientists that beat up Lomborg for Scientific American can't afford to be skeptical. It might hurt their grants. And their political power.

Scientific American's auto-da-fé is the best since Torquemada was the recognized authority on celestial mechanics.
Here's the weird part: Lomborg is a bleeding-heart left-winger just like most environmentalists. He really hit a nerve saying things aren't as bad as environmentalists claim. Coming from one of their own, that was potentially fatal. If there was no imminent catastrophe, why give scientists all that government money to study something that didn't exist? If there was no doomsday dawning tomorrow morning, how could green groups keep the cash register jingling so merrily?

Scientific American is only one of dozens of environmental organizations (oh yes they are) now massing their resources to smear Lomborg into oblivion.
What are they so afraid of? Activist outfits like the Union of Concerned Scientists (which has more concern than scientists) and others are getting every publication they can lean on to print something against Lomborg. Obviously, the enviros feel they now have to isolate Lomborg, marginalize him and destroy him. Otherwise they might lose the political clout they depend on to bend society to their wills.

Scientific American's disingenuous articles beating up Bjorn Lomborg are a classic example of the old game,
My Expert's Better Than Your Expert.

Here's how it starts in the January 2002 issue:

Science defends itself against The Skeptical Environmentalist

 MISLEADING MATH about the EARTH

Critical thinking and hard data are cornerstones of all good science. Because environmental sciences are so keenly important to both our biological and economic survival - causes that are often seen to be in
conflict - they deserve full scrutiny. With that in mind, the book The Skeptical Environmentalist (Cambridge University Press), by Bjorn Lomborg, a statistician and political scientist at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, should be a welcome audit. And yet it isn't.

As the book's subtitle - Measuring the Real State of the World - indicates, Lomborg's intention was to reanalyze environmental data so that the public might make policy decisions based on the truest understanding of what science has determined. His conclusion, which he writes surprised even him, was that contrary to the gloomy predictions of degradation he calls "the litany," everything is getting better. Not that all is rosy, but the future for the environment is less dire than is supposed. Instead environmental groups, institutions and the media are distorting scientists' actual findings. (A copy of the book's first chapter can be found at www.lomborg.org)

The problem with Lomborg's conclusion is that the scientists themselves disavow it. Many spoke to us at SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN about their frustration at what they described as Lomborg's misrepresentation of their fields. His seemingly dispassionate outsider's view, they told us, is often marred by an incomplete use of the data or a misunderstanding of the underlying science. Even where his statistical analyses are valid, his interpretations are frequently off the mark - literally not seeing the state of the forests for the number of the trees, for example. And it is hard not to be struck by Lomborg's presumption that he has seen into the heart of the science more faithfully than have investigators who have devoted their lives to it; it is equally curious that he finds the same contrarian good news lurking in every diverse area of environmental science.

We asked four leading experts to critique Lomborg's treatments of their areas -global warming, energy, population and biodiversity - so readers could understand why the book provokes so much disagreement. Lomborg's assessment that conditions on earth are generally improving for human welfare may hold some truth. The errors described here, however, show that in its purpose of describing the real state of the world, the book is a failure.

John Rennie, Editor in Chief

Get your hardcopy of the January issue to read the four essays. Scientific American didn't post them on their website. Trust us, they wipe up the floor with Bjorn.

Who wrote the four hit pieces? The authors are all trendy left-wing names:
STEPHEN SCHNEIDER, Global Warming: Neglecting the Complexities
JOHN P. HOLDREN, Energy: Asking the Wrong Question
JOHN BONGAARTS, Population: Ignoring Its Impact
THOMAS LOVEJOY, Biodiversity: Dismissing Scientific Process

Their take: The book The Skeptical Environmentalist uses statistics to dismiss warnings about peril for the planet. But the science suggests that it's the author who is out of touch with the facts.

Amusing sidelight: That headline above the article: Science defends itself against The Skeptical Environmentalist. Aren't we getting a little carried away calling four left-wing scientists, an editor and a glossy magazine "science"? And does science really need to defend itself against this solitary Dane? Maybe so.

Who are these guys?
They're all well-connected, have tons of honors and memberships, and know where the money is. Just exactly the muscle you need to break this little traitor Lomborg.

Stephen Schneider: Scientific American tells us he's a Stanford University professor. They don't tell us he's also a long-time radical anti-capitalist dubbed "the greenhouse supersalesman" by Discover magazine and "the guru of gloom" by many others. He worked for two decades at the activist National Center for Atmospheric Research. His science is so good that in the early 1970s he rejected the global warming theory and even predicted a "Little Ice Age." It didn't happen. Many have questioned Schneider's devotion to factual accuracy, and have quoted his remarks advocating "a balance between effectiveness and honesty." We thought honesty didn't need a counterbalance in science. See http://www.nationalcenter.org/dos7123.htm. M.I.T's Professor Richard Lindzen thinks Schneider is simply wrong and called his work a contribution to "hysteria." Numerous other atmospheric scientists appear to regard Schneider much the same. There's no consensus on Stephen Schneider any more than there is on global warming.  The Center Opinion: An ideologue as much as a scientist. Your vote is as good as his.

John P. Holdren: Scientific American tells us he's a Harvard University professor. They don't tell us he's also a director of the John T. and Catherine C. MacArthur Foundation with the power to submit grants for those he agrees with and to deny money to all others. He's also tight with Teresa ("the Ketchup Mafia") Heinz's foundations, holding a chair at Harvard endowed by Heinz money. He also received a tidy $250,000 Heinz Award for environmental wonderfulness in 2001. Oh, yes, and a medallion. And he's a political flak, too, having served as a Clinton administration advisor on the President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). The Center Opinion: Mr. Money and Power. Your vote is NOT as good as his.

John Bongaarts: Scientific American tells us he's vice president of the Population Council in New York. They don't tell us this outfit is an activist group founded in 1952 by John D. Rockefeller 3rd, and since then funded massively by the Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, Turner Foundation and other rich folks who think there are too many poor folks in the world and have an agenda to control their population. Dr. Bongaarts has been employed at the Council since 1973 and has written bundles of population control articles for Scientific American. The Center Opinion: Watch out, here comes Dr. Fixit. Your vote will be controlled.

Thomas Lovejoy: Scientific American tells us he's senior adviser to the president of the United Nations Foundation. They don't tell us that Ted Turner (who funds radical environmental groups such as The Ruckus Society) is the foundation's chairman and money bags. Scientific American tells us that Lovejoy served as assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. They don't tell us that he was part of the Clinton administration as Science Advisor to Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt and was project leader of the Interior Department's National Biological Survey. Scientific American tells us he's chief biodiversity adviser to the president of the World Bank. They don't tell us that he's a partisan Democrat with a partisan Democrat agenda, and a partisan Democrat donation record. Here are Thomas Lovejoy's political contributions -- all that we could find, anyway. And yes, his name is listed in slightly different ways. It's the same person. And anybody can find the same thing on the website of the Center for Responsive Politics. Just enter Lovejoy, Thomas, and click on all the years. See http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/index.asp And don't you even THINK about voting.

Bottom Line:
Why did our feculent friends at Scientific American do it? We can't figure it out either. Lomborg is now properly trashed. Lady Science no doubt rests easier on her rich laurels with Lomborg safely deconstructed. It must have been great fun. But Gertrude's pithy line in Hamlet, Act Three, Scene Two, keeps echoing in our brains: The lady doth protest too much methinks. Really. Why did Scientific American ask these left-wing gorillas to clobber a solitary dissenting Dane?

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