Talk:The Skeptical Environmentalist/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

General discussions of the article

The addition to this article describing the verdict of DCSD refers to it firstly condemning Lomborg's work for scientific dishonesty, and also criticizing The Skeptical Environmentalist. This phrasing suggests that the committee looked at more than just the text of the book. Since Lomborg acknowledged that he was a statistician rather than a scientist, what other productions of his did the committee examine? Did Lomborg cooperate with the investigating committee and offer further evidence in his own defence? -- Alan Peakall 18:45 Jan 9, 2003 (UTC)

According to the article as it stands, "Lomborg originally started work on the book as an attempt to counter what he saw as anti-ecological arguments, and changed his direction as he worked". Is there evidence for this statement outside of Lomberg's own claims? Note that I am not claiming that this is untrue, simply noting that I lack impartial evidence either way, and asking if anyone can shed some light on the question. Tannin 01:25 Jan 11, 2003 (UTC)

I changed it to "Lonborg states that he originally started ...". However, I must say that there really should be some more balance in this article. I couldn't come up with an NPOV way to say it, but there should be something to the effect that "the scientific establishment immediately lined up shoulder to shoulder to protect cherished views". That Scientific American supplement was practically frothing at the mouth, for instance. I don't think Lonborg is vicious or evil, so how can we justify calling him a Holocaust denier, or even quoting unanswered remarks to that effect? I know it is a figure of speech, but it is also a pretty underhanded rhetorical trick. Not my subject area, but this article does not seem fair. Ortolan88

I appreciate your concern for balance, Ortolan. In a way, I think you are right. The article as it stands does not seem fair. On reading it again and doing a little more background research, I think there are two quite different problems with it.

• First, style. It somehow manages to take on a mocking, belittling tone towards Lomberg (even though there isn't any particular passage that nakedly stands out and says "edit me! I'm POV!"), but (on the other hand) is interspersed with marginally accurate accounts of the debate that make it look as though Lomberg is responding to his critics but the critics are not responding to his self-defences. (I went looking on-line just now and was able to find several extended to and fro exchanges in about five minutes on Google.) The overall article tone, in summary, is clearly anti-Lomberg except where it briefly swings the opposite way for a sentence or two.
• Secondly, substance. It doesn't convey a sufficient sense of the overwhelming body of evidence against Lomberg's charges: some of the things Lomberg asserts are absurdities to anyone with a little knowledge of the field; others are distorted by statistical dirty tricks I would have failed a first-year student for back when I was teaching (such as the way, on the matter of landfill waste, he contrives to present a ratio of 1.65 to 1 as an apparent ratio of 1.28 to one); and still others are "rebutting" arguments that no reputable environmentalist has made for decades - i.e., the classic debator's trick of setting up a "straw man". On this front, the problem the existing article has is that it doesn't simply take a dispassionate stance and review the evidence. The facts are more than capable of speaking for themselves.

But contrary to the above, on reflection I am leaning to the view that one should not respond to The Skeptical Environmentalist as if it were a scientific work. Surely, if Lomberg had intended to persuade people with scientific training or a little knowledge of the field to his view, he would have written in a scientific manner: not have made so many claims that are easily dismissed because they are irrelevant to what environmentalists actually claim (the straw men), are contrary to known facts, or use obviously faulty statistical analysis. These are tactics appropriate when writing for the casual TV watcher or reader of the tabloid press, and while a reminder of the scientific evidence is appropriate in response to them, I am wondering if The Skeptical Environmentalist is not most sensibly analysed as a social or political rather than a scientific work - i.e., if it properly lies not within the realm of environmental science or economics but within the realm of the psychology of persuasive communication.

I think a good deal of the outrage you comment on, the "the scientific establishment lining up shoulder to shoulder" as you put it (if I may misquote) actually stems from this. In general, natural scientists are not trained to deal with non-scientific debate (unlike social scientists, who must deal with it on a daily basis). In the ruckus surrounding Lomberg's book, I see powerful echoes of the "Creation Science" controversies that I studied as an undergraduate, and a similar tendency for physical science experts to reply to non-scientific discourse on scientific subjects with detailed and copious evidence on the points at issue but little attention to the underlying tactics - unfamiliar tactics which they half-sense and become very upset by, but often don't identify clearly enough to allow them to formulate suitable responses. Tannin

I imagine you're right but the comparison to Holocaust denial is over the top. The burden of what you say here is that the article needs a rewrite. My guess is that he stumbled into this, thinking his statistical background would bolster the environmental case and then becoming intrigued with using statistics the other way. I don't detect any cynicism in him, but I do detect cynicism in some of his attackers. Very tricky stuff, I would be out of my depth trying to handle it, but someone should give him his proper due and also put his efforts in context. I am left with the image of the Scientific American absolutely ganging up and piling on and that can't be right. Ortolan88

Changes I just made:

1. Put the "holocaust" accusation in the mouths of the accusers instead of Wikipedia.
2. Restored word some to phrase "some of the scientific community". I'm pretty sure that they aren't 'all lined up against him. There must be some Chilean veterinary scientist who hasn't gotten the word yet, and a dental researcher in Tokyo.
3. Noted Lomborg's mild reply to Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty.

On the other hand, is the environmental critique mentioned in the first paragraph truly "Malthusian", or has someone just thrown that word in there? It weakens the environmental case to tie it to Malthus, whose dire predictions, after all, proved false, having not anticipated the benefits of improved health, agriculture, etc. Ortolan88

What are Lomborg's qualifications for TSE?

An authoritative article on TSE should make it clear exactly how the book is positioned in terms of "science vs non-science", and what sort of expertise was brought to its writing.

In working on and around this page, I started as an interested TSE reader. As I grew more acquainted with its background, it became increasingly unclear to me what exactly TSE is. Is it a statistical work? Is it really environmental economics? What relationship does it have to economics in general? Who would peer-review this work as a whole - an eclectic collection of scientists as in the CUP panel? Statisticians? Economists? And so forth.

Directly related to that, what are Lomborg's qualifications and credentials? What does a PhD in Political Science, with a paper in Game Theory, new views of the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma mean? What was Lomborg actually teaching, since his professorship as a statistics teacher is frequently cited?

This may all be evident to many, but it's not to me, and is certainly not answered in the current version of this article. Somehow, with the briefest nod to qualifications ("PhD, associate prof statistics"), it goes into the substance of the book. If there is no academic or other qualification expected or required, that should be stated outright from the start: "This book is written outside the framework of any strictly academic discpline. It consists of personal arguments and opinions, based on the author's own extensive research." Something like that... Tsavage 15:53, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Removal of an unclear statement

I removed:

They also argue that Lomborg has managed to foucs on the issues to be argued over in the next few years of the development of environmental policy and political advocacy.

Because I don't know what it means. Is it trying to say that his book changed the focus of the environmentalism debate? If so, that's what it should say. Right now, all I can gleam is that he focused on the controversial issues relating to the environment, which is pretty self-evident because uncontroversial issues are rarely debated at all, by definition. Tokerboy 19:58 Jan 12, 2003 (UTC)

Discussion of Nazi/Holocaust denial comparison

NOTE: this topic is also mentioned in the general discussion above

"Jeff Harvey of the Netherlands Institute of Technology wrote: "the text employs the strategy of those who, for example, argue that gay men aren't dying of AIDS, that Jews weren't singled out by the Nazis for extermination, and so on."" - I am confused by the intention of this comment. Did Mr. Harvey imply that he agrees with Lomborg? Surely he realizes Jews weren't singled out by the Nazis; they killed Slavs, Gypsies, blacks, etc. too. In any event, this article makes it hard to find out what Lomborg said in the book through all the criticism levied at it. It might be better to restructure it to describe the book, its claims, and then describe all the criticism.

I agree. If anywhere, Wikipedia would be the place for a comprehensive summary of the book's message, glaringly missing from the article as it is now. This wouldn't be too hard to do, given that the book is set up around convenient, popularly understood topics. What is Lomborg's conclusion about each of the main components of his Litany? --Tsavage 20:02, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Quotes from UCS

I have modified the following in the article. Emphasis added to my additions. Qouting out of context, as this was without the added parts, is quite deceptive and akin to lying. We can do better than that.

Peter Gleick's review, for example, states "There is nothing original or unique in Lomborg's book. Many of his criticisms have appeared in these previous works -- and even in the work of environmental scientists themselves. What is new, perhaps, is the scope and variety of the errors he makes." Jerry Mahlman's review of the chapter he was asked to evaluate, states "I found some aspects of this chapter to be interesting, challenging, and logical. For example, the author's characterizations of the degree of difficulty in actually doing something meaningful about climate change through mitigation and coping/adaptation are perceptive and vaulable. In principle, such characterizations could provide a foundation for more meaningfull policy planning on this difficult problem. Unfortunately, the authors' lack of rigor and consistency on these larger issues is likely to negate any real respect for his insights."

-Vsmith 18:11, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hmm... User:JonGwynne appparantly believes that it is fine to distort the truth by quoting out of context and thereby giving the false appearance of pseudo-support where there wasn't any. Distortion of the truth by quoting out of context is lying. Especially after the misuse of the quoted material was pointed out in the article and above. -Vsmith 16:44, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Longer-term impact of TSE

I removed several items from this section.

The first to go was the discussion of the impact the book had on organizations like Greenpeace and WWF. There is no indication that the book was intended to affect these organizations so discussing it is irrelevant.

This section is on impact. TSE was written for, marketed to, and promoted in the media as a work suitable for the general reader. One of the fundamental premises of the book was that common claims of environmentalist groups were wrong. They are, after all, identified as the source of The Litany.

• In the first chapter, Lomborg specifically singles out Greenpeace, the WWF, and the Worldwatch Institute, with their own subheaded sections (1. "Things are getting better": "Reality: Worldwatch Institute", "Reality: World Wild Fund for Nature", "Reality: Greenpeace").
• As quoted in this article, and representative of much of the media coverage, the New York Times stated: "The primary target of the book, a substantial work of analysis with almost 3,000 footnotes, are statements made by environmental organizations like the Worldwatch Institute, the World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace."
• Also from the article, and equally representative of the substance and tone of the postive media coverage, the National Post wrote: "After Lomborg, the environmental movement will begin to wither."
• In TSE, Lomborg made his intent to it serve as an instrument for social change clear: "it is my intention to provide the best possible information about how things have progressed and are likely to develop in the future" and "to leave to the individual reader the political judgement as to where we should focus our efforts".

Clearly, given its intent and public reach, the effect the book has had on its subjects and its audience are germane to its encyclopedic coverage. Having been specifically singled out, the subsequent state of Greenpeace, WWF and Worldwatch are of direct interest. TSE could have turned its millions of readers off these organizations, resulting in plummeting membership and media coverage. While TSE obviously had some effect on some people, a major impact is not evident nearly four years later.

That is the point of this entry, which I have restored.

Lomborg in effect dropped what amounted to a bomb, and you apparently want to selectively limit coverage of the damage it did or did not do. Tsavage 01:43, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

None of this has to do with the issue at hand. The fact remains that this book wasn't intended to affect these other organization. Ergo, why should something be mentioned that isn't relevant. Why don't you also argue that this book hasn't slowed the sales of SUVs or increased carpooling? Because it wasn't intended to affect these things. --JonGwynne 02:40, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The second section deleted was the discussion of books compared with TSE on Amazon.com. This list changes constantly and even if it didn't, what books people buy along with it are irrelevant to the book itself. This smells of some sort of implied guilt by association.--JonGwynne 00:00, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Guilt has nothing to do with it. Association obviously does. For better or for worse, amazon.com has become (much like Google in the Google test) an accepted unbiased source of data on book sales. The fact that the people buying TSE are also purchasing titles that are clearly in the same "anti-environmentalist" (or, debunking The Litany), is relevant in indicating who TSE is reaching. For example, TSE could be being read by enlightened environmentalists, happily to be relieved of their bogus Litany, who are also buying books on sustainable agriculture, renewable energy sources and the like. But, according to this easily referenced source, this is not the case.

It is still irrelevant. Even if the list didn't change regulary (which it doesn, in fact it already has so the version listed is out of date) it would still be irrelevant. Plus, there is no indication how many people bought these other books and since Amazon isn't the only source of books, how are we to know what other books they bought from other sources? Lastly, even if we knew what books all these people are buying (which we can't), you still haven't explained how this is relevant. Are you seeking to impeach the book's credibility by drawing the unsupported conclusion that the people who buy books critical of environmental extremists are anti-environmental extremists? That's a pretty shaky claim. For all you know these people are environmental extremists buying books critical of their view because they want to understand the opposition arguments in order to defeat them.--JonGwynne 02:40, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It is an relevant observation on impact, presented for the reader to interpret as he or she sees fit.

You still haven't explained why.

Specifically, the "people also bought" data does not change constantly, and least so for non-fiction titles (did YOU check with Amazon.com -- they do answer email!). Furthermore, the date of this particular survey is noted in the section intro. If you want to remove currently dated references in Wikipedia, well, better get started...

Let's start by not including references that rapidly become obsolete.--JonGwynne 02:40, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you are systematically removing selected bits of information and providing vague reasons for doing so. Do you want to control what people think about TSE? Tsavage 01:43, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

And I'm not sure why you're systematically including irrelevant bits of information and providing vague reasons for doing so. Perhaps we can make our respective views more clear.--JonGwynne 02:40, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Once again, I am going to remove the points for which you have provided no support and try to make it clear why I am doing so...

• I'm taking out the phrase "that would (or should) change the prevailing, gloomy environmental outlook at a grassroots level" because you've provided no documentation for the claim that TSE "would (or should)" do any of these things. Find several examples of mainstream media coverage that specifically states that TSE "would (or should)" do any of these things and you can have it back in. Otherwise, it is unsupported editorializing.

• I'm also taking out: "None of the environmental groups most often referred to and criticised in TSE—Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund, the Worldwatch Institute—have suffered major public setbacks to their general activities." because you've provided no support for the claim that it was the Lomborg's intent to cause these organizations "major public setbacks". Again, if you can find statements from BL in which he says that this was his intent, then the statement goes back in.

• I'm also taking out: "In several chapters, including "5. Food and hunger", "9. Will we have enough food?" and "22. Our chemical fears", TSE directly addresses the issue of pesticides, finding no reason for undue concern, and in a larger context, refers to large-scale conventional agriculture as a positive technology that will ensure food supplies. Despite this, as an indicator of public interest in alternatives to conventional agriculture, organic food remains the breakout growth category in the food industry, continuing an approximately 15-year global trend of annual expansion of around 20% (compared to about 1-2% for the food industry in general). A wide variety of industry and media surveys continue to confirm that the primary reasons consumers purchase organic are concern for health and the environment, centering around pesticide use and the environmental effects of large-scale commercial agriculture." - Again, you have provided no explanation as to why this is relevant. Lomborg isn't trying to discourage people from buying "organic foods" (and isn't that the lamest phrase ever? As if there are such things as inorganic carrots...)

• I'm taking out the "guilt by association" section too for the reasons discussed above.

I'm leaving in the rest because they are objective statements and because they are relevant to the subject of the article.

On second though, I'm also taking out the phrase "on the basis of intense media exposure which largely described it as a highly readable, credible milestone work" because you haven't provided any support for this claim either. If anyone knew why a book becomes a best-seller, I suspect they'd go to work for a publishing company and make millions. This isn't the place to engage in speculation.--JonGwynne 02:55, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Talk on substantial revision of Longer-term impact

Well, this slimmed-down version gets to a point more quickly, for now. I further pared it down by removing:

• TSE became an international bestseller. It initially reached into the Top 50 in sales ranking at Amazon.com and currently resides far above other titles categorized with it.

The bestseller bit is redundant (it is already noted just above in the section intro). The statement about current ranking (which I originally submitted) is based simply on Amazon.com sales ranking at one point in time, mainly in comparison with the other titles listed with TSE as "customers also bought this". The subsequent Talk conclusion (well, JonGwynne ruling, for the moment unchallenged), is that type of Amazon data is too transient, and inconclusive as to the larger group of readers in general. Therefore, there is no support in that statement for the assertion that TSE ranks higher than anything meaningfully related to it.

I also removed:

• Lomborg was named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world for 2004. That, and the current book tour for his TSE follow-up, Global Crises, Glbabl Solutions, have kept TSE "in the media".

Upon reflection, in the context of the current edit, this statement (which I originally submitted) is both irrelevant and unsupported. In the first part, the article is about TSE, not Lomborg, so a title bestowed three years after TSE, and for his general standing relating at least equally to his more recent Copenhagen Consensus project, belongs in the Lomborg article. In the second part, that TSE is "in the media" is subjective at best. Lomborg is indeed in the media, right now promoting his latest, "Global Crises...", but direct references to TSE in mainstream media have been virtually nonexistent in recent months. Therefore, while it could be argued that significant awareness of Lomborg/TSE/Global Crises/Copenhagen is out there (an argument this statement, strictly speaking, does not make), there is no support for TSE specifically being "in the media".

I like the newer "slimline" version better. --JonGwynne 18:55, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Scientific dishonesty section

The following was rewritten in the article in much abbreviated form. This material is largely a duplication of a similar section in the Bjørn Lomborg article, where it most fully belongs (the charge was against Lomborg, not TSE). I've copied it here in case it needs merging with the version there. Tsavage 05:52, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

--MichaelSirks 21:34, 10 May 2005 (UTC) I don't understand why you have deleted this section. It is almost an exact copy of the timeline discribed at the DCDS site. The charge was against Lomborg for what he had written in TSE. I plan to restore this section because the charge of scientific dishonnesty is the charge which is still being made by critics of the book.--MichaelSirks 21:34, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

I didn't delete the section, I rewrote it. Did you read the current version? Out of...courtesy, I usually wouldn't change a large chunk of someone else's work, at least, not all at once, unless it had been up for quite a while. In this case, as already noted, I did so because the section was essentially duplicated in another article (Bjørn Lomborg) -- I don't think duplicating info in multiple articles is too efficient or interesting? I copied this version to the Talk page because some changes had been made to it, so it differed from the Lomborg article version.

My main reason for rewriting was not the duplication but that the TSE article somehow seemed to be getting increasingly longer, and in the interest of making it easier to read through, I felt this section would work better if it was in the same expository style as the rest, rather than as a timeline -- easier to read through. I rewrote and somewhat summarized the findings from your timeline, and added what I believe are key quotes from the decision that related specifically to TSE.

I don't believe anything essential to this article that was in the timeline version of this section has been left out. I suppose I could have left the timeline here, and turned the Lomborg article timeline into a brief pointer to this location. But the DCSD charge was strictly speaking against Lomborg himself, so if a choice had to be made, the most detailed, blow-by-blow timeline seemed best suited to be there. Also, it fit the current, more point-form style of that article.

This is Wikipedia. If you disagree, let the Talk page know, or make changes! But I don't think an outright reversion is the way to go, if that's what you're intending. Tsavage 02:36, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

--MichaelSirks 19:31, 11 May 2005 (UTC)You highlighted the section of text which was supporting your POV. I have reinserted the original text. If you want to shorten the text then delete the entire section and make a hyperlink to Lomborg text.

Fair enough, for the moment. I disagree that the last version supported a POV, but I will go over it again before doing anything. As it is, though, your timeline, which you say is from (or close to what is on) the DCSD site, is not very clear, and also misleading from what I understand of the whole mess. This has being discussed on the Lomborg page, so I won't rehash all that here, but in brief, what I gather is:

1. A charge of scientific dishonest relating to TSE is laid through DCSD

2. DCSD finds that the Lomborg is not guilty of the charge, but takes a major backhanded swipe at him anyhow by slamming the book itself, saying it is scientifically dishonest, and he is only innocent by virtue of ignorance.

3. Lomborg doesn't like the whole thing, and complains to the DCSD's overseeing Ministry.

4. The Ministry finds major irregularities in the proceedings, gross stuff like the actual charge not being investigated first hand, and tells DCSD to do it over.

(The exact authority the Ministry has over the DCSD in such a situation, for example, can they overturn a DCSD decision, isn't clear, and is only made so later on, after the fact, but they are in the end the boss of the DCSD.)

5. The DCSD declines to re-start the case, citing a regulation that prohibits them from taking on something they think they can't win, and referring to the fact that the first time around, they'd already found Lomborg not guilty.

Confusing wording here. It's not a question of whether the DSCD can win, it's a question of whether the complainers can win. In this case the complainers are those who handed in the original Lomborg criticism, ie Kåre Fog and the Americans.Erik Corry 12:21, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

6. The first case essentially disappears from the records, there is no clear procedural resolution. There is no official DCSD withdrawal or invalidation, because as to the charge against Lomborg, they'd already exonerated him. As for the nasty sideswiping, there was no apology or retraction or anything, and since all of that was "just" part of the wording of the decision, which was not guilty as charged, nothing officially to say about it.

I don't see why you think there was no resolution. Since they didn't take it up again, the original decision stands.

For the purposes of discussion here, it seems that DCSD sided with the complainants, and tried to sneak in an indictment of Lomborg that they couldn't easily support by playing with the rules. Failing to make that clear in the article is...not good.

There's nothing sneaky or rule-breaking about it. Those are the rules. It's not the first time they have returned a verdict like that. See the intro to the 2002 DSCD annual report.[1] Erik Corry 12:23, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

--MichaelSirks 20:52, 13 May 2005 (UTC) Let's translate into normal world; You are accused of murder. The judge gives a not guilty verdict on a technical ground. But then he says you can be objectively be considered a killer, without examening the accusations. Even stronger he saids that is not his job to investigate it. What kind of justice is that?

As for the HAN follow-up, it's interesting enough and factual, but has to be handled carefully, because they only examine the original DCSD complaint. While many other scientists may have also, in other forums, reacted less than scientifically, to make the HAN coverage seem to cover anyone else is POV. For example, as originally positioned within this article, separated from the DCSD section and under its own heading (I moved it), the HAN stuff could be taken as an analysis and criticism of "scientists" in general, not just of DCSD.

In the end, your edit/reversion I think at least reduces clarity and possibly distorts the picture, POV-style. But I will take a closer look when I can. It would be good if others did as well. Tsavage 01:56, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Formal charge of scientific dishonesty

Several enviromental scientists brought a complaint before the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty (DCSD). This action was greeted with praise by the environmental community, some of whom were outraged by Lomborg's book and were eager to see him penalized for writing it. A publication called "The Ecologist" wrote in 2003 "It can only be a matter of time before he loses his job with the Danish government and sinks back into the obscurity from whence he came, with only his hair bleach and tight t-shirt collection for company." [2]

January 6, 2003: The DCDS reached its decision, finding that, from an objective point of view, it was a matter of scientific dishonesty on the part of Bjørn Lomborg, because, among other reasons, the book was based on what they believed was a systematic bias. Because of what they felt was Bjørn Lomborg?s lack of scientific expertise in the themes treated in the book, the DCDS did not find that he had shown intentional or gross negligence. He was therefore acquitted of the accusations of having acted in a scientifically dishonest manner. But the DCDS stated, at the same time, that they believed he had acted in a manner contrary to good scientific practice.

February 13, 2003: Bjørn Lomborg filed a complaint with the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation against the DCDS?s decision of 6 January 2003.

December 17, 2003: The Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation found that the DCDS has made a number of procedural errors, specifically:

• The DCSD did not use what the Ministry believed to be a proper standard for deciding "good scientific practice" in the social sciences.

• The DCSD did not evaluate its authority to decide the case in regards to the requirement that "The case must be of importance to Danish research.".

• The DCSD did not document where the defendant (Lomborg) was biased in his choice of data and his argumentation, and did not support their acceptance of complainants' criticisms of Lomborg's working methods. It was not enough that criticism simply exists. The Ministry reiterated that the DCSD must take a stance as to the validity of the criticism, and support it, and indicated that it is exactly these tasks that are DCSD's primary duty to solve. Since they didn't believe this had occurred, the decision was remitted to DCSD. The Ministry cited a considerable breach in DCSD's consideration of the complaint as to itself merit critique.

The Ministry therefore sent the case back to the DCDS for their reconsideration and subsequently emphasized that their finding must be taken to mean that the DCDS?s decision of 6 January 2003 is invalid.

12 March 2004: The Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty (DSCD) ended their case, rejecting the original complaints. They have decided that the original decision is invalid and have ended any further inquiry.

JonGwynne section

Mark Lynas

User:JonGwynne - What is your objection to Mark Lynas: "Removing Lynas' comments - they are not relevant to this discussion and neither is he"? How can a well-known environmentalist author/journalist (e.g. High Tide : The Truth About Our Climate Crisis by Mark Lynas currently available at Amazon.com) who also pied Lomborg at a TSE reading not be relevant to a discussion of TSE? If you have a problem with Lynas, deal with it in the Mark Lynas page. Tsavage 04:07, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

First, he isn't that well-known - apart from his publicity stunts which could be describe as eco-terrorism and shouldn't, in my opinion, be dignified with commentary. There are plenty of legitimate critics of Lomborg to choose from, why include someone like Lynas who doesn't really have anything interesting to say about Lomborg other than "He's Wrong!" and has nothing to back it up. Second, Lynas' book isn't that noteworthy, he had to go to an obscure publisher like Picador to get it into print and, if Amazon's rating system is anything to go by, it isn't attracting that many readers. Lomborg's book, on the other hand, has not only been published by the prestigious Cambridge Press but peer-reviewed by them before publishing. Let's stick to criticism of Lomborg that is even remotely at his level. Calling Mark Lynas a "a well-known environmentalist author/journalist" is like calling Bart Sibrel a well-known filmmaker and investigative journalist. It simply isn't an accurate description.--JonGwynne 05:13, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Lynas web site bio says he has a "first-class honours degree in history and politics from the University of Edinburgh". I haven't checked with U of E, so maybe he's lying. But isn't "politics" in university aka "political science"? Might that not then mean Lynas has a background in statistics? That would make him somewhat uncannily similar to Lomborg: a self-proclaimed environmentalist with university training in statistics, and a published author of an environmentalist book? This probably deserves more checking out, at least, before dismissing his credentials as a Lomborg critic. Tsavage 05:15, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

I think the whole "damnable" section is extremely POV and of questionable value to the article. I urge you to consider simply deleting the whole thing.--JonGwynne 05:15, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

What I'm getting at is trying to present TSE in a fair (NPOV, if you will) article that I could read myself and be informed by. That's how I came to the article as it originally was, it provided me no easily usable info, beyond the very basics of title, author and "it's controversial".

Right now, it's long and rather unwieldy, but at least it's REASONABLY readable, and, MOST IMPORTANTLY, it seems to convey a sense of the book. (Although I think a better, fairer, "neutral" overview is contained in the General Discussion section here, above, in Talk.)

As I said, I have no problem with criticism of the book. It has been widely criticised and the article should reflect this. However, I suggest we confine the criticism to, shall we say, "reputable" sources. --JonGwynne 17:03, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

There are plenty of legitimate critics of Lomborg to choose from, why include someone like Lynas who doesn't really have anything interesting to say about Lomborg other than "He's Wrong!" and has nothing to back it up.

Perhaps (without getting into the issue of "legitimacy"), but isn't that the point? There needs to be real editorial discussion, research and writing skill applied to a topic like this. An article can't be NPOV simply by going by some sort of American TVland rules of evidence idea...which is how it seems to be right now. Where, for example, if a Mark Lynas article can stand up to scrutiny, which it can, then so can Lynas quotes...

But the problem here is the person's reputation. You can't take the "sometimes even a blind pig can find an acord" approach to vetting critics. Like I said, Lynas is comparable to someone like Bart Sibrel. I feel very strongly that someone who not only commits acts of violence and intimidation against public figures but brags about them later is someone who is unworthy of mention in a serious context like this. It lends Lynas credibility which he doesn't deserve.--JonGwynne 17:03, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

I think the whole "damnable" section is extremely POV and of questionable value to the article. I urge you to consider simply deleting the whole thing.

Well, instead of calling for its removal, why don't you work to improve it? In other "corrections" here, I've reworked stuff multiple times. I haven't changed my ideas, simply the presentation.

The problem is with the sources. Since Lomborg's book is concerned with statistics and environmental science, let's confine criticism to that which comes from statisticians and environmental scientists. Wouldn't you agree that they are the ones best equipped to offer critical views of Lomborg's work? What journalists and fringe-environmentalists have to say is less relevant.--JonGwynne 17:03, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

In this case, I think it is important AS ONE ASPECT, to convey the overall sense of the book:

• the very basic, undeniably rose colored glasses view tha says, "everything is really quite good" COMBINED WITH

--MichaelSirks 21:48, 10 May 2005 (UTC) I don't think he says that, he just says that things aren't so bad as enviromental organisation say they are. Have you read the book?

I wasn't commenting on what the book may or may not say to any one person, or what the results would be if it were subject to some sort of semantical analyis, the point here is that this book paints an overall EXTREMELY POSITIVE PICTURE of the environment, and man's involvement with it, and one that is contrary to most of what people hear and believe (after all, that's the point of TSE, to lift the wool from our eyes, right?). So, criticism that addresses the OVERALL MESSAGE does exist and should be included. As it was, this article only focussed on criticism of this or that part. It should also reflect those who criticized it on its overall message:

Mankind's lot has actually improved in terms of practically every measurable indicator...

We are not running out of energy or natural resources. There will be more and more food per head of the world's population. Fewer and fewer people are starving. In 1900, we lived for an average of 30 years; today we live for 67. According to the UN, we have reduced poverty more in the last 50 years than we did in the preceding 500, and it has been reduced in practically every country. Global warming, though its size and future projections are rather unrealistically pessimistic, is almost certainly taking place, but the typical cure of early and radical fossil fuel cutbacks is way worse than the original affliction, and moreover its total impact will not pose a devastating problem for our future. Nor will we lose 25-50 percent of all species in our lifetime -- in fact we are losing probably 0.7 percent. Acid rain does not kill the forests, and the air and water around us are becoming less and less polluted.

It's great, um, FANTASTIC if all that is true. However, it is not surprising that some critics have been skeptical of this sensationally, startlingly, unbelievably good news. My point is that including criticism addressing the believabilty of the whole is necessary for proper balance. Tsavage 02:36, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

--MichaelSirks 20:13, 11 May 2005 (UTC)I think the readers of this article are helped more by proper examenation of the claims, the criticism on these claims and responses of lomborg to these claims(etc.). That should be the way to construct the article, rather than trying to put in a damaging remark of a critic to harm the credibility of lomborg. In a broader sense this is what is also missing in the debate outside wikipedia. The critics of lomborg write pieces in which they say what is wrong with TSE. Lomborg respons to this criticism. And then the critics don't repsond to Lomborg responses. So while Lomborg is trying to have rational discussion the other side doesn't respond.--MichaelSirks 20:13, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

I think that's how the article IS structured. But there's a line, that has to be dealt with editorially (without editorializing, of course), between breaking things down so far that it becomes a matter of recording the back-and-forth on each point to the point of meaninglessness to the majority of readers. How many of these...skirmishes should be covered: one per section, per chapter, per claim? There are dozens if not hundreds out there, many of them replied to by Lomborg. At some point, the value of a Wikipedia or any encyclopedia, news report, or other summary is to find a way to summarize ridiculously complex situations in an NPOV way, and not to simply record everything in sight and say to the reader, you figure it out.

I think a couple of the particular claims on lomborg-errors would be good included here, though. The analysis of the "London's air is cleaner" and the "forested area increasing" are both highly publicized examples from TSE, and the critical breakdown is easily understood:

London less polluted, air is getting cleaner is illustrated by a curve showing pollution decreasing in London. Lomborg assembled this graph by taking the first part from a computer model of what air may have been like way back when, and splicing it to a second part covering recent decades, which he assembled by intersplicing selected segments taken from TWO sets of actual measurements made by two different methods for the SAME time period. In order to join part one and part two smoothly, he also multiplied the results of the computer model by an arbitrary...five. Even to untrained me, that doesn't sound right. Is it right?

--[[--MichaelSirks 20:34, 13 May 2005 (UTC)]] 20:20, 13 May 2005 (UTC)I suppose you have the information of this site[3]. Your point is that you can't put two graph which are derived from different methods in one ultimate graph. Although you can critisize it for varies reasons it is common in science. One famous example the hockey stick of Mann and allies.(proxies and actual measurements) In the text of the site they critisize the fact that lomborg has multiplied it by 5 instead 2. I can't comment why Lomborg has chosen the factor 5 instead of 2 because lent my copy of TSE out. But let's take it that the factor 2 is correct. Then still we now(I estame 50) have a pollution of SO2 which is smaller than before 1700. So the air pollution at least for SO2 is improving on big scale. So things are improving.--[[--MichaelSirks 20:34, 13 May 2005 (UTC)]] 20:20, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Forested area increasing. Lomborg used a series of annual FAO forested area figures starting in the 1940s, that were indicated on each report NOT to be used as a measure actual forested area. These were figures cobbled together annually out of a mish-mash of non-standardized reports from various countries, and subject to changing definitions of what was considered "forest" for the reports. So the figures could and did go up and down from year to year, as reporting countries, definitions and methods changed, with little or nothing to do with actual forested area from year to year. Then, before the English language TSE was released, the FAO scrapped that whole series and replaced it with a new data set, based on standardized reporting, that showed an annual decrease in forested area, but Lomborg did not choose to update to this. Again, that doesn't sound like too sound data to me, but WHAT DO I KNOW?

--MichaelSirks 20:34, 13 May 2005 (UTC) Like I said before I lent out my copy of TSE so I have to rely one other sources. If I look at HAN [4] i see the following comment to this question;

7. Deforestation In this respect is considered in particular the challenged sentence in the book: the usual FAO estimates put net deforestation in the tropics in the 1980s at 0.8 percent, falling to 0.7 percent in the 1990s. With FAO’s new 2001 study, based on accurate satellite imagery, the estimate of the net tropical deforestation has declined even further to 0.46 percent. (801) (page 113, left bottom) The footnote 801 reads: The loss of tropical forests is 9.2 Mha in the 1980s and 8.6 Mha in the 1990s (FAO2001c9) The total tropical forest area is 1810 Mha in 2000 (FAO 2001c19) and using these deforestation figures to backcast total forest area, taking averages, gives 0.4689 percent for the 1980s and 0.4592 percent for the 1990s.

The complaint of Fog reads: I think that almost anyone reading this will perceive the text to mean that the clearing rate was 0.8% during the 1980s, 0.7% during the ‘90s, and 0.46 around the year 2000, i.e. a steadily declining trend. Only if you consult Lomborg’s note 801, and consider what it says, you find that the situation is quite different. All of the figures (given as absolute areas being lost per year) are found in one report, FAO’s report from 2001 , which I also referred to earlier.

	From this report, the following data on how much tropical forest is annually cleared, may be deducted :

1980s 1990s Ordinary inventory 0.8 % 0.7 % Satellite data 0.47 % 0.46 %

The ”ordinary” inventory was used in FAO’s earlier reports from the 1990s, and it is based on observations on the land surface, whereas ”satellite data” are based on photos from space of selected, representative sample areas. Possibly these satellite data are the most reliable, but this is not for certain. More accurate observations of vegetation types may be carried out on the land surface than from space. On the other hand, land-based observations may be lopsided in favour of localities near human settlements. It belongs to the picture that others think that even FAO’s ordinary data regarding forest clearing are too low . Thus, two different estimates exist regarding the development in time, and the two data series may not be directly compared. But by providing the data in the sequence 0.8 – 0.7 – 0.46, Lomborg is able to arrange the figures in such a way that it looks like a regular decline. (bold introduced by AR)

Thus the suggestion of Fog is that the data sequence 0.8-0.7-0.46 is presented by Lomborg as proof that over the years 1980-2000 things are going better. If we put the challenged sentence, however, in the broader context of the section ‘Deforestation: a general overview’ one gets a quite differently picture: President Carter’s environmental report, Global 2000, estimated an annual tropical forest loss of between 2.3 and 4.8 percent. The well know biologist Norman Myers estimated as recently as the early nineties that 2 percent of all forest was being destroyed every year and believed that by the year 2000 – in just nine years at the time of the prediction – we would have lost about a third of the tropical forest area (797) Actually he claimed that ‘in just another decade, we could witness the virtual elimination of tropical forests.’ (798). Estimates in the range of 1.5-2 percent were common among biologists (799). Today we know that these estimates went way over the mark. (bold introduced AR) Then follows the challenged sentence: The usual FAO estimates put net deforestation in the tropics in the 1980s at 0.8 percent, falling to 0.7 percent in the 1990s. With FAO’s new 2001 study, based on accurate satellite imagery, the estimate of the net tropical deforestation has decline even further to.46 percent. Thus, the range 0.8-0.7-0.46 is NOT presented as a range in itself, but the set is compared to the previous figures by Carter 2.3-4.8, Myers (1/3) and the common figure 1.5-2. In the second part of the sentence the even further is interpreted by Fog as a decrease in deforestation, but it just says that the more accurate satellite imagery lowered the figures further. The number is not attached to the year 2001, but to the year of FAO’s new 2001 study. That is absolute clear from footnote 801: in which only the years 1980s 1990s are mentioned: gives 0.4689 percent for the 1980s and 0.4592 percent for the 1990s. Lomborg by the way continues the challenged sentence with: These figures are still high though and there are three main reasons for this. Thus he certainly not implies that deforestation is not a problem. And if one read the section ‘conclusions’ in the book it is evident that he does not claim that deforestation rates have diminished in recent times (contrary to his claim with respect to starvation).

With the misinterpreted rang 0.8 – 0.7 – 0.46 Fog associates again an accusation of statistical misuse: Belonging to the picture is the fact that FAO provides an uncertainty factor on the numbers (approximately 15% uncertainty), and on this background FAO clearly concludes that the trend of declining clearing rates is not significant. A statistician like Lomborg ought to note that a significant change is not concerned here, and inform his readers about it. The ethical standards of science also dictate that you remember to present information which speaks against your own thesis. Lomborg does not do that. Instead, he arranges the numbers in a way that seems misleading and which suggests a strong trend, where there is no significant trend. Thus, this is a false accusation, which is a results of the misrepresentation of the debated text, as it has been taken out of context.

Several of the 9 accusations of Fog with respect to chapter 10 on deforestation are reiterations of the accusation that Lomborg’s estimate that globally, since agriculture was introduced, only 20% of forest has been lost, is far to low. This might well be the case, because this kind of figures can mostly not be based on exact data, but results from historical descriptions. Lomborg states (page 112), “Europe has lost 50-70 percent of its orginal forest”, and “by 1700, France’s forest had been reduced in size by more than 70 percent”, and he presents several other examples of local losses which are much higher than the 20% globally. The last figure he based on a number of references, which might be considered by Fog as unreliably. Fog prefers a more (official) reference to World Resource Institute’s estimate of 50%. Lomborg replies: this should be subject to professional dispute. Where upon Fog responses: that the discrepancy was already brought to Lomborg’s attention when the Danish version of ‘The Skeptical Environmentalists” was published and he refused to pay attention to it. This can be translated as ‘selective citation’ but apparently Lomborg considers Fog’s reference unreliable.

Nevertheless, the historical figures on global deforestation are less relevant to Lomborg’s essay than the figures on recent deforestation rates. When we reconsider the discussion between Lomborg and Fog on tropical deforestation with respect to making reference to a single official report, the FAO’s one of March 2001, it can be read there: “Current gross deforestation is now estimated at 13.5 million hectares per annum. This is a SIGNICICANTLY lower net rate compared tot FAO’s previous report for the period 1990-1995 (11.3 million ha per year), PARTLY due to improved datasets.” (bold introduced by AR). Thus, FAO does seem to indicate a decrease in deforestation rate, a statement that apparently both Lomborg and Fog have missed.

Fog’s efforts to discredit Lomborg are not directed to prove that the overall conclusions in the book are wrong.

I will investigate more thoroughly. I will order "Statistics for Dummies" this week... (it is, despite the title, a very good series. I liked "Opera for Dummies", among others.) Tsavage 01:56, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

• the "we are all reasonable people" set of chipper suggestions and conclusions about how we could just move this hundred billion dollars over here instead of there, as if this is all a board game we can all sit in on.

--MichaelSirks 21:48, 10 May 2005 (UTC) I don't see anything wrong in trying to adress problems in a rational way.

Neither do I. Millions maybe billions of people are trying to do just that every day. I don't get your point. (Of course, vast piles of people are dying every week from diseases for which cheap drugs exist in abundance but they can't get access to, from bombs and bullets, from poverty and pollution while incredibly rich people horde their money and make more,...and so on. There are more than enough resources and solutions to end all of this quite quickly...on paper, at least. So can we all for once do the right thing..can't we all just get along...? Obviously, not.) Tsavage 02:36, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

--MichaelSirks 20:13, 11 May 2005 (UTC)The point Lomborg is making that if we don't adress problems in rational way millions will die( and it will cost us money which could be used in better way). For example; The banning DDT has arguebly cost millions of humans to die of malaria. For example: Paul Ehrlich said in the 70's; the battle to feed the world is over and has been lost. As a consequence he didn't want to give aid to countries like india. This could have been disasteras. Lukely he was wrong and the aid wasn't stopped.--MichaelSirks 20:13, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

One doesn't work without the other. Without all of the suggestions and alternatives presented, the simple examination/debunking of a bunch of generally older specific environmentalist claims is boring stuff. The acceptability of Lomborg's statistical stuff is used as the platform and justification for his basically becoming a one-man consultant for all of the world's environmental problems. CONVEYING THAT NPOV, CUTTING THROUGH ALL OF THE "SCIENCE" AND MEDIA HYPE, IS IMPORTANT.

The content of this section is a necessary balance to all of the other sections under Criticism, which all have to do with attacks on the basic numbercrunching, which misses this point.

With so much insight and energy to invest in deleting and discussing, you should be also able to help find the fine line there between reviewing the book and fairly covering its various aspects. Wikipedia of all places should get as close to that line as possible, so someone JUST READING THIS ARTICLE can form a quick conclusion, no matter what side of environmental activism or whatever that they're on. Tsavage 13:47, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

--MichaelSirks 21:48, 10 May 2005 (UTC)I get the distinct impression that this article should in your opinion persuade people not to read the book.

No, that's not at all my opinion, and with my contributions, that's not the intention. Having first run into TSE, and then arrived here to see what had been said, I didn't find anything useful. There are not many (any) places to even dream of getting a reasonably balanced, explicit, thorough review of things like this (fairly current, controversial), other than Wikipedia. But since the article I first saw did add much, I started working on it in part to get the answers for myself that I was originally looking for. I can see how walking some fine line of "balance" with something like this is nearly impossible, and I do see the line, and I'm trying to do that. It's...soothing. Hopefully, people with various degrees, expertise and direct information and whatnot that I don't have will correct, fill in, expand, contract,... I wouldn't recommend this book to someone I know as, "You gotta read this...man, things sure aren't what they seem" or something like that. But I'd be interested in the opinion of anyone who felt like reading it (surprisingly, when I asked around a couple months ago of a few people I thought would have strong opinions, it seemed to be no big deal, something vaguely remembered from a few years back) ... Anyhow, I wouldn't try and stop anyone from reading it, That's about it. (Take a look back at the history of this article.) Tsavage 02:36, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

I still don't understand why this editorial commentary about Lomborg's book is necessary. It isn't really the place of an encylopedia article to comment on the validity of a book or even to ensure that those who do get "equal time" with those who have professional observations about work. Alex Kirby's opinions about the book are no more or less relevant than anyone else's - your or mine for example. Yet why is space in the article devoted to him. He openly admits in his article that he has no professional or educational background in the subjects Lomborg addresses in his book. All that's left is a book review. If you want to put a link to Kirby's comments at the end, that's one thing. But I think it is inappropriate to discuss them in the body of the article.--JonGwynne 17:03, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

The "damnnable" critique

I wouldn't have been the one to remove it entirely, but since someone else did and gave a compelling reason for it, I am going to side with them. Luis is correct, the entire section doesn't add much in terms of actual content - it is merely the opinions of a couple of people with no direct professional or educational connection to the issue at hand. If you want to reinsert it as a link in the "external links" section, that might be acceptable but I just don't believe it warrants space in the article as a whole.--JonGwynne 22:34, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

I've restore it as is for now. Removing large chunks of an article without discussion is basically vandalism, User:Luis rib. If you want to start reverting, User:JonGwynne, that's fine. I can't see how you find a few words noted in the comments section of a mass deletion, specifically: del "damnable" critique - totally unnecessary and doesn't adress anything from the book except "it has too many footnotes to be analysed" User:Luis rib - COMPELLING. That Luis and find it to say ANYTHING at all means that you're deleting what you admit is something, for not being enough... Whatever. By my standards, that's no justification for wiping out whole chunks of work.

If it helps, think about it this way - and I suspect Luis would agree... the section simply doesn't meet the burden of inclusion. It isn't up to us to say why it should be deleted, it is up to you to convince the rest of us that it should be included in the first place. Kirby and Lynas are, to be police, fringe players in this arena. Neither of them have education or professional qualifications in either environmental science or statistics and, therefore, their opinions on Lomborg's work aren't any more relevant than anyone else's opinions.--JonGwynne 03:25, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

As to the point of the section, as it clearly states, it is about the conclusions and alternatives offered by TSE. The book is not just a bunch of specific claims being investigated, it is at least equally about Lomborg offering interpretations, suggestions and speculations about the range of stuff he covers. On what scientific discipline are these speculations based: conclusions that things aren't so bad, suggestions that resources put into one thing might be better employed elsewhere? Furthermore, there is no scientific basis for Lomborg's choice of alternatives he does present, they are simply his opinion. As soon as Lomborg leaves the immediate results of his various statistical exercises and begins to speculate and extrapolate, that is a new area of consideration, quite apart from the statistical work and the sources of the data.

Are those your opinions? Or are they someone else's?--JonGwynne 03:25, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

it is merely the opinions of a couple of people with no direct professional or educational connection to the issue at hand

How do you know this - where is the evidence? Can you show me one credible source that dismisses Alex Kirby, Mark Lynas and "Grist" as having no professional or educational connection to TSE, environmentalism, environmental science, or the criticism of peer-reviewed works in environmental economics? Or is that just your opinion? If so, what are your credentials for deciding the credibility of these people? You don't like Mark Lynas, that's clear, but you simply compare him with someone else you find to be a crackpot, and dismiss his widely available, print-published book as coming from a publisher you don't like... What about Alex Kirby, the BBC environmental columnist? Don't "like" him either? Isn't the job a of a professional media reporter covering environmental issues exactly what he is being quoted on? Does he not have a direct professional connection with everyone concerned? You are not very clear in your reasoning. Tsavage 02:56, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Kirby dismisses himself in his own writing. He states explicitly: "I am neither a statistician nor a scientist, and I lack the skill to judge Lomborg's reworkings of the statistics of conventional wisdom". In other words, Kirby admits that he has no education or professional expertise by which to offer analysis of Lomborg's work - all he can do is offer opinions (i.e. "I like/dislike what Lomborg said") - and extremely biased ones at that. Wikipedia isn't a book-review site, it is an encyclopedia. Lets stick to quoting people who have some insight into the book and leave the opining to other sites, shall we? BTW, Kirby isn't a BBC reporter anymore [5] and hasn't been for many years. He is a freelance environmental partisan. There is a convincing argument to be made that anything he says is pretty much automatically POV and, as such, unsuitable for inclusion in wikipedia.--JonGwynne 03:25, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Following your own reasoning, in his quote Kirby does not dismiss himself as a qualified critic of TSE, he says he is not a statistician so does not have the skill to judge "Lomborg's reworkings of the statistics". Which is the point here, TSE isn't only statistics, it's a plain English policy platform based on Lomborg's statistical analysis. You can legitimately disagree with a statement, whether or not it calls upon a stastical argument as its rationale, and independent of the statistics if it does (are you saying that ANY argument based on statistics MUST be ONLY argued through the statistics?). Whatever Kirby's bias may be, it's not an issue here. He was for several years (in 1990s) a BBC environmental reporter, and is currently the environmental correspondent for BBC Online (among other related endeavors). Given the reasonably good and widely accepted standing of the BBC as an international news organization (do you grant that?), that seems sufficient to qualify him as a professional analyst of environmental issues and publications, he doesn't have to be a statistician to do that. (If I get my cookbook of entirely computer-generated recipes published, then I suppose only computer scientists can review it...? If a politician is to institute policies based on science, must he first be a scientist (if so, things have already gone right off the rails)?). Tsavage 04:07, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't quite follow your reasoning here. If you published a book of recipes then I would expect the article in wikipedia to contain reports of comments from chefs. Commentary from journalists, on the other hand would not be appropriate, as all they would be able to contribute is their opinions on whether or not they liked the taste of the dishes. Lomborg is a statistician, the book is about the environment. Ergo, commentary on it should be confined to statisticians and environmental scientists. Whether or not Kirby is a reporter for the BBC is irrelevant to this discussion, he admits himself that he has no educational or professional credentials in the disciplines treated by the book.

Well, OK, if you put it that way: Lomborg is a statistician, the book is about the environment. But no, Lomborg is NOT a statistician. He does not hold a degree in statistics. He is not a part of the statistics department at the University he graduated from and taught at. He did teach a course in statistics for poli-sci students. Lomborg is not an environmental scientist - that I believe ia accepted. So what is Lomborg's own qualification for writing TSE? A paper on game theory? It's starting to seem like, just because he could... Tsavage 02:56, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

p.s. I notice in VSmith's revert, he fails to list any ground here for his reversion...--JonGwynne 04:53, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Tsavage asks for my reasons to delete the "damnably reasonable" critique. While I thought they were obvious, I'll present them nevertheless (sorry if it seems too late, but I have a job and a life apart from wikipedia...). Kirby's critique is worthless ("his conclusions are different from everyone else, therefore he's wrong" ---> where is the logic in that reasoning? Einstein would have been wrong too?). Linas's critique is dishonest: true, one could take the defence budget and give it too Ethiopia, but that will never happen. Lomborg's proposals, however, have some chance of happening since they concern stuff where governments have some more discretion. The US, for instance, chose to opt out of Kyoto, and to spend their money elsewhere. Also, many aid budgets could easily be reallocated towards better uses. Linas's critique is especially ridiculous since Lomborg has followed up with this conclusion by leading the Copenhagen Consensus, whose aim was exactly to find out where to spend money. Many notable economists participated and gave credit to Lomborg's conclusion. Finally, what the hell is Grist? Is it a newspaper? Reputable? In any way notable? Credible? I'm sorry, but I've never heard about it. In any case, its critique follows the logic of Lynas, and is therefore also flawed. In any case, Lomborg does not even need to consider industry subsidies and such since every economist agrees that they are biased and should be abolished. Of course Lomborg is against such subsidies (the Copenhagen Consensus considered free trade as one of the most important measures), but he doesn't adress them since he's not comparing good causes to bad causes, but just good causes among themselves. After all, if he started to include bad causes in his analysis, he could start a whole new litany... The last critique is especially stupid: nobody has the time to go through 3000 footnotes? Well, apparently Lomborg had the time. And any true scientist that wanted to make a thorough critique should also go through them. Indeed, it rather shows the lack of seriousness of his critics when they claim that it is too interdisciplinary. Luis rib 16:48, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Those are all reasonable-sounding arguments, if you're judging the merit of the arguments. But that's not the idea here, the Criticism and Praise sections assess the impact and reaction, through an objective sampling of the various comments, positive and negative, made about TSE in reasonably widely available media forums.

Yes, but I think the point here is that the criticism and praise should be from authoritative sources, that leaves out Kirby, Lynas and Grist. Like I said before, if you want some negative commentary on the book, there is plenty out there from environmental scientists and statisticians, why bring activists into the picture? Especially when they have no educational or professional background in the subject at hand...--JonGwynne 20:41, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

My comment from above on Kirby being a BBC-vetted professional environmental analyst applies here as well. And a full-time activist is a "professional". Who more likely well-informed on the issues, events and people involved in "environmentalism" than an active, full-time, front-line advocate of an environmental position? Yes, of course, a fanatical, at-any-cost "activist" is a good candidate for bad info, but simply being an "activist" doesn't mean you've checked your objectivity, intelligence or honesty at the door. I don't think. Tsavage 04:07, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

But the fact remains that Kirby has no professional or educational background in the issue - he admits this himself in his comments. As such his isn't in a position to offer anything more than a simply book-review and that isn't appropriate in an encyclopedia article. Like I said before, if you want to provide a link to his material in the external links section and label it as a book review or commentary, that's fine. But it doesn't belong in the body of the article. --JonGwynne 18:34, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Well, I'm learning as I go! Apparently, by your criteria, Lomborg has no professional or educational background to qualify him for writing TSE as a "scientific work". His Masters and PhD are in Political Science. He is not an economist, let alone an environmental economist. And he is not a statistician, he simply taught a course in statistics for political science students. His own statistics training was a 30 hour course for general political science students. Perhaps you can check with the University of Aarhus -- send 'em an email -- if this isn't to your taste. It could be wrong.

If that's correct, what we have here is an non-specialized poli-sci guy who's decided to interpret some numbers and make some pronouncements, without benefit of a degree or hands-on experience in ANY of the disciplines involved... I didn't know that...

Oh, yeah, another apparently, about his doctoral thesis or paper or whatever in game theory, his only published peer-reviewed work (other than, of course, TSE): has been scrutinized by two students at De Montfort University in Britain, under supervision by Peter Meissner. They conclude that Lomborg´s computer model would hardly be able to yield the results that Lomborg claims it has given, and that Lomborg´s conclusion disagrees with other existing literature. This information was given by Stuart Pimm to Aarhus University in January 2002. That's interesting. Tsavage 02:47, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

--MichaelSirks 21:57, 10 May 2005 (UTC) I didn't see any reference so I searched the internet with google for "Lomborg Stuart Pimm Meissner". I found only one reference and that was;

www.lomborg-errors.dk/lomborgstory1.htm

I also search with "meissner lomborg De Montfort University" and found the same result. Is this your only reference?

So you don't agree with Matt Ridley (author of "The Genome") when he write; What can this mild statistician have said to annoy these great men so? In 1996, he published an obscure but brilliant article on game theory, which earned him an invitation to a conference on "computable economics" in Los Angeles (and an offer of a job at the University of California).

I ask again did you read the book?

Yes, that was where I saw that. Interesting site, lots of good stuff. :) I mentioned it on the TALK page to help, uh, make my point in my JonGwynne discussion. It's interesting if true, for the Lomborg page (the whole Lomborg bio on that site is...interesting...don't you find?) Why don't you email Meissner? Google and the Web are good, but hardly the last stop in information. (I will try and email, but, only so much time in the day!) And I don't agree with Matt Ridley, because I don't know anything about game theory or Lomborg's paper on it... Maybe I will, someday.

Why do you keep asking me if I read the book? Are you JonGwynne? Tsavage 02:36, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

--MichaelSirks 20:34, 11 May 2005 (UTC)I find the site(http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/) very one sided. For instance they use lots of material out of "Sceptical Questions and Sustainable Answers" but they don't mention the response of Lomborg to this booklet.[6] Let alone that they enter a discussion. They just want to rubbish him. A much better source is Heidelberg Appeal Netherlands[7]

Well, when I post the air pollution and deforestation examples, it's good to know that you will add whatever I might miss! Tsavage 01:56, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

If the "damnably" argument is completely obscure, or the sample arguments presented here were impossible for the majority of people to find when they were released, then those could be an argument against the value of this section. But in fact, this argument, which is essentially, "TSE is so wrong...now where do I begin...", is the prevalent one, it is exactly the tone of probably the majority of the "scientific" critiques I've read. And the Lynas material (media coverage, web site), Kirby (BBC Online), and Grist (web site) were all widely accessible.

"widely accessible" <> authoritative.--JonGwynne 20:41, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

That is not the inference, Picador <> self-published vanity press, is. What separates a random opinion from a relevant one in this case is that it was "in the media" = public, widely disseminated, readily accessible to many. For better or for worse, a Web site nowadays almost by definition qualifies as "mass media" (see blogosphere). Of course, just putting something up on a web page means nothing, but Grist is an environmental magazine that is well-indexed, has an established audience, is known to other media, and so forth: (Google accessibilty test: keywords "environmental news" = Grist #8, first page of results, 5 below Wired' Google test: "Grist Magazine" 57,700 results). Tsavage 04:07, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Picador <> academic, peer-reviewed press. Grist <> academic, peer-reviewed press. TSE = academic, peer-reviewed press. See the difference? --JonGwynne 18:34, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

The different angle here is that the scientific criticisms, naturally, I suppose, went after the "science", which was in fact, selected data. Lomborg is obviously not arguing environmental sciences, per se, he's discussing probabilities and likelihoods and opinions based on that. Which is, from my non-scientific POV, is what I believe statistics boils down to. Policy stuff.

So, to argue against TSE, you have to either argue against the data, which is a completely onerous task unless you want to spend as much time as Lomborg did putting together the book, which seems to be about five years, or argue against his manipulation of the data, which apparently is OK, given his assumptions and the accepted data. The problem is, without impeaching TSE data or numbercrunching, criticism of the conclusions can seem...unreasonable. Then again, to many people, TSE's claims seemed unreasonable, too. Ultimately, the statistics stuff could be technically OK, that doesn't make the conclusions necessarily right, helpful, useful, or not.

Yes, that's right. Without the requisite work and expertise, valid criticism of the book is impossible. So why bother with what Kirby himself admits is little more than idle speculation on his part?--JonGwynne 20:41, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. A criticism can be constructed with very few words, and it is valid if it can be proven correct (You say, "The world is going to end tomorrow 9am sharp." I say, "You're full of crap" At 9:01, my criticism is valid, no?). I take what you mean is "well-supported" (by some standard). Well-supported with TSE is tricky, because I don't think there is a definitive, right or wrong to apply to it. Lomborg has picked his data and provided reasons for his choices, and he's applied presumably peer-reviewable statisical methods to arrive at conclusions. Then, he as interpreted those conclusions, and formulated some suggestions and recommendations. That's TSE, and the impression I have is that (like in DCSD), Lomborg can ultimately only be faulted for his choices. If he was acting in, say, a government capacity, then if his choices led to bad things happening, on the basis of his office, perhaps he could be found "wrong" in a significant, punishable way. But all he did was write a work of popular non-fiction. To take the statistical route, I think you'd have to go back to the data, and construct arguments on why the datasets were bad (challenge the UN, US gov, etc, etc material), and THEN make a case for how Lomborg should have known this. In other words, you'd have to more or less reinvestigate all of the science and all of the data collection behind everything TSE covers. In the end, the TSE argument would remain that it clearly states that the data may not be perfect, but is seems like the best available, and so, having arrived at the statistical conclusions, it was reasonable to hypothesize around them. Hence, "so damnably reasonable" -- TSE's core message and many suggestions could be all wrong and result in bad things, but it's difficult to critically fault in a conventional "well-supported" way. That doesn't make it right, but that maybe makes it like OJ... Tsavage 04:07, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

But Kirby hasn't made any statements that can be proved correct. He's just expressing his opinion of the content of the book. There's nothing wrong with that. He's certainly entitled to his opinion and he's equally entitled to publish it if he wants. However, that still doesn't make it appropriate content for an encylopedia article. Kirby's commentary is, fundamentally, editorializing. You wouldn't put an editorial on the front page of a newspaper as fact, would you? An encyclopedia article on a subject like this is essentially a news report. If you want to write editorial articles, stick to novels. TSE isn't a novel, it is a peer-reviewed work. The only analysis relevant on these pages is what comes from people with professional experience in the fields Lomborg addresses. --JonGwynne 18:34, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

This section provides the reader with that last critical take on the book. That these or any other critics were environmentalists has nothing to do with it, and is obviously not surprising, nor does the validity of their arguments, only whether the arguments effectively represent a certain type of critical view that was part of the public mix.

In any case, that's how I see it, my own humble self... Tsavage 19:40, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure you understood my problem with those critics. I don't care if they are activists or environmentalists, as long as they can make a logical reasoning. Unfortunately, they can't. Their criticisms (those you present at least) boil down to " we don't understand the book but we don't like it". They don't even present any arguments against the book's conclusions, just plain trivia ("we might as well give our defence budget to Ethiopia"). Well, yeah, right, and we could built a rocket to fly to Mars with the Medicare budget. That's not a credible way to criticise anything, and it has no place in a serious encyclopedia. Luis rib 22:48, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

I understand your point. You want every criticism to meet a standard, which you've characterized as "logical reasoning", in order to be included. However, my point is completely different.

Try looking at it like this (through my eyes): Somebody makes a controversial speech about X to a big, mixed crowd. In the crowd are X experts, non-expert "regular people", journalists. Some vocal hecklers shout a bunch of stuff -- attacks on the speaker's motivation, character, whatever -- temporarily disrupting the speech. After the speech, people are invited to comment -- open mic. The speech, the heckling, and the comments, from experts and non-experts, are covered in a variety of media outlets. That is the whole event. In the enclopedia article about the speech, you cover all the parts of the event, in order to create a complete, balanced picture. You're not there to provide a fresh analysos of the speech or the reactions to it, but to capture a reasonable sampling of the representative parts, which include expert comments, joe public comments, news media reportage, everything. If you want to postion Kirby, Lynas, the Grist editor as no more than hecklers, fine, because regardless, part of this picture is the hecklers, along with the experts, the journos, what was actually reported, and the speech itself. It's irrelevant if what they said met some criteria of logical reasoning.

Maybe TSE shouldn't be covered like a speech? Because it is a book, I suppose it could be argued that the book's reception is not relevant. Stick strictly to the text, to the transcript of the speech, and comments related to that content. I suppose that's a valid view, too. But that would make for a specialized, circumscribed type of encyclopedia, and not what I see in or as Wikipedia. TSE doesn't exist in a vacuum, we're only talking about it here because other people talked about it first, in a well-publicized way. I'm interested in hearing about what they all had to say, and making up my own mind from there... Tsavage 01:26, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

PS: What kind of argument is "TSE is so wrong...now where do I begin..."? Sounds like something a doped rock star would say at 4 am in a destroyed hotel room...Luis rib 22:48, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Are you referring to Bono? Tsavage 14:44, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Latest JonGwynne mass deletions of "so damnably"

I've restored the section. You haven't supported your opinion that it "doesn't belong", through extensive discussion, and simply go back to deleting, and with a misleading note (you marked it removal of Alex Kirby's critique, but took out two other sets of quotes in the same section). If you really don't see the point of why it's a valid section, perhaps a Wikepedia user simulation might help:

Bob: Have you heard of a book called The Skeptical Environmentalist?

Carol: Um, wasn't that the book a few years ago that said we shouldn't really be so worried about the environment, you know, air pollution, animals going extinct, running out of oil, water quality going down, global warming, the whole bit, because really things are pretty good and getting better?

Bob: Yeah, that sounds like it. How did it manage to say all that?

Carol: I'm not sure. Why don't you look it up in Wikipedia?

(20 minutes later)

Carol: Well?

Bob: Well, according to Wikipedia, it seems like the author, this guy Lomborg, came out of nowhere with his book. The big newspapers and news magazines all thought it was great, groundbreaking, could change the world, but they didn't go much into specifics. Meanwhile, the scientists and science journals totally attacked it, but they didn't do a very good job arguing the details...

Carol: So, the book was right? Or at least, nobody proved it was wrong?

Bob: I guess so... But you'd think, if one person who nobody'd heard of before says all sorts of scientists and experts and all of the media for the last few decades were all wrong in saying there are big problems with the environment, someone would have come out and said, "How can EVERYONE be wrong, and only you be right?" I mean, that's my first thought.

Carol: Yeah, me too. But I guess no-one wanted to actually say that publicly... You know, like the people in that story, the emperor's new clothes. Oh well... Want to drive the Navigator over to Krispy Kreme for a doughnut?

Why do you think it's appropriate to excise relevant commentary on the topic? That these opinions were brought forward by credentialled people in global media has already been demonstrated... What do you have against painting the fullest picture? Tsavage 17:31, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

I beg your pardon, but there hasn't been any support for its inclusion. You can't turn this argument on its head just because nobody can come up with support for editorialization. TSE is a peer-reviewed academic work - commentary in the body of the article should be limited to those with direct expertise in the subject under discussion. Kirby points out in his own writing that he has no such experience. Ergo, the claim that it belongs here in invalid on its face. A link to the review is fine, but anything more than that is simple POV. --JonGwynne 18:20, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

I've restored the section again. I suppose, with the revert rules, this is reversion number two. Your argument that "peer-review" is some sort of criterion by which inclusions in this article are measured is, to me...bizarre. None of the comments in the Praise section, as far as we know and can reasonably expect, are from "scientists", they're from journalists. By your measure, as demonstrated above (and in the Methodology section of the article), NO-ONE IS "QUALIFIED" TO COMMENT ON TSE, because TSE doesn't fit into a discipline. The peer-review committee for CUP, acting for the social sciences division, weren't peer-reviewing material for publication in their areas, their review isn't doesn't make TSE a scientific paper in any of those areas. However, if TSE is not a "scientific work" per se (for example, a cross-disciplinary collection of papers, each one review in its own field -- that would be different). But that is not the case.

Also, you keep removing quotes from two other sources along with Kirby's. Without explanation. That seems rather irrational.

Before removing this again, please provide an answer to the above. That's what the Talk page is for. Tsavage 21:39, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Oh, OK, a summary of the reason for inclusion, detailed elsewhere on this page: Fair and unbiased coverage of TSE should include a representative sampling of all of the types of reaction, positive and negative, which it received. Tsavage 21:44, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I'll ask my neighbour's cat what it thought of it - its opinion might be relevant too....Luis rib 21:51, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Sticking to points, your neighbor's cat can't be equated with a journalist specializing for over a decade in environmental issues for one of the leading English-language news organizations in the world. See Alex Kirby. But all of the various journalists for the Economist, NY Times, Sunday Times, etc certainly make a fair comparison. And if you don't like the BBC's rep as a publisher of fact, then why is Cambridge University Press' rep to be taken so highly -- i.e. you can't have it both ways, some journalists are qualified, others aren't, some organizations are highly respected, others aren't, when a reasonable look at the evidence doesn't support those conclusions. Tsavage 22:20, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Yet the neighbour's cat and Kirby both have the same level of expertise with regard to the subject treated by the book. The opinions of both carry approximately equal weight in this area. If the subject were journalism, Kirby's views would be relevant as he has undoubted experience in that area. However, the subject is not journalism. Ergo, Kirby's views are no more relevant or valid than anyone else in the world who doesn't have any background in the subjects Lomborg is addressing. Not only that, Kirby's views aren't very interesting. Anyone can ask questions but unless they're willing to provide some supported answers, it is just rhetoric. --JonGwynne 03:01, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

On a completely different topic, Tsavage's above cited "discussion" between Bob and Carol is right in one respect: this page doesn't provide enough information about the book itself. Instead of including the opinions of relative nobodys, we should rather expand the section about the book itself, and how Lomborg came to his conclusions. Then readers might be able to form their own opinion. Luis rib 21:51, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

I totally agree. But not being the appropriate type of scientist myself, and with "Statistics for Dummies" still not here and consumed, on my end, I've had to resort to secondary sources. Like http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/ -- two good candidates for examination hare are examined there (as I've mentioned above on this page): "air is getting cleaner" and "forests are expanding". I'm NOT pointing to Lomborg errors for any other reason than it does present clear, detailed, understandable and documented analysis of specific claims. At least, it seems so to me. Why don't you examine these (examples 2 and 3): http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/examples.htm ? Tsavage 22:20, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

the "lomborg errors" site is over-the-top POV and the result of someone who has a clear agenda to discredit Lomborg - it would be like going to www.moveon.org for objective information about George W. Bush. --JonGwynne 03:01, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Have you read any of the examples? Obviously not. There are detailed, independently verifiable breakdowns of Lomborg claims, referenced back to his sources, and fully taking into account his footnotes. You only have to look at TSE itself to check. So this isn't "definitive" on TSE as a whole, but that seriously concocted calculations were made by Lomborg seems an unavoidable conclusion. Think that I'm out to get him or whatever, I'm just trying to get to some "truth". BTW, do you agree with and believe Lomborg/TSE, or are you just doing an exercise here in NPOV maintenance? Tsavage 04:10, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

I have read Kåre Fog's complaints about TSE on several web sites - including Amazon.com [8] and it is pretty clear that he has an axe to grind with regard to Dr. Lomborg. In fact, according to his Amazon review at least, he is one of the people who filed the original complaint with the DCSD/UVVU with regard to the book - the complaint that was rejected by the Danish Ministry of Science. To use Kirby's argument against Fog: it is funny that he claims to have found more than 200 errors in a book that a concerted peer-review by experts in the field somehow overlooked. To answer your other question, I have no personal stake in TSE either way. I'm just here to referee things. --JonGwynne 04:23, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

OK, fair enough re your NPOV interest. Regarding Fog, (1) of course he has an "axe to grind", he's angry, if something you worked long and hard at had been descretated by a dilettante out to make a name for himself, out of nothing, by misrepresenting and sensationalizing all of the hard work you and your colleagues had been doing for years, wouldn't you be pissed off? (just to be sure, not MY position, simply a depiction of the situation if Fog's charges were true) (2) I'm not talking about Fog's general comments, or his Lomborg bio, or his tone, but take a look at his CASES, for example, Example 2. This looks like a mini-version of what happened with a lot of those first outraged scientific complaints, their emotional presentation got in the way of their own arguments, and of others really looking at their statements. Here is a recreation that you can check:

Summary of one critical dissection: Lomborg-TSE/Fog/HAN on deforestation

Here is an back-and-forth over one specific claim, assembled by me from different documents (Lomborg-style?), between Lomborg/TSE, Fog, and HAN (who for the moment at least I consider his covert allies, for reasons explained on Talk:Bjørn Lomborg). This perhaps illustrates why TSE seems so...slippery when it comes to seeing (publicized) well-founded scientific criticism:

--MichaelSirks 19:21, 16 May 2005 (UTC) I couldn't find where you explain on Talk:Bjørn Lomborg why HAN was a covert ally. By the way HAN devotes an intyre document to Fog's criticism. [9]

It's here.[10]. "Covert ally" is a bit of a hastily written odd way to put it. More accurately, from what I was able to find, it seems that HAN is a right wing activist/propaganda group, using science as a platform, with, basically, environmentalism as it affects big business, as its target... See what you make of it. I cut the stuff...pending checking out HAN more thoroughly. The HAN stuff may be relevant in some context, but if they are totally partisan, then not in the context it was in in the article. - Tsavage 20:20, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Historical trends in global forest area (chapter 10)

Fog classifies this as particular deception as fraud. His summary: In order to deny that global forest area is steadily shrinking, Lomborg uses a dataset for the period 1950 to 1994 which is incomplete and therefore gives total figures that are too low, especially for the years up to 1965. He does this by taking totals from a set of FAO yearbooks, knowing these figures to be obsolete and ignoring corrections made to them in the intervening years by the FAO itself. In the later - English - edition of the book he studiously ignores new, robust FAO data that unequivocally indicate a steady decline in global forest area.

--MichaelSirks 19:21, 16 May 2005 (UTC) Lomborg doesn't deny that the global forest area area is steadily shrinking. In fact he estimates the global deforestation; : gives 0.4689 percent for the 1980s and 0.4592 percent for the 1990s. and says the following; These figures are still high though and there are three main reasons for this. So he finds deforestation a problem. So when Fog says that Lomborg is denying that the forset area is declining he's lying.

The following are excerpts, with my bridging comments, from the complete Fog page covering this [11]:

Fog details his investigation of the Lomborg data and ties them to the book: The basis for this statement is the data from the FAO production yearbook. This yearbook, which has been edited once a year from 1948 onwards, contains a table describing how the total land area in the world is partitioned between various land uses, such as arable land and permanent pastures. One of the categories is called "Forests and woodlands". Lomborg has taken the figure for "Forests and woodlands" from every volume of the yearbook and used these global totals to produce the graph shown in Figure 60 (page 111). This graph indicates that the global forest area has fluctuated up and down, but with the final values slightly higher than the initial values (The time series ends in 1994).

--82.210.106.34--MichaelSirks 20:49, 16 May 2005 (UTC) 20:45, 16 May 2005 (UTC) What does lomborg says; Globally, the overall area covered by forest has not changed much since1950, as can be seen in Figure 60.

So he doesn't make a statement that in fact forest area are increasing. This section must also be placed in to context of the entire text. In this text these figures are contrasted to the litany;

'The forests are another form of renewable resource we may be overexploiting. Many people

have a strong feeling that the forests are simply disappearing. A Time magazine survey carried the headline: Forests: the global chainsaw massacre. The World Resources Institute simply calls it: Deforestation: the global assault continues. The WWF has disseminated a similar message on its website. The forest front page that greeted the visitor until April 1998 can be seen in Figure 59. We must ACT NOW to preserve the last remaining forests on Earth, it says. Elsewhere, WWF claims that, The world's forests are disappearing at an alarming rate.

This is in keeping with a statement by the WWF’s international president Claude Martin, who

in 1997 called a press conference named Eleventh Hour for World’s Forests. Here he said: I implore the leaders of the world to pledge to save their country’s remaining forests now – at the eleventh hour for the world’s forests. Equally, he claimed that the area and quality of the world’s forests have continued to decline at a rapid rate. Worldwatch Institute even claims that deforestation has been accelerating in the last 30 years. But there are no grounds for making such claims. Globally, the overall area covered by forest has not changed much since 1950, as can be seen in Figure 60.'

Fog describes in detail the problem with the data by presenting a series of 15 consecutive years, 1950-1964 (reduced series to 15 for simplicity). This shows a fluctuation, up and down, between years. He explains the variation is due to changes and differences in reporting methodology and definition of forested land by the various reporting countries, and changes in the set of reporting countries. For each year in the series showing an increase, Fog explains the reason. The 1958-1959 bump, from 3.987 billion hectares to 4.069 bn ha was due to 1) an increase in Canadian forest area, due to a revision in Canada's figures 2) the inclusion of Mongolia, a new reporting country, with mountain forests. So, not actual area increases, only paper adjustments. Fog details this for the other years with increases.

Fog also notes: For the period from 1961 onwards, revised figures are presented in later reports. If we use these revised figures, then we find that the global area of forests and woodland typically declines by 0.2 % per year - throughout the whole time span studied.

--82.210.106.34 20:45, 16 May 2005 (UTC) That's not a number what Lomborg is contesting.

Fog further points out that the table in each FAO annual book is marked with a warning indicating the imprecise (unreliable) nature of this figure: FAO warning It should be borne in mind that definitons used by reporting countries vary considerably and items classified under the same category often relate to greatly differing kinds of land. . . Thus the area specified is not intended to refer to or delineate "forest coverage." Fog notes: So, [Lomborg] knows that the unrevised data are misleading.

--82.210.106.34 20:45, 16 May 2005 (UTC) As can be seen above it used to contrast the exagerated statements of envirometal organisation.

Fog then turns to the famous footnotes, where Lomborg has meticulously explained and justified his choices. From this it seems that Lomborg has made a mistake. He has not been sufficiently thorough and studied the data in detail. But no - the point is that Lomborg knows all this perfectly well. He has actually studied the data in detail. That is what he tells us in his very long note 770, in the right hand column of p. 375. He notes that global figures for the same year may vary by up to 2 %, and he notes that the countries included are not the same in all cases. So he knows that the figures have been revised in later editions, and that one should therefore only compare figures that have been subject to the same revisions - to avoid, for example, a widely different contribution from Angola in two consecutive years. He knows that. But he obviously hopes that we do not - and that we will not draw the relevant conclusions from his own Note 770. As long as that is the case, he can postulate that the data demonstrate a rising trend, and (as he constantly admonishes us) you have to respect what the data tell.

On how Lomborg here follows through on this them of using "the best data available", Fog quotes and comments: [Lomborg] writes: "Figure 60 contains the best information on the global forest area." After that, he writes negatively about the quality of the data of all the other time series, which without exception show a steadily declining trend. But the data series which has the poorest quality - and which is not intended for the use that Lomborg makes of it - that data series is not criticized in the main text. The criticism of this data series occurs only in the notes. And even here, after presenting this criticism, he immediately continues: "Using short time-span series actually risks losing the general tendency in noise created by the individual adjustments. It has therefore been important to employ the longest time-span series available, and FAO´s long series from 1950 is the only one available. Unfortunately, the FAO database only provides access to figures from 1961 onward. . . ". So, the reason for Lomborg to prefer the data from the FAO production Yearbook is that they go right back to 1950, although he knows that FAO´s data for the preriod 1950-1961 are not reliable. It is of course not warranted to use the longest time series if you know that its data are systematically too low (for example because Papua New Guinea is only included in figures after 1961).

Finally, Fog points out that the FAO completely revised their figures to a reliable new ones, that demonstrate shrinking forests for the same period Lomborg is claiming otherwise, but Lomborg did not choose to use them in the English edition of TSE (which was updated with over 1,000 footnotes from the Danish edition): All the text referred to up to now is nearly identical to the text in the Danish edition of the book from 1998. Between 1998 and 2001, however, FAO published - for the first time - a comprehensive survey of the total forest area of the world, using identical definitions of "forest" for all nations. In addition, this new report was based on much more reliable data than the production yearbook - such as satellite images. This new, authoritative report demonstrated unequivocally that the global forest area is steadily declining.

--MichaelSirks 19:21, 16 May 2005 (UTC)Lomborg uses these reports as stated in the HAN text.

HAN: In HAN's evaluation of the same charge to the DCSD (it is not clear what the exact wording was there), they summarize the charge, Lomborg's side, and then provide their own review, which they characterize as independent, non-partisan, scientific:

SA19 Lovejoy and Pimm and Harvey in letter of 20 May 2002

Accusaton: The chapter on forest suffers from selective use of numbers and not knowing that FAO’s data marred by the weight of so many different definitions and methods that any statistician should know they are not valid in terms of time series.

Lomborg's defense: Lovejoy neglects to say that this is the only long run data series, and that I actually point out that these data series are uncertain (SE 111)

HAN review: Lomborg is in his text very modest. Lovejoy is splitting straws.

Pimm and Harvey 5

Accusaton: Statistical use of data on forestry are incredible, as when he argues that global forest cover has increased from 30.04 to 30.89 percent between 1950 and 1994 (SE 111). Since our ability to measure forest cover is well below the prediction of these data, Lomborg’s claim that forest cover has increased 0.85 percent is deliberate obfuscation.

Lomborg's defense: This claim neglects that I state right after SE 111 that the area covered by forest had shrunk from 27.25 to 25.8 percent. If P and H cl:=aim should hold up, I’m here demonstrating the opposite bias, but this they failed to note.

HAN review: It is doubtful indeed whether both these increase and decrease numbers are significant. But Lomborg shows both sides of the coin. In science statistics has to do with the interpretation of large datasets, not single observations. [12]

So there's one issue from three perspectives. Unless Fog is doing exactly what he accuses Lomborg of, deliberately misrepresenting and lying, my initial conclusions from the above are:

--82.210.106.34 20:45, 16 May 2005 (UTC) I have demonstrated that he's lying en HAN thinks that[13];

Fog is certainly irritated when Lomborg starts each chapter and section with the quoting of the exaggerations of the catastrophists, and subsequently he seems to have insufficient attention for the nuances in the rest of the text. In this exercise I was forced to reread Lomborg’s text several times (in order to put the criticism of Fog in the context of the whole) and the literature they both quote from. With every reread the impression was enforced that Fog is splitting hair on details, without taking in sufficient consideration the context as a whole.

If Fog’s complaint was a scientific publication he could easily be accused of violation of good scientific practice with the examples presented above: for misinterpretation of others’ text by taking it out of context and for selective quotation from specific reports.

Just for that reason the complaint should not be read as having the pretension to be scientific in it self. It is a book review in the form of an encyclical letter with the warning that decision makers may be seduced to loose their faith in the catechism of the catastrophists. Then we will meet the apocalypse.

It should be noted that this warning is part of the complaint of Fog that was addressed to the disciplinary body, the DCSD, as if it was an ecclesiastical tribunal from the time of the inquisition. If that part was not comprised in the complaint one might still have felt inclined to take some of Fog’s criticism seriously from the scientific point of view.

• The data is clearly wrong and not suited for this purpose Using these uncorrected figures in the way TSE does would lead to completely arbitrary results not representative of any on the ground reality.
• The footnotes attempt to justify, but fail: There's a lot of talk, but all of that acknowledgement doesn't get past the bad data. It does seem to partially excuse Lomborg from charges of deceit because he's apparently "not hiding anything".
• The cornerstone "best data available" and "long time series" principles central to TSE are put into doubt: After reading how he handled one widely publicized claim, Lomborg's crieteria for data selection are in doubt. It also seems that perhaps these "reasonable" principles actually serve as an argument for including otherwise questionable data. Measurements and reporting methods have changed drastically in the last 40 years in many areas as far as I can see, so this idea of comparing states seems shaky...
• HAN, though not publicly a big player, seems clearly biased, supporting Lomborg in policy circles: The interesting thing about HAN is that their references mainly come from trade groups and governments. They assist in lobbying and advocacy of their client causes, it would seem, and support and trying to shore up Lomborg's "science" is good for their overall business... Their report seems written to further confuse and oversimplfy, a combination of unqualified statements and pronouncements (It is doubtful indeed whether both these increase and decrease numbers are significant. But Lomborg shows both sides of the coin. In science statistics has to do with the interpretation of large datasets, not single observations. = "we are the GOOD REAL EVEN-KEELED scientists, here's the truth in language you can understand")?????

--82.210.106.34 20:45, 16 May 2005 (UTC) Of course you have no evidence for this. Just a slur for an organisation which comments you don't like. You have just take Fog word for every thing when he in fact is deliberatly misreading the text of Lomborg.

Overall, this example seems to support the position of some critics that Lomborg did anything he had to to shoehorn data into the mold of his claims, so as not break is "perfect" set of debunkings. Reading many other examples (try "Air quality", where the results of two different measurement methods over the same time period, with different results, are selectively cut and spliced together to form one Lomborg graph...????), I don't see what the rebuttal could be?

Is my "lack of qualification" making me see this all wrong? Do I need a degree to...think? Hopefully, someone with more expertise can comment on this stuff!!

(BTW, it's maybe odd of me to cut and paste all of that here, when it's all easily read at the source, but the problem seems to be, no-one seems to be bothering to read this stuff unless it's in intros and summaries and news reports. I don't want to read it all either, I'd rather have an authoratative article somewhere, like Wikipedia, help me out. But that isn't quite available now... ) Tsavage 13:10, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Without going into detail about the whole deforestation question, I just wanted to point out that I actually read Lomborg's book, and it seemed to make sense to me. True, many conclusions were surprising, yet they were always well documented (indeed, by the myriad of footnotes which you seem to dislike - for whatever reason...). Concerning deforestation, Lomborg's claim is not as fanciful as you state, since I've seen it in other articles as well. While forest areas are decreasing in the tropical regions of the world, they have been increasing in some of the temperate regions (mostly in Europe) and in Russia. Also, with climate change forest areas are bound to increase in Russia and Canada, while decreasing further in the tropical regions. Thus, it is not really clear that total forest surface is decreasing. What is clear, however, is that the forests with most biodiversity are disappearing faster. That's the whole issue of Lomborg's book: one should look at the true problems (such as rainforests) instead of false ones (such as global deforestation). Luis rib 21:24, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Well, your reading of TSE was evidently different from mine. But I perhaps see your point (which coincidentally is what HAN seems to get at in their long analyses of all aspects of that DCSD case): TSE requires a very open, not-too-literal, big-picture interpretation, because if you get caught on too many of the details (including the things you run into when you automatically hit the keyboard to check up on this or that online), you get stuck with murky stuff like this Talk page. Your description of the "deforestation issue" is quite clear and succinct. I'm sure that it could be fleshed out with some examples, stats, references, and still be readable and clear. But that isn't so in TSE. For many (me included) this was a pop book (from the way it got publicized), even though it was published through a big university press, so it should be covered as such, here in Wikipedia. Four years later, maybe it's a non-issue (and it can certainly still be headache-inducing), not worth the time, but then, why have a TSE entry at all? This article could be reduced to a couple of hundred words: controversial, the Litany, things are good but not great, strong camps on both sides, period? Once it gets into more detail, it doesn't seem to end... At best, the huge reaction to TSE was not anticipated, so Lomborg and his editors didn't sufficiently vet it for its general audience. On the other hand, the Danish version, with all the controversy and media coverage, gave a good solid indication of what was quite likely to happen with an English edition. So I gotta wonder about the whole ambiguous package. That's beside the point of the article, but a fuller picture of TSE should be presented. TSE still affects policy, and I now get the feeling it is the current blueprint for a whole lot of government and industry level material that isn't in the media, but affects all of us. It would be great, given the number of people who use Wikipedia, to make this article a good one. - Tsavage 23:38, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Heidelberg Appeal Nederland

I changed the reference in the heading from "HAN academics" to "Heidelberg Appeal Nederalnd", since there is not reference in the text to these "academics", and no indication other than the name of the group, who exactly they are. Tsavage 00:34, 19 May 2005 (UTC)