Green No More

...As we accumulate experience of disasters not happening, this kind of argument ought to lose its power...

...But there is little question environmental-ism is driven primarily by a vision of the way the world ought to be—a vision that puts the environment above liberty, self-government, human diversity, and material well-being...

...Other than providing valuable updates, The Skeptical Environmentalist breaks little new ground in environmental criticism...

...Here again, Lomborg has only common sense on his side...

...Lomborg became convinced that "the Litany"—the cliched collection of beliefs that the world is subject to ever increasing environmental degradation and poised on the brink of destruction—has it wrong...

...can be expected to continue improving as the world grows wealthier...

...In The Skeptical Environmentalist Bj0rn Lomborg, like his many predecessors, has performed a valuable service in attempting to block the misuse of science for political ends...

...Environmentalists believe things can be made the best, which seems extremely unlikely...

...Life expectancy is growing in most of the world...

...They have not all been as comprehensive as Lomborg's, but taken as a whole they have covered much the same territory...

...Past results do not guarantee future performance, as advertisements for investment funds always note, and it is always difficult to see clearly the fragile components of the foundations upon which one lives...

...So Lomborg sat down and produced The Skeptical Environmentalist, a critical examination of many of the key issues of contemporary envi-ronmentalism, which he hopes will "lead to an appreciable change in attitude about environmental problems...

...Similarly, in three and a half well-crafted pages, he demolishes the idea that we are running out of room for landfill and points out the link between rising prosperity and improved air quality...

...But isn't this prosperity built on an orgy of consumption that sacrifices future generations...

...Somehow, critics of environmentalism have been put in a position of having to prove definitively that something will never happen...

...Drawing valuable lessons about tradeoffs and priorities, he makes clear why environmental goods cannot be treated as uniquely privileged—and he suggests how pernicious it is that over half of America's voters think we cannot do too much to protect the environment...

...Lomborg's work is no less necessary for being the latest in a string of such works...

...Our fears of chemicals are greatly exaggerated...

...Most global trends are improving and A professor of politics at Duquesne University, Charles T. Rubin is the author of The Green Crusade: Rethinking the Roots of Environmentalism...

...Whether he is hunting down the source of claims that provoke environmental alarm or providing the context that was left out in order to heighten fears and grab headlines, Lomborg shows how to evaluate claims about environmental degradation and danger...

...Lomborg does not develop this insight into the essentially political nature of the environmentalist program as much as he could have...

...He demonstrates that statements like "The world is losing 109 species a day" have no basis in empirical research...

...But think for a moment about the fate of Julian Simon—and the parallel fates of Judd Alexander, William Baarschers, John Baden, Ronald Bailey, Robert Balling Jr., Joe Bast, Ben Bloch, Karen Bolander, Alston Chase, George Claus, Leonard Cole, Edith Efron, Gregg Easterbrook, Alan Fitzsimmons, Bernard Frieden, Michael Fumento, Jay Lehr, Marc Landy, Bernard Lewis, Harold Lyons, William Rathje, Dixy Lee Ray, Marc Roberts, Michael Sanera, Jane Shaw, Fred Singer, Stephen Thomas, Elizabeth Whelan, Aaron Wildavsky, and others...

...indeed, the scientists most likely to put forward such claims have the least interest in doing the necessary research...

...Water and air pollution trends are improving...

...This maneuver represents a tremendous rhetorical triumph...

...But the persistent ability of environmentalists to conjure up the world's end is based on shifting the burden of proof...

...Lomborg skillfully uncovers the source of the bias towards bad environmental news in the scientific community, environmental interest groups, and the media...

...But i turned out "a surpris ingly large" number o Simon's points "stood up to scrutiny...

...The expressed dislike of prioritization does not mean that we will not end up prioritizing, only that our choices will be worse...

...Lomborg set up a study group with ten o his "sharpest students" to refute Simon...

...The Skeptical Environmentalist is particularly good at recontextualizing environmental problems—the main focus of its introductory and concluding chapters...

...In eighteen careful chapters, Lom-borg covers most of the issues environmentalists use to foment panic...

...The real issue in dispute, as Lom-borg recognizes in his discussion of global climate change, is what we want the future to look like...

...Environmentalists exploit this uncertainty, promising in its place complete certainty if only we remake the world as they desire...

...The environmentalists have the universal human imagination of the end of the world: If things appear to be going well, they are only going well so far, and this or that environmental indicator is a bellwether of future disaster...

...indeed, urban air in the developed nations may be cleaner now than it has been in centuries...

...Lomborg's The Skeptical Environmentalist has so many virtues (to say nothing of its 2,930 endnotes), it seems unfair to predict that the book will not succeed at creating the "appreciable change in attitude about environmental problems" its author desires...

...Still, that leaves the question of environmentalism's extraordinary persistence...

...While there is no reason to think the world is already good enough, there is every reason to expect human ingenuity will continue the improving trend...

...Reasonable people may disagree about whether the environmental vision stems from "secularized" religious belief, from self-interested behavior within liberal democratic institutions, or from a utopian mindset...

...The answer needs to go beyond Lomborg's analysis of the Litany...

...Aren't we successful only by undercutting the integrity of nature itself...

...You can catch a hint of that in the publicity which has swirled around The Skeptical Environmentalist so far—all of it less concerned with the message than with the messenger's betrayal of his old environmentalist faith...

...Fears of environmental disaster are exaggerated and have little scientific basis...

...Lomborg deserves the impact for which he hopes, but if past experience is any indication, he won't obtain it...

...Food production is increasing, and a smaller percentage of the globe faces starvation than ever before...

...Science is a weapon in advancing this vision, but its use among devoted environmentalists is purely tactical...

...Lomborg excels in dissecting such examples of the environmentalists' Litany...

...But until more people understand that the world promised by contemporary environ-mentalism is not a world in which they would want to live, there will be little change in our arguments about the environment...

...If we "forget our fear of imminent breakdown," we may be able to achieve a "reasonable prioritization" of the measures necessary to improve the well-being of man and nature...

...Similarly, Lomborg sees present problems as opportunities for human ingenuity as capable of achieving increasing security for increasing numbers of people, while environmentalists turn them into apocalyptic presentiments...

...More people are prosperous and secure...

...Lomborg believes things will get better, which seems rather likely...

...At various times over the past four decades, each of these writers has produced works that attempt to show the shortcomings of contemporary envi-ronmentalism...

...You'd think the possibility of Lomborg's vision would easily vanquish the impossibility of the environmental-ists'—but the magic of claiming "the best" always trumps the dullness of claiming "the better...

...Why don't the facts seem to count for much in environmental matters...

...When critics are forced—as they must be—to admit that proving a negative is impossible, they seem to concede that there is something genuine about the environmental fears...

...In short, we are in a period of "unprecedented human prosperity...

...The state of the world as Lomborg sees it depends on a powerful sense of progress—a justified sense, but one that must remain, in all honesty, uncertain...

...BY CHARLES T. RUBIN In 1997, Bj0rn Lomborg, a Danish professor of statistics and a self-professed "old left-wing Greenpeace member," came across a book by Julian Simon, one of the great critics of contemporary environmen-talism...