The Skeptical Environmentalist – Measuring the real state of the world (book review)

Title :-The Skeptical Environmentalist – Measuring the real state of the world.

By :- Bjorn Lomborg

Published :- Cambridge University Press (1998 – 2003+) Paperback (500 pages)

Outline;- Bjorn is a Denmark university statistician who joined Green Peace, and wanted to statistically very some of Green Peace’s claims of numbers of species dying every day and such.  He looked behind such claims to find they were unscientific and fraudulent. He then set out a scientific approach to look into a variety of popular environmental issues. He takes the environmental outlook to reflect on reality. He essentially pioneered the modern perception that science should not be hijacked by NGO’s for their self interests, and governments can now address issues with scientific rigor, rather than give in to the crowd’s mass hysteria. He provided the first popular voice to give direction to the issue of Climate Change, specifying most warming was in reduced overnight temperatures in northern Russia, rather than hotter days to bring world wide drought. And postulated such warming would also bring more wheat to the world. He uses reliable statistics, mostly derived from the UN, to show the world is improving.

Enough science summaries & graphs to give confidence that the home work is suitable to support his results, but not so heavy as to interrupt the good read. An absolute must read for anyone interested in the environment and the well being of people.