In an act of editorial irresponsibility, the Washington Post gave over the better portion of the front page of its Sunday "Outlook" editorial section to an article by Bjorn Lomborg, under the title "Chill Out. Stop fighting over global warming--here's the smart way to attack it." The paper featured a giant photo of two of Lomborg's totem animal, the polar bear. The article was Lomborg's usual misleading fare, without even a scintilla of response to the devastating criticism of his work over the last two months (see the reviews on this site for examples.)
Looking at Lomborg's article and its display, you would think that no one at the Post has access to Google. The article is an insult to all of the scientists and journalists who have taken the trouble to expose the misleading arguments in Lomborg's work. How, for example, could anyone authorize using polar bears to illustrate such a spread after reading Kevin Burger's devastating interview with Lomborg in Salon, an interview that ran on August 29, more than a month ago? Burger had done his own peer review of the literature on polar bears, which enabled Burger to show that Lomborg had ignored findings that did not fit his rosy picture of the polar bears' future, and that Lomborg had doctored a key quote by eliminating a phrase that would have weakened Lomborg's case.
In light of his admissions to Burger on this point, Lomborg's unaltered repetition of his polar bear argument in the Post is an act of shamelessness. Real scientists correct their work when their peers demonstrate mistakes, errors, or omissions. Lomborg does not. Publicly correcting his errors on polar bears would destroy the first chapter of his book, which would in turm cast doubt on the rest of the work.
Representative Ed Markey (D-MA), the head of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, got off a reply press release Sunday afternoon taking Lomborg to task for offering what Markey called "false choices" and ignoring the high costs of inaction. Here is Markey's release in full:
WASHINGTON (October 7, 2007) –
Chairman Edward J. Markey of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming criticized Bjorn Lomborg’s op-ed in today’s Washington Post as pushing false choices in the fight to solve our world’s greatest challenges.
The economist Sir Nicholas Stern has found that every dollar invested now to curb global warming will avoid a cost of five to twenty times more than if global warming pollution is left unchecked.
Below is the statement of Chairman Markey:
“Mr. Lomborg would have us treat symptoms--more malaria--instead of the disease--heat-trapping carbon pollution--because he views it as cheaper in the short run. The most thorough economic analysis to date of the cost of capping carbon emissions versus the cost of not doing so says this ratio is 1 to 5. For every dollar invested now, we are preventing 5 being spent later to head off this disaster. Mr. Lomborg’s answers are penny-wise, pound foolish, and a prescription for widespread calamity in areas of the world least responsible for the problem and least able to avoid it.
“Mr. Lomborg seems to think there are limits to ingenuity, compassion, and action. These are renewable resources that only increase with the size and importance of the challenges we face. We can fight malaria while cutting the emissions that cause more infectious diseases. We can save low-lying countries while stopping the sea-level rise that threaten their very existence.
“Lomborg's fog of false choices can obscure real solutions, solutions we know are available today. It's time to make a positive choice toward a cleaner, safer, more prosperous world.”
