In an interview with Lomborg in Salon, Kevin Berger picks Lomborg apart. Especially good demolition of Lomborg's claim that global warming poses little threat to polar bears.

Jim Norton pulled together in one sprawling list many articles and links on Lomborg's first book, The Skeptical Environmentalist.

Another general overview site of Lomborg's pre-Cool It career, produced by Sourcewatch, a project of the Center for Media and Democracy. Good collection of articles written by Lomborg, plus links to much criticism.

Lomborg’s Cool It: A Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming is the most sophisticated volley to date in a struggle by major oil companies, large right-wing foundations, and a very small group of scientists funded by these companies and foundations who have fought against the scientific consensus on global warming for more than a decade, initially by denying the existence of global warning at all.

Lomborg represents a new generation of deniers. The first generation denied that global warming was happening at all. When too much evidence came in, 2nd generation deniers appeared. They argued that global warming was happening, but that human activities had nothing to do with. The evidence has overwhelmed this position. Now we have Lomborg pioneering a 3rd generation denial argument. He says global warming is happening, human activities are at least in part responsible, but that the threat of global warming is over-rated, and might even be good for us.

I am only interested in Lomborg as a metaphor, and as a marketing vehicle.  I have no interest in demonizing him, since he is really only a role player in a drama which dwarfs the roles of all but a very few key decision makers, who fall into two not mutually exclusive groups: first, the people who manage the flow of funds to think tanks to produce the appearance of intellectual rigor for global deniers; and second, the people who manage the flow of funds to elected officials and candidates who act to prevent or slow down action against global warming. To the extent that there is personal information about Lomborg on this site, it has to do with his role, not his personality or his personal morals.

I base my views on the overwhelming scientific consensus that global warming is a very serious problem. This consensus has become stronger as more data have come in, as demonstrated in the most recent updates from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC’s reports are based on input from a broad range of disciplines and go through a rigorous peer-review process, a process that is inherently conservative, in the sense of eliminating extreme examples on which there is no scientific consensus.

For this one, I’m going to ask you to read a piece I wrote in 2002 while I was at the Worldwatch Institute, when Lomborg had just burst onto the scene with the publication of his first book, The Skeptical Environmentalist. Lomborg took on almost all of the major environmental issues at the time, claiming that his reading of the data (he was a statistician) revealed that the planet was in much better shape than the environmental groups would have us believe. Scientists from the various fields blasted Lomborg’s claims. Scientific American even put out a special issue taking Lomborg to task. Click here to read “Media Sheep: How did The Skeptical Environmentalist pull the wool over the eyes of so many editors?"

No. 

In a late August interview in Salon with Lomborg, David Berger methodically destroys Lomborg’s argument about polar bears. This exchange shows a number of the techniques Lomborg uses throughout the book, including downplaying scientific findings, doctoring quotes, and the reliance on a single expert who just happens to agree with Lomborg’s position.

For those of you who are interested in any kind of journalism--citizen journalism, mainstream journalism, etc.--this piece is an outstanding example of why it is so important for reporters of whatever stripe to do good research before sitting down with someone for an interview. (I know, some of you are saying, Duh, but all too often, editors give reporters far too little time to research a complex story like this one adequately. As a result, it's easy for the subject to get away with assertions that slide by the underprepared interviewer. Kudos to David Berger (and Salon) for having enough facts in hand to expose the gaping crevasses beneath Lomborg's smooth prose.

Here’s the exchange with Berger:

Berger: You start "Cool It" by boldly stating that polar bears illustrate the exaggerated claims about global warming. You write that polar bears "may eventually decline, though dramatic declines seem unlikely." Yet the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report, which you use to support your thesis, concludes: "As the amount of sea ice decreases, seals, walrus, polar bears and other ice-dependent species will suffer drastically." Don't you think that sounds like there will be dramatic declines?

Lomborg: I'm just saying that it will be harder for the polar bears but that they will not decline, and they're not going to be extinct or even appear to be affected at present.[the downplay scientific findings gambit--RB]

Berger: But according to the report, they are showing signs of decline, and decreasing sea ice does threaten extinction. You write that what the Polar Bear Specialist Group of the World Conservation Union, whose research fed the Arctic climate report, "told us was that of the 20 distinct subpopulations of polar bears, one or possibly two were declining in Baffin Bay; more than half were known to be stable; and two subpopulations were actually increasing around the Beaufort Sea."

About bears in the Beaufort Sea area, the report says that "declines in cub survival, and other ecological evidence are consistent with a changing sub-population status. Also, observations of changes in polar bear body condition and unusual hunting behaviours in polar bears (e.g. cannibalism, digging through solid ice to find seals) suggest a sub-population that may be under nutritional stress. These observations parallel those made in western Hudson Bay, where changes in sea ice, caused by warmer temperatures, have caused sub-population reductions. These observations, therefore, mandate increased vigilance in the southern Beaufort Sea region." That doesn't sound stable to me.

Lomborg: My sense, as I read this, is that it may be a problem for polar bears, but we do not see this in the data now, and that it certainly does not seem reasonable to assume that they will go extinct. They may go down in size, but what we've seen over the last 40 years is actually a dramatic increase in the number of polar bears.

Berger: But you are making the point that a stable polar bear population is a sign that global warming is overblown. But it's not stable.

Lomborg: No. I'm saying that if we believe the strong assumption that this is all due to climate change, then we will see declines. But it seems unlikely that we are going to see dramatic declines, as has been posited. What we're likely to see is a decline in some populations, but we haven't seen that decline in all populations. Moreover, we can much better deal with this through regulation of hunting of polar bears. That's basically the main point of the whole story. That we worry about helping them very little through climate change policies, whereas we could help them an enormous amount, if we wanted to, through cessation of shooting them. In the Hudson Bay, the best-studied area, 16 bears are dying from climate change, but we're shooting 49. Maybe we should stop shooting 49 and that would be a much better way of helping the bears. By trying to help through climate change policies, we can only save about .06 bears a year.

Berger: That just seems so shortsighted, Bjørn. The report concludes: "Future challenges for conserving polar bears and their Arctic habitat will be greater than at any time in the past because of the rapid rate at which environmental change appears to be occurring." Now, you write that polar bears "will increasingly take up a lifestyle similar to that of brown bears." Then, in a footnote, you quote from the report: "The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment finds it likely that disappearing ice will make polar bears take up 'a terrestrial summer lifestyle similar to that of brown bears, from which they evolved.'" Are you saying that polar bears will be OK, that the species will survive if they evolve backward?

Lomborg: Yes, that's certainly how I read it.

Berger: But you edited the quote. [the edited quote gambit--RB] The whole thing goes like this: "It is difficult to envisage the survival of polar bears as a species given a zero summer sea-ice scenario. Their only option would be a terrestrial summer lifestyle similar to that of brown bears, from which they evolved. In such a case, competition, risk of hybridization with brown bears and grizzly bears, and increased interactions with people would then number among the threats to polar bears." That sounds like the species faces much more dire chances to survive, wouldn't you say?

Lomborg: They're saying that it's difficult. Their only option would be this summer lifestyle. So this is what they can do. Yes, this is not going to be easy, but this is exactly what they can do.
Berger: It's possible. But Ian Stirling of the Canadian Wildlife Service, who studies polar bears, has said: "We have seen with our own eyes that climatic warming is causing the ice to break up earlier, and that is affecting the survival of the bears." He stipulates that climate change is happening too fast for the bears to revert to a summer lifestyle. "They don't have time to evolve backwards."

Lomborg: OK. But I've talked to a different expert [my single expert trumps all other scientific findings gambit--RB] that's up in Greenland, who works for the Danish government, and he has looked over my chapter, and said that it's OK.

Lomborg credits a few people by name for having read and responded to some or all of the book. In a curious aside in the acknowledgments, Lomborg says that “For various reasons, many [of the climate scientists and social scientists Lomborg says read the book] did not want to be thanked.”

Why not? One of the foundations of science is transparency. It would be helpful to know exactly which climate scientists and social scientists reviewed the book before publication, and what kinds of suggestions or criticism they offered.

The number of blogs and websites covering climate change has exploded, and the list below is in no way intended to be exhaustive. Please use the Comments below to share the URLs of sites that you use and why you like those sites.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENERGY NEWS SITES

Energy Bulletin

Energy Bulletin is my favorite one-stop daily news site for energy updates. The editors do a great job of sifting through the issues and picking out the day's most important developments, as well as pulling together stories about emerging trends.

The Oil Drum: Discussions About Energy and Our Future

The Oil Drum is one of the most widely read energy sites, a group blog whose readers leave very well-informed comments on a wide spectrum of energy issues.

Daily Kos Energy Writers

A. Siegel and The Cunctator post frequent reports on climate change on the very busy Daily Kos news site. Siegel also hosts his Energy Smart blog. The Cunctator posts the most complete and up-to-date schedules of U.S. House and Senate hearings on all energy issues, as well as hosting Hill Heat, a separate website covering global warming developments on Capitol Hill. Also see reports from Jerome a Paris, who provides a European perspective.

Global Public Media

Global Public Media, founded in 2001, is an internet broadcasting station streaming long format audio and video interviews with leading researchers in
developing alternative technologies, urban planning, and social
arrangements to deal with the intertwined problems of climate change and Peak Oil. GPM is a project of the Post Carbon Institute, the sponsor of this site.

SCIENCE, POLITICS, AND PR

DeSmogBlog

DeSmogBlog is dedicated to clearing "the PR pollution that is clouding the science on climate change." Co-founder Jim Hoggan, president of a Canadian PR firm, knows whereof he speaks. See his manifesto "Slamming the Climate Skeptic Scam."

Chris Mooney

Chris Mooney covers the intersection of science, politics, and media. He is the author of The Republican War on Science, and the recently published Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming. He blogs at Intersection.

CLIMATE CHANGE ORGANIZATIONS

It's Getting Hot In Here

It’s Getting Hot in Here is a student-oriented global online community focused on stopping global warming. IGHH is one of more than 40 groups that belong to a larger Energy Action Coalition.

Step It Up

Step It Up is a new national organization founded by author and now activist Bill McKibben. After having written a widely acclaimed series of powerful books about the world's growing environmental problems, McKibben has stepped out from behind his computer and launched Step It Up, which will be holding its 2nd round of national actions on November 3, 2007.

Al Gore and An Inconvenient Truth

Al Gore and the various incarnations of An Inconvenient Truth have done as much as anyone or anything (excepting Hurricane Katrina) to change the debate about climate change and move people towards taking action: "Political will is a renewable resource."

CLIMATE CHANGE LEGISLATION

Energize America

Online groups activists on Daily Kos worked together to create Energize America, a comprehensive 20-point plan to get the U.S. off fossil fuels, with a
2020 deadline for energy security, and a 2040 deadline for "energy
freedom." This plan is the most sophisticated product of what might be called citizen legislators (in keeping with citizen journalists.)

Climate Progress: An Insider's View of Climate Science, Politics and Solutions

Insider is right. Climate Progress is the blog of Joe Romm, currently a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.
During the Clinton Administration, Joe was acting assistant secretary
of energy for energy efficiency and
renewable energy, so he knows his way around the inner corridors of the
overlapping federal agencies that handle climate issues.

GREEN BUSINESS

Greenbiz.com

Joel Makower was once a voice crying in the wilderness, but he is now chairman and executive editor of Greener World Media, Inc., which publishes Greenbiz.com, one of the leading voices for green businesses since 2000. GWM also publishes Climatebiz.com, a free (no nasty firewalls here), Web-based resource to help companies of all sizes and sectors understand and address climate change.

PEAK OIL

The Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas--USA

The Association for the Study of Peak Oil&Gas--USA is the premier U.S. organization looking at the problem of peak oil, the point at which the world will have pumped half of all the world's oil reserves. The U.S. peak was in 1970-71, and many geologists believe that we are either at or close to a world peak, after which the price of oil will escalate rapidly. ASPO-USA publishes a great daily and weekly review of energy news, edited by Tom Whipple.

The Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas

The Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas is the international home for more than 10 national ASPO organizations.Sign up for a newsletter here edited by Dr. Colin Campbell, one of the founders of the study of peak oil and gas.