Dissident from Denmark

The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World, by BjØrn Lomborg (Cambridge, 515 pp., $28)

BJØRN LOMBORG is the environmentalists’ Enemy Number One. He isn’t the CEO of a major oil company or an industry lobbyist; he doesn’t lambaste “environmental wackos” on talk radio, nor, so far as we can tell, did he provide secret briefings to Vice President Cheney. Lomborg is an associate professor of statistics in the political-science department at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, and all he did was write this book—which represents the most substantial challenge to the green orthodoxy that modern civilization is producing environmental ruin. On the basis of a mountain of statistical data— documented in over 500 pages, with almost 3,000 footnotes—Lomborg proclaims that “things are getting better,” and that there is no reason that the good news can’t continue.

About the Author

Jonathan H. Adler

Jonathan H. Adler is a professor at William & Mary Law School.

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The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World, by BjØrn Lomborg (Cambridge, 515 pp., $28)

BJØRN LOMBORG is the environmentalists’ Enemy Number One. He isn’t the CEO of a major oil company or an industry lobbyist; he doesn’t lambaste “environmental wackos” on talk radio, nor, so far as we can tell, did he provide secret briefings to Vice President Cheney. Lomborg is an associate professor of statistics in the political-science department at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, and all he did was write this book—which represents the most substantial challenge to the green orthodoxy that modern civilization is producing environmental ruin. On the basis of a mountain of statistical data— documented in over 500 pages, with almost 3,000 footnotes—Lomborg proclaims that “things are getting better,” and that there is no reason that the good news can’t continue.