Back Issue - September 2001

Denial, Justification and Deception about the Climate Crisis

The Bonn Climate Conference, which was news at the beginning of August, now seems in the distant past. Everything does that happened before the traumatic events in the USA on Tuesday 11 September. However, I believe there has also been a significant conceptual change away from the climate conference mode of thinking, in any case.

This Boiling Point picks up on the consideration of Denial in last month's issue and examines what appear to be its growing offspring: Justification and Deception. This examination is important if we are to be both committed and effective in helping to protect and sustain the natural world. The nature of the games being played about the environmental crisis appears to be changing and we have to know what they are in order to respond effectively.

Synopsis

Prior to exploring these concepts through the recent controversial writings of Bjorn Lomborg (author of the new book 'The Skeptical Environmentalist') and a few others, the most widely accepted scientific evidence for climate change and its impacts is presented. A set of three essays by Lomborg in The Guardian (UK) newspaper during August are then examined for indications of denial of climate change, justifications for and deception about doing so. Discussion next centres on examples of his underlying reasoning in his book, and then, more generally, on its ideological implications and the reception currently accorded to his views in some scientific quarters. Conclusions address underlying motivations as far as they can be detected and the overall importance of clarity of mind and heart.

Introduction

I use the word Justification as a form of conscious Denial, as distinct from the kind of response to reports of environmental crisis which people put to the backs of their minds and appear to forget, within a mind set that typically assumes that life will carry on much as usual, as posed in the last Boiling Point. There appears to be emerging a rationalistic view among those who resort to scientific 'facts' that believes that we do not have to be too worried about global warming and climate change and regards those who do as 'environmental extremists' of unsound minds.

This is where things start to become tricky, and a part of that is deliberate. For justifications introduce doubt (maybe we are too worried or are too extreme). They can be innocent, where the justifiers are either genuinely and consciously convinced that little action is justified, or genuinely but unconsciously claiming the latter because they cannot emotionally accept the implications of extreme environmental crisis. On the other hand they can be devious, playing on doubts, highly selective of 'facts' that support their case and perpetrating a form of anti-environmentalism 'business-as-usual' propaganda, which I term Deception.

It all comes down to the values, intentions and motivations at work, as stated in the last Boiling Point, though they are rarely declared, and, as we shall see from a number of the following examples from the news during August, they can be both claimed and impugned by both the innocent and the devious. But before citing the various examples, I think we need to remind ourselves of the most widely accepted and comprehensive data on the environmental crisis, ideally from independent sources which corroborate one another, but confining ourselves to global warming and climate change as the prime example, in order to make the length of this Boiling Point manageable.

Authoritative Data on Global Warming and Climate Change.

The main and most generally accepted authority on this is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Its scientific working group concluded in January this year that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have increased 31% since the year 1750, have not been exceeded during the last 420,000 years and are likely not to have been exceeded during the past 20 million years. The current rate of increase is unprecedented during at least the last 20,000 years.

Looking ahead, by the year 2100, CO2 concentrations are projected to be 540 - 970 parts per million (ppm) compared with 280 ppm in the year 1750 (90% - 250% increases), with reference to scenarios which range between the globally most environmentally sustainable and the most economically growing, respectively. Given uncertainties of the magnitude of climate feed-backs (compounding the effects), these figures could range between 490 and 1260 ppm, that is 75% - 350% above the 1750 levels.

The working group then estimated that the time-scales required for stabilisation of CO2 concentrations to drop below the levels in 1990: within a few decades for stabilisation at 450 ppm; within a century for stabilisation at 650 ppm; and within two centuries for stabilisation at 1000 ppm - and decrease steadily thereafter, eventually needing to decline to a very small fraction of present emissions.

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will double by the middle of the century on present trends. This would create warming at a speed not seen before in human history, with potentially disastrous consequences for the natural environment. [Robert Watson, IPCC head in Nairobi G. 6/4/01]

Surface temperatures are projected to increase by 1.4 to 5.8C between 1990 and 2100, across the same range of scenarios, though amplified by tuning them to a number of complex models with a range of climate sensitivities [Summary Group I for Policy Makers p.14]. The projected rate of warming is much larger than the observed changes during the 20th century, and very likely to be without precedent during at least the last 10,000 years. It is very likely that all land areas will warm more rapidly than the global average, with northern North America, and northern and central Asia exceeding the global mean by 40%.

Global mean sea level rise by 0.09 to 0.88 metres is projected between 1990 and 2100, on the same basis as surface temperatures, primarily due to thermal expansion of the oceans and loss of mass from mountain glaciers and ice-caps. Ice-sheets continue to react and contribute to sea level rises for thousands of years after the climate has been stabilised. Local warming over Greenland is likely to be 1 to 3 times the global average. A local warming of larger than 3C, if sustained for millennia, would lead to a virtual complete melting of the Greenland ice-sheet and a resulting sea level rise of about 7 metres.

Impacts of Global Warming and Climate Change

Observational evidence indicates that climate changes in the 20th century already have affected a diverse set of physical and biological systems. Examples of observed changes with linkages to climate include shrinkage of glaciers; thawing of permafrost; shifts in ice-freeze and break-up dates on rivers and lakes; increases in rainfall and intensity in most mid- and high- latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere; lengthening of growing seasons...' [Technical Summary Group II p 62]

As to the future, 'some plant and animal species, natural systems, and human settlements are likely to be adversely affected by climate changes associated with <1C mean global warming. Adverse impacts would become more numerous and serious for warming of 1-2C and are highly likely to become even more numerous and serious at higher temperatures. The greater the rate and magnitude of temperature and other climatic changes, the greater the likelihood that critical thresholds of systems would be surpassed.

Natural systems that may be threatened include coral reefs, mangroves, and other coastal wetlands, prairie wetlands, native grasslands, fish habitat, ecosystems overlying permafrost, and ice edge ecosystems that provide habitat for polar bears and penguins. Human settlements include some of low-lying coastal areas and islands, flood-plains and hillsides - particularly those of low socio-economic status such as squatter and other informal settlements. Other potentially threatened settlements include traditional peoples that are highly dependent on natural resources that are sensitive to climate change.

Developing countries tend to be more vulnerable to climate change than developed countries (67-95% confidence) and suffering more adverse impacts than developed countries (33-67% confidence). Particularly vulnerable regions include delta regions, low-lying small island states, and many arid regions where droughts and water availability are problematic, even without climate change. Within regions and countries, impacts are expected to fall most heavily on impoverished people.

The frequency and magnitude of many extreme climatic events increase even with small temperature increase and will become greater at higher temperatures (67-95% confidence). Extreme events include, for example, floods, soil moisture deficits (mudslides), tropical cyclones, storms, high temperatures and fires. Increases in extreme events can cause critical design or natural thresholds to be exceeded, beyond which the magnitude of impacts increases rapidly (67-95% confidence).

Heat-related mortality is likely to increase with higher temperatures; cold-related mortality to decrease. Floods may lead to the spread of water-related and vector-borne diseases, particularly in developing countries. Many of the monetary damages from extreme events will have repercussions on a broad scale for financial institutions, from insurers and reinsurers to investors, banks, and disaster relief funds.

Human-induced climate change has the potential to trigger large-scale changes in Earth systems that could have severe consequences at regional or global scales. The probabilities of triggering such events are poorly understood but should not be ignored, given the severity of their consequences. Events of this type include complete or partial shutdown of the North Atlantic and Antarctic Deep Water formation, disintegration of the West Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets, and major perturbations of biosphere-regulated carbon dynamics.

Several climate model simulations show complete shutdown of the North Atlantic circulation with high warming. Although complete shutdown may take several centuries to occur, significant weakening of the circulation may take place within the next century. If this were to occur, it could lead to a rapid regional climate change in the North Atlantic region, with major societal and ecosystem impacts. Collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would lead to a global sea-level rise of several metres. Although the disintegration might take many hundreds of years, this process could be triggered irreversibly in the next century. [Technical Summary Group II pp 65-69]

Other Reports on the Effects of Global Warming and Climate Change

I have deliberately kept to the formal and somewhat dry language of the IPCC's own reports in order not to bias the discussion that follows later. However, for a more colourful journalistic precis, please judge the following for yourself - from a source which is not generally associated with environmental urgency.

'The IPCC panel lists a series of big and irreversible impacts to natural systems. Billions of people may go thirsty, prompting an exodus from drought-hit regions to the developed world. Projected climate change will be accompanied by an increase in heat-waves, often exacerbated by an increase in humidity and urban air pollution, which could cause an increase in heat-related deaths and illnesses. Within 25 years 5.4 billion people will live in areas where water is scarce, compared with 1.7 billion at present. The adverse effects experienced in some regions by the El Nino phenomenon today are expected to become increasingly severe in the future. Tens of millions of people are estimated to be at increased risk of sea level rise and storms in coastal areas. [D.Telegraph 20/2/01]

Other reports with a mostly scientific origin, which have appeared over the past year in The Guardian in the UK press (except where stated) include:

• Similar conditions by 2100 as in the Eocene era, 50 million years ago, when much of Europe was flooded, there were no ice caps, London was a steaming mangrove swamp and the average temperature of southern England was 25C. compared with 10C today [Paul Pearson in Nature, reported in The Guardian 17/8/00];

• Open water has been observed at least one mile wide at the North Pole in the context of ice cover shrinkage of 45% since the 1950s over the entire Arctic area [Dr. James McCarthy, Harvard university oceanographer 21/8/00.

• The likely destruction of more than half the earth's colder habitats by the end of the century [WWF 31/8/00]

• About twice as many people are killed in Europe by air pollution as die in road traffic accidents [Nino Kunzil, Basle University, lead officer of WWF commissioned research 1/9/00]

• Residents of England and Wales could see up to a tenfold increase in flood risk over the next century [Environment Agency 21/10/00

• Climate change would in effect reduce the world to bankruptcy by 2065, with world economic growth averaging 3% a year while insurance losses because of extreme weather increasing by 10% a year [Dr. Andrew Dlugolecki, climate change specialist with CGNU at The Hague Conference 24/11/00]

• Some hurricanes and typhoons are now attaining wind speeds of up to 300 km/h and causing storm surges, in the US East Coast, in which an already violent sea rises by several metres. Were such a powerful storm to strike New York or Washington DC it could lead to claimed losses of up to $100 billion. That would exceed the financial capabilities of the insurance industry. [Arkwright Mutual Insurance Company, Ecologist Dec 2000/Jan 2001 p.55]

• Cyclone in Orissa in India in late 1999 left more than 10,000 dead and 7.5 million people without homes, floods in Venezuela at Christmas killed 30,000; or those that swept through Mozambique. In China the Yangtze floods of 1998 displaced 223 million people. [Peter Bunyard, Science Editor, Ecologist 2000/Jan 2001 p.55]

• The Pine Island glacier, the largest in West Antarctica, has lost a 10 metre thickness of ice and retreated 5 km inland in eight years. At that rate, the entire glacier could disappear into the ocean within a few hundred years. The region holds enough ice to raise world-wide sea levels by 5 metres, flooding coastal cities such as London, New York, Tokyo and Calcutta [Researchers from University College London and British Antarctic Survey in Science magazine 2/2/01]

• The ice-cap of Kilimanjaro will have melted within 20 years because of global warming. At least one third of the ice-field has disappeared in the past 12 years, and 82% since it was first mapped in 1912. The Quelccaya ice-cap in Peru has shrunk by one fifth since 1963. The annual rate of retreat for its Qori Kalis glacier in the past three years has been 32 times greater than in the period 1963-1978. These findings confirm predictions that the first signs of changes caused by global warming would appear at high altitude ice-caps and glaciers within the tropics [Dr. Lonnie Thompson, geologist at Ohio State University 20/2/01]

• Most of the coral reefs of the world's oceans will disappear within 30 to 50 years. Global warming would bleach the great reefs of the Pacific and Indian oceans, the Caribbean and the Red Sea [Rupert Ormond, director of the university marine biological station at Millport, Scotland 6/9/01]

• Water flow from the Arctic past the north of Scotland has decreased by 20% since 1950, as part of the 'global conveyor' south from the Arctic and replaced by Gulf Stream water flowing north from the tropics. [Sarah Hughes, oceanographer from Aberdeen at British Association science festival 7/9/01]

Examples of Denials and Justifications

Chief denier and justifier over the summer period in the UK press has been Bjorn Lomborg. He is an associate professor at the department of political science at the University of Aarhus. He wrote three exclusive essays for The Guardian newspaper, which were published on three consecutive days (15-18 August) under the general title: 'Crisis? What crisis? Why everything we've been told about the state of our planet is wrong'. I present the following examples from his essays for you to compare with the data in the previous section and invite you to form your own conclusions, only adding brief comments in [square brackets] myself. Examples are limited to material which is relevant to global warming and climate change

Essay 1: 'Yes it looks bad, but...' Denials

'Global warming is probably taking place, though future projections are overly pessimistic and the traditional cure of radical fossil-fuel cutbacks is far more damaging than the original affliction. Moreover, its total impact will not pose a devastating problem to our future.'

'The proportion of people going hungry in these (developing) countries has dropped from 45% in 1949 to 18% today, and is expected to fall even further, to 12% in 2010 and 6% in 2030. Food, in other words, is becoming not scarcer but ever more abundant.'

'Although air pollution is increasing in many developing countries, analyses show that they are merely replicating the development of the industrialised countries. When they grow sufficiently rich they, too, will start to reduce their air pollution.... Careful analysis of the data on air pollution shows us where our preconceptions are wrong (not a new phenomena getting worse, but an old phenomena getting ever better).'

Essay 1: 'Yes it looks bad, but...' Justifications

Environmental standards are mistakenly believed to be declining because of:

• The lopsidedness of scientific research into problem areas, which will create an impression that more potential problems exist than is the case,

• The self-interest of environmental groups which need to be noticed by the mass-media, need to keep the money that sustains them rolling in, leading to the temptation to exaggerate, which is sometimes indulged in,

• People's greater curiosity about bad news than good, is accommodated by newspapers and broadcasters who give the public what it wants.

'While a trade organisation arguing for, say, weaker pollution controls is instantly seen as self-interested, a green organisation opposing such a weakening is seen as altruistic - even if a dispassionate view of the controls might suggest they are doing more harm than good.'

Fear of largely imaginary environmental problems can divert political energy from dealing with real ones, and far more important ones.

Essay 1: 'Yes it looks bad, but...' Deception

'A more balanced view' about the damage caused by El Nino [turns out to be only applicable to America, ignoring their devastating effects elsewhere].

The 'world's largest survey of the cost of life-saving public initiatives', carried out by Harvard University, [turns out to be only concerned with human lives, whereas the major environmental crisis is for the lives of other species, so far].

'We only compare those interventions whose primary goal is to save human lives with life-saving interventions from other areas... The health service (in the USA) is quite low-priced, at $19,000 per median price to save a life for one year, but the environment field stands out with a staggeringly high cost of $4.2m. This method of accounting shows the overall effectiveness of the American public effort to save human life' [presumably in USA. But it assumes we can choose between health and environmental expenditure, without considering that the latter may have to be spent in any case to ensure the survival of human beings and other species.]

'When we fear for our environment, we seem easily to fall victim to short-term, feel-good solutions that spend money on relatively trifling issues and thus hold back resources from far more important ones... When the Harvard study shows that we forego saving 60,000 lives every year, this shows us the cost we pay for worrying about the wrong problems - too much for the environment and too little in other areas... And to ensure that sensible, political prioritisation, we need to abandon our ingrained belief in a mythical litany and start focusing on the facts - that the world is indeed getting better, though there is still much to do.'

Essay 2 'Running on empty? - Denial

[Since this essay is not about climate change, the following extract is reproduced solely for its relevance to arguments in Essay 3]

'Oil is the most important and most valuable commodity of international trade, and its value to our civilisation is underlined by the recurrent worry that we are running out of it.'

Essay 3 'Why Kyoto will not stop this' - Denial

'The (IPCC) high-emission scenarios seem plainly unlikely. [Justification:] Reasonable analysis suggests that renewable energy sources - especially solar power - will be competitive with, or even out-competing, fossil fuels by the middle of the century. This means carbon emissions are much more likely to follow the low-emission scenarios, causing a warming of about 2-2.5C.

'Moreover, global warming will not decrease food production; nor is it likely to increase storminess, the frequency of hurricanes, the impact of malaria, or, indeed cause more deaths. It is even unlikely that it will cause more flooding, because a much richer world will protect itself better.

Essay 3 'Why Kyoto will not stop this' - Justification

'Economic analyses clearly show that it will be far more expensive to cut carbon dioxide emissions radically than to pay the costs of adaptation to the increased temperatures... Even if we were to handle global warming as well as possible - cutting emissions a little, far into the future - we would save a minimal amount. However, if we enact Kyoto or even more ambitious programmes, the world will lose...

'We should not spend vast amounts of money to cut a tiny slice off the global temperature increase [acknowledged to be the likely outcome of Bonn - see Back Issue for August 2001] when this constitutes a poor use of resources, and when we could probably use these funds more effectively in the developing world... When we spend resources to mitigate global warming, we are helping future inhabitants in the developing world; however, if we spend the same money directly in the third world, we are helping present inhabitants, and thus their descendants. [Again this argument assumes we can choose between e.g. health and environmental expenditure, without considering that the latter may have to be spent to ensure the survival of the human race and other species.]

Essay 3 'Why Kyoto will not stop this' - Deception

'UNICEF estimates that just $70 - 80 bn a year could give all third world inhabitants access to the basics, such as health, education, water and sanitation. More important still is that if we could muster such a massive investment in the present-day developing countries, this would also put them in a much better future position, in terms of resources and infrastructure, from which to manage a future global warming'.

'Analysis shows that even if we chose the less efficient programmes to cut carbon emissions, it would defer growth at most by a couple of years by the middle of the century. In this respect, global warming is still a limited and manageable problem' [wildly at variance with the IPCC timescales above for stabilising the climate]

'If we want to leave a planet with the most possibilities for our descendants, both in the developing and the developed world, it is imperative that we focus primarily on the economy and solving our problems in a global context, rather than focussing on the environment in a regionalised context. Basically, this puts the spotlight on securing economic growth, especially in the third world, while ensuring a global economy - both tasks which the world has set itself within the framework of the World Trade Organisation (WTO)... To put it squarely, what matters to our and our children's future is not primarily decided within the IPCC framework, but within the WTO framework.'

Discussion

The discussion includes but also extends beyond the matters which have been raised in the previous sections of this Boiling Point issue. There have recently emerged other deniers of the problems, one at least I have to thank for challenging me to read the IPCC reports for myself instead of relying on newspaper articles on them. Once set in motion, I then not only attended and participated in a debate with Bjorn Lomborg but bought a copy of his very detailed book 'The Skeptical Environmentalist' and have studied it, in order to understand his thinking behind some of the surprising of the statements in his three published essays.

The first of these is the first quotation above under essay 1: 'Global warming is probably taking place', given the previous very specific and shocking portents from the IPCC reports. Lomborg has devoted a whole chapter of his book to Global Warming, with much of it devoted to a critique of the IPCC data.

He objects (p.264) that all the scenarios are 'artificial and certainly worst-case' because 'the IPCC has required that all the scenarios explicitly do not (his italics) envisage reductions in greenhouse gas emissions due to worries about global warming or even reductions that would be due to already signed treaties'. I looked up his reference on the Internet and could not find that precise phrasing (his style is more colloquial than the IPCC reports use), but what I did find was: 'none of the scenarios in the set includes any future policies that explicitly address climate change'. The latter is understandable given that the scenarios provide possible social/economic/political contexts under which global warming and climate change might occur, and are not in themselves designed to reduce them. I therefore do not consider his phrase 'certainly worst case' to be justified.

Between pages 278 and 280 Lomborg argues that the shortening of time periods expected for the doubling of greenhouse gases in the coming century have been exaggerated in a number of self-compounding ways. However, it is not clear why he expects the IPCC teams still to be working from the 1992 formulated predictions, since, for their 2001 reports, the teams were working with more recent data and new scenarios. He also bases his preferred data on average rates for gases between 1990 and 1998 [note 2293] despite a generally increasing growth rate which is not only recorded, but also makes empirical sense and surely needs to be taken into account for precautionary purposes.

Having acknowledged that one of the main drivers for CO2 emissions is the continued use of fossil fuels, Lomborg argues that it will reduce below the predicted levels because renewables will become cheaper than fossil fuels 'with wind almost competitive and solar energy competitive within two or three decades' [p285]. This may be very well for the models, but in the real empirical world we know that the fossil fuel industry has been hugely influential in stiffening USA resistance to ratifying the Kyoto Agreement, to weakening its outcome, in formulating President Bush's policies on energy, and is set to continue to ensure the future use of fossil fuel. Hence the above quotation on oil from Lomborg's second essay, which appears to acknowledge this situation.

Nevertheless, in his book, Lomborg regards the reduced use of fossil fuels as the 'more realistic' model than the fossil-fuel intensive version, which the IPCC team used in combination with the other ones. He concludes, sweepingly, that his 'more realistic model shows that global warming is not an ever worsening problem. In fact, under any reasonable scenario of technological change and without policy intervention [which is itself an unrealistic assumption] carbon levels will not reach the levels of (the IPCC fossil-fuel intensive model) and they will decline towards the end of the century, as we move towards ever cheaper renewable energy sources. Second, temperatures will increase much less than the maximum estimates from the IPCC, i.e. less than 2C in 2100, and the temperature will certainly not increase [note the progression in language from probabilities to certainties] even further into the twenty-second century.' [p. 286]

Note also that the IPCC's own predictions given earlier were not based on the most fossil-fuel intensive model alone but on all six models equally. Also revealing of Lomborg's thinking is his third defence of his 'more realistic model': 'We have been looking the wrong way when trying to handle global warming. Most political discussions and certainly the international agreement in Kyoto, focus on limiting carbon emissions, through taxes, quotas or bans. While this will lower present-day emission, it also carries a huge price tag in lower economic growth'. How he works that out, given all the new jobs and investments to be created in renewables is not made clear, though whether the capacity of the planet to withstand more economic growth is another matter.

More significant to following Lomborg's thinking is his next statement: 'The truly important point is to make sure that these renewable energy sources rapidly decrease in price, and this again requires substantially increased funding for much more research'. He has to make up his mind, either to allow market forces to dictate 'ever cheaper renewable energy sources' 'without policy intervention' or 'substantially increased funding for much more research' into renewables which certainly will require policy intervention. Had there been effective policy intervention thirty years ago when the Club of Rome and 'Limits to Growth' reports gave warning of pollution and climate change, we would probably have thriving renewables industries now and not a climate crisis to face!

His most bizarre argument relates to sea-level rise. He first of all reassures us that 'there are no grounds for these worries' that 'oceans will rise several meters and polar ice caps begin to melt' by saying that the first models predicting extreme sea level increases have since been falling constantly. Then he goes on to say: since the world gets much richer, it can afford more protection, and consequently the model shows that increased protection will make the total number at risk in the 2080s, with constant protection and no sea level rise, only 13 million' instead of 36 million.

He goes on: 'Now the model looks at a 40 cm rise and constant protection, which gives 237 million people at risk in the 2080s - some 200 million more people, as quoted by the IPCC. But surely it is unreasonable to assume that a much richer world will make no improvement in sea protection, so this number seems rather irrelevant even to include in the IPCC Summary for Policymakers.' Finally he writes: 'Consequently, it seems likely that rich countries (as almost all countries will be by the end of this century) will protect their citizens at such a low price that virtually no one will be exposed to annual sea flooding'.

Where has Bjorn Lomborg been while the rest of us have been keeping informed of a world with rapidly increasing disparities in wealth between the richest and poorest citizens (the top 20% controlling more than 80% of the world's wealth and the bottom 20% controlling about 1%)? 'A new report from the US Center of Economic and Policy Research shows that the increased opening to international trade and financial flow in the last 20 years has reversed progress made in the previous 20 years in income, mortality, life expectancy, and access to education' [Guardian 19/9/01]

More General Discussion

One might have expected that such a cavalier and ill-informed approach to the fate of millions of lives would exclude Bjorn Lomborg's views from serious consideration. Not a bit of it. At the lecture and discussion which I attended at the Royal Institution, London, on the day following the tragedies in the USA, the vast majority of the audience applauded him saying, in his lecture: 'doomsday is not nigh, so we don't have to act in desperation; things are getting better and better with feeding the world; we have enough shale oil to last for 5000 years; the most serious form of pollution is air-born particles, which can be controlled by fitting catalytic converters to cars; approach global warming with a mind set that believes things are getting better and introducing economic alternatives to reducing carbon emissions - and other arguments used in the above cited essays.

During the discussion which followed, someone expressed surprise that the environmental lobby is so widely believed, and suggested it could be due to fashion [!]. Lomborg himself was sarcastic about the remote possibility of changes in the direction of the Gulf Stream, and had to admit to me afterwards that he did not know about the report to the British Association the previous week that the water flow past the north of Scotland has already decreased (see the last of the Other Reports in The Guardian cited earlier). There were a few others, like myself, who openly challenged Lomborg, but most people, many who said they had read his book, said they thought it was brilliant. Maybe they were over-impressed by a seemingly learned tome, published by the Cambridge University Press and running to over 500 pages and over 2900 notes!

If Lomborg were a lone voice, maybe it would not matter too much, although his essays in The Guardian were given a big spread and, as I wrote in one of the letters that I submitted for publication: 'The final extract from Bjorn Lomborg's book is so consistently pro-business, ending up with a proposal to refer climate change issues to the World Trade Organisation, that it is exactly the kind of case we should expect from George Bush, even if it is not actually his alternative to the Kyoto Agreement.' [1] (For your interest, three letters were submitted. They can be read in our E/Yahoo Group, message numbers 66,67 & 69).

Unfortunately, Bjorn Lomborg has other supporters who subscribe to his view of 'the Real State of the World' - the subtitle of his book: The Skeptical Environmentalist. I have already expressed thanks to one of them for challenging me to examine the IPCC reports. I copied two of the above letters to him, since he had written a published letter saying: 'At last the Guardian has published some accurate information. I hope your publication of Lomborg's articles indicates a change of policy, so that in future you report environmental information that is supported by evidence. I fear, though, that Lomborg's articles are a sop to those of us who are prejudiced in favour of truth, and you will return to your long-standing policy of publishing only environmentalist propaganda.'

In the course of my exchanging e-mails with this correspondent, he asserted that Lomborg is simply stating facts, and that the explanation for my drawing very different conclusions from him is that he reads, cites and references the source data but I quote propagandists (e.g. The Chief Executive of Friends of the Earth UK) and vested interests (an international reinsurance firm). Lomborg himself, replying to the same said CE in The Guardian, also insisted that 'our understanding of the environment must be based on facts, which is the background to my book The Skeptical Environmentalist'.

However, even in that published letter he does not play fair with facts, interpreting storminess of weather not according to intensity, which the IPCC report upholds, but according to frequency of cyclones and monsoons, which the said CE inadvertently misquoted. This tactic enabled him both to score points off his critic and to play down the intensity of storms and cyclones, which remain a major problem (see IPCC report extracts earlier).

In the same letter Lomborg concludes: 'All economic models show that substantial carbon emission cuts constitute a poor use of our resources. Ignoring such facts actually means doing less good than we can - surely not what a true friend of the Earth should advocate'. What he did not say was that the economic models are irrelevant to a crisis which threatens the survival of all financial and economic institutions as well as human beings and other species, making recourse to such contextual 'facts' both spurious and mischievous grounds for belittling his critic, let alone deceiving his wider audience.

And so we return to the subject of Deception, though pausing for a moment to note the formation of The Scientific Alliance' "in response to the growing concern that the debate on the environment has been distorted by extreme pressure groups" and to "put forward the debate on the environment on scientific facts, not the scaremongering that is the trademark of the so-called green lobby". On climate change, they quote research from the Competitive Enterprise Institute to back up their argument of the considerable benefits of a "delayed approach to climate change" - the US position. The CEI is one of America's leading rightwing think-tanks and has close ties to the anti-environmental "Wise Use" movement, which pioneered the use of corporate front-groups more than a decade ago.' ['Hard rockers' by Andy Rowell, author of Greenwash, The Guardian 11/7/01]

It is not just the selective use of 'facts' which makes a righteous appeal to them invalid. It is the uncritical belief that there is an objective, absolute truth somewhere out there which can be discovered. This paradigm of science, which is attributed to Isaac Newton, has been on shaky ground for a long time, but with increasing involvement of commercial corporations in university-based research (some of them like Monsanto trying to buy into them in order to lend their questionable research respectability), the ethical integrity of scientific research is back on the agenda with a vengeance.

At a deeper level it signifies that there always are and always have been personal motives for undertaking research, beyond the bland declaration of a 'search for truth'. There is nothing wrong with this, as maintained as long ago as 1970, when C. Wright-MIlls appealed to all researchers to 'declare our biases' in his book 'The Sociological Imagination' and as expressed by Karl Popper in 'The Poverty of Historicism', where he wrote that the choice of a theory is 'an entirely private matter' as opposed to 'how you test your theory? which alone is scientifically relevant'.

Public debate on scientific disinterest, particularly with regard to genetically modified crops and embryos, the patenting of the genome and in the pharmaceutical industry, is forcing public acknowledgement of these personal interests, by individual scientists. Unfortunately, as shown not least by the audience at The Royal Institution, the scientific community is slow to answer the call to declare its interests, not least, one suspects, because it enjoys the reputation of being 'experts' (as do all professions).

In this new situation, far from being the hallmark of 'truth', facts can be understood simply as data that have been collected to support or refute hypotheses that have been chosen subjectively by their authors, who by nature and purpose-seeking and therefore rightly subjective human beings. Appealing to 'the facts' in general terms cannot be accepted as sufficient justification, in this case, for denying the dangers of global warming and climate change. In all cases, the matter of underlying motivation is crucial, but apart from a wise and sincere examination of one's own, very difficult to determine.

Conclusion

Motivation may make all the difference between Justification and Deception, but I do not want this conclusion to be simply about the legitimacy of Lomborg's challenge to the IPCC on global warming and climate change. Nor is it about a false dichotomy between scientists and environmentalists, as Martin Durkin tried to assert in both UK Television programmes on 'Against Nature' and 'The Rise and Fall of GM' (See 'GM Debate Round 2': message 33 in our E/Yahoo link, if no longer a Back Issue). It has a lot more to do with caring passionately for protecting and sustaining the natural world and its inhabitants, versus egoistic short-term self-interest and greed - not for the sake of being virtuous, but for the sake of all-inclusive survival.

Contrary to Lomborg's dishonourable jibe at the 'self-interest of environmental groups' (under Essay 1: Justifications), possibly as a diversion from the much more obvious self-interests of corporations and whole industries, we, certainly in Save our World, have no interest in exaggerating the environmental crisis. The issue rather is: what stake have others in minimising or dismissing it, and can it be detected reliably from the examples in this Boiling Point?

The most worrying aspect of the view epitomised by Lomborg is, as I wrote my second letter for publication about him: it is so consistently pro-business, ending up with a proposal to refer climate change issues to the World Trade Organisation, that it is exactly the kind of case we should expect from George Bush, even if it is not actually his alternative to the Kyoto Agreement. Given the kind of reception that I have described among at least some of the scientific community, it could all too easily be adopted as a further pretext for continued or increased resistance against taking action on the prospects of global warming and climate change. This would suit the interests of the fossil-fuel based industries and their lobbyists perfectly.

Is this where Lomborg himself is coming from? In the Preface to 'The Skeptical Environmentalist' he says he was 'an old left-wing Greenpeace member' who happened to be challenged by an American economist that he met in a bookshop, who said he only used official statistics to prove 'that much of our traditional knowledge about the environment is quite simply based on preconceptions and poor statistics'. The outcome was that Lomborg, with his sharpest students, were won over by his challenger. Is it just coincidence that his conversion took him from a left-wing to a very consistently right-wing opposite, rather than to a somewhat more mixed outcome, which is, after all, what you would expect from working with statistical probabilities? Did he buy his challenger's ideological convictions along with his calculations, given what we have just discussed about personal, subjective choice of the propositions to study?

I suggest that the foregoing extracts from his essays reveal plentiful evidence of ideological, not just statistical persuasion, but leave you to draw your own conclusions about them. Incidentally, the material from his essays that I have placed in the Deception categories I consider to be either obviously misleading, or should be to someone who has studied the IPCC documents, or, in the case of the final WTO reference, the subject of such intense political controversy that even a closeted statistician could hardly fail to notice its ideological implications, especially if he had previously been an active member of Greenpeace.

What may not be so obvious is that Lomborg plays down high-emission scenarios by assuming that renewable energy sources will be competitive soon, but ends up supporting the very ideological interests (supported by the fossil-fuel industries) which are most likely to oppose them and so drive up emission levels instead. It also may not be obvious that where he refers to not spending vast amounts of money to cut a tiny slice off the global temperature increase (under Essay 3: Justification) he is referring not to the full reductions in carbon emissions (60%+) which the IPCC consider is necessary to stabilise carbon concentrations, but to the paltry 1.5%, if that, following the Bonn Conference last July.

In common with most environmental organisations, we suggested (in the last Boiling Point), this reduction has little more than symbolic value for countries feeling that they are 'making a start', with the notable exception of the USA. Lomborg, however, made capital out of the economic cost of so little environmental gain in claiming that expense could be better used elsewhere, and compounded the justification by omitting to mention, to quote Jonathon Porritt: 'biophysical sustainability is non-negotiable; without it we will get collapse.com'.

This is probably as far as we can go in drawing conclusions on identifying Deception. By nature it is not innocent, but Justification is trickier because it may be. I think Ron Smothermon makes a lot of sense, when he writes, in 'Winning Through Enlightenment' (p. 33) 'That which is justified is not directly experienceable, else there would be no need to justify it. Only those things which are not so are held strongly by the mind as positions. Of course it is possible to take a truth and make a position of it. However, there is no need to defend such a position. Justification is truly superfluous in the case of what is true. So you can always discern it when someone is defending (justifying) what is untrue: you will hear much-too-much noisy protest from that direction. Likewise, you can easily tell when someone is defending (justifying) what is true: the position is easily given up for the truth of the matter to stand on its natural merits'.

On this basis, I leave you to judge which of the claims to 'the facts' and to 'the truth' convince you, from the material which has been presented and which you are likely to come across in future. Given the incentives of those whose profits are likely to be diminished by attempts to protect and sustain the natural world - and who continue to resist the changes in lifestyles and investments which are unavoidable in order to recoup their losses - increasingly devious subterfuges have to be expected. Some of the resistance also appears to be coming from those who, unawarely, do not recognise the need for institutional change - so compassion is also necessary towards them.

Some of you may consider the Lomborg essays and book pure 'Greenwash', so why write about them at such length? Well, if so, just dismissing them with one word will be totally inadequate were the US Administration seriously consider such a case for inaction. So it is valuable, and necessary, to pick one's way through the data that is presented, here and in future, and then be able to act with clarity and confidence.

Some organisations, including Medianatura and the Sierra Club, have already fallen by the wayside, by abandoning their demands on the US Administration for environmental sustainability, in the mistaken belief that respect, sympathy and solidarity with the US people at the present time of crisis makes protection of the natural world and its inhabitants, including them, less necessary. Truly, clarity of mind and heart is never more needed than at the present time.

[1] The copy of this letter which was sent to the Leader of the Liberal Democrats Party in the UK, received an appreciative response which was personally dictated by him.

  (C) Jim Scott, September 2001

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