Adding to the voices of specialists pointing out flaws within Lomborg’s newest work, COOL It, Tim Flannery had a review in The Washington Post’s 9 Sept 2007 Sunday book section. And, well, if anyone buys the book after reading the review you can’t think that they really read the review … can you?
Flannery begins with the complementing …
Bjorn Lomborg is a Danish statistician and darling of those who believe that markets should not be regulated and that concerns about the environment are overblown. He is articulate, certain in his opinions and well informed on the statistical minutiae of the topics he investigates. Indeed, so compelling and entertaining are the grains of truth that adorn his latest book, Cool It, that you are certain to hear them soon in dinner table conversation.
Sadly, as noted here, Lomborg distorts in his minutia that he so commands.
But, a few phrases to show Flannery’s review’s core:
- Glib, misleading associations mark Lomborg’s style.
- Lomborg’s flawed grasp of climate science …
- The deepest flaw in Cool It is its failure to take into account the full range of future climate possibilities. The computer models project outcomes ranging from mild, which he acknowledges, to truly catastrophic, which he ignores.
Even so, one might feel that Flannery left Lomborg off easily. What was, to me, Flannery’s greatest contribution to the parsing of Lomborg’s misleading work? His calling Lomborg on a core disconnect …
What, ultimately, is Cool It all about? On the surface, it’s a cry from a compassionate conservative not to waste money on combating climate change when that money could be better spent helping the poor. But why climate change rather than military spending? By empathizing with those who are concerned about climate change and poverty, and trying to persuade them to divert their energies, Cool It is a stealth attack on humanity’s future. ?
0 responses so far ↓
1 Truthiness and the Climate Skeptic community « Energy Smart // Sep 18, 2007 at 8:31 pm
[…] at Grist is Bill McKibben’s review of Lomborg’s Cool It (RE Cool it, see Reviews are coming in to cool interest in COOL It and Why we can’t trust ‘em … skeptics and misrepresenting evidence …) and […]
2 Slevdi // Jan 9, 2008 at 8:18 pm
‘Glib, misleading associations mark Lomborg’s style.
Lomborg’s flawed grasp of climate science … ‘
Flannery should have given some examples here instead of being glib and misleading himself with the LIA and glacier stuff.
‘The deepest flaw in Cool It is its failure to take into account the full range of future climate possibilities. The computer models project outcomes ranging from mild, which he acknowledges, to truly catastrophic, which he ignores. ‘
No. Not a flaw. he simply used the IPCC conclusions and didn’t resort to alarmist (or skeptic) figures for temperature rise and sea level rise. Besides, the models show widely different projections for this century’s climate, even though peculiarly they all agree on last century’s climate, so covering them all would be confusing and misleading.
Flannery’s review was of his perceptions of the author not the book.
3 asiegel // Jan 9, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Slevdi,
Thanks for dropping in.
Flannery, in many ways, was one of the most polite reviews of Lomborg by anyone who actually understands climate science.
For other discussions, why not check out Why we can’t trust skeptics or A few reviews of Lomborg (Oil Drum) or A not so hot Dane (Celsias) or Putting the Heat on Lomborg or a myriad of other calm and evidence-based examinations of Lomborg’s truthiness.
If one is open to evidence and reads it, Lomborg’s truthiness shines forth even if Flannery didn’t shine enough of a light for you.
4 Slevdi // Jan 14, 2008 at 9:48 am
Thanks for the links to other reviews.
I have read many of them now and was most impressed by the Salon.com interview. Lomborg comes over as being very calm, rational and able to take advice from experts.
The other reviews seemed to be either reviews of reviews of Lombard or simply bashing a stereotyped idea of what he stands for by picking on pet argu,eents (polar bears, malaria etc) rather than discussing the merits of his economic proposals.
I guess I will just have to read his book and make my own mind up!
5 Slevdi // Jan 14, 2008 at 9:58 am
BTW, what is ‘truthiness ‘.