Meanwhile, look who’s got a new job: Bjorn Lomborg, the controversial author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, has been appointed to head a new Danish institute of economics and the environment. Lomborg’s book outraged environmentalists in Denmark and abroad by claiming that virtually every environmental problem, from air pollution to deforestation to global warming, was exaggerated or nonexistent. Many respected international scientists accused Lomborg, formerly an associate professor of statistics at a Danish university, of misunderstanding or deliberately skewing the data on which he based his arguments. Opponents called Lomborg’s appointment to head the new organization further evidence that Denmark’s new center-right government is bent on dismantling the nation’s heretofore-impressive environmental record.
