A message from
Support climate news that leads to action. Help Grist raise $100,000. All donations TRIPLED until MIDNIGHT TONIGHT.
Δ
A nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future.
Re: What Now? Dear Editor: The U.S. response to the Red Cross was wonderful, and that’s great. But many,...
Ashley Parkinson is coordinator of Seattle Audubon Society’s Northwest Shade Coffee Campaign, which works to educate retailers and consumers about...
Pregnant women exposed to high levels of ozone and carbon monoxide are more likely to give birth to children with...
You know what they say about people who become statisticians? They lacked the personality to become accountants.
Extraordinary claims demand an extraordinary level of documentation and supporting analysis, and warrant the healthy skepticism of those who would review or pronounce judgment on them. Bjorn Lomborg's new book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, is missing the documentation and analysis, and the outpouring of media coverage the book has generated is missing the skepticism.
In The Skeptical Environmentalist, Bjorn Lomborg writes that "basically, the world's forests are not under threat." A charitable reader could attribute this flawed conclusion to errors of omission and ignorance; perhaps the author simply doesn't know the sources well enough to interpret them properly. Less charitably, one might reasonably conclude that Lomborg intentionally selects his data and citations to distort or even reverse the truth. His interpretations of data on global forest cover and Indonesian forest fires aptly illustrate both failings.
Before the terrible events of Sept. 11 nudged our national mood towards nouveau-earnestness, skepticism was the disposition of the day. Bred in the swamps of transparent consumer manipulation, untrustworthy political leaders, and information overload, skepticism stamped a permanent question mark onto the brows of Generation X and seemed poised to become the watchword of our nation.
Concerned about threats to Africa’s remaining rainforest, the New York City-based Wildlife Conservation Society has been forming closer ties with...
U.S. EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman said yesterday that her agency would order General Electric to spend almost $500 million...
