Introduction
Lomborg’s “the Skeptical Environmentalist” (2001) and UNEP’s “global
environment outlook” or “GEO4” (2007) both attempt to display the real state
of the world. Whilst the Skeptical Environmentalist may be a slightly more
gripping read Lomborg tends to focus on the mistakes of other’s and misses
the question almost entirely. The GEO4 report is much more accurate. Each
author writes about the problems that have arisen over the past decades with
our atmosphere, our land and our water but also the progress we have made.
Atmosphere
It is generally acknowledged that our atmosphere is in a bit of trouble; there is
a large hole in the ozone layer due to ozone depleting substances especially
CFC’s (chlorofluorocarbons), we are polluting the air with carbon, sulfur and
nitrous oxides (greenhouse gases) causing enhanced global warming.
Lomborg argues that carbon emissions may not have as large an impact on
climate change as we thought. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) is quoted in both GEO4 and The Skeptical environmentalist.
In Lomborg’s chapter on climate change he asserts that temperature rises will
not exceed two degrees by the end of the century, to support this claim he
cites a Hadley Center paper in which the researchers change their climate
model, and therefore their projected temperature increase, decreased from
5.2°C to 1.9°C. However in the first paragraph of the paper the researchers
note that the newer scheme whilst being more detailed is not necessarily
more accurate (Schneider, S. 2002). GEO4 quotes the full range given by the
IPCC; from 1.8°C - 4°C and goes on to say that the impacts of climate change
is already evident in “changes in water availability, spread of waterborne
disease vectors, food security, sea-level and ice cover as exemplified by
melting of the Greenland ice sheet.”
Land
Deforestation has been constantly bought to our attention by the media as
one of the biggest environmental problems we are facing. There has been
some issues however with the definition of ‘forest’ that has fueled Lomborg’s
argument that forest cover has only decreased by a very small amount in the
last few years. He states “the longest data series from the UN’s FAO show
that global forest cover has increased from 30.04 percent of the global land
area in 1950 to 30.89 percent in 1994, an increase of 0.85 percentage points
over the last 44 years.” Lomborg uses FAO surveys in which “deforestation is
defined as the removal of forests and their replacement by another land use
class (such as mining or permanent agriculture).” Therefore logging does not
result in deforestation. He also confuses natural forest and plantations, whilst
natural forests have a large ecological value; plantations generally sustain
very little biodiversity. GEO4 has the same issue with grouping plantations
into forest cover however they separate tropical areas from temperate:
“Decline in the area of temperate forest has been reversed with an average
annual increase of 30 000 km2 between 1990 and 2005. However,
deforestation in the tropics has continued at an average annual rate of 130
000 km2, with serious implications for GHG gas concentrations and
biodiversity loss.” Plantations only make up a tiny percentage of forest cover
in tropical areas so this is more forgivable and does not give the reader the
idea that the problem is non-existent.
Water
The two biggest issues surrounding water are it’s contamination and it’s
emerging scarcity. On this topic Lomborg states that the problem is not water
scarcity but water unavailability. However if we look at studies by Oki and
Kanae (2006) and those by kummu et al (2010) that use the use-to-availability
index, we see that more than 35% of the world’s population live in areas of
chronic water shortage. There is one point that both Lomborg and UNEP
agree on and that is the seriousness of the lack of access to safe drinking
water especially in developing countries. However they do disagree on
whether it is getting better or worse. GEO4 says, “The per capita availability of
freshwater is declining, in part because of excessive withdrawals of surface
and groundwater.” Whereas The Skeptical Environmentalist doesn’t talk about
global figures (several of Lomborg’s arguments are based on people not using
global figures, so this is a little hypocritical) instead stating “the share of
people in the developing countries with access to drinking water has
increased from 30 percent in 1970 to 80 per- cent in 2000.”
Progress
The point of Lomborg’s book is to tell us that the state of the world is getting
better, that we are progressing. The point of the GEO4 report is to “keep the
global environment under review” (Abdel-Kadar, A. 2007). UNEP’s GEO4 is
not the pessimistic paper that Lomborg assumes all environmentalist studies
to be. It praises the Montreal policy on taking quick action to restrict CFC use
allowing the ozone layer to make a full recovery in he next 50 or so years, it
congratulates governments on anti-desertification programs such as
Australia’s LandCare and comments on the progress we have made in the
well-beings of people in developing countries. There is always bad to the
good but it gives a well-rounded view of what the state of the world really is.
This is in stark contrast to the one sided argument of The Skeptical
Environmentalist, which says: “We are not running out of energy or natural
resources. Global warming, is almost certainly taking place, but the typical
cure of early and radical fossil fuel cutbacks is way worse than the original
affliction. We will not lose 25–50 percent of all species in our lifetime – in fact
we are losing probably 0.7 percent and the air and water around us are
becoming less and less polluted.” The facts are, whilst we are not running out
of energy resources we are running out of environment to absorb the pollution
that is released from burning these fossil fuels (Holdren, J. 2002).
Environmentalists cannot make a sure estimate of the cost of global warming
because there are just too many variables (Schneider, S. 2002) and
“Estimates of present extinction rates range from 100 -1000 times normal”
(Lovejoy, T. 2002).
Conclusion
Both Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist and UNEP’s GEO4 Report
give their opinions on the real state of the world. Under the topics of
atmosphere, land, water and progress The GEO4 Report gives a more
accurate and neutral representation, taking the bad with the good rather than
just ignoring it entirely.
References
Lovejoy, T. 2002. BIODIVERSITY: DISMISSING SCIENTIFIC PROCESS,
Scientific American, Vol. 286.
Holdren, J. 2002. ENERGY: ASKING THE WRONG QUESTION, Scientific
American, Vol. 286.
Schneider, S. 2002. GLOBAL WARMING: NEGLECTING THE
COMPLEXITIES, Scientific American, Vol. 286.
Lomborg, B. 2001. THE SKEPTICAL ENVIRONMETALIST: MEASURING
THE REAL STATE OF THE WORLD, Cambridge University Press.
Kummu, M. Moel, H. Varis, O. Ward, P. 2010. IS PHYSICAL WATER
SCARCITY A NEW PHENOMENON? GLOBAL ASSESSMENT OF WATER
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