Laughing at Lomborg

[a_unique_person]

Bjorn Lomborg is in town on a lecture tour, sponsored, strangely enough, by the right wing IPA.

I read a columnist on Lomborg, who challenged anyone to find an error in his book, the Skeptical Environmentalist.

(I should bring out a book called "The Skeptical Spoon Bender".)

I had a quick browse to find something erroneous, and it didn't take me long.

The Exxon Valdez, P192.

"The oil spill caused heavy oiling of some 200 miles of coastline and light oiling of some additional 1,100 miles of the 9,000 miles of total coastline in the spill region. It is estimated that the spill cost the lives of 300 harbour seals, 2,800 sea otters, 250,000 sea birds, 250 bald eagles and possible 22 killer wales. While this is naturally an awful toll, we need to put this death into perspective - the total 250,000 dead birds from teh Exxon Valdez distaster is still less that the number of birds which die on a single day in the US, colliding with plate glass, or the number of birds that are killed by domestic cats in Britain in two days."

We now look at the source he has given.

http://www.awea.org/pubs/factsheets/WEandBirds.pdf



Q: What are the effects of other energy sources on birds?

A: Threats to birds from other energy sources include: Oil spills at sea: In a single oil shipping accident--the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska's Prince William Sound--more than 500,000 migratory birds perished, or about 1,000 times the estimated annual total in California's wind power plants.[4]
Tall smokestacks: A study at a single Florida coal-fired power plant with four smokestacks recorded an estimated 3,000 bird kills in a single night during a fall migration.[5]
Mercury emissions: Emissions of mercury, a heavy metal, from coal-fired power plants contaminate lakes and streams and accumulate in the food chain, threatening the common loon and other waterbirds.[6]
Global climate change: The consensus of the world’s scientific community is that rising emissions of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide (CO2) from the combustion of fossil fuels, are accumulating in the atmosphere and causing the Earth’s climate to change. The changing weather patterns that result are already being blamed for diminishing populations of various species of migratory birds.



I see two problems here.

1) The area in which these birds were killed was a fraction of the area of the US in total, and many of those dying would have been in urban/city areas, where most of the birds are flying pests such as pigeons and sparrows.

If the same proportion of deaths was occurring in the rest of the US, then maybe it would not be such a big deal.

2) The source he refers to says that double the number of birds died from the Exxon Valdez, also many others die due to pollution and Global Warming.

Talk about selective use of statistics. This guy is an expert at it.

[plindboe]

He's regurlarly critisised here in DK for his unscientific research. His, government funded, institute provides them reports, to help them make the right decisions for the enviroment.:rolleyes: Nearly every time a new report gets released, scientists across DK point to numerous factual errors. He's becoming an increasingly embarrasment for the government, and I hope they will soon realize he have to go.

[Eos of the Eons]

Leaving this guy out of the topic for a second, you can look at what kind of wildlife was affected by the Valdez oil spill. They weren't crows, as is indicated. The area was a protected area for a huge variety of wildlife. It was an area of concentrated wildlife, not like the beach of a desert island or something.

That's the only reason there was a big stink about it. Just look up Alaska and Prince William Sound.

Putting that on a global scale is silly. Comparing it to anything else is not really fair. Oil spills happen all the time, and much larger ones, just not in areas where the Valdez spill happened.

The rest of the topics he covers I don't know much about.


plindboe, I had to laugh at your avtar, looks like he's doing the pee pee dance
:D Very cute.

[plindboe]

Thanks, :D I'm crazy about that little guy too. As soon as I saw him, I knew he would become my avatar.

[Ove]

He's becoming an increasingly embarrasment for the government, and I hope they will soon realize he have to go.

Don't be stupid, he is saying exactly what Anders & Co likes to hear. He will never be fired as long as we have a right wing goverment. If that should change however i think he should begin an immidiate search for another job.;)

BTW: Nice to see one more dane on this forum. :den:

[a_unique_person]

Just as long as it's only one more.

[plindboe]

Originally posted by Ove
[B]Don't be stupid, he is saying exactly what Anders & Co likes to hear. He will never be fired as long as we have a right wing goverment. If that should change however i think he should begin an immidiate search for another job.;)

He is indeed saying exactly what the government want to hear, that is why he got the job in the first place. The trouble however is the attention it gets from the media every time a report is released, and even though the enviromental minister keeps saying he trusts Lomborg, I'm sure they have realized that he's a liability for the government.

[Diamond]

Originally posted by a_unique_person
[B]Bjorn Lomborg is in town on a lecture tour, sponsored, strangely enough, by the right wing IPA.

I read a columnist on Lomborg, who challenged anyone to find an error in his book, the Skeptical Environmentalist.

(I should bring out a book called "The Skeptical Spoon Bender".)

I had a quick browse to find something erroneous, and it didn't take me long.

The Exxon Valdez, P192.

"The oil spill caused heavy oiling of some 200 miles of coastline and light oiling of some additional 1,100 miles of the 9,000 miles of total coastline in the spill region. It is estimated that the spill cost the lives of 300 harbour seals, 2,800 sea otters, 250,000 sea birds, 250 bald eagles and possible 22 killer wales. While this is naturally an awful toll, we need to put this death into perspective - the total 250,000 dead birds from teh Exxon Valdez distaster is still less that the number of birds which die on a single day in the US, colliding with plate glass, or the number of birds that are killed by domestic cats in Britain in two days."

We now look at the source he has given.

http://www.awea.org/pubs/factsheets/WEandBirds.pdf



I see two problems here.

1) The area in which these birds were killed was a fraction of the area of the US in total, and many of those dying would have been in urban/city areas, where most of the birds are flying pests such as pigeons and sparrows.

...is a selective use of statistics and begs the question as to the value of which species of bird are killed and by what event. Is this a mistake or just nit-picking?

If the same proportion of deaths was occurring in the rest of the US, then maybe it would not be such a big deal.

2) The source he refers to says that double the number of birds died from the Exxon Valdez, also many others die due to pollution and Global Warming.

...and this is a mistake of Lomborg or the source? I'd love to know how they calculate how many birds die of global warming :rolleyes:

Talk about selective use of statistics. This guy is an expert at it.

You should know.

[Martin]

Originally posted by Diamond
I'd love to know how they calculate how many birds die of global warmingProbably the same way the IPCC calculated their emissions projections.

[Diamond]

Originally posted by Martinm
Probably the same way the IPCC calculated their emissions projections.

This is a Uranus question isn't it?

[T'ai Chi]

So is Lomborg's statistical analysis itself flawed, or just the data that he uses in the analysis?

I have only flipped through his book at the store. Looks interesting.

[Diamond]

Originally posted by T'ai Chi
So is Lomborg's statistical analysis itself flawed, or just the data that he uses in the analysis?

I have only flipped through his book at the store. Looks interesting.

Personally, I think other people's preconceptions are the things that are flawed. He simply comes up with the wrong answer for some people. We've become so used to people telling us that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, (a view reinforced by science fiction writers) that when someone uses the exact same sources as the doomsters and concludes that it is not so, we instinctly respond that he must be lying, or right-wing or whatever.

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by Diamond


Personally, I think other people's preconceptions are the things that are flawed. He simply comes up with the wrong answer for some people. We've become so used to people telling us that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, (a view reinforced by science fiction writers) that when someone uses the exact same sources as the doomsters and concludes that it is not so, we instinctly respond that he must be lying, or right-wing or whatever.

He does use flawed analysis and statistics. As I pointed out, to say that the pollution caused by Exxon Valdez only killed as many birds as die every day by flying into buildings and windows is a ridiculous argument.

He also twists the arguments for conservation by taking the rantings of the loonies and then acting as if they are representative of the stance of all scientists who work in conservation related areas. What he is really attacking is the popular press, which never lets the facts get in the way of a good story.

Past warnings of doom have not come to be, but others are happening right now. He acts on the basis that because some forecasts were incorrect, that all are.

In the area of extinction of species, he acts as if there is nothing happening, or it just part of the normal cycle of nature. In another thread, I have posted how the population of lions is now down to only 10% of what it was 20 years ago. The trend line of this is extinction in a very short time. I don't know about you, but I think the extinction of lions would be a sad day for the world. And saying that there are still some in zoos is not the same thing.

[Eos of the Eons]

A large amount of birds dying in prince william sound equals no birds in the area...whereas birds flying into windows across the US equals hardly a dent in local populations.

There is a difference. The bird population in Prince William Sound will suffer way more than all the bird populations losing a bird here and there in the rest of the US.

It's like wiping out a whole town of 3000 people and then saying it's no big deal because x amount of people die in car crashes all over every day.

That town may never ever get 3000 people again because of whatever wiped them out.

So the William Sound deaths are truly tragic and the populations have yet to fully recover to this day. Again, these aren't like 10 crows out of a million we're talking about here.

Say what you will about Lomborg, but his 'research' isn't completely flawed when speaking of the tragedy of some population wipe outs.

[a_unique_person]

His use of statistics is appalling. For example, Australia is shown, on page 152, as having a huge amount of water available per person, more than those in the USA, England, Italy and Indonesia.

What he doesnt say is what exactly this table, table 4, represents.

It is the "total available water", which for him means something completely different to what it means for the person living in Australia, most of whom are experiencing water restrictions, and regularly experience them. Also, total available water is not a good concept to use, because if humans take all the available water, then what is left for nature. Already, the Murray River, the major river system in Australia, is dying. Recently it has not flowed out of the mouth of the river into the sea. This means that the huge amounts of salt it accumulates in it's long journey are not being washed out to sea but left in the river itself.