I finished a few papers, books, and videos by Bjorn Lomborg lately, as well as books that refer to or rely on his work, like Superabundance and The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels. I follow up most books and movies I finish and find meaningful by reading and watching reviews, commentaries, criticisms (positive, negative, and other), and more.

My criticism of Lomborg’s work stands independent of the accuracy of his claims. That is, even if everything he writes is accurate, I think it misunderstands the problem. My upcoming book presents my view. Sorry to make you wait for it (initial responses from readers are positive, but they’re friends and colleagues so may be biased, though since I’m asking for what I should fix, they know that undeserved praise would hurt me), but this post is about people checking the accuracy of his claims.

This week I’ve read a good part of a criticism. It’s from 2010, but after The Skeptical Environmentalist and Cool It, the latter of which I just finished, a scholar Howard Friel checked all his footnotes, and wrote a book called The Lomborg Deception.

I couldn’t find a copy at the library, so contented myself to read excerpts online and reviews of it (from Newsweek and the Sunday Times. The online excerpts appear to be about a quarter of the book, which seemed enough to understand it and judge its accuracy, but not enough for me to write this Sunday that I finished it. I also found the full book online (not sure the copyright or legality of that pdf), but probably won’t finish it all. Lomborg himself rebutted Friel in his A Response by Bjorn Lomborg to Howard Friel’s ‘The Lomborg Deception’ on his own page.

From what I read, I find Friel’s criticism compelling. There’s plenty of other criticism of Lomborg’s claims and accuracy. I’ll probably get to some by Bob Ward of the London School of Economics, but have only skimmed some of his articles so far. Lomborg responds to many of his critics on his page.

If you read Lomborg or the books that refer to or rely on his work, I recommend reading the excerpts of Friel’s book and Lomborg’s rebuttle or, if very pressed for time, at least the Newsweek review. I think you’ll find at least some of the criticism of his work valid and his overall work less credible. I’m happy to learn more if you know something I missed. The larger number of links in this post than average indicates my interest in checking my assumptions and understanding of our environmental and political situations.

• ← I’m endlessly amazed at how the body acclimatizes to cold