MÅR JORDEN ALLT BÄTTRE?
Kontroversiell dansk statistiker utmanar miljörörelsen

Journalistens ansvar väger tungt när uppgiften är att försöka ge en balanserad bild av debatten kring den danske statistikern Bjørn Lomborg och hans kontroversiella åsikter om miljöns tillstånd. Frågor om vad som är rätt, sanning, och vetenskapliga fakta ­ om någonting alls ­ och vem som i så fall ska definiera dem, inställer sig osökt. Forum har granskat debatten och intervjuat Bjørn Lomborg.

Bjørn Lomborg är biträdande professor i statistik vid stats- vetenskapliga fakulteten vid Århus universitet. År 1998 skrev han en serie artiklar ­ och en bok, Verldens sande tilstand, där han argumenterade för att miljötillståndet i världen är på väg att förbättras och att miljöskyddsorganisationer och media som påstår det motsatta hänger sig åt mytspridning i eget intresse.
Dessa argument ledde till en hetsig debatt i Danmark, där bland annat professor Henning Sørensen, tidigare ordförande
för Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabers Selskab, kallade Lomborgs åsikter om världens råmaterialsituation "osanna och farliga". Grälet tog ytterligare fart år 2001, när Lomborgs bok utkom på engelska med titeln The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World. Recensioner av boken och därpå följande genmälen har fått rejält med spaltutrymme i tunga media som The Economist, Washington Post, The Guardian, Nature och Scientific American.

Vilseledande matematik?
Daily Telegraph kallade boken "den antagligen viktigaste bok som någonsin skrivits om miljön". Scientific American kontrade med rubriken "Vilseledande matematik om jorden". World Resources Institute och WWF utdömde boken som "pseudovetenskap".
Lomborg själv har blivit tårtad av brittiska miljövänner och hans kompetens att som statistiker uttala sig om miljön har ifrågasatts.
Debatten kring The Skeptical Environmentalist har väckt ett antal intressanta frågor. Att det finns miljöorganisationer som skulle må bra av lite självkritik betvivlar knappast någon, och poängen att massmedierna tenderar att vinkla sin miljörapportering överdrivet negativt är likaså tänkvärd.
Men Lomborg har kritiserats för att han bygger sina argument på global statistik som skyler över viktiga lokala problem. Ett exempel är de siffror han presenterar på antalet skogshektar i procent av jordens totala yta: cirka 30 procent år 1950 likaväl som år 1994, ett mått som kritiserats för att dölja den minskande arealen värdefull tropisk skog.
Lomborg svarar att ett fokus på den globala analysnivån inte utesluter förekomsten av problem på lokal nivå:
"Att säga att den globala andelen skogshektar hållits på samma nivå betyder inte att vi inte förlorat tropisk skog, och att säga att vi inte förlorat så mycket tropisk skog betyder inte att till exempel Kongo inte skulle ha förlorat häpnadsväckande mycket tropisk skog."

Miljöval har ett pris
Lomborgs bok utgör ett provokativt inslag i värdedebatten mellan dem som inte godkänner ekonomisk expansion på bekostnad av miljön, och dem som anser att miljöproblem kan kvantifieras i pengar och diskuteras som en vanlig tradeoff-situation.
Lomborg hör till de senare: han anser att kostnaderna för Kyotoprotokollets implementering blir orimligt höga och att vi därför istället bör satsa på andra saker som skulle rädda fler liv per investerad dollar, till exempel rent dricksvatten för u-länderna.
Kritiker invänder att de alternativa prioriteringar han föreslår är politiskt omöjliga och därför egentligen inga alternativ, endast retorik som spelar storindustrin i händerna.

Sanning mot sanning
Slutligen belyser en vetenskaplig debatt där experterna kallar varandra farliga lögnare att det där med sanning inte alltid är så lätt. "Vi måste bekämpa myter med fakta", säger Lomborg till Forum, "och fakta är det vi kan bevisa eller åtminstone kan göra sannolikt med hjälp av statistik."
Men samtidigt väcker han till liv en klassisk vetenskapsteoretisk tvistefråga. Det finns tunga argument för att rätt och fel, sanning och fakta är kontextbundna begrepp som bör ses i relation till individuella åsikter och preferenser. Också inom forskningen skiner det forskaren själv tror är viktigt igenom i både frågeställning, metod och tolkning av resultat.
Det är denna ensidighet i miljöorganisationernas verksamhet som Lomborg påtalat. Men faller han själv i samma grop genom tendentiösa tolkningar av data och en retorik som under en vetenskaplig yta egentligen är polemisk?
Wilhelm Barner-Rasmussen

Mer om Lomborg-debatten på nätet
Författarens egna hemsidor (www.lomborg.org) innehåller bland annat ett kapitel ur boken, samt Lomborgs svar på en del av kritiken.
World Resources Institute
(www.wri.org/press/mk_lomborg.html) är en av de miljöorganisationer som kritiseras i boken.
Århus universitets hemsida (www.au.dk/~cesamat/debate.html) innehåller kritiska reaktioner på den ursprungliga danska debatten.

Utskrift av telefonintervjun gjord med Bjørn Lomborg 16.1.2002.

Intervjuare: Wilhelm Barner-Rasmussen

- How does it feel to have been in the middle of such a media storm during the last years?
- It feels good when you are right. Basically I'm not thinking of it in terms of a media storm, I'm more saying it's good to be able to counter a very clearly established and very widespread myth. This is what being an academic is all about: we try to combat myths with facts, and that's what I feel this discussion is about. And clearly, I mean, I say so many things that it would be surprising if I wasn't wrong here and there. And, you know, I want that to be corrected, of course, I have no interest to say something that is wrong. So in that sense it's really just a question of making sure that we get a little closer to the truth.
- When you were writing the book, was your original aim to ­ could you split it up between scientific and polemic?
- I don't have a polemic interest. I do have a popular scientific interest, because this is not just an issue for a few select experts. Because basically this is about how the world is doing, and that is profoundly influential on pretty much everything else we do about the globe. So this is really something that everybody needs to know something about. Obviously, most people are not going to read my book, or even any kind of book about this, but it is important that people know, in general terms, how are we doing? And that's why I think it's important both to write a book that's fairly accessible, and to write newspaper articles, or articles for for example The Economist, and give interviews. This is part of bringing out a scientific understanding out to people. So it's not polemic, but it's true that it's not just, I'm not just trying to make a scientific work just to be read by a few other people. Because basically, hey, I don't say anything new, I only say what other people have already said, so for instance when Scientific American say, 'he's wholly unoriginal', I take that as a compliment [laughs], because it means that I'm saying something that everybody else has already said, I'm saying something that's true.
- Could you say something about the view of science that underlies your work?
- [pauses] Eh... basically we need to have ­ I mean it's the very essence of Western scientific enterprise ­ our understanding of the world needs to be backed up by facts; and to a very large extent, facts are the things that we can prove, or... at least... make probable through the use of statistics. This is our only real way of knowing something about the world. If you just ask some of your friends, you know, 'So, what do you think about the world?', it's not likely to give you a very good understanding of the world. So we need to have the data behind us. And in most, in pretty much any other area, this would be totally totally uncontroversial; the other issue, I think, in the discussion of the world, is a prioritization point, which is, if anything, the main point from economics; that... you can get pretty much anything you want, only you can't do all of it at once. So, you really have to make sure that you're doing what is most important first. I mean, it's a very obvious thing, we do this all the time in our private lives, but it may not appear quite as obvious in a public policy point where there's a tendency to just want everything. And, so, it's these two things combined ­ first we need to combat myths with data ­ this is just the standard scientific Western worldview ­ and second, the second one is to say we need to prioritize, and that is, we need to say what is the most important. There are lots of problems in the world, even if things are going better and better there is still problems, so we need to solve the biggest problems first, or as somebody said, 'Worst things first'.
- Right. Two follow-ups on that: one is about scientific facts and the other about decision-making. First, if we start by the scientific facts, I get the impression, having tried to study the debate about your book ­ I get the impression that for at least some of the issues you write about, there is not consensus about what constitutes scientific fact ­ for example the rate of extinction of species. How do you look at that issue?
- It's important to say, most of the areas we do actually agree, and I always use the best available international statistics when we have them. Simply because, these are not necessarily the god-given word, but they are certainly the ones that are closest in the sense that this is the best we can do. And so, when we talk about calories per person, or when we talk about the number of starving people, or the air pollution in developed countries, whatever, we have very very good data. And nobody could disclaim that. However, there are also issue areas where we have less good data, and species extinction is a very good example. And there, I just simply try to say, we need at least to weed out the really really bad estimates. And, and, and you know, it's not the same thing as saying you can't disagree, and I point out that with the UN data, the biodiversity report from 1995, which is the biggest UN document that we have on biodiversity, the estimate is that over the next 50 years we will eradicate anywhere from 0.1 to 4 percent of all species. Notice, they never actually make this number, you have to calculate this from all the assumptions that they make ­ they just go in and say we eradicate species hundreds if not thousands times faster than the natural extinction rate. And I just point out [unclear] what is this on an overall scale, how important is this? And, and, because... most people will not find it very helpful to know that it is hundreds or even thousands of times ­ is that bad or ­ yeah, well, obviously it's worse, but is that really ­ is it a catastrophy or is it a problem? We need to know. And the second point is to say, it's not 50 percent over the next 50 years, we're not losing half of all species. That's just simply unfounded, to make that argument. So we sort of need, when we don't have data, we need to have at least a sense of what is at least not correct. And, and get the idea of what is the range that the best international estimates come up with. And that is, for the UN report on biodiversity, 0.1 to 4 percent. And then, about the priority ­ what was the question there?
- It was about decision-making. I mean, provided you have the facts, how positive or negative are you about rational decision-making, generally speaking?
- Oh! I mean, obviously, the decision-making part is not a descriptive point. I'm not arguing that people are rational or that they, that most decisions will be made rationally. I'm simply making that as a moral, or more likely a democratic-moral norm; clearly, we may end up doing very very badly; but I would argue that most people would at least theoretically say we should try to be rational. And so in that sense I'm just trying to promote an ideal here. So, it's incredibly important these two things are kept apart; I mean, part of it is ­ of course they are interrelated because we don't need good data if we don't care about making good decisions; but if we wanna make good decisions, we need good data; and then we also need to have a commitment to making good decisions which is key to some sort of rationality. But that's clearly a normative issue. So I would say, very often we don't make good decisions, very often something else comes in and clouds the whole issue ­ but as an academic, I think we at least have a responsibility to try to point out what is the rational decision in this situation, and then at least you have a sort of a benchmark of how well are we doing or, or, how much are we screwing up?
- But still, many people would argue that actual decisions are very seldom made on a rational basis, and that kind of links to what you have called 'the Litany', in the sense that one argument could be that if decisions are not always ­ or perhaps very seldom ­ made on a rational basis, maybe promoting a 'Litany' may have positive effects.
- Oh yeah, you could make that argument. Of course the idea here is somehow to say, that because of all kinds of suboptimal or even just not rational decision-making processes, it might actually be good for society that we lie about something else. It's possible. But you have to realize how incredibly undemocratic this is. You're basically saying, because democracy doesn't work, I'm gonna lie to make it work better. And it's possible. I just think it's a very very wrong way to go out on a limb. First of all, I think it's hard to prove. And we certainly have seen very very bad historical examples of such a logic gone wrong. But you know, I mean, it's a normative issue at the very bottom ­ do we wanna.... do we wanna trust and believe in democracry, and I do, or do we wanna say no, democracy doesn't work, so I'm gonna try and make it better by lying. And you know, as long as you are honest about it, I think it's at least, it's a morally valid argument although I think it's wrong. But of course this is entirely antithetical to any kind of scietific approach that we might have, because basically you're saying that no, we shouldn't call the facts as they are, we should try to make them such that people make the right decisions. That of course totally abandons the idea of science trying to... to tell truths.
- I guess to some extent it depends on your underlying world view in the sense that an argument could be that everybody is doing it.
- Oh yes, but of course that, that isn't... that in itself is probably not a very good argument, eh, just because everybody is shouting doesn't mean that we'll end up making better decisions or worse decisions, then I'll also shout. And I also think that the fact that this book actually makes an impact, in the sense that it makes people think seriously about it, shows that it is actually possible, even for a single person, to make an impact in the sense of making people change their minds. So it's not true that just simply if you don't shout and everybody else shouts, then you know, then you're just gonna end up making, you know, you also will end up having to shout. It doesn't appear to be correct, even on this book's account. But I mean, basically it's a philosophical question: do you wanna support democracy or not? And I think Churchill put it well when he said, 'Our experience of different ruling forms shows that democracy is the worst kind of government ­ except for all the others'. And so, basically this is, historically this is just simply the best way we know how to deal with the problem of, of deciding for society. And I think it's incredibly dangerous to tinker with that and say no no no, we know better, and then start to lie. It's just simply not how the Western world has achieved all that it has. But I mean, you can disagree with that.
- Of course. How then, talking about shouting, how about the role of the media, in a balanced debate about environmental issues?
- Ehm, well, I mean, media will never be balanced in the sense that they thrive on bad news, and I don't think there is very much you can do about it, because it's not the media's fault, it's because we, I mean, we as people like bad news, it's just, I mean, simply, lots of research shows that we just, we find it more interesting. So my basic point is to say, that... you just need to make people realize that they are gonna read more bad stories, simply because that's what they like, than are actually descriptive of what the world looks like. And, you also have to instill in journalists, who are all, despite their, they're under this sort of systematic effect of wanting to raise bad news, so they're also good people. So, try to make them aware that they have a democratic responsibility, and that they should at least to the extent possible try to give a good sense of what is myth, what is not, and what is the size of the different problems. And that of course is kind of the thing that you get by writing such a book and having people read it, and then they say, 'oh, OK, this is a problem, but it's not a big problem'. You know, when I write a story, 'oh, everything is gonna go wrong here', at least I can say, well, heh, heh, but it's also not a very big problem.
- Uh-uh. Could you then say something about the problems of analysing the state of the environment from a global perspective, as you do to quite some extent? For example this issue of hectares of forest as a percentage of the total area of the world, if I remember correctly? I'm sort of driving at the local relevance of global averages. Because one of the arguments that has been raised against your book is that looking at these issues from a global perspective...
- Yeah.
- ...does not necessarily give a fair you see what I mean?
- Oh yeah, yeah, of course. Just simply saying that the global average of forest is the same, doesn't mean that we are not losing tropical forest, and just simply saying that we're not losing all that much tropical forest doesn't mean that Congo, for instance, hasn't lost an amazing amount of tropical forest. Yes; statistics is by nature about eradicating a lot of different information, and just leaving the important stuff standing back ­ and what is important in one respect is not the most important in some other respect. And, clearly, my discussion is clearly about the global, you know, those kinds of worries that say, basically, 'we're all going to die, that kind of a thing. Well, which is of course true, we're all gonna die pretty soon, heh, but ­ and there it makes sense to look at global averages very often ­ simply because when WWF, the guys with the panda, they come and tell us we must act now in order to preserve the last forests on Earth, and they talk about the 11th hour of the world's forests, you need to say, well, OK, let's take a look at the world's forests. And they're not in danger of being eradicated; that's just simply not true. But of course that doesn't, just because on average, on a global level there are no problems, doesn't mean that there are no problems on specific issues ­ certainly in the developing world there is going to be lost a high number, a lot of tropical forest before they get sufficiently rich; and clearly some countries have been incredibly bad at managing their forests; but it's a different kind of problem, because it's a much more local problem ­ I mean, the Congo problem is a problem for Congo ­ and to a certain extent, of course, for the rest of the world, but the idea here is to say, it's not the same thing as to say, 'we're all going to die because we have no forest left over'. And so, you know, it really, it really depends on what is the issue here, and I would argue most of what is the issue for Western worriedness about the world is on a global level. And therefore I try to mainly analyze global issues, or issues... parted under relevant issues, for instance the developing world kind of issues. But clearly, you can always say, there are other kinds of issues that we should look at. This is the nature of statistics, you can only look at some things, and these are only relevant in some situations. The overall picture I'm trying to get at is, when you talk about the state of the world, which is really my... the task that I have set to myself, you have to say, what is the world average, or the relevant, eh, the, the, what is the average of tropical forest. And just, you know, look at any other, any negative story, because obviously there is going to be lots of them ­ but you have to sort of get what is the overall view, some places you've got more tropical forest, other places you've got less; on the average, how much more or less did you get ­ and turns out you end with about 0.5 percent less, each year, of tropical forest.
- How then, talking about your economic views, one gets the impression from the book ­ please correct me if I'm wrong but ­ you are a believer in trickle-down, in the sense that if the global economy works well, also the poor countries will become richer over time
- Yeah.
- you do see it that way?
- Yeah, I mean, I must honestly say, I've seen nobody say it would be good for ­ or very very few, and certainly no credible people ­ say that it would be good for developing countries if they did not have access to a global economy. I mean, the obvious argument is to say, North Korea is not ­ which is one of the only countries that is not integrated in the world economy at all ­ is not a great country. And, of course, my point actually extends much further in the sense that ­ which is also the argument of most developing countries ­ that what the developing countries need is more access to global markets, particularly for food and, food products and textiles, which is what they can produce and which is what we most happily have [unclear]. So in that sense, what the developing world needs is more access to global markets because that would actually enable them to be able to develop quicker and better. Which is also the World Bank view.
- Would you comment on the tradeoff between what might be called 'standard of living' and 'quality of life'?
- [pauses] Possibly. You have to explain that a little bit. How would we measure quality of life?
- I have no idea. But there is this argument that just simply becoming richer might not be the way to go.
- Yeah, yeah. That is actually often ­ I mean, it is a commonplace argument, especially in late-night discussions in cafés, but really, we have very, I mean, we have no data to back up that kind of argument. Because all the indicators that you can measure seem to indicate that as you get richer you also live longer, your kids die less, you have better food, you have more spare time, all these kinds of ­ pretty much all the kinds of things that we typically think of as welfare indicators. However, you could still argue, if you look at the issues of happiness, it turns out that there is very very small positive correlation between wealth and happiness. Or, only... a virtually nonexistent if you take over the entire span of human income. And of course this probably tells us that we're ­ most economists, certainly, and I think, most happiness psychologists would also argue that this really indicates that what we have a hard time asking about happiness in anything but a relative sense. That people are ­ yeah, 'I'm happy compared to the other people I know'. Which is, typically on a fairly the same level... yeah ­ but certainly, if I travel around Ethiopia, I'd probably be a lot happier, eh, and since the idea here is to say, this is totally not showing what... some people at least would like it to show ­ namely that no matter how much money we get, we will still be as unhappy as we used to be. Heh, well, I mean, that's a philosophical argument so much wider than [unclear], I tend to say, well, heh, certainly it's only when we get sufficiently rich that we can actually start making that discussion. It's only because we're so well off that you have time to sit down and say, 'gee! with all this money, am I really happy?'. So, you know, implicitly in this whole discussion is the fact that you've gotten so rich that you actually have time enough, time off to make the debate. And that sort of indicates to me that yes, at least to a certain level we do become happier, but I would also dare most people certainly, to say, 'would you be as happy if you could go back to a living standard of the late 1800s?'. And I think most people would definitely answer no. Again, we have this myth ­ I also try to document that in the book ­ we have this myth that, in the times of old, people had time for each other and everybody cared about each other and stuff. But the idea is that in 1855, an average British man spent about 50 percent of his waking hours in his life working. Today this time stands at about 20 percent. Yeah; so we have 30 percent more time in our life to do what we consider being holiday. Or at least it's something that we can choose for ourselves.
- A final question, if you have the time: do you see a risk that your book will be used as a weapon by interests which are ­ if you could say so ­ anti.. anti-nature? Anti-environment, sorry.
- Yeah, I mean, in the sense that there's naturally, whenever you point out something factual, it will also be used as a political argument by different groups for different interests. If any scientist makes a prediction that we will lose parts of the Amazon rainforest with the increasing global warming, then naturally Greenpeace will latch onto that and say, 'this means that we should phase out fossil fuels now!' I mean, this is the way politics works: you say something that's true, and then somebody else makes a value statement from that. And that's fine, you know ­ could you just hold on for a second?
- Sure.
[pause]
- Yeah, sorry.
- No problem. I'm basically done, unless you wanted on the elaborate on the last question. So
- but no, I mean, basically the idea here is to say, that I would not want to make an argument anti-nature or anything, politically, but I think that just because I don't like Bush, and just because of the fact that if I say something that's true it may be used by Bush for something else, doesn't mean that I should say, 'oh, then I won't say it', you know. Because then you go from being a scientist to being a politician. I mean, you should tell the truth, and then you should let democracy battle it out.
- Right, right, right. OK, that's all for me, thanks very much for your time, I appreciate it.
- Thanks. I would appreciate if you could just point out that there's been a lot of criticism of the book, and I try to reply, people can see... they can see a sample chapter of the book and the, some of the criticisms and my replies at my website, which is www.lomborg.org.