Lomborg, Bjørn

Bjørn Lomborg, (born Jan. 6, 1965, Copenhagen, Den.), Danish political scientist and statistician who gained world renown in the early 21st century for his critique of mainstream theories of ecological crisis and later advocated efforts to combat climate change.

Lomborg was the first member of his immediate family to receive a university education. He earned a Ph.D. in political science in 1994 from the University of Copenhagen. After receiving his degree he joined the political science faculty of the University of Århus.

Lomborg, then a committed member of the international environmental organization Greenpeace, read a 1997 magazine interview with Julian Simon, an economist known for his acerbic criticisms of environmentalism. Although Lomborg and his students sought to demolish Simon’s analysis, they ultimately agreed with it. Lomborg then embarked on an assessment of the proposition that the world is heading for ecological catastrophe. In Verdens sande tilstand (1998; The Skeptical Environmentalist), he maintained that, although the world faces many environmental problems, their severity is often exaggerated, and the proposed remedies are frequently inappropriate and costly. He suggested that the money might be better invested in alleviating poverty in the developing world. As societies became more prosperous, he argued, they would be able to afford the technologies that would lead to environmental improvement.

The best-selling English translation of Verdens sande tilstand, published in 2001, received an extremely negative review in the scientific journal Nature and was severely criticized in a 2002 feature article in Scientific American. Lomborg was allowed a small amount of space in a subsequent issue that year to rebut the criticisms; his full rebuttal appeared only on his personal Web site. The book was subsequently referred to the Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty, which ruled that The Skeptical Environmentalist was “clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice.” In 2003 a Netherlands-based academic institution, Heidelberg Appeal Netherlands, reviewed the judgment and found that only 2 of 27 accusations against Lomborg might be justified. Meanwhile, Lomborg had lodged a formal complaint against the Danish Committee, and the Danish government overturned the committee’s ruling later that year.

Lomborg served as director of Denmark’s Environmental Assessment Institute, which sought to obtain the greatest benefit for monies spent on environmental measures, from 2002 until 2004. In 2002 he also cofounded the Copenhagen Consensus, a think tank that promoted the use of welfare economics to evaluate economic and social policies.

In 2007 Lomborg authored Køl af: og skrøner om den globale opvarmning (Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming) and edited Solutions for the World’s Biggest Problems. In 2010 he reversed his stance on climate change, declaring it a major problem and advocating that the world’s governments devote $100 billion annually toward such measures as emissions reduction and environmental engineering.