We are not running out of energy, there is more and more food per head, fewer and fewer people are starving and acid rain does not kill forests. Everything is fine, or so Bjørn Lomborg, author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist," would like us to think. But Princeton University ecology and evolutionary biology professor Simon Levin disagrees.
Lomborg challenges the common belief that the environment's condition is progressively getting worse. He wrote that environmental exaggeration has serious consequences. It makes us scared, and it makes us more likely to spend our resources and attention solving phantom problems, he said.
Levin and other researchers presented a contrary notion in an article published in the magazine Science (August 29, 2003). The article was co-written with professor of ecology and evolutionary biology Stephen Pacala, E. Bulte of the Tilburg department of economics in the Netherlands and J. List, an economics professor at the University of Maryland.
"We were concerned because Lomborg published a book saying that most environmental alarms over the past decades are not justified and that too much attention has been drawn to situations that are not nearly as bad as they have been described. Our goal was to discredit this publication and address the issues he raised," Levin said.
"Caution can be costly, but indifference to serious risk can be disastrous," he said.
Conservative publications such as the Wall Street Journal and the Economist, have embraced Lomborg's findings. "We need to provide a balanced and fair scientific analysis," he said.
Lomborg's book states that environmental scientists supply too many exaggerated or false warnings. They pose questions such as asking if the sensitivity of our environmental alarm is set too high.
"Socially we need to ask if we are to err on the side of doing nothing because it is economically taxing, but we are therefore chancing facing real devastation," Levin said.
These are arduous tasks to address, seeing that the human psyche needs to be considered.
"We need to look at the way we operate in the face of a risk. And, as everyone knows, all people react differently," Levin said.
Then there is the question of which issues merit "emergency" warnings. "Should we be responding only to those catastrophes that do happen?" he asked. "Let's look at global warming. When we know for sure what the effects are, it will be too late. So we must respond to it now."
Many of these premature alarms will turn out not to coincide with real life disasters, he said, but nevertheless people need to understand that it is ok to raise the alarm.
"If there is a chance of catastrophe — such as the population growth scare a few decades ago — and you raise an alarm, people are likely to change their behavior," Levin explained. This change of behavior causes the catastrophe to be avoided, but then some will call it a false alarm because it never happened.
Additionally, if the catastrophe occurs, early preparation may moderate its effects.
Levin and his colleagues used a cost-benefit analysis to determine the productivity of early warnings. "Right now, looking at the cost benefit calculations, we are on the positive side. That is to say that the money we have put into prevention has been less than the money we would have lost in the face of catastrophe," Levin explained.
The number of alarms being sounded is too conservative, not too liberal.
"It seems the cost of environmental damage is less than the cost of preventing it. Then again, these numbers are hard to really form: It's hard to put a cost on human life," he said pointing out that the matter was more a political issue than anything else.
"This is not like econ. 101. Marginal cost does not equal marginal benefits. It's complicated. We need to find the right point between cost and benefits," he said.
Levin stressed that people need to understand the foundation of an argument before accepting it.
"When reading Lomborg's book, many people go straight from the title to the conclusion. And they know they like the conclusion." The idea that there will be plenty of food, sky and water for future generations, or the idea that you can drive your SUV guilt-free, is exactly what people want to hear.
"They [readers] don't know who the author is. But he wrote a scientific book, and they take his words as fact. In reality he is a statistician." A statistician, who according to a BBC News Online article in 2001, "does a mean job in analyzing other people's statistics and then producing completely different answers."
"We needed to provide a sober treatment of the issues. We needed to address the importance of alarms. We did not take the book apart on a scientific ground. We didn't take the examples one by one. We just provided a fair presentation of the importance in raising alarms," Levin said.
The publication of Lomborg's book has been the source of much controversy, catalyzing the publication of over 400 related articles. But is it all words, or are things being done?
"These topics, I'm sure, are being addressed at the federal and state levels," Levin said. "However, it's not enough. There are so many different ways to look at the same issues. We can't only rely on the government. We need many different outlets."
Levin expressed his frustration with the lack of continuity in environmental policy.
"The problem with the federal government is that they are a temporary position in office for four or fewer years. Many people who are making decisions won't even be around in 50 years. These people are not big picture thinkers," he said.
Not only did Levin express a need for "big picture thinkers" but also for more collaboration between industry, academia and environmental groups.
It is not a problem that can be solved by economists or engineers or ecologists alone, he said.
Princeton has an interest in the future, but, said Levin, needs more. "It is important to develop longer life institutions, combining science, environment and industry in order to develop win-win approaches," he said.
"We [here at Princeton] are working to integrate science with policy, and I think that you will see more and more movements in the future," Levin said.
Although Levin said he sees no major global movements in environmental preservation, he has not given up hope.
"It won't stop me from trying. We have no choice but to be optimistic," he said.
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