I heart the first amendment, and am glad even idiots get to speak their mind in this country. On the other hand, I’m also often surprised at the longevity of the careers of people who argue really strange, unprovable stuff in our capitalist society.
No I’m not talking about dubya, though he’s a good case in point. My latest ‘peeve: Bjorn Lomborg , author of Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming has been invited to chat with LA Weekly’s Judith Lewis on Mon, Sept. 24, 7 pm at the Mark Taper Auditorium in the LA Central Library.
Now this is a Danish dude who came under the scruitiny of the Danish Research Agency, a branch of which “concluded that Prof. Bjorn Lomborg, an author whose upbeat analysis of environmental trends has been embraced by conservatives, displayed ‘’scientific dishonesty'’ in his popular book, ‘’The Skeptical Environmentalist’,’ according to the New York Times. (via Grist)
Yes, the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty issued a 17-page report concluding that Bjorn’s book displayed ‘’systematic one-sidedness” — back in 2003. And yet, Bjorn’s career lives on!
The guy’s book really could use a reality check, as Grist’s 3-part debunking of Cool It points out, here, here, and here. I mean, the guy still thinks polar bears‘ll fare okay, despite the fact that even the Bush Administration’s USGS’s predicting doom and gloom for the cute animals.
If you go to the library event, read up via these links and ask some tough questions.
