Protagoras,

Sorry, I haven't kept a list of citations, but have certainly read books from both sides, though none recently (am still reading Lomborg).

As to your links, they contain more material than I have had time to examine over the weekend, but was interested in some of the critique on Lomborg's book and also on his criticism of "An Inconvenient Truth." The first link was extremely informative provided you take on board the bias (which I admit cuts both ways).

I was aware of some of the criticisms of Lomborg's books, but really what they amount to is "hey, some of his points aren't right." I haven't seen anything which shows he is broadly wrong in saying that many of the claims of the environmental movement are flawed or misleading. Referring to the material on the first link you provided - to a website by biologist Kåre Fog, and the references relied upon by both Lomborg and Fog, the FOA report on deforestation:

It is alleged Lomborg's position on deforestation (that there may be more forest than 50 years ago) is deliberately misleading in referring to older data, when more recent 'reliable' data now exists. However this criticism is flawed in two ways. This older data was itself relied upon by some environmentalists as the basis for their conclusions, and more fundamentally, the so called more recent 'reliable' data is no where near as reliable as contended. For example, the country by country data available led the FOA to conclude that forests are being lost at the net rate of 9.4 million hectares a year globally, but to put that in perspective, it estimates global forest cover at 3,869 million hectares as of the year 2000, so the actually estimated loss in percentage terms is estimated at 0.24% per year. Although that figure is moderately alarming, The problem with this data is, as the FOA report concedes:

"In many countries, primary information on forest area was not available or was not reliable. Other countries lacked a time series of forest area information. In these instances, FRA 2000 had to rely on secondary information and/or expert estimates. Table 1-1 summarizes the information availability for forest area. The world average reference year for source data is 1994, with considerably older dates in some developing countries. A high proportion of developing countries had to rely on expert opinion for the latest area estimates. Furthermore, fewer than half of all countries have time series information with high compatibility between the observations."

Overall, and despite the use of remote sensing surveys, at the conclusion of the FOA report it considered that the "precision was high, at ±3 percent "likely range" for forest area." It inevitably follows that an estimated change of .24% per year can not be considered remotely reliable in the face of a margin of error for forest size of +/- 3.0%. Even accepting this modest error rate as constant for earlier time periods (it would likely be much greater given the artificial inferences used to estimate the earlier time periods) an estimated rate of change of .24% is profoundly unreliable in the rate of such an error rate in the underlying gross forest estimates. It follows that according to the FOA's statistics, an increase, rather than a decrease in forest area is within the margins of error of the data set.

The above is just one example, but ultimately matters not whether Lomborg is entirely right, but that he demonstrates at least a significant level of exaggeration and deception being perpetrated by environmentalists which ought to be enough to make us pause and have a good long look at the claims for GW, its causes, and its consequences.

Also, I'd suggest you drop a bunch of your other links. The second link you posted in your reply was a rant by angry bloggers. None of which assists either your cause or civil debate.

Enough for now.. life beckons.

“Also, I'd suggest you drop a bunch of your other links. The second link you posted in your reply was a rant by angry bloggers. None of which assists either your cause or civil debate.”

Kalin1 – the article I provided for your perusal in my “second link” which had been re-published by the reputable Grist Magazine, was authored by Joseph Romm – author, physicist and climate expert and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

“A rant by angry bloggers?”

Your provision of manipulative disinformation does not assist either your cause or civil debate.

Protagoras: "...civil debate".

Finally, I have no option but to use that hackneyed hackronym: l.o.l.!

Good luck to you Kalin. I won't give you any advice on "civil debating" with Protag, as you clearly have your head in the right place, and can draw your own conclusions from her non-response. Just suggest that you consider the follow words in relation to that head and Protag: 'brick', 'a', 'your', 'banging', 'wall' and 'against'.

Spindoc

Personal commitments have intervened since my last comment and I see a lot of water has passed under the bridge, I will try and catch up.

I have to say this spindoc, it is patently clear that you (and people like mil-observer) still do not understand the scientific process. Yes, hypothesis testing, repeatability, etc is extremely important in the search for “truth”, however, it only takes one apple to upset the cart ... then it’s back to the drawing boards.

For example; Newtonian physics has served us well since, well ... Newton’s time. Even today we rely on his theories to launch satellites, fly planes and kill people. However, while Newton’s theories can very very probably explain motion and trajectories very very well in our day to day life, they fall apart (and are improbable) at extreme velocities and extreme gravitational fields. In other words, Newtonian physics is not conclusive, nor are they absolute – regardless of your human imagination.

Same thing with Einstein. It is very probable that his theories on relativity will serve us well, and to his chagrin, kill even more people. But know this, his popular equation E = mc^2 was only corroborated a couple of years ago ... 103 years after it was derived. Now we talk of worm holes, parallel universes and string theory. So, it may be (is possible) that even Einstein’s theories are not probable enough, not conclusive.

Same thing with the enhanced greenhouse effect. The theory has been around for over 100 years, the physics and chemistry of CO2 (and other GHG’s) is very well understood. The hypothesis has been tested time and time again, to such an extent that the rigour of the scientific process has resulted in the theory becoming very robust. However, again, it only takes one other apple to tip the cart. This has not been done. Yet.

As I said, I will change my mind about AGW when the observed (and measurable) fact of stratospheric cooling disappears.

Cont’d