212 The Environmental Debate
Document 153: Bjorn Lomborg Questions the Prioritization of
Environmental Issues (2001)Bjorn Lomborg, an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Aarhus in
Denmark is an internationally respected opponent of the doomsday approach to environmental thinking. He
takes issue with environmental alarmists such as Lester Brown [see Document 126] and Julian Simon [see
Document 127], and he lauds developers and innovators such as Norman Borlaug [see Document 151], whose
work has improved the lives of millions of people.The State of the World... has been published
every year since 1984 by the Worldwatch Insti-
tute and its leader Lester Brown, and it has sold
more than a million copies. The series attempts
to identify the world’s most significant chal-
lenges professionally and veraciously. Unfortu-
nately,... it is frequently unable to live up to its
objectives. In many ways, though, The State of
the World is one of the best-researched and aca-
demically most ambitious environmental policy
publications, and therefore it is also an essential
participant in the discussion on the State of the
World.
On a higher level this book plays to our gen-
eral understanding of the environment: the Lit-
any of our ever deteriorating environment. This
is the view of the environment that is shaped by
the images and messages that confront us each
day on television, in the newspapers, in politi-
cal statements and in conversations at work and
at the kitchen table. This is why Time magazine
can start an article in 2000, stating as entirely
obvious how “everyone knows the planet is in
bad shape.”
Even children are told the Litany, here from
Oxford University Press’ Young Oxford Books:
“The balance of nature is delicate but essential
for life. Humans have upset that balance, strip-
ping the land of its green cover, choking the air,
and poisoning the seas.”
...
[Many of our deeply ingrained beliefs from
the Litany are not supported by the facts. Con-
ditions in the world are not getting worse and
worse.... [We have more leisure time, greater
security and fewer accidents, better education,
more amenities, higher incomes, fewer starving,
more food, and healthier and longer lives. There
is no ecological catastrophe looming around the
corner to punish us.
Consequently, we must stop giving our envi-
ronmental thinking a Doomsday perspective. It
is imperative for us to see the environment as an
important—but only one important—part of
the many challenges we must handle to create an
even better world and the most progress for the
rest of the century.
Prioritization is absolutely essential if we
are to achieve the best possible distribution of
resources in society. The environment must
participate in the social prioritization on equal
terms with all other areas. Environmental ini-
tiatives must present sound arguments and be
evaluated on the basis of their advantages and
disadvantages, in precisely the same way as pro-
posals to boost Medicaid, increase funding to
the arts or cut taxes.
However, this necessitates that the precau-
tionary principle be strictly circumscribed. This
principle has become enshrined in many differ-
ent international treaties, as in the 1992 Rio Dec-
laration [see Document 144], where it is pointed
out: “Where there are threats of serious or irre-
versible damage, lack of full scientific certainty
shall not be used as a reason for postponing
cost-effective measures to prevent environmental
degradation.”
In this formulation, the principle merely
informs us that since we can never prove any-
thing absolutely, scientific uncertainty ought not
to be used merely as a political strategy to avoid