www.elsevier.com/locate/marpolbul
Marine Pollution Bulletin 49 (2004) 668–669
Book review
The Skeptical Environmentalist, Lomborg, B. (2001).
Cambridge University Press. pp. xxiii + 515 (reprinted
2003)
The Skeptical Environmentalist: an alternative view
I recently read The skeptical environmentalist that, thedust jacket reveals, is lauded by some commentators as a
work which corrects extreme doomsday environmental
prophesies. The book comprises six parts dealing with
environmentalist�s litanies, human welfare, whether or
not human prosperity can continue, whether or not pol-
lution undercuts human prosperity, tomorrow�s prob-
lems and, finally, an analysis of ‘‘the real state of the
world’’. With 2930 notes it is an obviously well re-searched tome.
The author, B. Lomborg, is a statistician and his
views are backed up by much empirical evidence, mostly
from North America and Europe. But are they balanced
and are they globally applicable? Lomborg�s overall
conclusions are that the Earth and mankind are not in
such dire straits as some environmentalists would have
us believe and, in numerous ways, the human conditionhas improved for many, especially in the West, over re-
cent decades (but, because of AIDS, in Africa and Asia
too?). Overpopulation is not seen to be so great a prob-
lem as that of poverty which fosters the siring of too
many children who die too young creating tragically
high infant mortality rates, especially in third world
countries, and cycles upon cycles of despair. Similarly,
the impacts of human activities and developments uponbiodiversity are argued to be greatly exaggerated and
here Lombard has my support. Just where is the evi-
dence to support the contention first put forward by
N. Myers (1979) in his book The sinking ark that the
Earth is losing �40,000 species each year? Other envi-
ronmental luminaries such as P. Ehrlich (1981) thought
that a more likely figure was 250,000 and E.O. Wilson
(1992) argued that between 25,000 and 100,000 plantsand animals become extinct annually. Possibly more
realistically and certainly more comfortingly, a United
Nations report in 1995 put the total numbers of known
animal and plant extinctions over the last 400 years to be
500 and 650, respectively. . .all such guesstimates, how-
ever, have to be put in the context of the simple fact that
we actually have no idea of how many species are alive
doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2004.07.012
today (around 10 million?), nor of the numbers that
have existed, nor of the numbers of new ones (both fossil
and Recent) being described, or, come to that, being mu-tated (the SARS and influenza viruses for example), at
any one time. In 2003, a census of marine fishes came
up with a figure of 15,304 species plus about another
210,000 life forms in our global seas. A new fish is de-
scribed every 48 h and so are 170,000 additional plant
and animal species each year. And, the only marine ani-
mal that I am aware of being officially extinct is Steller�ssea cow which from being discovered in 1741 became ex-tinct by 1768 due to the over-enthusiasm of whalers.
Lomborg also argues that pollution problems and the
loss of resources are greatly exaggerated but it is here
that his and my views begin to diverge. For example,
the author argues that the world catch of fish is actually
rising (Fig. 57), as it is, but ignores the fact the catch per
capita has remained virtually constant for the last 40
years despite advances in aquaculture. Moreover, Lom-borg further ignores the fact that although total catch
may be increasing this is because there has been in recent
years (i), a dramatically increased fishing intensity, (ii),
new stocks of, mostly mesopelagic, fish have been tar-
geted and (iii), most damningly, there is a failure by
the author to even mention that fisheries scientists are
less concerned about total catch than they are with max-
imum sustainable yield and predictive models whichwhen applied to fisheries statistics, virtually worldwide,
demonstrate that bigger catches are associated with
greater percentages in them of smaller and yet smaller
individuals and thus that over-fishing is a reality. There
are many examples of this, especially from Asia, which
any marine scientist could have pointed Lomborg to.
The author also points out that in the European
Union and, especially, the UK and Denmark, bathingbeach water has improved considerably since the 1980s
and in fact this year, in June 2004, 98.4% of Britain�sbeaches (551 out of 560) were given a clean bill of health
and 122 UK resorts collected ‘‘Blue Flag’’ awards for
cleanliness, up from 105 in 2003. Highly commendable,
especially as I, as a small boy, remember a too graphic
image for this journal of my hometown�s beaches
onto which were directly discharged its sewage––un-treated. Notwithstanding, Lomborg�s examples of
improving coastal waters and rivers derive exclusively
from Europe and North America and therein resides a
Book review / Marine Pollution Bulletin 49 (2004) 668–669 669
second significant fallibility in his interpretation of the
state of the global environment. Asia is not factored into
it. Excluding tourist beaches in Asia where there is an
obvious vested interest in cleanliness, I could take Lom-
borg to beaches no sane person would step onto. Much
of the information about such gross contamination isdocumented in Marine Pollution Bulletin but in the bib-
liography to his book I could find only three references
to this journal and none of them pertained to Asia. So
much for statistical objectivity.
Similarly, Lomborg quotes the latest United States
State of the Coastal Environment report (1998) which
concludes that most pollution concentrations are
decreasing and not one is increasing. In contrast, theUnited Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Glo-
bal Environment Year Book for 2003 released at the
opening of the organization�s eighth ministerial summit
in March 2004, tallied 150 marine dead zones around
the world, double those identified in 1990, and some
with sea areas of 70,000 square kilometres. The cause
of such dead zones is an excess of nutrients in the form
of domestic and agricultural sewage, pesticides, fertiliz-ers and industrial runoffs. Their impacts are thought
to be double the threat to fisheries resources and it is
no coincidence that dead zones are now appearing in
the Baltic, Adriatic and Black Seas in Europe, but also
the East China and Yellow Seas in China and the Gulf
of Thailand in Asia. As a further example of such gross
marine pollution, some 22 billion tonnes of sewage, and
agricultural and industrial contaminants, is dischargedinto the Yangtze each year and in May 2004 this re-
sulted in the formation of a toxic red tide that covered
�20,000 square kilometres of the East China Sea. The
discrepancy between Lomborg�s statistical treatment of
North American and European data and his lack of a
broader view is particularly lamentable.
Lomborg concludes (p.352) that ‘‘children born to-
day––in both the industrialized world and developing
countries––will live longer and be healthier, they will get
more food, a higher standard of living, more leisure time
and far more possibilities––without the global environ-
ment being destroyed. And that is a beautiful world.’’ I
can identify somewhat with such sentiments, but is it
really true for many Asian, African and South American
countries? It also may not apply to the West in future.As I write this, for example, UK newspapers are full
of stories about care homes filled with rising numbers
of senile, long-lived people, the rising ranks of obese
children (and adults) and soaring cancer rates all of
which threaten to swamp Britain�s health care facilities
by 2050. I share Lomborg�s skepticism about overesti-
mated biodiversity losses. I find, however, that I cannot
agree with his observations, except in a few specificcases, such as Europe�s improving beaches, on the state
of the global marine environment. His view of a beauti-
ful world is singularly anthropomorphic, harking back
to the Judeo-Christian notion that all life exists to serve
us, and that view is not mine. Instead, I see images of
and stories about the marine environment today which
provide us with examples of human excesses at their
very worst, large deficiencies in management, grossexamples of pollution, resource overexploitation, virtu-
ally no compassion, rather, deeply entrenched cruelty
towards our companion sea species, and a continuing
history of decline. Notwithstanding, I do recommend
that marine scientists, everywhere, should read The
skeptical environmentalist because it does contribute sig-
nificantly to the debate surrounding many contempo-
rary marine environmental issues, albeit with a healthydose of skepticism of their own.
Brian Morton
Department of Aquatic Life Sciences
The Western Australian Museum
Francis Street
Perth, Western Australia
Australia
E-mail address: [email protected]