Anti-green author dishonest, says scientific panel

Bjorn Lomborg - the director of Denmark's Environmental Assessment Institute and a leading would-be debunker of mainstream scientific opinion on issues like global warming and overuse of natural resources - has been found guilty by a Danish government committee of "scientific dishonesty".

Professor Lomborg, whose work has been championed in the international press, was subject to a year-long investigation by the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty.

The committee, made up of eminent scientists, concluded: "Based on customary scientific standards and in light of his systematic one-sidedness in the choice of data and line of argument, [he] has clearly acted at variance with good scientific practice."

On his book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, published in 2001, it said: "Subject to the proviso that the book is to be evaluated as science, there has been such perversion of the scientific message in the form of systematically biased representation that the objective criteria for upholding scientific dishonesty have been met."

Prof Lomborg's contrarian views made him a favourite of the rightwing establishment after the book's publication.

On its election in March last year, Denmark's rightwing government made him the director of its Environmental Assessment Institute. His critics hope he may now lose this job.

The committee was appointed to look at four complaints against the book. There was some argument about whether it could be regarded as science at all, and thus whether it fell within their remit.

The committee said the book concluded that life for humankind had never been better, pollution levels were falling, and there were enough resources for current levels of prosperity to continue. It also concluded that the "colossal sums it is planned to deploy on reducing global warming will be money ill-spent."

Extracts of the book were published in the Guardian and it was widely discussed in publications including the Economist and the New York Times.

It concludes: "This is the very message of the book: Children born today - in both the industrialised world and developing countries - will live longer and be healthier. They will get more food, a better education, a higher standard of living, more leisure time and far more possibilities - without the global environment being destroyed. And that is a beautiful world".

The committee sums up the complaints: "Lomborg is accused of fabricating data, selectively and surreptitiously discarding unwanted results, of the deliberately misleading use of statistical methods, consciously distorted interpretation of the conclusions, plagiarisation of others' results or publications, and deliberate misrepresentation of others' results."

It is not quite so harsh in its own conclusions, accusing Prof Lomborg of not comprehending the science rather than deliberately intending to mislead or being grossly negligent. Nevertheless, it found, he was guilty of scientific dishonesty.

Jeff Harvey, a former editor of the prestigious scientific journal Nature, was one of the complainants who took the case to the committee.

He said: "Lomborg has veered well across the line that divides controversial - if competent - science from unrepentant incompetence."

Yesterday Prof Lomborg said: "Naturally, I have been looking forward to being cleared of the charges of scientific dishonesty. My initial response when I read the conclusion of the DCSD was one of surprise and discomfort."

"The DCSD does not give a single example to demonstrate their claim of a biased choice of data and arguments," he said. "Consequently, I don't understand this ruling. It equals an accusation without defining the crime. I maintain that the complaints of the plaintiffs are unfounded."