The Sceptical Environmentalist Vanishes

The Guardian rewrites history


The Guardian reports (and good riddance too, it doesn't need to add) that Bjorn Lomborg, controversial author of The Skeptical Environmentalist and instigator of the Copenhagen Consensus project has resigned as director of the Danish Institute for Environmental Assessment to return to academia - the press release is online here. The Grauniad says: But he was found guilty last year of "scientific dishonesty" by a Danish panel which said his work was one-sided, selective and at variance with "good scientific practice".

One panel member said he had crossed the divide between controversial but competent science and "unrepentant incompetence".

After a year-long investigation, the panel said his book suffered from "such perversion of the scientific message in the form of systematically biased representation that the objective criteria for upholding scientific dishonesty have not been met".

With its usual brilliant attention to detail, the paper neglects to mention the subsequent reversal of that verdict to vindicate Lomborg. Well, accidents will happen!

"We distort, you decide!" seems to be the order of the day in Farringdon Road these days.

Link courtesy of the ever-excellent Mr. Scott Burgess, aspiring Guardian writer!