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by Roger Pielke, Jr.
The Guardian
April 23, 2015
The anger surrounding the appointment of ‘Skeptical Environmentalist’ Bjørn Lomborg to a university post in Australia gives us a great opportunity to discuss academic intolerance
Alice Dreger’s new book, Galileo’s Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and the Search for Justice in Science, tells the stories of various academics whose work is perceived to be politically threatening to one group or another and then as a consequence experience vicious personal and professional attacks. In each of the cases, when Dreger explored the controversy, she found that the claims made to impeach the researchers – such as that their research was fabricated or that they had engaged in academic misconduct – did not stand up to scrutiny.
Instead, Dreger uncovered systematic campaigns to discredit individuals, and even attempts to end their careers. She explains the general dynamics employed by the self-appointed impeachers included: “blanketing the Web to make sure they set the terms of debate, reaching out to politically sympathetic reporters to get the story into the press, doling out fresh information and new characters at a steady pace to keep the story in the media.” For publicizing these cases, Dreger herself became the subject of such attacks.
Dreger’s book focuses on controversies related to sex. But if there is one issue that people seem to enjoy fighting over more than sex, it is the environment. Bjørn Lomborg is not a character in Dreger’s book, but he very well could be.
Several weeks ago the University of Western Australia announced that it had received a $4 million grant from Canberra to establish a Copenhagen Consensus Center on its campus with Lomborg at the helm. The “consensus center” describes itself as “a think tank that researches the smartest solutions for the world’s biggest problems by cost-benefit, advising policy-makers and philanthropists how to spend their money most effectively.” It was originally funded by the Danish government and more recently by private donations in Washington, DC. Lomborg’s use of economic cost-benefit analysis has long been the focus of intense criticism.
In Australia, the reaction to the UWA announcement was no less intense than a New South Wales bushfire. Christine Milne, Australian Greens leader and senator from Tasmania, tweeted: “Giving Bjorn Lomborg $4m from precious research budget is an insult to every climate scientist in Australia.” Tim Flannery, a scientist and former director of the Australian government’s Climate Commission, accused Lomborg and prime minister Tony Abbott’s government of an “ideological attempt at deceiving the Australian public.” Students at UWA joined in the outrage, demanding that the university immediately disassociate from Lomborg: “While Dr Lomborg doesn’t refute climate change itself, many students question why the Centre’s projects should be led by someone with a controversial track-record. Assessing how to achieve development goals is important, but why should Dr Lomborg be involved?” Read more …
