The Skeptical Environmentalist

The Skeptical Environmentalist is thick, detailed, and uncompromising. It takes off its gloves and dives into the numbers behid the environmental issues, following them to their sources.

And what it finds isn't pretty. Too many times, the author says, spectacular--but wrong--headlines arise from misinterpreted or misapplied data.

The first section of the book looks at the perception that the world is getting worse. Lomborg calls this The Litany, and he says that, in many cases, it is simply not true. The following sections look at human welfare, human prosperity, pollution, and the problems of the future, before ending with a wrap-up of "the real state of the world".

The book is the seed for many great debates. It is heavily referenced: over 2900 endnotes and a huge bibliography provide many paths for further exploration. It is a reminder that our preconceptions and assumptions must be discarded if they do not match reality. To not do so is to make bad decisions... and when we're guiding out lives, the lives of our families, or the lives of our nations and civilisation, bad decisions can only lead to disaster.