title: Lessons learned from "the skeptical environmentalist": an environmental health perspective.
abstract: Few books about the environment have generated as much heated debate as Bjørn Lomborg's 'The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World', published by Cambridge University Press in 2001. A flavor of the controversy can be gleaned from a series of reviews and rebuttals published in 'Scientific American' (Rennie 2002). In general, most positive reviews appeared in the popular press (e.g., 'The Economist', 'Washington Post Book Review', 'The Wall Street Journal') and most negative reviews appeared in the scientific press (e.g., 'Science', 'Nature', 'Bioscience'). Although 'The Skeptical Environmentalist' (TSE) addresses a number of environmental health issues, voices from the environmental health community have not been prominent among the participants in this debate. Now that the dust from the initial stampede to praise and condemn the book has settled, we will explore lessons to be learned from TSE and the associated debate from an environmental health perspective.
authors.affiliation: Division of Environmental Health Sciences, University of California, 140 Warren Hall #7360, Berkeley, California 94720-7360, USA.
authors.forename: Agnes
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bodnar
authors.forename: Rosemary
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Castorina
authors.forename: Manish
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Desai
authors.forename: Paurene
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Duramad
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fischer
authors.forename: Neil
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Klepeis
authors.forename: Song
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Liang
authors.forename: Sumi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mehta
authors.forename: Kyra
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Naumoff
authors.forename: Elizabeth M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Noth
authors.forename: Morten
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schei
authors.forename: Linwei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.forename: Kathleen L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Vork
authors.forename: Kirk R
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Smith
mesh_terms: D004777:Environment; D004782:Environmental Health; D006291:Health Policy; D006801:Humans; D010380:Peer Review; D011639:Public Opinion; D011643:Publishing