Controversial author of "Skeptical Environmentalist" resigns

COPENHAGEN (AFP) Jun 22, 2004
Bjoern Lomborg, the controversial author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist" who Time Magazine recently listed as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century, resigned as director of Denmark's Environmental Assessment Institute on Tuesday.

He said that he was doing so because he wanted to return to his job as an associate professor at the University of Aarhus, in central Denmark.

A former member of the environmental organization Greenpeace, the 39-year-old Lomborg caused controversy with his book published in English in 2001, in which he questioned environmentalist warnings of a pending environmental catastrophe.

Among other things he wrote that "air and water around us are becoming less and less polluted".

Praised by some for denouncing so-called alarmist prophecies, Lomborg has been chastised by others for justifying inaction on issues like deforestation and global warming, and for acting as a provocative "agent" of US President George W. Bush.

The Republicans in the United States meanwhile plan to use passages from his book during the ongoing presidential campaign to counter criticism by Democrats of the Bush administration's environmental record.

SPACE.WIRE