Background                                                                               

Kåre Fog, the host and author of this web site, has been a critic of Lomborg right from1998 when Lomborg first appeared in Danish media. Partially alone, and partially in cooperation with other experts, he has laboriously, year after year, worked his way through Lomborg´s texts, checking if the references do actually support his claims. Kåre Fog is a biologist with a basic overview over environmental issues, but has also checked scientific literature on all the other subjects treated by Lomborg. The work has been done in his spare time.

Presentation of Kåre Fog
Kåre Fog, born in 1949, graduated as a biologist from Copenhagen University in 1975. He obtained research scholarships to study humus formation (chemical and microbiological investigations of processes intermediate in humus formation). He obtained the Ph. D. degree in 1980 at Aarhus University. The chemical research continued at the Chemical Institute at the Royal Danish Veterinary and Agricultural University in Copenhagen until the mid 1980´es.

In his spare time, he organized and managed the "Atlas investigation of amphibians and reptiles", i.e. a mapping project covering the whole of Denmark. This investigation demonstrated disastrous declines for many amphibian species, and an acute need for rescuing actions had to be realized. Therefore, in the mid 1980´es, Kåre Fog changed to become professionally engaged in restoration of amphibian habitats and in artificial rearing to save the most acutely threatened populations. This work has continued, on a free lance basis, up to now.

In 1982, Kåre Fog wrote a Danish textbook on ecology which is still in use in various institutions of education. In 1997, he was the author of a book on the amphibians and reptiles of Scandinavia. In 2004, he has established his own publishing company. Danish readers may consult www.mysis.dk.

Kåre Fog´s involvement in the Lomborg case
In 1998, when Lomborg first appeared in the Danish media, it soon had to be realized that Lomborg´s errors could not be corrected by simple correspondence in the newspapers. Kåre Fog was one of the persons who took the initiative to form an organized opposition by producing a book that pointed out the flaws of Lomborg´s book. This was done under the auspices of the Danish Ecological Council. Kåre Fog became a member of the editorial board, and got contact to many other experts that had tried to oppose Lomborg.

When Lomborg published the English version of his book in 2001, the Ecological Council decided to make an English version of their counter-book (see link below). Kåre Fog had the job to revise several chapters on biological issues for the English version, and during this work, he realized that Lomborg had learned very little from the raised criticism, and that many of his statements were at variance with the facts that Lomborg knew. Thus, it became apparent that Lomborg´s text was deliberately misleading.

When Kåre Fog wrote about this in some newspapers, he was contacted by persons who urged him to lodge a complaint about Lomborg to the Danish committees on scientific dishonesty (DCSD). Such a complaint was lodged in February 2002, at the same time as Lomborg applied for the position as the director of the Danish institute of environmental assessment. Later, this complaint was supplemented by other complaints lodged by H. Stiesdal and M. Hertz in Denmark, and S. Pimm and J. Harvey from abroad.

When the decision of the DCSD was published in January 2003, it was not completely satisfactory to the complainers. The precise decoumentation of deliberately misleading texts had not been evaluated by the committees. The idea to establish a web site where Lomborg-errors can be gathered, arose in discussions with American Lomborg opponents in the spring of 2003, but it was not carried out at once. In view of the development that has taken place since then, and the need to document the errors, Kåre Fog decided to make such a web site on his own initiative. It was launched in January 2004, when it listed a little more than 100 flaws and errors in `The Skpetical Environmentalist´. Since then, after further scrutiny of the book, the list has grown to a total of more than 300 flaws and errors. When `Cool it!´ was published in 2007, Kåre Fog started to scrutinize this book also. Up to now, about 40 percent of that book has been checked, and nearly 200 flaws and errors have been listed.

Kåre Fog has also studied the outcome of Lomborg´s `Copenhagen Consensus´ conferences in 2004 and 2008, and has posted his criticism on this web site. The criticism goes into detail with Lomborg´s use of discount rates.

Although a biologist by education, Kåre Fog tries to cover all fields of study treated by Lomborg, including economics. The basis for this is reading scientific papers and books on relevent subjects, especially discounting.

Furhter reading

Further details about the complaints etc. are found in the document "The Lomborg story" at this web site.

The English version of the counter-book against Lomborg´s `The Skeptical Environmentalist´ is called "Sceptical Questions and Sustainable Answers". It may be downloaded here.