Bjorn Lomborg calls himself "an old left-wing Greenpeace member" . He teaches statistics in the department of political science at the University of Aarhus, Denmark.

In 1997, an article about the late economist Julian Simon angered him. He claimed that the state of humanity and the natural environment were both improving. Specifically, Simon predicted:

"The material conditions of life will continue to get better for most people, in most countries, most of the time, indefinitely."

Lomborg "knew" this was wrong and directed his students to find data debunking Simon's outrageous claims. He expected an easy slam-dunk.

Using figures from the World Bank, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the International Panel on Climate Change and other respected sources, Lomborg and his students found, to their amazement, that the data generally supported Simon.

The result is a major book; The Skeptical Environmentalist just published by Cambridge University Press. It will be a benchmark in the environmental debate for Lomborg examines and then rejects the fundamental "litany" of environmental groups. In summary, he found that the data largely and overwhelmingly supports Simon.

Buttressed by more than 3,000 footnotes, Lomborg makes a strong case that contrary to the culturally sanctified and tribally reinforced claims of most environmental groups, energy and other natural resources have become more abundant; more food is being produced at lower prices, and fewer people are going hungry. Species extinction rates are not skyrocketing; and most forms of environmental pollution are decreasing, especially in the wealthy nations.

Most people find this quite startling. Since the first Earth day in 1970, we're constantly hectored that the Earth's resources are running out, that extinction rate is rising by huge amounts, and that two-thirds of the forest cover is gone. For example, in 1968, Paul Ehrlich's book, The Population Bomb, stated: "The battle to feed humanity is over. In the course of the 1970s the world will experience starvation of tragic proportions - hundreds of millions of people will starve to death."

Ehrlich missed the fact that resourceful people are the ultimate resource. People react to incentives of scarcity and adapt when confronting it. Further, as our world gets richer people become ever "greener". Ehrlich is a recognized expert on butterflies, but he lacks even the most elemental principles of economics, human ecology, or public entrepreneurship.

Here's a sketch of progress and its causes. In Roman times, life expectancy was under 30 years. Now life expectancy is around 40 years in poverty-ridden countries and around 83 years in wealthy countries. What can account for this change?

In westernized nations institutions have evolved to give people incentives to generate knowledge and value rather. Here plunder is peaceful and occurs mainly through democratic politics. Concurrently, economic integration enables communities to do what they do best, engage their comparative advantage.

Ehrlich, et. al., do not understand how people respond to shortages. Human brains are excellent substitutes for BTUs and boards from old growth trees. We don't need Green Platonic despots but rather institutions that foster constructive actions not dishonesty and plunder.

Global warming might cause immense damage in many areas of the world but it may benefit others. We will have considerable time to adjust. Unless drastic as a new ice age, climate change is of little direct importance to people in the developed world. Wealth provides great resiliency.

Aside from agriculture, there is no significant economic activity much affected by climate, certainly not by the relatively minor changes scientists anticipate during the next century. Most projected changes are far smaller than we find when traveling between Burlington, Vermont and Burlington, North Carolina

While the macro trends are strongly positive, I see many problems including invasive species, fisheries, and water management. These are primarily matters of ecological and economic aesthetics, not human survival.

Many species on the ecological edges of their range are put at risk by forces of modernity. This includes most of the world's large predators. Constrained by habitat conversion or poaching, they may perish. Examples include the snow leopard in Asia and grizzlies in Greater Yellowstone. Population dynamics place many species at risk for diseases could put them under the viability threshold.

To gain credibility, environmental leaders must make the transition lead by Lomborg. He has set a standard of intelligence and integrity meriting emulation. Doing so would lead Greens to cease doomsaying and focus on reforms aligning sound science with environmental policy. Their alternative is to be dismissed and disregarded.