The Liberal Litany - true or false?

I just picked up an interesting read. Its called The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World and is written by a professor of statistics named Bjorn Lomberg. In his thesis, Lomberg argues that Americans (liberals in particular) have been indoctrinated with what he calls "The Litany." The Litany is a deep-rooted sense that the world is becoming worse off as the human population increases and technology booms. Parts of The Litany include conceptions such as the exhaustion of clean water and oil wells, the destruction of the rain forest and biodiversity and other chemical and hazardous waste related fears. Perhaps in a deeper sense, the Litany is the belief that humans are bad for the planet - that we are the miscreant child of "mother earth." Lomberg asks the very simple question - is this true, and where is the evidence that supports this belief? Lomberg began his inquiry as a Greenpeace-touting environmentalist (at least, that is how he characterizes himself) - but he ends up disproving many of the Litany's cherished beliefs. Here are several thought-provoking quotes from the book for you to think about.

"Despite our intuition that we naturally need to do something drastic about such a costly global warming, economic analyses clearly show that it will be far more expensive to cut CO2 emissions radically than to pay for the costs of adaptation to the increased temperatures."

Some things to think about here - First, he is right to begin an economic argument over mitigation and adaptation - these two sides of global warming policy have been ignored in the public media. However, there is no footnote telling me where these "economic analyses" are that "clearly show" his claim. As far as I can tell, few things are clear within the realm of climate change policy - as many decisions are based on models with large uncertainty.

"The important lesson of global warming is three-fold. First we have to realize what we are arguing about - do we want to handle global warming in the most efficient way or do we want to use global warming as a stepping stone to other political projects."

Something to think about.