One of the main points of The Skeptical Environmentalist, written in 2001 as I recall, was that helping the poor is more important than working on the environment, and that these goals are somewhat mutually exclusive. Concern for the world's poor was one of his primary motivations for downplaying environmental problems. Unfortunately, this seems to have largely been missed among all the accusations of Lomborg being an oil industry shill and such, which may explain why Applebaum hadn't heard of it.

Amen to what you said. It seems like some people in the "green" movement would rather see a billion people starve than to feed them with the most efficient means possible -- if that means is "unsustainable." The rush to label people like Lomberg "deniers" (with all its implication that they are Holocaust deniers -- in other words "Nazis") means that voices are being stifled who might offer more cogent solutions to the world's problems.

Ummm, there may be some conflict between environmental protection and reducing poverty, but ultimately if you want things to go well for the world's poor you have to look out for the environment as well. Global warming hardly promises to be a boon for poor countries; neither does soil degradation.

You can mitigate world poverty without going over to an American-style mass-consumption culture. If we want all those billions of people to be lifted out of miserable poverty, the only practical way to do it will be with a low-consumption, sustainable way. There just aren't enough resources to do it otherwise. Providing an adequate diet, electricity, clean water, and low infant mortality does not necessarily mean everyone needs a car, a huge house with a golf-course lawn, or a home entertainment center in every kid's room.