Michael Shellenberger: Fighting the Good Fight

Photo by Emma Watson on Unsplash

Last night I came across some Tweets by Michael Shellenbergsr regarding some misinformation promulgated by the New York Times regarding redwoods in California being destroyed as a result of climate change. What Shellenberger stated was that Times and one of their writers didn't just exaggerate the truth but printed outright falsehoods.

Naturally this made me curious as to what had been said. Here's the misinformation from MS's Dec 11 Tweets: The New York Times is claiming in a long, front-page story today that recent fires killed "countless ancient redwoods" in California

The claim is false and should be immediately corrected

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The reason Shellenberger gets so incensed about these things is that later in his career as an environmentalist he kept running into young people who had no confidence about the future, who weren't even going to start families because the world was coming to an end due to climate change.

"As a lifelong environmental activist I am horrified that some young people say they may not have children because of climate change," he writes. "The truth is that *most* trends relating to climate change & the environment are headed in the right direction!" 

The title of his book is Apocalypse Never.  

The sad part is that if you do not agree that the world is at the edge of collapse, you are the problem. The story of Chicken Little ought to teach us that maybe the Chicken Littles of the world might have things mixed up and overblown.

According to Shellenberger: No scientist or journalist has presented evidence for a single ancient redwood tree killed by this summer's fires

So how do they get away with declaring it?

Shellenberger is all for protecting our world and human life. For some reason the fear narrative has gained more traction than the many positive stories. For example, how many times have you heard that we can't feed our massive global population. Someone two centuries ago wrote that two billion was earth's maximum capacity. In 1970 The Population Bomb was required reading in one of my classes. But according to the Apocalypse Never Slide Deck, we already produce enough food to feed 10 billion people.

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Another battle that Shellenberger has become involved in is the push for solar energy over nuclear energy. Once again, the narrative is "Nuclear = Bad, Sun and Wind = Good." But are the facts are seldom put on the table. The straight up full story never gets fairly discussed. Kids are taught in school to fear nuclear power and that carbon based fuels are bad. Sun power is pure.... But at what cost? Everything in life has trade offs. 

Here are recent Tweets from Shellenberger, who has much more to say on this issue.

Solar panels - create good jobs in China, not US - increased Calif. electric prices 7x more than rest of US - needs 300x land than nuclear - violates rights of indigenous - makes big $ for mega-banks

California saw its electricity rates rise 6x more than the rest of the U.S. between 2011 and 2019, due principally to the deployment of renewables and enabling equipment.

8:21 AM · Dec 3, 2020·Twitter for iPhone

Consider the largest new solar farm in the United States. It will create just six permanent jobs, each earning $43,000 per year. By contrast, an average two-reactor nuclear plant employs 1,200 people.

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You can follow Mike Shellenberger on Twitter @ShellenbergerMD 

Related Links

He Who Controls the Narrative Controls the People

Purchase Apocalypse Never on Amazon

Scary Thoughts: A Collision of Worldviews

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from promoting this book or any other books on this blog other than my own.