Michael Shellenberger
is the now infamous
author of the new book:
“Apocalypse Never:
Why Environmental
Alarmism Hurts Us All.”
Following are quotes
that I agree with,
from his recent
NY Post article.
My analysis follows
the quotes from:
"Climate-change hysteria
costs lives — but activists
want to keep panic alive"
By Michael Shellenberger
"I’m hardly a climate denier.
In fact, I have been a climate activist
for 20 years and an environmental
activist for more than 30."
I decided to speak out last year,
after it became clear to me
that alarmism was harming
mental health.
A major survey of 30,000 people
around the world found that
nearly half believed
climate change would
make humanity extinct.
Mental-health professionals
now routinely find themselves
addressing adolescent anxiety
over climate.
In January, pollsters found
that one in five UK children
reported having nightmares
about it.
And yet the IPCC doesn’t
predict billions or even millions
of deaths from climate change."
... "There has been a
92 percent decline
in the per-decade death
toll from natural disasters
since its peak in the 1920s."
... "So why do some alarmists
claim that climate change
is making disasters worse?
In part, it’s so they can use
the world’s most visual
and dramatic events,
from Hurricane Sandy
to California’s forest fires,
to make the issue
more salient with voters.
If it were acknowledged
that Hurricane Sandy’s
damage owed overwhelmingly
to New York failure to modernize
its flood-control systems
or that California’s forest fires
were due to the buildup
of wood fuel after decades
of fire suppression, alarmist
journalists, scientists and activists
would be deprived of the
visually powerful events
and “news hooks” they need
to scare people, raise money.
Climate alarmism isn’t
just about money.
It’s also about power."
... "In the end, climate alarmism
is powerful because it has
emerged as the alternative
religion for supposedly
secular people, providing
many of the same
psychological benefits
as traditional faith.
Climate alarmism
gives them a purpose:
to save the world
from climate change.
It offers them a story
that casts them as heroes.
And it provides a way
for them to find meaning
in their lives — while retaining
the illusion that they are people
of science and reason,
not superstition and fantasy."
... "The trouble with the
new environmental religion
is that it has become
increasingly destructive.
It leads its adherents
to demonize their opponents.
And it spreads anxiety
and depression without
meeting the deeper
spiritual needs.
Happily, real-world events,
starting with the coronavirus
pandemic, are undermining
the notion that climate change
is an “emergency” or “crisis.”
After all, it was a disease
that brought civilization
to a halt, not climate-fueled
natural disasters."
My comments on the article:
Michael Shellenberger
made a few good points,
which I had quoted above.
But he is still anti-science.
He ignores the fact that
our planet has had
hundreds of years
of intermittent warming,
and that none of that
warming was bad news !
He ignores the details
of the actual warming,
when near global
temperature coverage
began with satellites
in 1979:
Actual warming was
mainly in the northern half
of the Northern Hemisphere,
mainly in the six coldest
months of the year,
and mainly at night
= good news warming
( those details
are obscured
by use of a single
global average
temperature
compilation
-- a temperature
that no one
actually lives in ! )
He believes
IPCC predictions
of rapid warming,
even though
climate models
have grossly
over estimated
global warming
since the 1970s.
He believes future
warming MUST be a
problem, even though
past warming was
good news.
Michael Shellenberger
is being attacked by
fellow environmentalists
because he is no longer
'green' enough for them.
Shellenberger
is criticized here
for asserting
there is a
climate change
problem, that's
getting worse,
when there is
no climate change
problem at all !