On behalf of environmentalists everywhere, I would like to formally apologize for the climate scare we created over the past 30 years. Climate change is happening. It's just not the end of the world. It's not even our most serious environmental problem.
Michael Shellenberger, Founder, Environmental Progress
I may seem like a strange person to be saying all of this. I have been a climate activist for 20 years and an environmentalist for 30.
But as an energy expert asked by Congress to provide objective expert testimony and invited by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to serve as expert reviewer of its next Assessment Report, I feel an obligation to apologize for how badly we environmentalists have misled the public.
Here are some facts few people know: Humans are not causing a "sixth mass extinction." The Amazon is not "the lungs of the world." Climate change is not making natural disasters worse. Fires have declined 25-percent around the world since 2003. The buildup of wood fuel and more houses near forests - not climate change - explain why there are more and more dangerous fires in Australia and California. Carbon emissions are declining in most rich nations. We produce 25-percent more food than we need, and food surpluses will continue to rise as the world gets hotter. Habitat loss and the direct killing of wild animals are bigger threats to species than climate change. Wood fuel is far worse for people and wildlife than fossil fuels. And finally, preventing future pandemics requires more, not less, "industrial" agriculture.
I know the above facts will sound like "climate denialism" to many people. But that just shows the power of "climate alarmism."
In reality, the above facts come from the best-available scientific studies, including those conducted by or accepted by the IPCC, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and other leading scientific bodies.
Until last year, I mostly avoided speaking out against the climate scare, partly because I was embarrassed. After all, I am as guilty of alarmism as any other environmentalist. For years, I referred to climate change as an "existential" threat to human civilization and called it a "crisis."
But then, last year, things spiraled out of control. Half of the people surveyed around the world in 2019 said they thought climate change would make humanity extinct. I thus decided I had to speak out. And so my formal apology for our fear-mongering comes in the form of my new book, "Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All."
It is based on two decades of research and three decades of environmental activism. "Apocalypse Never" covers climate change, deforestation, plastic waste, species extinction, industrialization, meat, nuclear energy and renewables.
Once you realize just how badly misinformed we have been, it is hard not to feel duped. The news media have been making apocalyptic pronouncements about climate change since the late 1980s and do not seem disposed to stop. But there are also reasons to believe environmental alarmism will - if not come to an end - have diminishing cultural power over time.
The coronavirus pandemic is an actual crisis that puts the climate "crisis" into perspective. Even if you think we have overreacted, COVID-19 has killed over 500,000 people and shattered economies around the globe.
Facts still matter, and social media is allowing for a wider range of new and independent voices to outcompete alarmist environmental journalists at legacy publications.
The evidence is overwhelming that our high-energy civilization is better for people and nature than the low-energy civilization that climate alarmists would return us to.
The testimonial invitations from IPCC and Congress are signs of a growing openness to new thinking about climate change and the environment.
If you've made it this far, I hope you'll agree that it's perhaps not as strange as it seems that a lifelong environmentalist, progressive and climate activist felt the need to speak out against the alarmism.
I further hope that you'll accept my apology.
For more information, email info@environmentalprogress.org.
