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17174
From: Logan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare
URL: LINK LINK
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On behalf of environmentalists everywhere, I would like to formally apologize for the climate scare we created over the last 30 years. Climate change is happening. It’s just not the end of the world. It’s not even our most serious environmental problem. 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% around the world since 2003 The amount of land we use for meat — humankind’s biggest use of land — has declined by an area nearly as large as Alaska. The build-up of wood fuel and more houses near forests, not climate change, explain why there are more, and moredangerous, fires in Australia and California. Carbon emissions have been declining in rich nations for decades and peaked in Britain, Germany and France in the mid-seventies. Adapting to life below sea level made the Netherlands rich not poor. We produce 25% 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. Preventing future pandemics requires more not less “industrial” agriculture. I know that 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 (FAO), the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and other leading scientific bodies. Some people will, when they read this imagine that I’m some right-wing anti-environmentalist. I’m not. At 17, I lived in Nicaragua to show solidarity with the Sandinista socialist revolution. At 23 I raised money for Guatemalan women’s cooperatives. In my early 20s I lived in the semi-Amazon doing research with small farmers fighting land invasions. At 26 I helped expose poor conditions at Nike factories in Asia. I became an environmentalist at 16 when I threw a fundraiser for Rainforest Action Network. At 27 I helped save the last unprotected ancient redwoods in California. In my 30s I advocated renewables and successfully helped persuade the Obama administration to invest $90 billion into them. Over the last few years I helped save enough nuclear plants from being replaced by fossil fuels to prevent a sharp increase in emissions. Until last year, I mostly avoided speaking out against the climate scare. Partly that’s 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 mostly I was scared. I remained quiet about the climate disinformation campaign because I was afraid of losing friends and funding. The few times I summoned the courage to defend climate science from those who misrepresent it I suffered harsh consequences. And so I mostly stood by and did next to nothing as my fellow environmentalists terrified the public. I even stood by as people in the White House and many in the news media tried to destroy the reputation and career of an outstanding scientist, good man, and friend of mine, Roger Pielke, Jr., a lifelong progressive Democrat and environmentalist who testified in favor of carbon regulations. Why did they do that? Because his research proves natural disasters aren’t getting worse. But then, last year, things spiraled out of control. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said “The world is going to end in twelve years if we don’t address climate change.” Britain’s most high-profile environmental group claimed “Climate Change Kills Children.” The world’s most influential green journalist, Bill McKibben, called climate change the “greatest challenge humans have ever faced” and said it would “wipe out civilizations.” Mainstream journalists reported, repeatedly, that the Amazon was “the lungs of the world,” and that deforestation was like a nuclear bomb going off. As a result, half of the people surveyed around the world last year said they thought climate change would make humanity extinct. And in January, one out of five British children told pollsters they were having nightmares about climate change. Whether or not you have children you must see how wrong this is. I admit I may be sensitive because I have a teenage daughter. After we talked about the science she was reassured. But her friends are deeply misinformed and thus, understandably, frightened. I thus decided I had to speak out. I knew that writing a few articles wouldn’t be enough. I needed a book to properly lay out all of the evidence. 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. At 400 pages, with 100 of them endnotes, Apocalypse Never covers climate change, deforestation, plastic waste, species extinction, industrialization, meat, nuclear energy, and renewables. Some highlights from the book: Factories and modern farming are the keys to human liberation and environmental progress The most important thing for saving the environment is producing more food, particularly meat, on less land The most important thing for reducing air pollution and carbon emissions is moving from wood to coal to petroleum to natural gas to uranium 100% renewables would require increasing the land used for energy from today’s 0.5% to 50% We should want cities, farms, and power plants to have higher, not lower, power densities Vegetarianism reduces one’s emissions by less than 4% Greenpeace didn’t save the whales, switching from whale oil to petroleum and palm oil did “Free-range” beef would require 20 times more land and produce 300% more emissions Greenpeace dogmatism worsened forest fragmentation of the Amazon The colonialist approach to gorilla conservation in the Congo produced a backlash that may have resulted in the killing of 250 elephants Why were we all so misled? In the final three chapters of Apocalypse Never I expose the financial, political, and ideological motivations. Environmental groups have accepted hundreds of millions of dollars from fossil fuel interests. Groups motivated by anti-humanist beliefs forced the World Bank to stop trying to end poverty and instead make poverty “sustainable.” And status anxiety, depression, and hostility to modern civilization are behind much of the alarmism. Once you realize just how badly misinformed we have been, often by people with plainly unsavory or unhealthy motivations, it is hard not to feel duped. Will Apocalypse Never make any difference? There are certainly reasons to doubt it. The news media have been making apocalyptic pronouncements about climate change since the late 1980s, and do not seem disposed to stop. The ideology behind environmental alarmsim — Malthusianism — has been repeatedly debunked for 200 years and yet is more powerful than ever. But there are also reasons to believe that environmental alarmism will, if not come to an end, have diminishing cultural power. The coronavirus pandemic is an actual crisis that puts the climate “crisis” into perspective. Even if you think we have overreacted, Covid19 has killed nearly 500,000 people and shattered economies around the globe. Scientific institutions including WHO and IPCC have undermined their credibility through the repeated politicization of science. Their future existence and relevance depends on new leadership and serious reform. Facts still matter, and social media is allowing for a wider range of new and independent voices to out compete alarmist environmental journalists at legacy publications. Nations are reorienting toward the national interest and away from Malthusianism and neoliberalism, which is good for nuclear and bad for renewables. 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. And the invitations I received from IPCC and Congress late last year,after I published a series of criticisms of climate alarmism, are signs of a growing openness to new thinking about climate change and the environment. Another sign is the response to my book from climate scientists, conservationists, and environmental scholars. "Apocalypse Never is an extremely important book,” writes Richard Rhodes, the Pulitzer winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb. “This may be the most important book on the environment ever written,” says one of the fathers of modern climate science Tom Wigley. “We environmentalists condemn those with antithetical views of being ignorant of science and susceptible to confirmation bias,” wrote the former head of The Nature Conservancy, Steve McCormick. “But too often we are guilty of the same. Shellenberger offers ‘tough love:’ a challenge to entrenched orthodoxies and rigid, self-defeating mindsets. Apocalypse Never serves up occasionally stinging, but always wellcrafted, evidence-based points of view that will help develop the ‘mental muscle’ we need to envision and design not only a hopeful, but an attainable, future.” That is all I that I had hoped for in writing it. 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. Michael Shellenberger |
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17183
From: Akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: "Climate change is not making natural disasters worse" - FALSE
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and he's speaking on behalf of environmentalists everywhere? How many of them asked him to? RESEARCH ARTICLE Evidence for sharp increase in the economic damages of extreme natural disasters Significance Observations indicate that climate change has driven an increase in the intensity of natural disasters. This, in turn, may drive an increase in economic damages. Whether these trends are real is an open and highly policy-relevant question. Based on decades of data, we provide robust evidence of mounting economic impacts, mostly driven by changes in the right tail of the damage distribution—that is, by major disasters. This points to a growing need for climate risk management. Abstract Climate change has increased the frequency and intensity of natural disasters. Does this translate into increased economic damages? To date, empirical assessments of damage trends have been inconclusive. Our study demonstrates a temporal increase in extreme damages, after controlling for a number of factors. We analyze event-level data using quantile regressions to capture patterns in the damage distribution (not just its mean) and find strong evidence of progressive rightward skewing and tail-fattening over time. While the effect of time on averages is hard to detect, effects on extreme damages are large, statistically significant, and growing with increasing percentiles. Our results are consistent with an upwardly curved, convex damage function, which is commonly assumed in climate-economics models. They are also robust to different specifications of control variables and time range considered and indicate that the risk of extreme damages has increased more in temperate areas than in tropical ones. We use simulations to show that underreporting bias in the data does not weaken our inferences; in fact, it may make them overly conservative." More at link |
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17178
From: Eve, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare
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= Spirit of Abaddon composition Just giving ones who delight in destructive deeds of the Earth garden (which does not belong to us truly) something they want to hear that tickles their ears and supports their unrighteous causes of toxicity and promote further intoxication. People are perishing for lack of knowledge, the article demonstrates that. What does this person believe or say but something many want to believe and hear so they keep on doing the same rebellious works. Really it's at near collapse point and will happen suddenly no one will be expecting it like soon... most the inhabitants will be thinking it's anything else but their work of their hands that have brought it upon themselves...denial...prophetic. A spirit will be seeking to say oh it's not you and no you keep on doing destructive deeds. At this point and time there's no way to stop the beast or keep it running but run on it does to the bottomless pit. |
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17177
From: Akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare
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But he's in favor of poisoning the planet and its occupants, none the less. "I believe that eventually we will be 100% nuclear. It may not be for another two hundred years, but it's such a clearly superior energy technology, that's eventually what it will be."[57] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shellenberger |
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17182
From: JTRIV, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare
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Hi Akira, Shellenberger describes himself as a "eco- pragmatist" in that he feels it will take technology to reduce global emissions. We know emissions just aren't just going away. Emission keep increasing as more and more of the 7.5 billion on planet Earth move out of poverty. Providing clean energy is the only way CO2 emissions are going to stop and nuclear needs to be part of the mix. Solar and wind are growing, however in most states hydroelectric is still the dominant renewable energy source and those dams were constructed long before the whole climate change movement. If you have a better idea I'd be happy to hear it. I think Shellenberger's technology approach is interesting and really about the only viable solutio we've seen put out. Look at the past 25 years of climate conferences and agreements. The Paris Agreement just tried to have reductions in emissions by a few countries and if it had been followed 100% emissions would have still continued to increase. Cheers Jim |
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17184
From: Akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare
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Renewables, wind and solar. Horse and buggies are fine with me. Until someone comes up with a way to deal with the radioactive waste and avoid devastating the planet, I say we do what ever it takes. How many people throughout Europe got sick/died from eating radioactive produce from contaminated crops or were poisoned from radioactive rainwater & air contaminated by Chernobyl after radioactive plumes traveled around the planet? Do you think its worth it? I don't Dumping Contaminated Water from Fukushima Plant Into Ocean – the Lesser Evil? "In February this year, a number of media outlets reported that the Japanese authorities intended to drain more than one million tons of radioactive water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean. According to some experts, this method is the lesser evil because the ocean is able to dilute contaminated water, thus making it safe for people. Nevertheless, this proposal has already caused discontent, both in Japan and in its neighboring countries. The Japanese government has not yet officially announced this plan, but the intentions of the Shinzo Abe administration to follow through with this idea are becoming increasingly clear, especially considering the media campaign launched by the authorities in support of the proposal to release the contaminated Fukushima water into the ocean. Let us remind the reader that 9 years have passed since the accident at the Fukushima power plant, but three of its damaged reactors are far from being dismantled. TEPCO, the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, delivered an ultimatum to the Japanese government demanding that it resolve the problem with radioactive water immediately. Every day, cooling the molten reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant yields an additional 150 cubic meters of contaminated water containing tritium (a radioactive isotope of hydrogen) and other chemicals. The issue concerns the water originally used in the reactors’ cooling circuits during the disaster, and that used to cool the wrecked plant and the remaining fuel. A significant amount of water from underground sources flowing through the land towards the ocean is also being polluted. In total, TEPCO is currently storing 1.1 million cubic meters of radioactive water in one thousand special tanks on the territory of the nuclear power plant (NPP), but based on company’s estimates, it will run out of space for the contaminated water by the summer of 2022. TEPCO announced this in August 2019 and made a proposal to pump the contaminated water from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi NPP into the Pacific Ocean. The operator has so far failed to convince local fishermen and residents that draining water from the Fukushima plant into the ocean is the best solution. All other ways of resolving the problem, according to TEPCO management, are difficult. The Japanese government has also not responded as yet to TEPCO’s ultimatum, not only for political reasons, but also in view of the upcoming 2020 Olympic Games, which are scheduled to be held in Japan after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s assurances that the Japanese government had the situation under control after the Fukushima Daiichi accident. Stating that radioactive water would have to be dumped into the Pacific Ocean in the current climate would be an extremely unfortunate option today, as it would, at the very least, lead to a heated discussion about the health of athletes who will be arriving for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics. Surfers, for example, will compete for medals 250 kilometers south of Fukushima, at Tsurigasaki Beach on the Pacific Ocean. It is no secret that leakages of Fukushima water into the ocean earlier on have already resulted in serious environmental problems, i.e. deposits of Cesium-137 on sandy beaches at a considerable distance from the plant. They were brought there by the current. This was discovered in September 2017 (i.e. six and a half years after the nuclear accident), when researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (USA) studied soil samples from a vast area around the nuclear power plant. The only saving grace was the fact that the region in question was uninhabited and there was no risk of radiation exposure." |
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17185
From: JTRIV, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare
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Hi Akira, > Renewables, wind and solar. Horse and buggies are fine with me. Sure, but Shellenberger the eco-pragmatist knows that wind and solar just aren't enough and horse and buggy just isn't going to happen. Pragmatist - a person who is guided more by practical considerations than by ideals. What Shellenberger is saying is that current strategies don't get us to the finish line. Examine the graphic above. Wind makes up 22% of renewable energy and solar makes up 8% of the total 11% of the energy mix. So wind and solar make up just under 1/3 of renewable energy which is 11% of the US energy mix or about 3% of the total energy. Think of all the billions invested in wind and solar are they are just up to 3% of our energy mix. Hell biomass (burning wood and ethanol) makes up 44.5% of US renewable energy and that involves the burning of something and the associated CO2 emission. Nuclear energy produces 8% of the US total energy production and only 1 nuclear power plant has gone online in the past 20 years. Nuclear still makes provides 3 times the energy of wind and solar. Look at the total mix of energy. Petroleum 37% plus coal 13% plus natural gas 31% shows that 81% of our energy still comes from fossil fuels and all the emission that come from it. Personally I don't have a problem with nuclear energy. Sure plants built in the 1960s have experienced devastating issues, but there are better ways to operate nuclear power plants. But Shellenberger's point is that if we are really going to reduce global emissions the only practical way to do it is by producing clean energy and wind and solar just aren't going to produce a significant percentage of that energy... and the horse and buggy thing just isn't going to happen with 7.5 billion people on planet Earth. Cheers Jim |
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17186
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare
| we need to cut electricity use about 90%... |
17187
From: JTRIV, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare
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Hi ryan, And you are the opposite of an eco-pragmatist. You talk in silly terms of things that will never, ever happen. You like to talk in terms of blame.. yet new power plants are coming online all around the world so the FACT of the matter is electricity usage will continue to grow for years to come. Some of that growth will be from renewable sources however the majority will be from fossil fuels and global emissions continue to rise. Cheers Jim |
17188
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare
| it will happen...but it may take the death of 90% of the world population...people do not understand that electricity is a finite resource...and using it indiscriminately and frivolously like we do makes it so there is less for our human machine to utilize for personal evolution... |
17189
From: JTRIV, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare
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Hi ryan, But I think that is the point. While some lament the death of 90% of the human population others are saying 'can we do this with clean energy?' and coming up with ideas that might work. Shellenburger's point in Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All (2020) is about sleazeballs like Counterpunch and their over the top hype. So ryan, why don't you want us to succeed? Cheers Jim |
17190
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare
| more electricity is not succeeding imho...quite the opposite... |
17191
From: JTRIV, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare
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Hi rayn, But more electricity is going to happen, it is inevitable. So you can lament that the end is near or be for folks trying to figure out ways to make clean energy. Your choice. Cheers Jim |
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17192
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare
| nah, i'm just gonna die...and try to help as many people as possible wake up before i do...it's inevitable untiol a mass cme or some other solar event takes down the grid...then chaos will reign, because folks have forgotten how to exist without it... |
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17181
From: Eve, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare
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He's a zombie. |
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17175
From: Redhart, [DNS_Address]
Subject: wattsupwiththat: conspiracy/pseudoscience/Low fact rating
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CONSPIRACY-PSEUDOSCIENCE Sources in the Conspiracy-Pseudoscience category may publish unverifiable information that is not always supported by evidence. These sources may be untrustworthy for credible/verifiable information, therefore fact checking and further investigation is recommended on a per article basis when obtaining information from these sources. See all Conspiracy- Pseudoscience sources. Overall, we rate Watts Up with That a strong pseudoscience and conspiracy website based on the promotion of consistent human influenced climate denialism propaganda. Detailed Report Factual Reporting: LOW Country: USA World Press Freedom Rank: USA 48/180 History Watts Up With That? (or WUWT) is a blog promoting climate change denial that was created by Anthony Watts in 2006. The blog predominantly discusses climate issues with a focus on anthropogenic climate change, generally supporting beliefs that are in opposition to the scientific consensus on climate change. According to their about page “WattsUpWithThat.com is the world’s most viewed website on climate.” Anthony Watts states he was a “television meteorologist who spent 25 years on the air and who also operates a weather technology and content business, as well as continues daily forecasting on radio, just for fun. Read our profile on United States government and media. Funded by / Ownership The blog is owned by Anthony Watts and is funded through advertising and donations. The website does not disclose donors. Analysis / Bias In review, the sole purpose of the website is to debunk human influenced climate change. Climatologist Michael E. Mann has called WUWT the leading climate change denial blog. There are numerous articles written about WUWT and many failed fact checks that can be seen here through a factual search. Overall, we rate Watts Up with That a strong pseudoscience and conspiracy website based on the promotion of consistent human influenced climate denialism propaganda. (2/14/2017) Updated (D. Van Zandt 9/26/2019) Source: https://wattsupwiththat.com/ |
17180
From: Eve, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: wattsupwiththat: conspiracy/pseudoscience/Low fact rating
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An oxymoron name cause it ain't up, it's down...a blown out filament. |
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17176
From: JTRIV, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: still attacking sources and missing the point
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Hi Redhart, I see you are still attacking sources and missing the point. I'm not a fan of WUWT either, but in this case they were just the host of a PDF of an article from Forbes by Michael Shellenberger. In case you aren't familiar, from Wikipedia: "Michael Shellenberger (born 1971) is an American author, environmental policy writer, cofounder of Breakthrough Institute and founder of Environmental Progress. He was named a Time magazine Heroes of the Environment (2008),[2] winner of the 2008 Green Book Award,[3] co-editor of Love Your Monsters (2011) and co-author of Break Through (Houghton Mifflin 2007) and The Death of Environmentalism (2004).[4] He and his co-author Ted Nordhaus have been described as "ecological modernists"[5] and "eco-pragmatists."[6] In 2015, Shellenberger joined with 18 other self- described ecomodernists to coauthor An Ecomodernist Manifesto.[7] On November 30, 2017, he announced during a New York Times conference that he would run for Governor of California in 2018[8][9]. Shellenberger is the author of Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All (2020).[10]" The left probably doesn't like Shellenberger because he is an environmentalist that speaks out against alarmism, with his new book Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All but it has nothing to do with WUWT. This just hosted a PDF. Cheers Jim |
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17179
From: Eve, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: still attacking sources and missing the point
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