Media & news

This month I offer a different format. None of this article is my content or opinion. The article is entirely composed of quotes from President Biden; Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer; and Michael Shellenberger, a self-proclaimed environmental activist.

President Biden and Senate Majority Leader Schumer should be familiar to you. Michael Shellenberger has been a climate and environmental activist for more than 30 years.

At age 17, Shellenberger lived in Nicaragua to show solidarity with the Sandinista socialist revolution. He helped expose poor working conditions at Nike factories in Asia. He became an environmentalist at 16 when he held a fundraiser for the Rainforest Action Network. He saved the last unprotected ancient redwoods in California. He advocated for renewables and helped persuade the Obama Administration to invest $90 billion in renewables. He recently published his latest book, Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All.

The day after he was inaugurated, President Biden fulfilled his pre-election promise and recommitted the United States to the Paris Climate Agreement. In making the commitment, he said, “We’re in a crisis. Climate change is the number-one issue facing humanity. And, it is the number-one issue for me.”

In another interview, President Biden said, “Climate change is the existential threat to humanity. Unchecked, it is going to actually bake this planet. This is not hyperbole. It’s real. And we have a moral obligation.”

Senate Majority Leader Schumer told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, “It might be a good idea for President Biden to call a climate emergency. He can do many, many things under the emergency program – that he could do without legislation. Trump used this emergency power for a stupid wall, which wasn’t an emergency. But if there ever was an emergency, climate is one.”

Mr. Shellenberger provides different thoughts on climate change and environmentalism:

“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. Some people will imagine I am some right-wing anti-environmentalist. I’m not. I have been a climate activist for 20 years and an environmentalist for 30.

“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 a few facts few people know:

• Humans are not causing a “‘sixth mass extinction.’”
• Climate change is not making natural disasters worse
• Wildfires have declined 25% around the world since 2003
• The build-up of wood fuel and more houses near forests — not climate change — explain why there are more and more dangerous fires in Australia and California
• The amount of land we use to produce meat – humankind’s biggest use of land – has declined by an area nearly as large as Alaska
• The Netherlands have become rich, not poor, while adapting to life below sea level
• Carbon emissions are declining in most rich nations and have been declining in Britain, Germany, and France since the mid-1970’s
• Wood fuel is far worse for people and wildlife than fossil fuels
• Preventing future pandemics requires more, not less, “‘industrial’” agriculture

The above-listed facts come from the best available scientific studies, including those conducted by or accepted by the IPCC Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and other leading scientific bodies.

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 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.

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.

As a result of the climate change media barrage, 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.”

“… it is going to actually bake this planet.”

“But if there ever was an emergency, climate is one.”

“On behalf of environmentalists everywhere, I would like to formally apologize for the climate scare we created over the last 30 years.”

I hope you have a good month.