On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare
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On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare
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Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare
#2Climate alarm-ism has honestly set back the whole movement in my opinion. For decades, we've only been 10 years away from extinction and it gave conservatives all the ammo needed to write climate change off as fake. Heck, even The Simpsons mocked this:
Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare
#3Who exactly is Michael Shellenberger and what is his game? It's pretty clear that he is not a trained scientist or a journalist. What qualifies him to speak for those of us who are concerned about climate change and issue an apology on our behalf? Seems rather grandiose to me. I'm thinking pundit with political ambitions.
Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare
#4Is there even a shred of credible evidence for any of the following:
> 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 more dangerous, fires in Australia and California
> Carbon emissions are declining in most rich nations and have been declining in Britain, Germany, and France since the mid-1970s
> Netherlands became rich not poor while adapting to life below sea level
> 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
Beyond the literal truth or falsity of the claims, how do they fit together into an argument that shows climate change is not an existential threat to human civilization? Last I checked, there was broad scientific consensus that climate change was real, caused (or, at least exacerbated) by humans, and would have massive impacts on human civilization. And then there's this person coming along and saying "Nahhh, none of this is a problem."
Who should I believe?
Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare
#5Is there even a shred of credible evidence for any of the following: > 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…
FTA:
"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."
I would like to see those studies as well; wish the claims were better sourced.
Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare
#6It always seemed to me like the greatest hedge we could have is having human colonies on other planets. Because global disasters of so many kinds could sum up to extinction. While I realize that could be many decades away, it does seem like prioritizing it would make it happen much faster.
> The most important thing for reducing air pollution and carbon emissions is moving from wood to coal to petroleum to natural gas to uranium
This seems to match my intuition.
> Greenpeace didn’t save the whales, switching from whale oil to petroleum and palm oil did
What was the motivation for that switch? Petroleum/palm oil was cheaper?
> 100% renewables would require increasing the land used for energy from today’s 0.5% to 50%
That seems astonishing, not just that it would require so much but that our current use is already so much area.
Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare
#7This is a really misleading piece, by the way. This person has been speaking against environmentalism for over a decade now; he literally wrote a book about it sixteen years ago that attracted an amount of controversy. He doesn't deserve to speak for environmentalists; his actions for the past decade are pro-capital, any pro-environment effect was secondary. He's an economist, not an environmentalist, and he's trying to sell you a book, not fix anything.
Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare
#8Climate alarm-ism has honestly set back the whole movement in my opinion. For decades, we've only been 10 years away from extinction and it gave conservatives all the ammo needed to write climate change off as fake. Heck, even The Simpsons mocked this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epKaBv6ALcI
Except that’s entirely the denialist straw man. It’s not we’re going to face a cosmic ray style annihilation in 10 years, but rather that we’re cavalierly approaching tipping points that will likely have repercussions for 10,000 years.
Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare
#9#1) it's good to see alternative viewpoints on global warming, Michael is excellent for sharpening yourself on it
#2) reading michael is an exercise in the limits of the slippery slope: he will show the Amazon isn't the "lungs of the earth", in that he will show why eliminating it doesn't mean we'll run out of oxygen, but he won't show that it is meaningless
#3) after swimming around his arguments for a few months, your focus may (or may not!) turn to "well, even if we can say each part is overwrought, the whole effect and trend line is a major problem - swallowing a 5 degree celsius increase in temperature is, rather intuitively, a problem, particularly when we still have the _3rd_ derivative increasing"
Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare
#10I’d like to think it is true. But who do I ask? Who do I believe? Combatant environmentalists who look at vegetarians with hate? Climate change deniers? Institutions who have vested interests? Scientists with conflicting views?
We’re so deep into a world where “truth” is merely an instrument of debate, bent and shaped into whatever point is trying to make, that I don’t know where to start...