Many friends and family disagree with this article. Others strongly agree with it. Michael Shellenberger is an outstanding student, analyst, and speaker / author of key topics about humanity, government, energy, and the environment. He deserves praise for all of his work and for his honesty in changing positions as he learns more.
Calvin Beisner analyses the position of Catholic Bishops to urge decarbonization of the world (stop using fossil fuels), and do it quickly.
Joel Kotkin, contributing editor for City Journal. Described by the New York Times as “America’s uber-geographer,” Joel Kotkin is an internationally-recognized authority on global, economic, political and social trends. He authored The Human City: Urbanism for the Rest of Us. The Left’s fixation on climate change is cloaked in scientism, deploying computer models to create the illusion of certainty. Ever more convinced of their role as planetary saviors, radical greens are increasingly intolerant of dissent or any questioning of their policy agenda. They embrace a sort of “soft Stalinism,” driven by a determination to remake society, whether people want it or not.
Climate cultists reckon the wholesale environmental destruction wreaked by the wind and solar industries is all for the good of planet. It’s an argument that holds all the logic of amputating an entire leg to prevent a septic toe from doing any further damage, when a dose of penicillin would do the trick. .. .. “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.” The infamous Vietnam era quotation may or may not have been uttered by an anonymous US Army major. It may have been misquoted, revised, apocryphal or invented. But it quickly morphed into an anti-war mantra that reflected the frustrations many felt.
Paul Driessen, Senior Policy Analyst, Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow: It’s amazing how we are bombarded by accusations that our technologies and living standards offend basic principles of fair trade, human rights, sustainable development and social justice. Except, it seems, when the technologies are electric vehicles, wind turbines, solar cells, cell phones and other gadgets so beloved by progressives and environmentalists.... Where are the demands for justice, the student protests, sit-ins and boycotts against Nokia, Apple, Vestas and Tesla? Why are Fair Trade and Living Wage activists not speaking out on behalf of rare earth workers in Baotou, Inner Mongolia – or parents and children mining cobalt and lithium under even more horrendous conditions in Congo?
James E. Smith, Michelle Jamshidi, West Virginia University, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering: Currently we spend our time on symptoms such as our shrinking abundance, real or perceived social inequities, minor environmental impacts, what others may or may not be doing, and our lack of personal prosperity. What we need are more entrepreneurs and innovators. They are the ones determined to break the cycle and truly find the answers to society’s problems.
Mark Landsbaum, writer for the Cornwall Alliance: We’re told global warming gives us only 5, 10, 12 more years (depending on the doomsayer) before the planet is irretrievably doomed. “Therefore, act now!” alarmists demand. Of course, they’ve been saying the same thing for 10, 20, 25 years. It’s become impossible to spoof these people…
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s socialist Green Deal is so laughably ridiculous. advancing the idea that every building in the nation must be retrofitted to meet entirely arbitrary standards to protect against the entirely un-dangerous, pretend threat of global warming would have been a non-starter, even among the looniest of the loony left. Too say nothing of abolishing all airline flights, getting rid of cows that fart and eliminating every vehicle with internal combustion engines in 10 years, as AOC proposes.
Global warming alarmists demand everyone must pay up, sacrifice and comply because the alleged threat is worldwide. That’s another part of the scam’s beauty. No one can escape footing the bill – unless granted specific wavers from those who run the system, the regulatory masters, who nearly put the coal industry out of business under the last global warming-inclined presidential administration. As in the Soviet Union, it’s always the insiders’ cronies who are exempted from compliance.
Michael Shellenberger, Founder - President of Environmental Progress: If solar and wind farms are needed to protect the natural environment, why do they so often destroy it?
Jon Boone, environmentalist, naturalist, bird and nature artist, wind energy expert: There is little that is cognitively more dissonant than supporting the concept of minimizing the human footprint on the earth while cheer leading for the rude intrusiveness of physically massive/energy feckless wind projects. The slap and tickle of wind propaganda flatters the gullible, exploits the well intentioned, and nurtures the craven. It is made possible because there’s no penalty for lying in the energy marketplace. "Greenpeace and others protesting CO2 and global warming, based on a mere BELIEF, like any other religion, is as laughable (if it weren't for their willful and unlawful disruption of honest TAX-PAYING citizens' lives) as demanding the government 'do something' about the length of daylight, or the force of gravity, or the composition of Jupiter.
Bruno Comby, President of Environmentalists for Nuclear: Michael Shellenberger, Founder - President of Environmental Progress ran in the primary election for governor of California in June, 2018. This letter praises him for his high principles and goals for a better world.
John Shanahan, civil engineer. Reflections on the importance of getting out in nature. Think of the fossil fuels that are needed to travel to these places, to build the airplanes, boats and vehicles, to manufacture the high tech equipment and clothing. Extreme environmentalists claim they need to save the world from catastrophic, out of control, global warming by insisting that everyone stop using fossil fuels. Don't go to the mountains. What kind of a world will it be with only energy from windmills and solar panels manufactured by the energy from other windmills, etc. And lastly, the materials for the windmills would have to be mined by energy from windmills or use wooden windmills. Other extreme environmentalists claim that the whole world can go nuclear in 50 to 100 years. Would you bet you life savings on that? The world desperately needs good government and sound energy planning with fossil fuels and nuclear.
Richard McDonald, is a retired research physicist from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Sustainable access to food, water, and energy is critical to the survival of the 7+ billion persons on Earth, and efficient utilization of present resources and technologies is key to achieving this goal. Symbiotic efficiencies can be had by combining energy generation with other processes to recover heat normally wasted in energy generation.
Peyton Williams is a chemistry/pre-med major in college with top ranking in a class of 4,507 students in Sophomore year. In the summer between high school and college, he studied a book about the most advanced nuclear reactor in the United States and wrote a report, "Reactors of the Future: The Integral Fast Reactor." This technology was stopped in the United States and France for the time being, by anti-nuclear advocates and two U.S. Presidents who bend to their will. Russia is going full speed ahead with fast neutron reactors. See Peyton Williams' report on both websites: go-nuclear.org and efn-usa.org. The world needs excellent students like him in all endeavors.
Bill McKibben, founder of the grassroots climate campaign - website 350.org: Titled “The Sky’s the Limit,” a report by the London-based think tank Carbon Tracker Initiative begins by declaring that “solar and wind potential is far higher than that of fossil fuels and can meet global energy demand many times over.” Scientists have long noted that the sun directs more energy to the Earth in an hour than humans use in a year. But, until very recently, it was too expensive to capture that power. That’s what has shifted. On the actual Earth, circa 2021, the report reads, “with current technology and in a subset of available locations we can capture at least 6,700 PWh p.a. [petawatt-hours per year] from solar and wind, which is more than 100 times global energy demand.”
This idea, while numerically accurate, ignores the facts that solar (and wind) energy have the least energy density by far and are not always available and are not steady. All basic essentials for a successful modern world with respect for the environment and wildlife habitat.
Sierra Club: Wind energy is the fastest-growing source of power in the world. Who has heard something similar about investing in a fast growing stock that for one reason or other, disappears slowly or rapidly from a public listing? Did the world abandon sailing ships and wind mills? Why would the world turn to wind turbines for generating electricity that has to have steady, tightly controlled service 24/7? For other opinions see articles by John Droz and Jon Boone on this website.
Benjamin Zycher, economics and public policy scholar at American Enterprise Institute: The Green New Deal (GND) is a set of policy proposals, some more concrete than others, with the central advertised goal of ameliorating a purported climate crisis by implementing policies that would reduce US greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to zero, or to “net zero,” by 2050. The expansion of employment under the GND—in particular the expansion of “green” employment—will prove illusory. The resource “sustainability” rationale for the GND is fundamentally incorrect analytically.
Time Magazine was enthrawled with Adolf Hitler in the 30’s, and endorses similar results from Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) divesting objectives.
As Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) divesting in fossil fuels progresses, by many of the masters of the financial universe, the short memories of petrochemicals’ golden goose contributions to societies are leading the world to an era of Extreme Shortages Guaranteed (ESG) like we had in the decarbonized world in the 1800’s!
Katherine Birdsong, college senior majoring in biology, advisor for education of students and young families on website: allaboutenergy.net: This is a story of her interest in nuclear energy as a high school and college student. It tells about the challenges she faced with teachers who didn't share her interests. This problem is pervasive in education today. Be politically correct. Agree with the majority no matter what. Is this the path to keeping America leading the world? She has learned a lot and will be better prepared to lead in whatever her chosen career.
Bret Kugelmass, Managing Director of Energy Impact Center with main goal to stop use of fossil fuels and reverse man-made global warming. John Shanahan, Editor of All About Energy website: Bret Kugelmass -When I first launched the Energy Impact Center two years ago all I knew was that I wanted to dedicate my life to tackling climate change. John Shanahan - Has worked in energy, environmental cleanup and public education about energy and related by-products since 1970. His goals are to work for a better world with plentiful energy. He does not see the need to force everyone to stop using fossil fuels. He thinks that attempts to reverse climate change are unnecessary and would be futile.