An
important new book by Michael Shellenberger, Apocalypse
Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All, attempts
to counter the common belief that climate change poses an
imminent and existential threat to humanity and the planet.
At 285 pages, this is a relatively short and very readable
book, but it covers a lot of ground. And with an additional
125 pages containing over 1,000 footnotes, Shellenberger’s
arguments are well documented.
The
book should be required reading for politicians. It should
also be required reading for Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Twitter’s
Jack Dorsey, and the handful of other online communications
titans who exercise almost total control over what facts and
opinions make their way into public discourse. This book also
belongs in the hands of climate activist journalists, for
whom a 16-year-old truant is an oracle with unassailable credibility,
while contrarian scientists and economists are only targets
for smear campaigns.
Needless
to say, Shellenberger’s book has attracted furious rebuttals—this
one in the Yale Climate Review is typical—but
it is unlikely many of these critics read the book all the
way through or approached it with an open mind. One of Shellenberger’s
primary points is that while climate change is occurring,
it is not the biggest global environmental threat and that
policies to “fight climate change” are causing
some of the most harm to the environment. So-called “renewable
energy” is a prime example of this.
RENEWABLE
ENERGY RENEWS THE POWER OF SPECIAL INTERESTS
To
debunk the supposed environmental benefits of renewable energy,
Shellenberger makes frequent reference to the concept of power
density. In this analysis, nuclear energy comes out on top,
generating the most power while consuming the least amount
of space. Power density takes into account the footprint of
the generating plant, as well as the area required for extraction
of construction material and fuel, the distribution grid,
and the subsequent waste storage. Following nuclear is hydroelectricity,
then fossil fuels. Renewable energy sources bring up the distant
rear. In order, they are solar, wind, and biofuel/biomass.
The
extreme amount of land consumed by renewables is only part
of the problem. Because renewables supply intermittent power,
backup has to be provided either in the form of grid-scale
batteries or natural gas power plants. Shellenberger exposes
the links between fossil fuel interests and the pro-renewable-but-anti-nuclear
lobby and makes a convincing case that there is a synergy
between the two. By blocking nuclear power, which offers a
continuous supply of electricity, expansion of quick-start
natural gas power plants become necessary to fill in when
the sun is down and the wind falters.
In
a section that constitutes a goldmine for political foes of
California’s aristocratic families headed by the Brown,
Getty, Newsom, and Pelosi clans, Shellenberger spells out
exactly how this clique used its influence to protect their
oil and gas interests at the same time as they have steadily
worked to eliminate nuclear power. This is a scandal ripe
for further investigation.
Renewables
don’t just consume land and cause increased use of fossil
fuel to provide the necessary backup power, they’re
killing wildlife. Lots of wildlife. Defenders of wind power
make the stunningly deceptive claim that “house cats
kill more birds than windmills.” This knowingly ignores
the fact that cats don’t kill endangered raptors, they
kill common sparrows. Windmills, on the other hand, are slaughtering
raptors at alarming rates, along with bats and insects. In
all three cases, this is no joke. Any competent ecologist
will explain the threat of extinction posed by windmills to
these species, as well as how essential their survival is
to ecosystem health.
LAND
USE AND SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE
To
dwell exclusively on Shellenberger’s takedown of renewables
would not do justice to the rest of his book. One of his primary
themes is the land use impact of various policy choices, not
only in the context of renewables but also with respect to
agriculture and livestock. He explains that adopting modern
agricultural practices is a more significant variable, by
an order of magnitude, than climate change in affecting crop
yields. He explains the potential of indoor agriculture, aquaculture,
and mechanized agriculture to dramatically reduce the land
required for global food production. He even cites studies
that find “industrial beef” requires “fourteen
to nineteen times less land than pasture beef.”
This
point, that “renewable” energy and “sustainable”
agriculture are causing far more harm than benefit to the
environment, is lost on the climate activist lobby. Shellenberger
devotes a chapter in his book to explaining how the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has become politicized, and
that the “Summary for Policymakers” they periodically
release often misrepresents the source reports to highlight
worst-case scenarios. These hyped summaries are then selectively
quoted by activist journalists and agenda-driven politicians
to exaggerate the IPCC findings even more. Pursuant to this
message, no price is too great. If climate change is going
to destroy the planet any day now, it doesn’t matter
if the forests burn to fuel cooking fires, or windmills and
solar farms destroy habitats and species.
For
those of us who already are convinced that climate change
is not an existential threat, but a manageable one that may
take its place among a host of other serious challenges, no
further discussion is required. Politicians are corrupt, business
investors are opportunistic, scientists are politicized, socialists
exploit the climate agenda, and ordinary people find meaning
in the climate crusade that previous generations found in
religion and patriotism. Enough said.
THE
CASE FOR BIG INFRASTRUCTURE
Something
else Shellenberger highlights, however, bears special emphasis.
He makes a case for big infrastructure. Not only nuclear power
plants but also hydropower and power grids. He describes the
plight of Africans for whom reliable supplies of water and
energy would completely transform their lives. Big infrastructure
in Africa would enable prosperity, political stability, and
space-efficient agriculture. It would eliminate the need to
forage for wood or hunt game. It would take pressure off nature
preserves. It would allow African nations to acquire the development
and demographic trajectory already achieved or well underway
in the rest of the world; a stabilizing population, female
emancipation, lower infant mortality, higher life expectancy,
increased literacy, better public health, urbanization. Instead,
Shellenberger writes, “sustainable” development
aid rarely funds infrastructure in Africa.
An
example of a project that attracts almost universal condemnation
from the global environmentalist is the Grand Inga Dam complex
on the Congo River. If completed, these hydroelectric dams
would generate far more power than the Three Gorges Dam in
China; possibly exceeding 40 gigawatts of continuous electricity.
Overall, Africa’s hydroelectric potential has barely
been tapped. Africa also lacks a reliable electricity grid,
or a natural gas pipeline network. With the exception of South
Africa, there are no nuclear power plants in Africa.
The
economic and environmental benefits of big infrastructure
in Africa not only would accrue to Africans, greatly improving
their standard of living and quality of life. It is also an
opportunity that American investors and civil engineering
firms ought to seize, with the full support of the U.S. government.
This not only would extend American influence in Africa and
offer remunerative opportunities to American businesses, but
it would also be a way to revive America’s nuclear power
and civil engineering industries. Moreover, it would preclude
other nations, most notably China and Russia, from stepping
in to fill the vacuum.
SHELLENBERGER’S
CREDENTIALS DEFY CANCELLATION
America’s
response to the 'climate crisis,' is set to go into overdrive
if Biden becomes president next year. If it does it will make
all of life’s essentials less affordable, especially
for low-income Americans, and diminish America’s ability
to do good in the rest of the world.
Virtually
all climate skeptics attempt to stress this moral foundation,
from the irrepressible Marc Morano to more nuanced “lukewarmist”
experts such as economist Bjorn Lomborg or scientist Judith
Curry, but they face an overwhelming political and cultural
momentum that marginalizes their voices.
The
consensus enforcers may have a tough time shoving Shellenberger
into that box. Shellenberger, who acknowledges climate change
is a problem, just not an existential crisis, has impeccable
credentials as an environmentalist. He has spent his entire
life fighting for environmental causes and was one of the
pioneering 'ecomodernists,' a school of thought that sought
ways to decouple economic growth from environmental destruction,
and promoted practical and optimistic solutions. Shellenberger’s
earlier book Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism
to the Politics of Possibility, co-written with fellow
environmentalist Ted Norhaus, earned him the distinction of
becoming one of Time magazine’s “Heroes of the
Environment 2008.”
To
answer the deep need for meaning that apocalyptic environmentalism
offers, Shellenberger concludes his book with a discussion
of environmental humanism. As he puts it, “we need to
go beyond rationalism and re-embrace humanism, which affirms
humankind’s specialness, against Malthusian and apocalyptic
environmentalists who condemn human civilization and humanity
itself . . . we must ground ourselves first in our commitment
to the transcendent moral purpose of universal human flourishing
and environmental progress, and then in rationality.”
This
environmental humanist agenda that prioritizes love for humanity
is a direct challenge to climate alarmists, who must now answer
the question, as Shellenberger writes “are they motivated
by love for humanity or something closer to its opposite?”
To emphasize his point, Shellenberger notes that saving the
African gorillas, or, for that matter, the California condor,
was not something we did because we needed the gorillas, or
the condors, for our survival. We saved them because we love
them. Surely we can find a way, in the beliefs and crusades
that animate us, to do the same for our fellow humans.
This article orginally appeared
in American Greatness