Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Forbes has published an apology by high profile environmental activist Michael Shellenberger for his role in helping to create the climate scare, and his explanation for why he chose to speak out now.
24 views|Jun 28, 2020,06:48pm EDT
On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare
Michael Shellenberger
I write about energy and the environment.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.
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I know that the above facts will sound like “climate denialism” to many people. But that just shows the power of climate alarmism.
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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
But 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.”
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But then, last year, things spiraled out of control.
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Read more:https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2020/06/28/on-behalf-of-environmentalists-i-apologize-for-the-climate-scare/(Backup PDF Available Here)
Michael Schellenberger has provided a more complete explanation in his new book Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All.
Reading Schellenberger’s full apology in Forbes, I was pleasantly surprised how close his views are to mine. Despite Schellenberger’s highly commendable views on nuclear power, I assumed he was still an alarmist when it came to his views on anthropogenic CO2 emissions. I was wrong.
I am sorry I made an incorrect assumption about your views on climate change Michael.
Update (EW): The original Forbes link seems to have died. A backup copy is available here.
UPDATE2: Forbes has pulled his article, see Tweet below. – Anthony
Now let’s see if he unblocks me on twitter for criticizing his climate BS.
At one stage we were following each other. Now it looks like he closed his twitter account and deleted all his tweets. His facebook posts are still there.
Apologies. His twitter account is still there: They just tweaked their search engine to disappear him.
Mark Pawelek – 6:42 am …His twitter account is still there:
They just tweaked their search engine to disappear him.
“They” being those wonderfully egalitarian folks who run Twitter right?
What gets me is all of the companies that are abandoning Twitter and other social media sites because they aren’t doing enough to censor anyone who disagrees with the socialist mobs.
“…because they aren’t doing enough to censor anyone who disagrees with the socialist mobs.”
I disagree. I believe the companies are pulling their advertising because they fear, justifiably, that the Left, in league with a complicit media, is fully capable of damaging their sales revenues via an organized boycott.
I also think that’s a good thing. The less ad revenue the censorious receive, the better, and I have a suggestion to accelerate the trend. Organize boycotts from the Right as well. When a company advertises on Twitter right after Twitter bans a conservative, get the hashtag #boycott(companyname) going and generate a few thousand angry anti-censorship emails, tweets, posts, calls, etc., to that company’s CEO.
Eventually, perhaps rather quickly even, most CEO’s will decide to switch their advertising dollars to forums where, no matter what they do, they aren’t threatened with loss of sales from both sides of the political spectrum, with one side demanding censorship and the other demanding it stop.
The falloff in revenues at the offending media sources could be significant. If so, problem potentially solved.
They created the beast, and as predicted, the beast has turned on it’s creators. The left is never satisfied. Look at all the purges in socialist countries.
The beast is never satisfied – the left’s fascist methods require a new target once the current target is destroyed.
That’s why appeasing them never works – if they literally got everything single thing they wanted, they’ll have a new hate-target tomorrow.
Anyone that wishes to stand in their way, has to accept this.
We can all hope the left cancels itself soon enough.
They were outside Bezos’ DC house today with a guillotine.
It would be funny if it wasn’t so alarming.
In the end, Robespierre did end up going to the guillotine, himself.
@Rod June 29, 2020 at 9:12 am
#boycotttwitter #boycottfacebook
Of course they did, @Jack is a true believer and he will memory hole Schellenberger soon enough.
It’s Shellenberger. There is no “c” in his name.
David Yaussy,
Funny that. There is another alarmist with the word Hell in his name. It is ScHELLinhuber a German who wrote pope Francis Communistic manifesto Laudato Sie.
It must be a German thing.
David Yaussy,
Strange that – there is another Germanic gentleman called ScHELLinuber who wrote Pope Francis’ global warming catechism Laudato Sie.
It is interesting that this gentleman has HELL in his name. Is this just a German thing or pure coincidence?
to Patrick Healy
Got it wrong twice, the german science clown’s name is Schellnhuber, without the i and with the h.
The alarmist religion will be positively apoplectic over this, they will do all they can to stop this being circulated; there will be social media deletions and name calling for not adhering to the climate mantra policy.
I think his next epiphany will be to discover the true hate that drives the progressive left – any high-profile skeptics care to speculate what sort of attention he might be getting in the next few days and weeks.
I’m guessing he’s going to find what the people he thought were the ‘love crowd’ – who he probably thought were his friends – are really about.
No one believes it until it happens to them.
Yes – former Green extremist Michael Shellenberger and radical film-maker Michael Moore can share a bunker, and hire a food-taster… …mustn’t tell the truth!
When Forbes censors an honest article, you know green-extremist “special attention” is sure to follow.
Suggested reading:
Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” (1932)
George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” (1949).
Both novels were written as warnings of a dystopian, totalitarian future, but Biden and Trudeau think they are instruction manuals.
So he’s doing a 180 by writing and selling a book. Climate alarmist and climate opportunist? Or maybe he’s donating book profits to the people he’s harmed with his alarmist pronouncements. Maybe Forbes was right to pull his apology. Though doing so probably brings him more attention than otherwise.
I posted the original link to this article earlier today and it was just removed by Forbes. Is this just more silencing of the inconvenient facts??? Read now, while you can at the GWPF site.
https://www.thegwpf.com/michael-shellenberger-on-behalf-of-environmentalists-i-apologize-for-the-climate-scare/
Forbes undoubtedly received unhappy feedback on the article from advertisers and subscribers…..after all, they published much CC exaggeration drivel over the years to increase readership and advertising. It is a wonder Shellenberger’s article made it past the editor.
He should get together with Patrick Moore on the guest lecturer circuit. One might suspect that was the plan, except CoVid19 has shut down even Obama’s lucrative gigs.
But isn’t the apology really an advertisement for his new book? Maybe Forbes didn’t want to provide free advertising.
This says it all. The UN/Davos Consensus Gang has moved quickly. The word will have already gone out to the now compliant media to suppress publication and debate.
Of course they will, but there are now some fairly big rats fleeing the s(t)inking ship. Pass the popcorn, more to come I hope.
Here is the Forbes article, via the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20200629001029/https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2020/06/28/on-behalf-of-environmentalists-i-apologize-for-the-climate-scare/#16d934535dc3
I just posted this note minutes ago on another thread, before reading Michael Schellenberger’s “apology”:
wattsupwiththat.com/2020/06/27/accusation-implodes-in-mn-global-warming-lawsuit/#comment-3024944
[excerpt]
I knew that CAGW was a failed hypothesis circa 1985, and we published that conclusion in 2002 (below).
Soon thereafter it became clear that CAGW was a deliberate scientific and political fraud.
This post is from 2002 and 2013:
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I strongly oppose CAGW alarmism and green energy fraud because it is irrational, immoral and destructive to humanity AND the environment.
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We wrote this in 2002 and have been proven correct to date:
DEBATE ON THE KYOTO ACCORD
Published by APEGA in the PEGG, reprinted by other professional journals, The Globe and Mail and La Presse.
by Sallie Baliunas, Tim Patterson and Allan MacRae, November 2002
friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/KyotoAPEGA2002REV1.pdf
On global warming:
“Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
On green energy:
“The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
______________________
Michael, your apology is NOT accepted. Here, in part, is why:
HYPOTHESIS: RADICAL GREENS ARE THE GREAT KILLERS OF OUR AGE
By Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc., M.Eng., April 14, 2019
wattsupwiththat.com/2019/04/14/hypothesis-radical-greens-are-the-great-killers-of-our-age/
[excerpt]
“In the 20th Century, socialists Stalin, Hitler and Mao caused the deaths of over 200 million people, mostly their own citizens. Lesser killers like Pol Pot and the many tin-pot dictators of South America and Africa killed and destroyed the lives of many more.
Modern Green Death probably started with the 1972-2002 effective ban of DDT, which caused global deaths from malaria to increase from about 1 million to almost two million per year. Most of these deaths were children under five in sub-Saharan Africa – just babies for Christ’s sake!”
– February 1, 2019
“…radical greens (really radical leftists) are the great killers of our time. Now the greens are blinding and killing babies by opposing golden rice…” – March 10, 2019
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2. My hypothesis is that “Radical Greens are the Great Killers of Our Age”.
Here is some of the supporting evidence:
The banning of DDT from ~1972 to 2002, which caused the malaria deaths of tens of millions of children under five years of age, and sickened and killed many more adults and children;
iea.org.uk/publications/research/malaria-and-the-ddt-story
The fierce green opposition to golden rice, actions that blinded and killed millions of children;
The misallocation of scarce global resources for destructive intermittent “green energy” schemes, which are not green and produce little useful (dispatchable) energy;
Properly allocated, a fraction of the trillions of dollars squandered on green energy schemes could have installed clean drinking water and sanitation systems into every community on the planet, saving the lives of many tens of millions of children and adults; the remaining funds could have significantly reduced deaths from malaria and malnutrition;
The number of Excess Winter Deaths and shattered lives caused by runaway energy costs in the developed world and lack of access to modern energy in the developing world probably exceeds the tens of millions of malaria deaths caused by the DDT ban; Excess Winter Deaths (more deaths in winter than non-winter months) total about two million souls per year, which demonstrates that Earth is colder-than-optimum for humanity;
Indoor air pollution from cooking fires kills many women and children in the developing world;
In addition to runaway energy costs and increased winter deaths, intermittent wind and solar power schemes have reduced grid reliability and increased the risk of power outages;
Huge areas of agricultural land have been diverted from growing food to biofuels production, driving up food costs and causing hunger among the world’s poorest people.
3. There is NO credible scientific evidence that climate is highly sensitive to increasing atmospheric CO2, and ample evidence to the contrary. Catastrophic humanmade global warming is a false crisis.
______________
So no Michael, your apology is not accepted, you and your friends are not forgiven for these crimes against humanity.
– Allan MacRae
Seconded!
Allan, while I agree with pretty much everything you say, this statement is not correct:
“Huge areas of agricultural land have been diverted from growing food to biofuels production, driving up food costs and causing hunger among the world’s poorest people.”
The bioethanol industry takes the ~30% of the corn that is food and converts it to better food by making dry distillers grain and feeding it to chickens and cows to make excellent BBQ material.
The other ~70% is corn starch, which is the waste product and supports the good 30% by being sold as bioethanol. Obviously there are political considerations, and I could go on. Happy to discuss it further with you.
Hi Phil,
As “Rescue CEO” of a small energy company I inherited a corn ethanol plant in Wyoming. I am familiar with the process – the distiller’s grain is the byproduct of ethanol production and is excellent high-protein animal feed.
That does not make the corn ethanol process economic or environmental – we had good local management and huge state and federal subsidies and still the plant only broke-even. In some years corn prices were so high that poor Mexicans went hungry. The excess water use in the Midwest is increasing the decline of the Ogallala Aquifer at an alarming rate.
The clear-cutting of the rainforests for palm oil and sugar-cane ethanol is even more environmentally destructive.
Biofuels are an environmental and economic debacle.
Regards, Allan
There have been times when the DDGs sold for more than the corn.
The industry has always teetered between profitability and non-profitabilty. I’m not defending it. I don’t work in it, but I know a lot about it for other reasons.
The newer plants use barely any “new”water. It’s 90% recycled and what is lost is from the cooling towers. The rest is indeed sourced from the aquifer.
We may be somewhat aligned on what we know about this industry, but it’s probably the main source of carbon sequestration in the US (given the magnitude of 10 -15% ethanol in the 140 billion gallons/pa of gasoline used here). Ironic really, given that we’re using a lot of the excrement of Chinese industry !!!
Ho again Phil
The excess water use is from irrigation to grow the corn, not water use at the plant.
All of the calories that are going into alcohol used to go into either animals or people.
The fact that some of the waste product can be used for animal feed doesn’t change this.
You have that the wrong way round Mark. The waste product is the starch which is not good for the animal’s GI tracts. The 30% of proteins, fiber, lipids etc. is what they want and can digest. As I said, the waste product is the starch which is converted to ethanol to support the production of better farm animal food.
For example:
https://www.mnbiofuels.org/media-mba/blog/item/1378-ddgs-101-the-basics
They have been using corn feed to fatten up cattle just before market for generations.
Allen
You say so many things that are right but drop this claim:
“Indoor air pollution from cooking fires kills many women and children in the developing world”
It is not that people don’t suffer from breathing smoke, it is that the industry that has grown up around this trivial fact has taken on monstrous proportions. One of the experts I work with asked someone from the WHO why they were lying about the number of ‘deaths’ claimed for smoke inhalation (not if they were lying) and was told in reply, “If we don’t, we can’t raise money.”
You have to admire honesty where you can find it.
The “cooking fires kill millions per year” meme is not based on “facts” as we understand them. The numbers are entirely fabricated. If Tony Heller tried to show a plot of actual deaths caused by cooking fire smoke inhalation to compare with the modeled ones, the chart would be blank. There is no data, only bad models.
Their great messiah, Kirk Smith from Berkeley, passed away last weekend. Will the meme be deep-sixed as well? He was the Jim Hansen of stove smoke, cooking up deaths from finely chopped assumptions. The propaganda is so well promoted that even the great Allen MacRae has been induced to repeat it. Take it from someone on the inside: it is a scam as sensible as the “equitoxicity” of all particles floating in the air.
In that regard, now that the perfectly ordinary Saharan dust cloud nicknamed “Godzilla” has covered the whole of the Caribbean and USA, you can take it (from the EPA’s and IHME’s methodologies) that “a million Americans” are going to die if they go outside and inhale. Kirk had it that even indoors you are doomed. After all, that cloud is composed of particles and they are said by the “experts” to be as toxic as cigarette smoke.
My prediction is that within a century more than 300m Americans will die.
There is no need to lie to take action against air pollution – my generation has been taking action for 50 years. Is the current generation so useless that they have to be lied to in order to get them off the Play Station?
Thank you Crispin. Javier made a similar comment last year. I responded:
2. If I were rewriting this treatise, I would state that “Indoor air pollution from cooking fires contributes to illness and premature death in the developing world, especially among women and children;”
Would that suffice?
Unfortunately, I have not rewritten this paper so am quoting it as written.
Best, Allan
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/04/14/hypothesis-radical-greens-are-the-great-killers-of-our-age/#comment-2680938
Thank you Javier for your comments.
1. In 2015, Joe d’Aleo and I were about to publish our paper on Excess Winter Deaths when Gasparrini et al published their landmark study in The Lancet. We pulled our article and rewrote it to include Gasparrini – our paper is cited above. The 2 million Excess Winter Deaths per year globally is my rough estimate – I agree it is probably low.
2. If I were rewriting this treatise, I would state that “Indoor air pollution from cooking fires contributes to illness and premature death in the developing world, especially among women and children;”
It was challenging to limit this treatise to seven pages – every one of these very serious topics would be well-served with more detailed discussion.
Best, Allan
Your re-wording is much better. There are no data supporting the sentence (yet). It is all “attribution”. The claim that indoor air quality affects “women and children” mostly is an assumption. When checking personal exposure of men and women in rural Kyrgyzstan 2 years ago, the Dutch International Primary Care Respiratory Group found men had higher exposure than women, much against expectations.
The contribution to illness is attributed, the contribution to a premature death is attributed, the confounding factors are ignored, and no one really knows what is happening. I could suggest additional wording but it will start to sound arcane.
“Indoor air pollution from cooking fires is assumed to contribute to illness and premature death in the developing world, probably more so among women and children because they spend more time cooking. Indoor air pollution has many contributing factors including poor ventilation, smoking and poor ambient air quality.”
“Air pollution” is an undefined term with hazy metrics and unknown chemistry. Further, attributable does not mean avoidable. I could attribute your premature death (defined as before the age of 86) to you owning a Ford. Swapping it for a Chev will not make you live longer because my attribution had no reality.
I agree that there is no good data on deaths related to indoor cooking fires using dung and other materials in the developing world, probably because no one cares enough to do the studies. But it is easy to imagine harm when you see pictures and videos taken inside these habitations, can be hard to see for all the particulate in the air.
Maybe we should make stuff up, like they did here in Alberta recently to justify converting the coal thermal plants to gas, citing “studies” that show health costs in the billions for us even though you’d be hard pressed to measure any coal based particulates in the air anywhere near population centers.
That was pure moonshine compared to the daily grind of cooking meals in the the developing world.
Maybe that is the appropriate place for “skeptical” money to flow for studies, to imperically show the harm of energy poverty?
You are correct Pat.
One typical forest fire does much greater harm to our air quality in Alberta than the total air pollution from one YEAR of our coal-fired power plant emissions – but why let the facts get in the way of another good electric power scam.
://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/03/22/california-dreamin-renewables/#comment-1739775
In Alberta, the electric power consumer is often misled by our governments – of both conservative and socialist stripes – and cheated by our utilities.
The Alberta conservative government just installed a multi-billion dollar DC line that is supposed to reduce line losses – but the AC-to-DC-to-AC conversion is about 5%, greater than the total line losses in our province, which average less than 3% – so a simple analysis concludes the DC line is uneconomic.
Alberta also re-routed power from existing power lines to fill up the DC line – otherwise it would only run at less than 10% capacity. Now this DC line is part of our rate base, and consumers will pay for many decades for this scam.
The next scam, this time from our new socialist politicians, is to retire our coal-fired plants that produce electric power for about 2 cents per KWh, and replace them with unreliable, un-dispatchable intermittent wind power – there is NO chance that this plan will work. Our current politicians claim the coal plants are dirty, but there is NO evidence to support that allegation – the air quality downwind is excellent. Our coal is low-sulphur and particulate emissions are cleaned up at the plant source.
We have frequent forest fires upwind of our populated areas, with smoke from Alberta, British Columbia and the NW states of the USA. One typical forest fire does much greater harm to our air quality in Alberta than the total air pollution from one YEAR of our coal-fired power plant emissions – but why let the facts get in the way of another good electric power scam.
The alleged “CO2 pollution” from our coal plants is demonized by the leftists, but beloved of carbon-based life all over our blue-water planet. Numerous studies conclude that 97% of all plants that live downwind of our coal-fired power plants are extremely happy, and support the continued operation of these coal plants into the indefinite future. 🙂
Regards to all, Allan
Totally agree.
Michael Schellenberger’s “apology” reminds me of this story:
Karl Marx is looking up at the world from Hell; he contacts a spiritualist and says:
“I want to tell the world that I apologize for Marxism, and for all the enormous suffering of billions of people all over the world due to the excesses of Marxist governments – the deaths of hundreds of millions and the extreme suffering of billions more.
In my defense, I was hanging out with some cool dudes and they liked my bullsh!t, so I just kind of got carried away and write it down, and then I got famous, and then I couldn’t really recant, because I would look like a total dick, and I would be embarrassed. Anyway, I apologize. My bad.
Except, Marx etc never recanted and apologised. Perhaps if they did, at an earlier time, much death and destruction may have been prevented.
You can never wind back time and undo the harm, but if someone has their road to Damascus moment, what should they do? If his example opens the door for others who are oppressed by the dogma of the politically corrupt Climate scam, it might be more akin to a liberation. Ok, I’ll not hold my breath, but it’s a start.
Eamon.
I agree Eamon, there are those, such as Allan and others who have had the courage to speak up against ‘pseudo’ science time and again. It is difficult for them to easily accept an apology from the very people who reinforced the lies for all those years. Yet they must, they need to accept the apology and embrace their courage too.
It isn’t easy to admit you were wrong, especially at this level when you’ve had so much influence. We need to allow a ‘safe space’ for these people, or they will never admit they were wrong. We need the truth to be broadcast as much as possible, I for one am overjoyed that he has made this apology. I have ordered two copies of his book and like Planet of the Humans, it will be a useful tool for me personally to refute the lies of AGW.
Allan,
I agree; it is much to late for Michael S. to apologize, the damage has already been done. He’s only doing this now because he can see the monstrosity he helped create is starting to run out of steam and he is hoping to avoid the inevitable backlash that is coming. Unfortunately for him, he will now be vilified by both sides. I will let posterity decide if he deserves it.
It’s never too late to apologize. What matters from here forward is what does he do to undo the damage that he has done.
If he thinks all he needs to do is apologize and then fade back into the woodwork, then he is woefully mistaken.
Correct, Mark. The apology is grandiose and self serving. He regrets what he has written in the past it seems. But anything that helps undo some of the damage done by alarmists is welcome. Admission that he thinks a monumental con has been executed on the general population is a start. Many others – scientists, journalists, CEOs, even a few engineers on the gravy train, to name a few – who have stubbornly stood their alarmist ground in order to not look foolish for falling for or taking advantage of the con may follow his lead and let rationality and logic and facts and honesty determine their public utterances.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/12/09/study-the-montreal-ozone-treaty-saved-the-arctic-from-global-warming/#comment-2866871
I have studied climate and energy since ~1985, and published on these subjects since 2002. I am confident that my analyses are essentially correct, based in part on my accurate predictive track record since 2002, and the utter failure of all the very-scary predictions of the IPCC and its acolytes.
Reference:
CO2, Global Warming, Climate And Energy
by Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc., M.Eng., June 15, 2019
wattsupwiththat.com/2019/06/15/co2-global-warming-climate-and-energy-2/
Excel: wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Rev_CO2-Global-Warming-Climate-and-Energy-June2019-FINAL.xlsx
I have not studied the ozone question, and I’m not going to do so, because, according to MacRae’s Theory of Radical Green Rat Bastards (see below), we can safely dismiss their latest hypothesis as yet-another self-serving falsehood, like everything else the radical greens have alleged in past decades. These climate fraudsters have a perfectly negative predictive track record – every scary scenario they have alleged has failed to materialize, so they have perfectly negative credibility, and nobody should believe them about anything.
MacRae’s Theory of Radical Green Rat Bastards is a huge time-saver, and based on the past performance of radical greens, it continues to be a highly successful predictor of future green lack-of-credibility.
Regards, Allan 🙂
wattsupwiththat.com/2019/04/14/hypothesis-radical-greens-are-the-great-killers-of-our-age/#comment-2684927
Sara wrote:
“A hypothesis? I don’t think any of it is hypothetical. Too many instances of verified occurrence to back up that that statement to make it a hypothesis.”
Hi Sara,
As you know, the scientific progression is Hypothesis -> Theory -> Law, each progression requiring more and more supporting evidence and absence of disproof.
http://www.thoughtco.com/scientific-hypothesis-theory-law-definitions-604138
My Hypothesis is limited to radical greens, who support false science and use false fabricated crises to promote their toxic anti-human agenda. As such, there is a mountain of evidence to support my Hypothesis, and no evidence (that I know of) to disprove it. Therefore, over the next few years it may be promoted to the level of Theory.
If it is a Theory, it will require a nice name, like “Darwin’s Theory of Evolution”. I am not even sure if mine is an original concept – others have probably said this before.
I will therefore submit, immodestly, the proposed name
“MacRae’s Theory of Radical Green Rat Bastards”.
Others are welcome to submit improvements to the name – after all, at this time it is still a Hypothesis. 🙂
–2. My hypothesis is that “Radical Greens are the Great Killers of Our Age”.–
I think it’s clear and been known forever, that politicians are the greatest killers.
Radical Greens are tiny minority. They are a religion. A stupid religion, certainly. One could say probably large portion of members of this religion, have done “good things”.
But one can’t say the same thing for politicians. Politicians are lazy and crazy {always have been}. And what they tend to do, is demonize people, instead of governing. And “global warming” is used by politicans to make it seem they are saving the world, when know they are not.
One call Radical Greens useful idiots. Many have. Politicians use “useful idiots”.
So let’s point at real problem, the politicans.
Politician tend crave political power- it’s the reason the US constitution was created. All governments are evil, some are less evil.
It might be difficult to imagine the US government is less evil than some other governments. In terms of power, we given the US government too much power- that is obvious.
A reason for US government having too much power, is related to how poorly they have governed. Or if they governed in vaguely rational way, they would not have given so much power.
Power corrupts.
Basic stuff.
But to matter at hand,
I accept Michael Shellenberger’s apology.
I think it’s possible he might even be a good politician.
If a good politician is even possible, or when I mean a
good politician, it’s always a comparative thing.
And also will accept apologies from all politicans- and
preachers.
Apologies are like a pardon for a crime, one hope no further
crimes are committed, and it’s possible any apology might “encourage” further misbehavior- but that not really related to matter at hand. All humans will continue to do “further misbehavior”.
My apology can not transform people in being saints, but as practical matter, it helps me.
If I accept other people’s apologies, there numerous advantages to me, and not doing it, has numerous disadvantages to me.
Such eagerness to do something good for me, is not a sin.
Rather such selfishness is good.
I am happy to accept to Michael Shellenberger’s apology.
And btw, happiness is a virtue.
Or Dennis Prager is absolutely correct:
Happiness Is a Moral Obligation
“For much of my life, I, like most people, regarded the pursuit of happiness as largely a selfish pursuit. One of the great revelations of middle age has been that happiness, far from being only a selfish pursuit, is a moral demand.”
Hello Baikie:
Since about 1970, policies driven by corrupt, self-serving radical greens have caused the deaths of tens, maybe hundreds of millions of little black and yellow children in the third world. That is not forgivable in my world.
Many of these greens are neo-Malthusians – it is entirely possible, even probable, that this killing was their intent – no rational person could be this stupid for this long – there were many decades of slaughter of innocents, for Christ’s sake!.
See http://green-agenda.com/
I don’t even have the right to forgive the greens for such heinous crimes against humanity. If it were up to me, I’d run Nuremberg trials for green leaders, and administer appropriate sentences
Re forgiveness, let God sort them out. Not my call.
Regards, Allan
“One of the great revelations of middle age has been that happiness, far from being only a selfish pursuit, is a moral demand.”
Good thoughts Baikie. I agree, and I’ll guess that I’ve got a few more miles on my clock – nobody calls me “middle-aged” anymore. :-)..
I’ve done business on six continents in some of the most dangerous countries in the world, and some of the poorest. I have also been quite wealthy, and quite poor.
I have observed that happiness is a choice – some of the poorest people who live in the worst countries in the world are happy, and some of the wealthiest who live in the developed world are miserable. They made that choice.
I started distrusting the so-called environmentalists when I came of age in the late 1960s, in the time when Rachel Carson’s book “Silent Spring” resulted in banning DDT. As kids living on Army bases in the 1950s, we used to ride behind the DDT truck in its fog sprayed weekly to kill mosquitos, with no ill effects to us. I came to learn about the shoddy or purposefully deceptive research on DDT, and that it really had little to no ill effect on anything but the vectors it was designed to eliminate – and that literally millions of deaths worldwide can be rightly blamed on its banning.
The truth does not always win out, at least not in time to help many who are hurt by its suppression. Things are not always as they seem, or as they are presented – and one should always be skeptical, that is the hallmark of science and being a scientist, whether amateur or paid.
So yes, it’s not enough just to say “Sorry!” and walk away…
That link to gwpf is a partial and leads back to the cancelled Forbes page.
I thought Forbes was somewhat objective, but are now like the LA times just part of the cancel culture, suppressing anything that does not fit the narrative.
Here’s a link toMichael Scellenberger’s TED talk, mainly about nuclear but also explains renewables increase CO2 emissions.
Forbes has a history of deleting inconvenient stories
The Forbes link is No Longer Active
Here is another copy of the article:
https://news.marketcap.com/on-behalf-of-environmentalists-i-apologize-for-the-climate-scare/
Viewing the Html, the hidden article is surrounded by an element called “contributor__retracted”. Maybe he is just editing it and will re-post…..
So viewing his Twitter feed, Michael states that Forbes has decided to pull the article.
That was fast.
He actually said Forbes “censored” his article. Powerful words.
The ‘no longer active’ cover can be removed by feeding the Forbes article URL to outline.com.
Thanks for sharing the link !
Forbes are reporting the link is no longer active.
Apostasy will not go unpunished.
Dave
This is the station to which Michael Mann could have ascended if he had a change of heart. Any of a very small number of key insiders could have told the public that this is more hype than fact, more correlation than causation (and now the correlation has fractured) and the extent to which facts have been misrepresented.
There are only a few spots on the new bandwagon and Shellenberger just took a seat in the front row.
I suspect that Mann’s ego is too large to ever let him recant.
Mann didn’t just mislead. In his recantation, Mann would have to admit actively fabricating data and methods.
Not sure that Mann fabricated data. He certainly abused a lot of data, giving certain data sets MUCH more weight than others, turning data sets upside down, etc.
Over 3 dozen replications of the hockey stick by different groups of researchers using different methodologies with different data sets from different locations. Pages2K uses 692 data sets from 648 locations.
http://environmentalforest.blogspot.com/2013/10/enough-hockey-sticks-for-team.html
Imagine what Mark Steyn would do with THAT!
Was he the guy who got caught using some of his data upside down?
The hockey stick is a fabrication, Jeff. It failed the 1400 verification step, and Mann’s BACK TO 1400 CENSORED directory shows he knowingly used a false method to manufacture the hockey stick shape.
He also truncated tree ring series and grafted them onto the air temperature record to make a fake precipitous 20th century temperature increase.
Steve McIntyre has documented it all.
Jack Dale:
**Over 3 dozen replications of the hockey stick by different groups of researchers using different methodologies with different data sets from different locations. Pages2K uses 692 data sets from 648 locations.**
Same nonsense Jack keeps repeating. They changed a couple of things but the bad parts remained and they claim “independent study”. Jack and the hockey team keep repeating the same claim.
I agree with Gerald and not with Jack.
Replicating someone else’s errors is not a “proof” of something true. It is a replication. If someone shows all the original replication was in error and those error(s) were not corrected, then they are all in error.
The greater point is that the temperature hockey stick does not represent what it claimed to represent. One cannot concatenate two data sets with different smoothings and make a valid claim for a change in slope. That is just so, so wrong. The paper MBH98 should never had passed peer review because it is logically defective and the data were not made available.
Jack Dale – I cannot believe that anyone is still giving any credibility to MBH98 falsehoods – here is what I wrote in 2012, and I was being extremely kind to MBH, given the facts. Kudos to Steve McIntyre for sorting through this steaming pile of horse pucks.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/18/the-question-put-to-dr-mann-at-disneyland-today/#comment-833737
Mann et al’s “hokey-stick” papers attempted to eliminate from the historic record the reality of the Medieval Warm Period. Why? Because the MWP was warmer than today, and proves that there is NOTHING unusual happening in today’s climate. There IS NO humanmade global warming crisis.
One of the global warming conspirators even wrote in a 1995 email that “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period”. Here is some of the evidence, in testimony to the US Senate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1rj00BoItw
The first of Mann’s hokey-stick papers appeared soon thereafter, in 1998. Sure enough, the Medieval Warm Period AND Little Ice Age were GONE, vanished from the historical record!
No doubt the widespread famines of ~1700 during the Maunder Minimum, and the freezing cold of Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow in 1812 during the Dalton Minimum never really happened – these were all fabrications of “climate deniers”, all employed by BIG OIL (sarc off).
The ClimateGate1&2 emails confirmed the reprehensible character and odious behaviour of the Global Warming cabal. There is no need to debate these facts.
Meanwhile, the very-scary predictions of the IPCC and other global warming alarmists have ALL failed to materialize – the warmists predictive track record is abysmal – it is 100% FALSE.
Despite increases in atmospheric CO2, there has been NO net global warming for 10-15 years.
Mann-made global warming is the mantra of scoundrels and imbeciles.
10 years of warming
https://woodfortrees.org/graph/uah6/from:2010/to:2020/trend/plot/uah6/from:2010/to:2020
15 years of warming
https://woodfortrees.org/graph/uah6/from:2005/to:2020/trend/plot/uah6/from:2005/to:2020
Global Climate Models have successfully forecast:
That the troposphere would warm and the stratosphere would cool.
That nighttime temperatures would increase more than daytime temperatures.
That winter temperatures would increase more than summer temperatures.
Polar amplification (greater temperature increase as you move toward the poles).
That the Arctic would warm faster than the Antarctic.
The magnitude (0.3 K) and duration (two years) of the cooling from the Mt. Pinatubo eruption.
They made a retrodiction for Last Glacial Maximum sea surface temperatures which was inconsistent with the paleo evidence, and better paleo evidence showed the models were right.
They predicted a trend significantly different and differently signed from UAH satellite temperatures, and then a bug was found in the satellite data.
The amount of water vapor feedback due to ENSO.
The response of southern ocean winds to the ozone hole.
The expansion of the Hadley cells.
The poleward movement of storm tracks.
The rising of the tropopause and the effective radiating altitude.
The clear sky super greenhouse effect from increased water vapor in the tropics.
The near constancy of relative humidity on global average.
That coastal upwelling of ocean water would increase.
As for temperature
“Here we analyze the performance of climate models published between 1970 and 2007 in projecting future global mean surface temperature (GMST) changes. Models are compared to observations based on both the change in GMST over time and the change in GMST over the change in external forcing. The latter approach accounts for mismatches in model forcings, a potential source of error in model projections independent of the accuracy of model physics. We find that climate models published over the past five decades were skillful in predicting subsequent GMST changes, with most models examined showing warming consistent with observations, particularly when mismatches between model‐projected and observationally estimated forcings were taken into account.’
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019GL085378
A very lengthy response seems to have been censored. I will try again, later.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/02/16/new-findings-from-the-neotropics-suggest-contraction-of-the-itcz/#comment-2918544
Fossil fuel combustion and global warming also cause:
* Corona virus
* Hemorrhoids
* Toenail fungus
* Planters warts
* Explosive diarrhea
* The heartbreak of psoriasis
* Wilder weather
* Human sacrifice
* Dogs and cats living together
* Mass hysteria…
I wonder why, when I went to read more, that the Forbes page is ‘no longer available’?
Forbes now puts up a message saying “This page is no longer active”. It seems the censors have won another battle.
It’s too late for that. Much like the chain reaction we call WW1, it will spin on around the world while the rain forests are plowed under and the rivers in Africa and south Asia turn into garbage dumps.
The political crusades cannot be turned at this point. You can only ratchet up the volume on other causes to help tone down policy commitment to the Party planks.
“I became an environmentalist at 16 when I threw a fundraiser…”
I have always wondered what it took to become an environmentalist.
The first of many, I am sure.
Honesty and better judgement are seen here.
I’ve not read his book but this is verging on heroic. His career depends on climate change phobia. He’s a big pro-nuke; making him a plentiful energy person too. Yet many young pro-nuke professionals have increasingly tried to glue nuclear power to climate change phobia. Increasingly so over the last 15 years. It never really worked for them. Maybe that recent French poll had something to do with his change of heart; that and trying to talk to the climate activists at recent COP meetings. For those who do not understand the French poll. The facts:
1. nuclear power has dominated French electricity production since the 1980s.
2. nuclear power is the most efficient non-CO2 based energy source.
A recent poll of young French people showed they considered nuclear power caused man-made global warming. In a large poll of 3000+, “69% of respondents thinking nuclear contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change“.
Plus: Schellenberger’s support is nearly entirely from the Left. He is certainly still on the Left. But I guess it’s a Left which drifted so far from useful practical concerns that he can’t recognize it anymore.
The French are largely unaware of nuclear energy’s role in combatting climate change, with 69% of respondents thinking nuclear contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. “As an illustration of this perception, 11% and 10% of people think that coal and oil (respectively) contribute less to greenhouse gas emissions than nuclear,” Orano said.
I bet they think so because of the water vapor escaping from the nuc plants … 🙂
That is really shocking – I remember when I was a kid the French education system was held up as an example to the world.
To Eric:
The French Education Nationale is a shadow of it’s former self, with only just above average PISA scores in reading, maths and science. It’s a bureaucratic dinosaur of an institution.
https://data.oecd.org/pisa/reading-performance-pisa.htm#indicator-chart
To Petit_Barde:
yes the cooling tower photo’s that accompany nearly all climate articles is a classic of subtle anti propaganda. Nothing like a good smokey chimney image to trigger emotional bias before you even start reading.
Our Mr Green, Nicolas Hulot, previous Ecology minister in France, wanted to shutdown 17 reactors by 2025!! I was ready to invest heavily in candlewax.
Thankfully that didn’t happen, and he has now left the government with his knickers in a twist.
That unfortunately is not the end of the extreme left green movement (Socialists) in France, and recent local elections have them making headway in some pretty big cities, Lyon, Bordeaux and Strasbourg.
More likely because hard-core environmentalists – who push renewables – tell them. The climate scare has always justified itself as an anti-fossil fuel campaign. That’s its prime motivation. As such, it must always be against plentiful energy.
“69% of respondents thinking nuclear contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change“
Well… Yes?
Those power plants emit water vapor. And what is water if not a greenhouse gas?
I’m sure it doesn’t affect climate change one iota, but water vapor is still a greenhouse gas.
Maybe it was the question that was stupid and not the respondents?
Heroism or pragmatism? I think Shellenberger simply looked down the tracks and realized the AGW gravy train is about to derail and wanted to get off while he still could. Then again, maybe he just couldn’t lie to his own children anymore (although he was OK with lying to ours). Either way, he’s no hero.
It takes courage to break ranks. Credit where it’s due.
The page is still available on the wayback machine. https://web.archive.org/web/20200629001029/https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2020/06/28/on-behalf-of-environmentalists-i-apologize-for-the-climate-scare/#16d932a15dc3
The article is amazing. It is clear why forbes had to take it down.
Michael Shellenberger has completely disappeared from Forbes.
https://www.forbes.com/consent/?toURL=https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/
Wait, what? No. If you search Forbes for “michael shellenberger” you will see many articles written about him. Including this one from 2019 that basically says everything he has now put into book form:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/11/25/why-everything-they-say-about-climate-change-is-wrong/#59a69ef612d6
Gutless Forbes pulled the article.
https://web.archive.org/web/20200629001029/https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2020/06/28/on-behalf-of-environmentalists-i-apologize-for-the-climate-scare/#16d93d795dc3
M. Crichton in “State of Fear” came to the same conclusion.
It is said we grow to adulthood very slowly when times are good.
This is a welcome climbdown from a hysterical position.
However I am embittered and have blood in my eye.
A pox on all their houses.
Too much wealth has been stolen ,wasted and redistributed for my forgiveness to come easily.
Chicken Little Rules,some of the Alarmed Ones are now becoming frightened of what they created?
Funny that,most people here are uncomfortable with using dishonest means to promote a political position.
I suspect that even in the tightest circles of Gang Green they recognize the times are changing.
The Burn Loot Murder maniacs are their fellow travellers .
The tax paying citizens are broke and imprisoned by the political allies of Gang Green.
Resources are suddenly very scarce.
Big Government is in its last spending spree,before the scam is up.
The days of the social parasite as public service are numbered.
Simply because what cannot go on,won’t.
“Too much wealth has been stolen ,wasted and redistributed for my forgiveness to come easily.”
Just so, JR! My simmering ire, as well!
Already taken down at Forbes.
“A leopard cannot change its spots,” although a book promotion tour may provide impetus to pretend. Environmentalism and real, human suffering are largely synonymous, and by my reckoning, Mr. Shellenberger has 30 years of apologizing to do before a more “meaningful” discussion is possible.
A mistake is not the same as malice.
I agree – words have meaning, but I don’t assert malice in Mr. Shellenberger’s environmentalist pursuits. He committed himself to what he perceived to be the truth over those, several decades. And comparatively speaking with specific regard to his environmentalist peers, Mr. Shellenberger has displayed a greater sense of practicality in “solutions” than others. But a mistake (i.e., an action or judgment that is misguided or wrong) is usually (but not always) a one-off event. A series of “mistakes” over an extended time period is representative of willful ignorance – a cognitive bias (or the Dunning-Kruger effect for a neat-sounding label). Via ‘An Ecomodernist Manifesto,’ the Anthropocene is very much “real” – (again, words have meanings). “There remain, however, serious long-term environmental threats to human well-being, such as anthropogenic climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, and ocean acidification.” Mr. Shellenberger, while rightly identifying the detrimental biasedness of climate alarmism, remains seized of the underlying assumption of modern environmentalism – humanity is destroying the planet. There’s room for “refinement” on that assumption. I could forgive Mr. Shellenberger’s “mistake” if this refinement was the starting point, but it is not. Therefore, I look forward to his continued apology.
–Mr. Shellenberger, while rightly identifying the detrimental biasedness of climate alarmism, remains seized of the underlying assumption of modern environmentalism – humanity is destroying the planet. There’s room for “refinement” on that assumption. I could forgive Mr. Shellenberger’s “mistake” if this refinement was the starting point, but it is not. Therefore, I look forward to his continued apology.–
Humans [humanity] are destroying the planet. But want greenies want, does cause destruction of the planet.
One needs to destroy to create anything. Greenies goal are destroying a lot and not creating anything which beneficial- whether to humans or any lifeform.
So, I think humans could live on the ocean. Obviously humans living on ocean [destroys “open ocean”] and obviously living on ocean could be worse than not living on ocean.
The idea of government making humans settlements on ocean would be very, very, bad idea. Governments can’t even manage what is quite simple to manage. But what could be something simple for a government to do, is allow human settlements on the ocean. And could start with what is government currently doing to prevent human settlements on the oceans.
One could argue they could do things which might encourage it, but government start removing what doing which stops it.
Or it’s always better for government to try to go in the direction more freedom rather continuing to restrict freedom.
One could think of many advantages to living on ocean. Some people want it, as a way to get away from bad effects of government. That seems reasonable to me.
Currently we have people who want to defund the police and they want territory they can control. Both are related.
And add cheap ways of living. Cheap ways living can be new territory. And it could a good idea to give ocean areas away for free, with with some rules. Generally people living on ocean shouldn’t be harming people not living on the ocean. One could imagine people living on Ocean could breed a more criminal environment. But one also imagine if ocean area has value, people living there, have strong reason to limit criminal activity.
In terms of government one should favor high value real estate on the ocean. Or “free land” but structures have high value. And high value of structures should be that they designed to last a long time. So you have building codes which require the structures will last longer than building on land.
Now weather not going to get worse, but structures could made to withstand really bad weather. The plus side, is earthquakes are less of problem. Or land earthquake code, is not applicable, but whatever effect from earthquakes, have considered- just saying not same rules.
One has problems of trying to create the technology and trying to make the technology work with a building code. This is hard problem for politicans who are idiots. But make the builder have liability for not making structures which “should” last a long time.
So general idea is to have at minimal structural design and construction which requires the building to last more than 100 years. One assume without any maintenance, things are going last very long, but you can design to keep maintenance costs low.
But also have test if design and construction “work”. So you can have not have “the cost saving one can get from large scale production” due to apparent saving actually being a huge cost when plan does not go as planned. So relatively small scale and many different attempts to see which works- rather than one enormous scale operation which is almost certain to fail.
Anyhow to make something last with low maintenance is a type of cheap housing. But making ugly and like prison is not “a type cheap” desired.
Now, I think it has to done on large enough scale, but 1000 units or small town isn’t what I would call large scale. If city trying to solve a housing shortage, you should not be throw that problem on having ocean settlements. Unless planning for beyond 100 years in the future. You plan on something that you don’t know how going to be done.
My point is ocean settlement are destroying an open ocean, but possible ocean settlements “can better for the ocean” and better for people. And in couple centuries, one could have a lot people living on the oceans. And near future, when it looks like maybe a lot people could living ocean in say in future of 20 year in the future- that future growth potential “helps” 20 years before it happens. Or 2 centuries is more immediate than it seems.
Anyhow, the up front cost to public to start this, is cheap.
But I think lunar water mining is something I think is more important- let’s explore lunar polar region to determine if lunar water is mineable by 2024. It might work out. And can do lot’s of things. But being on topic, should pushing for more nuclear energy- and also could include floating nuclear power plants off shore, which could work for people living onshore, as well as off shore.
Nothing is more lethal than a true believer and Shellenberger remains a true believer.
“A leopard cannot change its spots,”
Al Gore’s version was, “A leopard cannot change its stripes,”
Roger
Spot on! 🙂
And in the next breath, he would declare that liberals are the smart ones.
He He He
https://web.archive.org/web/20200629073911/https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2020/06/28/on-behalf-of-environmentalists-i-apologize-for-the-climate-scare/#5e840667614b
“On behalf of environmentalists everywhere”
Even though I like what he is saying, this is a tell. Why does he believe he has the authority to appoint himself as a spokesperson for environmentalists everywhere?
I think the intent of his proclamation is not what you think.
I don’t think its anything more than an ego issue. After all, he still says he will save planets, etc., perhaps from being as unsustainable as Berkeley.
A lot of events in a few months :
– Mickael Moore’s film exposing the renewables scam,
– an as usual CO2 concentration observed trend despite a planetary lockdown as if humans activity had almost no impact on it,
– Zion Lights leaving XR and joining Schellenberger,
– and now this Schellenberger’s bombshell …
What’s next ?
Yes, cracks are appearing in the climate alarmist bubble. Cue Leonard Cohen:
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
Most people have no idea about any of those things.
Michael E Mann declares he hates hockey and that trees were just running rings round him…..
Stephen Schneider sends us a message. “Be honest because 1 degree is nothing.”
I wouldn’t trust anything Michael Moore published even if it happened to agree with my point of view. In fact, if I find myself agreeing with Michael Moore, it is time to double-check my beliefs.
Why don’t most climate alarmists seem to have a BS meter? Mine went off at least 30 years ago in regards to this Catastrophic Global Warming issue’
– JPP
I can’t remember who said it, but the quote went something like this:
It doesn’t matter whether global warming is true or not, since it forces us to do things that needed to be done anyway.
Possibly Maurice Strong??
Sounds a lot like what (retired) Colorado Senator Tim Wirth said once. I’m likely wrong.
That was Senator Tim Wirth. In 1993, he said, “We’ve got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing.…”
Longer story here about manufacturing climate alarm, including Wirth’s commitment to lie.
Wirth was also the guy who scheduled Hansen’s 1988 congressional testimony for the historically hottest day of the year in DC, and then turned off the air conditioning the night before, so as to make the room sweltering.
He’s got blood on his hands, does Tim Wirth.
I think that 1988 congressional testimony got reported fairly soon. I think Hansen bragged about it.
My BS meter went off big time when I saw that !
– JPP
That’s a paraphrase of then Senator Tim Wirth (D-CO) quoted in National Journal in 1988.
“What we’ve got to do in energy conservation is (to) try to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, to have approached global warming as if it is real means energy conservation, so we will be doing the right thing anyway”
Wirth went on to manage Ted Turner and Jane Fonda’s huge global warming fund. He did the right thing anyway.
Pat Michaels
The two Michaels: Moore and Shellenberger. The thin end of the wedge, both of them seeing censorship in action for the first time.
Since I live 2 or 3 miles from Berkeley, I’ve been wondering for well over ten years why Berkeley students didn’t wake up to the crap they have been Fed.
I’m going to read more of the links here:
http://environmentalprogress.org/founder-president
“apologize for the climate scare we created over the last 30 years.”
More like 40 or 50 years
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/03/23/anti-fossil-fuel-activism-disguised-as-climate-science/
He posted the page to his Twitter account too:
https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1277380835532877824
Glad to know that he snapped out of it and sees reality. This is progress, and I hope that it continues. Maybe he can influence some of the less rabid ecohippies somehow.
Wood and coal are the worst fuels for heating a home. They both produce soot which, in an enclosed area, is really bad for your lungs. But if you have no other choice, you use what’s available. Cooking with a wood-fired stove is a real skill which should never be lost, and the stove is usually vented to outside the building/house/whatever. Cooking over an outdoor fire is also a skill, and I’m not referring to roasting marshmallows on a stick. Until the closed stove was developed, kitchens had an open range that burned enormous amounts of fuel, just to cook the food. Otherwise, people cooked in the fireplace.
Using either coal or wood for heating is kind of inefficient and, as I said, they both produce soot, coal being worse than wood, and soot is bad for you, period. But if you have no choice, those fuels are what you use. Oil lamps will light your home when the power goes out, much better than candles.
I really prefer natural gas over wood for cooking, but I will always use whatever is available, especially in the winter. We’ve had at least one power outage per year in my county in the winter, over the past four years. Too much wet snow and it freezes on the lines and the whole grid goes down. Because my stove is an older model I can light the burners cooktop with a kitchen match and cook food.
The more rabid members of the Greenbeaners really don’t want you to cook or be warm at all. It’s okay for them to do it, because they use microwaves for “cooking” and that uses electricity. I do wonder how they’d survive if they had to face the reality of no electricity *period* and were forced to use fossil fuels for heating and cooking…. but since they microwave their food (I AM being sarcastic here), they’ll like become very, very hungry.
@ Naomi Seibt, looks like Michael Shellenberger took your advice and stopped wanting to panic, and began to Think !
I just googled him. It’s all over the net.
Uh-oh. Scoldilocks will not be pleased.
So two daming reports on flaws on environmentalism , Michael Schellenberger , Michael Moore, plus a 3rd defection by Zion lights, to the nuclear lobby, all within the space of two months ,all after the announcement that cop 26 postponed till November 2021.i never did buy into the official reason COP26 postponed due to covid.
Both schellenberger and Moore pretty much rip the heart out of environmental extremist predictions ,both in particular in regard to energy policy,
Theres nothing on MSM yet,that I’ve seen that any of the above have any coverage, Forbes article removed.
Greenpeace and extreme rebellion, will now have another front to fight on ,Greenpeace will never capitulate to anything nuclear,
I dont think this has been a lights on moment for schellenberger, Moore and lights, even though it’s been portrayed this way, there is a political shift / split in the environment movement , with I’m guessing some governments backing the shift after realising wind and solar are never going to be mass energy providers .
The fallout will be huge if this shift gains momentum, will the governments who have spent billions on failed predictions be it climate or energy take the blame, will the blame be put on the scientists, or will it be carefully brushed under the carpet, ?
I blame (thank?) Michael Moore. His exposing Big Green apparently has opened some eyes while also giving cover for people to jump from a sinking ship to save themselves. Likely we are just seeing the start of a bunch of mea culpa’s. Two in the last week is just the beginning.
For what its worth, Michael Shellenberger’s mea culpa didn’t just occur last week. If you google 𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸𝘀 𝗺𝗶𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗲𝗹 𝘀𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗿 you’ll find numerous talks he’s given going back to Oct 2016 warning about unfounded fear of nuclear and unwarranted faith in renewables.
I’m afraid the Green Blob will use their favorite weapon and “cancel” Michael Shellenberger for the sin of apostasy against Green Dogma. Shellenberger is a brave man.
The TWITter comments are largely supportive, but there are a few ninnies in there still whining about “ocean acidifcation” and such nonsense. One even solicited the advice of Moonbat, wanting his take on Shellenberger’s “transformation”.
Are there any estimates how much personal financial gain Michael Schellenberger got from his role in climate alarmism, including his apologetic book?
And like L. Nemoy, “I am not Spock” and “I am Spock” he can always follow up with another one if money gets tight, at least reading Nemoy is highly entertaining!
Schellenberger does have a point: It is not the loud obnoxious people who created this problem, it is the silent bystanders “even if it is not true, it helps us to save resources”, who created the current waste of money into pointless activism.
LoN
I don’t understand some of the vitriol directed at Mike for his change of views. We want people to change their minds and see things our way, and then we abuse the ones we do? If you insist on taunting the people who have the courage to reconsider their positions, and they end up getting abuse from both sides, you might find there are fewer people willing to change their minds.
Yep, I think what he did is pretty gutsy. He didn’t have to do it.
Shellenberger has made a courageous statement. Not everyone has his integrity.
John Maynard Keynes:
When the facts change I change my mind. What do you do sir?
The facts have never changed, CO2 does not control the climate.
https://youtu.be/RffPSrRpq_g
Yeah, that old hypothesis died under the microscope. Thirty years of failed models and predictions.
Aren’t you missing a sarc tag?
Doesn’t take much to convince Jack.
It is often said in the context of politicized views such as climate change to never apologize because the woke take it as a sign of weakness and go into a feeding frenzy. So I would suggest Shellenberger not apologize to the climate skeptics as many are sure to reject an apology. And sure enough, there are plenty of posts here sneering at his apology. I don’t want him to grovel, I just want him to bravely search for truth wherever that leads him. The past can’t be recalled so let’s all do better in the future.
Vitriol?
You mean violent hate and anger expressed through severe criticism.
I don’t see any of that expressed here, or hardly any.
His problem is not us………it’s them……nothing worse in their view than an apostate.
Your point is well-taken. “Vitriol” was too strong a term. But there are some here who find an apology is not good enough – maybe they want him to wear a hair shirt? My point is that, like Lincoln, we should “let ’em up easy” if we want to encourage others to follow him.
To a large degree it’s bitterness regarding the huge amount of damage done in the name of fighting global warming. Not to mention the abuse that has been heaped upon anyone who questions the dogma of global warming.
It’s quite understandable, even if it is misquided.
What matters now is what does schellenberger do now, to help undo the damage he was partly responsible for.
Indeed – we should preserve the moral high ground and leave the spite to the destructionists.
Something about one sinner repenting, but I am an atheist and don’t know the quote.
There are none so righteous as the recently converted
I doubt if there has been a recent conversion. This is the same line he has been using for the past 15 years. I posted some of that material yesterday.
David,
I applaud him for changing his views, if he really did, but apologizing for all environmentalists is a bit presumptuous, don’t you think? It shows his socialist/elitist roots are still strong and will continue to bias and distort all his viewpoints.
Nope … he said he was sorry … when they do that you have to be happy with it.
And in the true spirit of his contrite apology, and on behalf of David Youssy and all other WUWT readers, I accept his apology.
As such, we all forgive him & we all forgive everyone of the other “environmentalists” that he included in his behest.
Done.
I agree David, we should applaud his courage in coming forward with the truth the way he has. It is hard to speak out against your peers, I lost all of my friends and I am not world renowned, this was a huge thing for him to do.
We need others to have the courage to also come forward, we need to support and encourage them, despite their past deeds. Dumping on them achieves nothing.
+10^42
Now over to Grist and the others to courteously thank them.
Cue Gilda Radner: “Never Mind.”
My guess is he’s about to experience some serious hate.
Are the rats finally abandoning the sinking ship?
Blessed the sinner who repents.
But the damage he helped do is still with us.
What became of Trotsky in Mexico?
“will the blame be put on the scientists,”
Probably, so maybe we should compile a list of the most deserving targets. I’ll start with my top three:
Mann
Hansen
Trenberth
Schmidt
Ooops that’s four.
Five if you include Trofim Karl.
Since summer sea ice will not be cooperating with the climate liars this year, we might need to elevate Mark Serreze to bullseye status too.
If you want to blame scientists, blame the APS, the American Institute of Physics, and the American Chemical Society.
They could have stopped the whole AGW business in its tracks by blowing the whistle on it as fake science. But they didn’t. They stayed silent early on, and went on to become active colluders.
The scientific societies are like cops who colluded with thugs. They let it happen. Blame them.
Yep, and the AGU.
….. and further seriously, since Arctic sea ice minima have been on a slightly upward trend since 2007, I think that unless we make it clear that people with hiring and firing privileges are known to be watching them, we are going to see a new algorithm for sea ice extent. Ship’s buckets even, eh Trofim Karl?
Who can I write to?
Members of those societies never had a chance to vote on the issue, at least in the case of ACS of which I am a member. Their policies were formed by “leadership.”
It is a leadership issue, Scissor. Nevertheless the rank-and-file did not revolt, although to their credit there were loud protests when the then-president (I believe it was Bassam Shakhashiri) announced AGW as a big problem.
I’m a chemist as well, but resigned my ACS membership years ago, after realizing they did nothing for me.
30 October last year I wrote to the ACS board of directors about AGW; addressed to secretary@acs.org. The email included a link to my paper.
Here’s the text:
+++++++++++++
Dear ACS Board Members,
It is time to change the official ACS position on CO2 emissions.
I have published the first paper to evaluate the reliability of global air temperature
projections.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feart.2019.00223/full
Climate models have no predictive value.
In order to determine the impact, if any, of CO2 emissions on the climate, the lower limit
of resolution of climate models must improve by a factor of at least 100.
In the meantime, climate models cannot reliably project air temperature, or elucidate any
CO2 effect.
Some of you are analytical chemists. You especially will appreciate the consequences of
the following: in my six-year effort to publish this work, I have found that climate
modelers evidence no understanding of the distinct meaning of physical accuracy, or of
calibration, of resolution, of uncertainty, or of propagated error. I can document these
lacks.
I understand this revelation and conclusion are a shock. Nevertheless, if you investigate
you will find the account is accurate.
Science is about what we objectively know about what we have observed. The ACS has
an obligation to present its views in that light, only.
Yours sincerely,
Patrick Frank. Ph.D. (Chemistry)
+++++++++++
Their reply was silence. I had hopes the analytical chemists would see the value of a study utilizing calibration error propagation. But apparently not.
The whole field of climate science will be held to account … they allowed the field to become controlled by activism.
That’s nice. One person speaking for all. I seem to recall that kings, tyrants and dictators speak for “all”. Maybe we could all just speak for ourselves. But, on behalf of ALL WUWT subscribers, I accept your apology. Or should I reject it? Stars to reject. No star to accept.
Dang, I forgot, you can NOT star a comment on the website, only in the app.
There’s an app?
Yes, the WordPress app. I have the Android version. You then need to “Follow” the blogs you like. I didn’t spot the “Follow” button on this page, but you can usually spot one. This looks like WUWT’s own “domain” so it might not show up here.
The comment thread options seem to be different between a web page and the app.
Hope that helps.
This guy has written a statement that is full of himself. I think he is just repositioning so he can continue to pontificate from a new platform.
At one time I really thought the U.S. would fall under a dictatorship through either the war on drugs or a desperate need to collect 100% of all taxes; but it now appears that COVID and environmentalism will actually get the job done.
A person can only apologize for himself, nobody can apologize for others.
True contrition requires some humility and I see none. This is political positioning.
Gee whiz. I just went to web site and it is so full of himself it made me sick. Is he actually thinking of running for the Governorship of California? Why would I download a high resolution photo of him?
Seems to me like he had his Patrick Moore moment.
I don’think he is full of himself, he is laying out his credentials as one of the enviro-insane in order to show he isn’t some “denier”.
This is the type of person that the truly climacticly insane cannot really take down without taking themselves down.
Robespierre thought the same.
Hopefully this becomes a trend, those that have caused so much death and damage suddenly ‘Seeing the Light’ or in his case deciding to switch revenue streams from diminishing to increasing. Down the road perhaps it can be pointed out there is no means of justifying or forgiving what they have done short of a personal sacrifice to an active volcano. I won’t be recommending his book, if you view his article you can print it to PDF and send that to anyone that doubts the real agenda.
“Facts still matter, and social media is allowing for a wider range of new and independent voices to outcompete alarmist environmental journalists at legacy publications.’
It would be nice if this were true but as it stands its not while the cancel crowd exists.
If he’s willing to devote most of his wealth to helping those who have been harmed by global warming policies, that would be a good start.
“I helped save the last unprotected ancient redwoods in California.”
Note the keyword in that sentence. Unprotected. Most people would skim that sentence and assume that he helped protect the last of the redwoods. Most of the ancient redwoods are already protected. There were a small number that existed outside the existing parklands.
Thanks for that clarification, MarkW.
To everyone who is fed up with twitter and their censorship there is “parler.com”.
I suggest two things:
1. Spell his name right: Shellenberger. No “c”.
2. Read his book and reflect on what he says.
Then, form an opinion.
I intend to do both of these things.
But, meanwhile, before impugning his character and motives, realize that all “activists” have to raise money to continue their activism, unless they simply sell themselves to a deep pocketed entity or think tank. Then, they are co-opted. If he writes a book or speaks for fees, that is perfectly alright with me. If by doing so they can achieve financial independence, it is conceivable they are speaking what they believe, not what their employers want to hear.
I am happy to pay someone who will speak the truth, whether or not it is something I want to hear.
Snake oil salesmen peddling CAGW isn’t the problem. The problem is an educational system that’s so weak a majority of citizens believe the drivel. Anyone with a high school level science background with access to the internet and minimal search skills should be able to see through the bio-fuels, wind, solar and “storage” fraud. Most college graduates can’t even reason past the BS. Sad.
At least his fantastic ego is intact. He has no problem claiming he speaks for “all environmentalists” and claims to have personally prevented a dramatic rise in CO2 levels. What an unbelievable ass! He claims to be an “energy expert” but apparently couldn’t make out the obvious issues that many people here and even Michael Moore twigged to eventually. Where is “Planet of the humans”, anyway? Are we supposed to believe Moore is struggling to edit two inconsequential words out of it?
He can take his apology and stuff it! He’s made thousands of poor people poorer and he’s still a hypocrite and an egomaniac.
That was kinda my take on it. It isn’t like he lied once or twice. He was doing so habitually. So yeah. Stuff-it.
It is hard to abandon the sort of hubris that leads to extreme environmentalist views, but at least he has abandoned the Green Extreme Movement if not his self-centered personal aggrandizement. Still a narcissist, but let’s accept the sincerity of his newfound views and let the personal stuff go. This could be the green insider we have been waiting for to say the Climate Change Crisis Emperor is wearing no clothes.
As for Forbes, it would not surprise me if they pulled his piece because they realized it is basically an infomercial for his book after being blinded to that by their initial surprise at his view. But I am probably just being naive.
This is all encouraging but why does he think that he can apologise on behalf of all environmentalists? That smacks to me too much like father don’t blame them they don’t know what they do. And I don’ t believe that for a moment, they know precisely what they do.
Let’s ask Mike Mann?
Michael Shellenberger, How about adding one more “fact” to your initial list:
* CO2 (or Carbon) is not the control knob for global warming / climate change.
– JPP
Is this the start of the Michaels’ migration from sinners to saints? Two down one to go. Will Mann join them in their Damascene conversion, or is that being too optimistic? As repenting requires a certain amount of humility, not to mention honesty, I don’t think the Hockey Stick Kid will be coming into the light anytime soon.
A nice review from one of my favorite climate scientists:
“In this engaging and well-researched treatise, Michael Shellenberger exposes the environmental movement’s hypocrisy in painting climate change in apocalyptic terms while steadfastly working against nuclear power, the one green energy source whose implementation could feasibly avoid the worst climate risks. Disinformation from the Left has replaced deception from the Right as the greatest obstacle to mitigating climate change.”
— Kerry Emanuel, Professor of Atmospheric Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The so called “disinformation from the right” only existed in the minds of the socialists in the first place.
PS: There was never any climate risk in the first place. The left had to apocalyptic, because reality wasn’t scary at all.
The claims that we had to keep temperature increases, first under 3C, then 2.5C, the 2C and now 1.5C were never backed by any science. The warmunists never even attempted to justify these numbers. They just asserted them over and over again, hoping that the big lie would eventually stick.
The planet has spent most of the last 10,000 years 3 to 5C warmer than it is today, and life flourished.
“Disinformation from the Left has replaced deception from the Right as the greatest obstacle to mitigating climate change.”
Kerry Emanuel diverting attention from his own part in the tragedy.
Kerry is a climate modeler who never ever published a modeling paper showing physically valid uncertainty bars.
After years of detailed focus on AGW and considerable exposure to climate modelers, my view as regards them and science is that the honest are incompetent and the competent are dishonest.
It’s the only explanation of these extraordinary circumstances that makes sense.
The “climate scare” was a counterproductive first-order forcing of acute phobia, division, and inaction.
“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
Welcome to the world of reasoning adults, Michael Schellenberger! Welcome!
Really? You think this is growing up? Looks to me like someone who games the system is just using a new strategy to continue to game the system. Actually, it isn’t that new. He’s been warming up for the change for a few years now.
Anyway, he’s the adult who has figured out that most people act like children and the trick is to put yourself in a situation where you can tell the people/children what to think. Reasoning adults? Sorry. That is largely fantasy. Appeals to emotion are what really drives things.
I don’t know the gentleman, but his article does not say much that he has not been saying for the past few years.
While Forbes has pulled the article – which does indeed read like a puff for a book – it has left the title on the search page for his Forbes contributions – see here:
https://www.forbes.com/search/?q=Michael%20Shellenberger
Maybe a storm in a teacup?
Will I accept Mr. Shellenburger’s apology? Um. . . no. I am without sin on the subject of climate alarmism, and therefore feel qualified to throw the first stone, and then go back to the gravel pit and load up my slingshot.
I read the whole apology, and he cops to allowing other environmentalists to lie without publicly defying them because he was unwilling to pay the costs in lost friendships and professional hardships. Okay. He doesn’t admit to lying about alarmist claims himself but, unless he had an abrupt epiphany, at some point he said things in public that he privately doubted. That’s lying, pal.
Allowing others to be destroyed because you don’t want to lose the friendship of evil people, is not exactly a shining moral moment either.
Michael Shellenberger: “Climate change is happening.”
Not the way you mean it, it’s not, Mike.
And now that you admit the alarmism was knowing fakery, how about a sincere apology for collusion in all those excess Winter fuel poverty deaths.
I am really not sure this is an epiphany.
https://edmontonjournal.com/business/local-business/david-staples-if-anyone-can-persuade-trudeau-to-end-his-disastrous-spirit-quest-on-renewable-energy-its-michael-shellenberger
Like Wigley, Emanuel, Caldeira and Hansen (yes Hansen), he supports nuclear energy.
Jack, there is more to this than support for nuclear…
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.
I feel an obligation to apologize for how badly we environmentalists have misled the public…
I know that the above facts will sound like “climate denialism” to many people. But that just shows the power of climate alarmism…
But 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.
Did you miss the parts about badly misleading the public, and scaring the public over misplaced alarmism?
Nice shark jump Jack! LOL
Except he didn’t jump the shark, he landed half way !
As usual. 🙂
The editor’s at Forbes just earned the “chickenshit of the Year” for pulling the original op-ed. Pathetic!
How long before Shellenberger’s Wikipedia article gets edited or deleted?
So how many hours was this posted before the firemen showed up to burn the books and take him in custody?
LoL
(well at least I hope that’s just an “LoL”, a sci fi “Fahrenheit 451” reference – you never really know these days, do you ..)
We need to get moving. We have almost lost control of all electronic communication systems.
CAGW is only one issue. It was, however, the super power excuse help big brother take over communication systems, legal system, and governments.
The solution to CAGW was impossible. Zero emissions was never going to happen. And it will soon be impossible to talk about….
There has been a 20% cut in revenue (most states and most cities) and our governments are frozen…. And the communication system is busy attacking the President and pushing one party.
The green stuff just makes electricity ridiculously expensive and destroys a country’s economy and damages the environment.
CAGW is a dangerous meme that takes over and destroys democratic countries.
That was the purpose of CAGW.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/KQnVEMOOYuJd/
Planet of the Humans
The free internet has become ‘politically’ filtered and controlled.
Where it is no longer possible to find information that is off ‘script’….
Google searches will not locate Breitbart articles.
The exact title of a Breitbart article on let’s say foreign money paid to Bidden relatives, anti-police movement brings up articles from Vanity Fair, New Yorker, Washington Post…
So what we are talking about is corruption at the highest level of our government …..
And a dangerous, foreign country that has bought and control of one of our two parties.
….. And as that subject is off script…. It is hidden.
“Google searches will not locate Breitbart articles.
The exact title of a Breitbart article on let’s say foreign money paid to Bidden relatives, anti-police movement brings up articles from Vanity Fair, New Yorker, Washington Post…
So what we are talking about is corruption at the highest level of our government …..
And a dangerous, foreign country that has bought and control of one of our two parties.”
I heard a report the other day talking about the large percentage of foreigners who are imported into the U.S. to work at our large tech companies, and that got me to wondering if some of the censors empolyed at Google and Twitter and Youtube are even American citizens.
Are foreigners deciding what we can and can’t talk about? Yes, they are! Foreigners from another nation, and/or homegrown foreigners from this reality we live in, are censoring us.
Tom–this is true. I sell books on recovery at Amazon and Facebook–12 step recovery. For years it has been fine, then suddenly they both started refusing my ads and promotions–why? Because the “don’t accept books on drugs!” This is RECOVERY–It is foreign teams and people from other cultures and they do not understand that addiction is a health care issue and ads on recovery books are not books about drugs. It is infuriating because I can’t get to a rational person from our culture to be on the review team–just makes me want to scream. So my business is censored by people with a script who can’t be reasoned with.
” To err is human to forgive divine. ”
Let’s give him a chance and see how he works out.Meanwile,why not bombard every newspaper,every media outlet with the news of his”defection? “
What in the world happened to Forbes? They used to be a conservative outlet, but now it’s all leftist garbage, and now this. Is Steve Forbes no longer involved?
It caught the Soros Marxist flu just like the Washington Post, Drudge and many others.
Forbes was bought out by a main land Asia based investor group in 2014.
I sent a note to Forbes magazine:
Dear Forbes,
I am seriously disappointed in Forbes for having removed Michael Shellenberger’s recent article. I read it in full and find it a thoughtful and IMPORTANT contribution to the debate about climate change and its impact on our environment and societies.
Shellenberger’s perspective is important and needs to be seriously considered, not extirpated.
I cannot imagine a good reason for you taking that action except extreme cowardice.
What has journalism come to?
Shame on you!
============
Does anyone have a personal email address for Steve Forbes? I’d like to send something he might actually read himself.
Watching this all unravel reminds me of the recent ESPN documentary on Lance Armstrong:
30 for 30: ‘LANCE’ | ESPN
You can just feel the relief from Armstrong and the whole US Postal Squad, derived from not having to “keep the secret” any longer. Lance even says in the documentary: “I know this cost me a 100 million dollars and my entire livelihood, but I would not trade in a million years the position I am in now verses where I was then.” And the entire US Postal Team echoed those sentiments. You could just feel the palpable relief coming off the screen.
So I imagine, the same pressures and gnawing feelings must be eating at guys like Schellenberg, etal.
Most of them went into science to find the “truth”, no matter where it led them, and the whole CAGW movement has derailed that opportunity and the life fulfillment that goes along with it.
So, if anyone is reading this, and is a scientist or advocate from the CAGW side, and is trying to decide what to do, watch “30 for 30: Lance”.
Yeah, thanks ‘Shill’enberger. But you’re decades late and several billion dollars short. I might forgive you if you can arrange a refund of every penny of carbon tax I have ever paid, directly or indirectly. Oh, and there’s nearly 8 billion people behind me asking for the same.
Huh. Exactly the same things being said by Pielke, Curry, Spencer, Linzen, Christie, Ball, Ride, et al. Amazing coincidence, that.
Not exactly. Pielke still thinks CO2 is a problem, Curry might as well. So they are similar to Shellenberger, not sure about the others.
–Pielke still thinks CO2 is a problem, Curry might as well. So they are similar to Shellenberger, not sure about the others.–
Yes a lot think CO2 is a problem.
It seems these three should be aware that we are in Ice Age.
If they agree that we living in Ice Age.
Why is CO2 levels a problem.
Also when they see such terms as “climate optimum” I wonder what that means to them?
Is it, “That is what people once mistaken assumed, but they were wrong about warmer being better”
And would they like to change, “Holocene climatic optimum” to “Holocene climatic terrificum”.
Was just the Germans who wanted warmer conditions {Germans= bad}?
It seems if you in an Ice Age and you know you in an Ice Age, I you think CO2 causes warming, then don’t you want warming?
What do they think, when they encounter a expression “tropical paradise” or tropical island paradise.
What is the average temperature of any tropical island paradise?
What is the average temperature of where they are currently living?
When have choose what room temperature they want, what temperature do they want?
What minority wants to live where it’s colder.
Average temperature of the country of Mexico is just over 21 C.
Is the fundamental problem with Mexico related to there average temperature is more than 11 C warmer than the US. Or 25 C warmer than Canada?
How about India with it’s average temperature of a bit lower than 25 C [77 F}.
Africa is said to be the hottest continent in the world, is the Africa continent doomed because it too warm. And btw it’s always been “too warm”. Did humans leave Africa because it was too warm?
Do they know that global warming is largely about warming polar regions- do they know what the average temperature is in the polar regions?
Well, we can skip the continent of Antarctica, but it’s not warming and it’s very, very cold.
So in terms warming it’s largely thought that the arctic regions going to warm.
And still frozen tree stumps in Arctic, and they were growing trees during Holocene climatic optimum. Is there some thing to fear if it gets warm enough so trees can grow once again in these frozen regions in the future?
I would say the general problem is many people don’t know what global warming actually is and don’t that we living in the coldest time period in Earth history.
What does living in coldest periods of Earth history look like?
Well, it has lot of deserts. Africa has big desert.
Which not to long age was grasslands- and in even warmer periods, had forests.
Humans evolved in Africa in period when forests were were giving way to grasslands- or global cooling. One can say “modern human” is Ice Age creature, but came from Africa, so was tropical creature which developed technologically over millions years into what is called modern human and all this occurred within the Ice Age.
Because they were a technological creature, they were capable of living in regions which were not warm.
I think he would find it refreshing to discover just how many “climate deniers” are into conservationism.
And sadly, how much the climate alarmists have contributed to ongoing harm to our biosphere.
We love clean air and water as much as anyone else. We want our forests preserved and a rich natural legacy for our children. We want our oceans to be clean of trash. And animal populations to thrive.
But when they control the media and the messaging, no one hears that.
I believe that something truly amazing is happening. We’re seeing the beginning of the end of extremist Environmentalists. That is superb because we need environmentalists just not the movement that has been hijacked by the loony left.
No we dont need environmentalists ,we need a reduction in environmental rules and laws that have destroyed industries, over regulated farming , we need a frame work of basic environmental rules,that allow prosperity.
We dont need a Phoenix environment group emerging from the ashes to be taken over,radicalised and see us back to the position we are in now.
The article is still available on Forbes if you just hit F9 (in Chrome or Edge) and read it in the “Immersive Reader”.
Forbes has deleted the article.
EDITOR’S NOTE
This page is no longer active.
We regret any inconvenience.
More about our terms
Back to Forbes
Just type F9 and you can see it.
Available in pdf form from Tallbloke
https://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/schellenberger-apology.pdf
Grab a copy, pin to the wall, everywhere. 🙂
You got to wonder how a business magazine gets away with a anti business left turn
The article has been lost down the Forbes memory hole. More self-censorship.
https://yandex.com/search/?text=breitbart%20biden&lr=104634
https://www.breitbart.com/tag/joe-biden/
Can anybody else see this?
You may want to know that the acronym MST, on the shirt on the guy in his photo in Brazil, is for a radical-leftist ONG in Brazil that has tried to implement marxism via the violent route by means of stealing land from farmers.
Good for him – no longer just woke, be actually awake.
Events are a changing.
I think he smells which way the wind is blowing. Don’t be the last alarmist in town.
Here is what you’ve created Mr. Environmental Man”
“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.”
Don’t worry about our accepting your apology. Biden has already gone all in on AOC’s New Green Deal. If that becomes a reality humanity will have a serious brush with a New Green Depression. In that event look forward to hearing your daughter say, “How could you Dad? Worry about that.
Bewildered lefties, evicted from their intellectual home by the fall of Communism in 1989 and after, started to look for alternative accommodation. I watched them, over the course of the 1990s, find it in anti-capitalist environmentalism. CO2, and its purported warming effects, seemed to provide the mother of all ‘market failures’, and an excuse for government and regulatory intervention right across the range of private enterprise and capitalist economies. At first I thought that these ideas were not all that important; they grew, however, to hideous strength. I am profoundly grateful to WUWT and its contributors and readers for documenting the last fifteen years or so of this growth so thoroughly.
The renewable energy aspect of the green movement has lasted longer than I thought it would. Indeed, I have been astonished by its political ability to survive in the face of clear evidence from physics and economics that the outcome would be an expensive disaster. But I always knew that, short of global totalitarianism of a thoroughness that did not seem likely, the physics and economics would win in the end. Fossil fuels and nuclear it is.
I accept that those whose livelihoods have been damaged by renewable energy fantasies, and those who have been blowing the whistle on such fantasies for decades, should find it difficult to accept Shellenberger’s apology. It is for those damaged to decide on this, not for any bystanders. But Shellenberger said that he felt that writing a few articles would change nothing, but that a book might. Maybe he is right about that. Marx was not around to see the damage that, posthumously, he caused. Who knows what he might have said, if he had seen it? Shellenberger is in the middle of things. Physical truth and intellectual honesty will win in the end, and maybe things will now start to move. Let us hope so.
One thought, from an observer on the other side of the pond. From the point of view of this rather naive watcher of the U.S. political scene, the Democrat party seems close to backing itself into an impossible and surely electorally suicidal position on ‘Green New Deal’ lines. Might Shellenberger’s very public pronouncement be a way of providing a face-saving retreat for the Democrats into a realistic energy policy, based on nuclear rather than unicorns and rainbows? I ask this question only very tentatively, since U.S. politics is not my patch.
Its back at Forbes:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2020/06/28/on-behalf-of-environmentalists-i-apologize-for-the-climate-scare/?fbclid=IwAR1Y654d3PTHmWlU94moz6sYVDzgSa0djmK45kyJ_OK_5XYS2bf2mo93yiI#57c25e921fa8
Nope, still get “This page is no longer active. We regret any inconvenience.” when clicking that link
Tested it right after posting. Agreed not working now.
https://publicinterest.org.uk/debunking-shellenberger-and-nordhaus-again/
That link is 10years old Ghalfrunt, people are becoming wiser, they are starting finally to see through the lies of the left.
Thousands resort to apocalyptic language in regard to climate change, including air heads like AOC who said in twelve years we would no longer exist. Finally, experts like Shellenberger admit they have been peddling a greatly exaggerated theory which may not even be a world crisis. He is suddenly public enemy #1 just because he voiced what he fully believes but was terrified to admit.
I’ve rarely seen such rage when Climate Warmers are met with difference of opinion based on research. Is their rage partly due to the fact that they know there is much evidence out there that directly opposes their precious theory? It’s very debatable but why not use all, and I mean all of the evidence both pro and con and see what we come up with?
Yes, climate change is real. But environmentalists tell a truth in the effort to advance their broader lie. That lie is their agenda to impose the socialist Utopia upon anyone who falls under the governments they can influence. And that is their religion, that is their god, that is they way they hope to become at one with the universe, the Gaia. And it is forbidden for anyone to opt out, to quietly and peacefully decline to act as if their god was a real force in the universe.
As to climate change, we don’t have to go back too far in human history to prove it is changing in ways that humans could not have caused. If we went back only to 985 AD, we could see that Erik the Red led a small flotilla of settlers to live on Greenland and to subsist in a climate warm enough to grow row crops and cattle. Yet 400 years later the climate grew too cold for that form of agriculture to be sustainable and the colony withered away.
And buried deep in the middle of an article about 5,000 year old fishing tackle being discovered in a bog in Norway, is the statement that the ocean level was much higher than it is today. Not to mention how cold it was when the perfectly preserved body of 5,300 year old hunter Otzi finally thawed out in the Alps between Italy and Austria.
Climate change. Not my fault! Don’t tell me how you are going to force me to fix something that I didn’t break.
Have Forbes explained why they have done this?
That’s my question too and I can’t find anything about why.
It’s on Quillette :
https://quillette.com/2020/06/30/on-behalf-of-environmentalists-i-apologize-for-the-climate-scare/
My good angel says that accepting an apology is the right thing to do. This is how I’ve always tried to live, and it’s served me well so far. Moreover I believe that most people are basically good, even our enemies. So – forgive and move on!
But my evil angel says those on the left never forgive or forget. They play hard-ball, they don’t take prisoners, they hold grudges and are vindictive, and nowadays they even “cancel” people. So – string him up at dawn!
My view is that it’s what happens from now on that counts. There should be consequences for past actions, especially as a lot of us have had to pay for being sceptical. Apologies don’t count unless they’re accompanied by reparations. Going quietly into the night won’t cut it. Time will tell.
With Schellenberger’s criticism the extremes of environmentalism, maybe it is time for the conspiracy theorists and extremists who dismissive of climate science to be criticized by the “true” skeptics. We have seen the views of Watts, Curry and Spencer with respect the the sky dragon slayers at PSI in the past; not so much in the present.
We have heard from what you call “true skeptics ” for 30 years , we have seen them destroy livelihoods ,reputations , we have seen them infiltrate MSM were a opposing view has been banned, climate skeptics have never been able to put there point in public , and you know it dale ,
Maybe what you havent figured out is with MSM on side of true skeptics why they havent publicly demonised curry and Spencer, and never will.
Please re-read my post. Your reaction made very sense.
Please re-read my post. Your reaction made very little sense.
Me thinks you need to read what you wrote.
“maybe it is time for the conspiracy theorists and extremists who dismissive of climate science to be criticized by the “true” skeptics. “
“maybe it is time for the conspiracy theorists and extremists who dismiss climate science to be criticized by the “true” skeptics. “
Watts, Curry and Spencer had been critical of folks like the sky dragon slayers in the past. Little of that occurs now. Some, especially those associated with WUWT, seem to have joined the polarization of the debate.
Here is an earlier post from Watts:
“I have been badgered repeatedly to carry “Slayer” articles on WUWT, and with the exception of one cartoon by Josh, I have refused to do so since I view the work (and its derivatives) as pointless and fatally flawed. ”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/14/roy-spencer-on-the-alabama-two-step/
From The Policy (https://wattsupwiththat.com/policy/)
“For the same reasons as the absurd topics listed above, references to the “Slaying the Sky Dragon” Book and subsequent group “Principia Scientific” which have the misguided idea that the greenhouse effect doesn’t exist, and have elevated that idea into active zealotry, WUWT is a “Slayer Free Zone”. There are other blogs which will discuss this topic, take that commentary there.”
Yet WUWT continues to quote both John O’Sullivan ( John O’Sullivan John is CEO and co-founder (with Dr Tim Ball) of Principia Scientific International (PSI). ) and Tim Ball (Dr Tim Ball is co-founder and inaugural Chairman of Principia Scientific International)
NTZ, whose prinicpal contributor is a children’s entertainer, belong in the same category as PSI.
Does that help?
I have not read the book, I have heard only your side of the story, from what I’m gathering this is a split in skeptics philosophy?
The is faction who deny the greenhouse effect. That does not include Curry and Spencer and probably Watts. It does include NTZ, PSI, FOS, Electroverse, etc..
You will see folks on WUWT who deny the GHE.
You will see folks on WUWT who deny the GHE.”
I have ,but no heated debate, I can understand why the site does not reference “slay the sky dragon”
From my point of view the very term greenhouse is misleading , it seems to be used by the IPCC there scientists to explain, were as a hard core group of skeptics who are naturally opposed to the ramblings of IPCC
Use the same term to denie it, neither side paying much attention to feedback cycles, were as WUWT
PResents or explains a much more comprehensive approach,
And so back to your first post you would like to see more discussion from the hard core skeptics view ?
The term “greenhouse” is a metaphor. There is no equivalent to a glass roof in the atmosphere. CO2, CFCs, NO2, H2O absorb and re-radiate heat energy, thereby trapping some of that heat in the atmosphere. The science behind that GHE has been known for 2 centuries. https://history.aip.org/history/climate/index.htm
The IPCC looks at both anthropogenic and natural forcings. https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WG1AR5_Chapter08_FINAL.pdf
Natural forcings such as Milankovitch cycles and solar cycles would have us cooling. Every data set shows long-term warming.
I re-read your post(s) and they do indeed make very little sense, as usual.
Schellenberger on Sky News Australia via youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU_3dFDqsxQ&feature=youtu.be
Some really early material from Shellenberg that raised a big kerfuffle.
https://grist.org/article/doe-reprint/
https://grist.org/article/doe-intro/
Makes me wonder about this statment from Forbes:
“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.”
A Chinese nuclear plant slated to be built in the UK was guaranteed a “strike price” that was more than double the current rates at the time.
With fracking and shale and domestic production of natural resources, it would be entirely possible for electricity rates to remain reasonable, and the strategic metals and elements would be produced here again. Building nuclear would guarantee debt and higher prices because it is extremely high-tech, unlike coal plants.
The nuclear activists will not only put you into deep debt, they will probably contract it out to a foreign country. Chinese dams and reactors are not going to be any better for the countryside than the worthless wind and solar.
This man did make two interesting statements on his Sky News interview: that the greens are making “poverty sustainable” with renewables, and that frightening children and teens with green propaganda is wrong. Those are both true statements.
Shellenberg interview yesterday.
https://youtu.be/WG15on1PS9g
He’s been Shadowbanned for Wrongthink
It seems that Shellenberger has a long history of being somewhat misleading in his writings. From 2009:
“In just the last few months, TBI, and its founders Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus have gone on a disinformation rampage with the help of the media:”
https://archive.thinkprogress.org/memo-to-media-dont-be-suckered-by-bad-analyses-from-the-breakthrough-institute-the-way-time-wsj-npr-a0b77f6f846c/