
Why Climate Alarmism Hurts Us All - aazaa
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/12/04/why-climate-alarmism-hurts-us-all
======
moosey
Michael Schennenberger runs the BTI, or the "Breakthrough Institute", which is
against taxing carbon, against fossil fuel reduction, and pro-geoengineering.
It is ultimately a think-tank, which is just another name for a professional
propaganda unit, IMO.

This is an article encouraging you to calm down and sit down. It's a careful
cherry-pick of data, something that the IPCC report is not, and something that
is extremely common in contemporary opinion pieces.

We should not be rosy about climate change or other pollution related issues.
There exists massive quantities of evidence that can be covered at hacker
news, and seeing this disinformation here when we have access to actual
scientific information about climate change shocks me.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
He's also a registered lobbyist, founded and runs Environmental Progress -
essentially a pro nuclear lobby group, and is rabidly anti-renewables -
inventing "facts" to make them look bad.

He does far more damage than good, and you basically can't trust a word he
says or cites.

~~~
malvosenior
Pro nuclear is a good thing though no? It seems like _the_ solution to climate
change and energy production. I know I'm very skeptical of people who claim to
be pro-environment then rally against nuclear power.

~~~
mantap
Nuclear is _a_ solution in countries such as India and China where it can be
constructed for cheaper, but in the west it is dying due to the high cost. If
nuclear only compared unfavorablely to fossil fuels the externalities could be
addressed by a carbon tax. But because it compares unfavorably to _renewables_
it is really dying.

~~~
AstralStorm
Except renewables cannot deliver a whole network on their own ever, so there
is no competition. The cost is a fake issue, because nuclear competes against
coal and gas power plants and not renewables.

You need a base load capability for smoothing in an electrical grid. Most
renewables are the exactly opposite. The exception is biogas or other
gasification plants a these cannot handle the required load at all. Not even
hydropower.

Look at what happens in Australia if you push too much solar energy (same with
wind) on the network.

~~~
bryanlarsen
> Except renewables cannot deliver a whole network, so it does not.

Solar and wind need to be paired peaker plants. Conventional nuclear doesn't
provide peaking ability.

Battery powered peakers are quite expensive, but the need for them can be
reduced drastically through over-provisioning and interconnection.

~~~
AstralStorm
If we could overprovision solar and wind, we wouldn't have the problem now? I
find that hard to believe. What happens when you need extra load at night or
during a country wide lull in wind speed?

Nuclear reduces the need for peakers exactly because it can overprovision
reliably.

You could also make nuclear peakers if you wanted reasonably easily too.
Nuclear plants have tunable output to a point, they're just slow and hard to
fully stop, so you would make a design optimized for very tunable output and
high peak power. (0)

Solar and wind cannot suddenly overprovision. The sources either exist or not,
you can at most ground them instead of collecting power.

0) IAEA - Non-baseload operation of nuclear power plants:
[https://www.iaea.org/publications/11104/non-baseload-
operati...](https://www.iaea.org/publications/11104/non-baseload-operation-in-
nuclear-power-plants-load-following-and-frequency-control-modes-of-flexible-
operation)

------
kalado
"If you are aware of the science you're priviliged enough to survive climate
change, no need to worry just because the 4 billion people in other countries
are going to die"

~~~
goatlover
Or the 4 billion number is just a wild guess to emphasize climate change being
a big problem. What's the science behind estimating such a number?

------
delecti
> In my last column, I pointed out that there is no scientific basis for
> claims that climate change will be apocalyptic

If the author means literally everyone dead, planet gone, then obviously it
won't be "apocalyptic", but the science is suggesting it's likely to be
_really_ bad. It seems pretty unreasonable to say "not apocalyptic? oh then
that's not so bad, what's all the fuss about" when the situation is this dire.
We could avert a lot of it if we actually did anything about it.

~~~
hjkthkrleh
What does "really bad" mean? How is the current situation "this dire"?

This kind of statements is exactly what this article is about.

~~~
gatherhunterer
No, that is not what the article is about. One of the researchers he
interviewed asked the Guardian to correct its quotation but stood by his
prediction of four billion deaths caused by climate change. The article in no
way denies that the situation is bad or dire.

------
GVIrish
While I agree that alarmists who think the world is ending in 10-20 years are
wildly off-base, Shellenberger is badly understating things at times.

He asked an IPCC scientist about what was unmanageable about a 3 ft+ sea level
rise, and after said scientist explained the numerous serious scenarios his
glib conclusion was:

"In other words, the problems from sea level rise that Oppenheimer is calling
“unmanageable” are situations like the ones that already occur, such as in the
days following Hurricane Katrina, where societies become temporarily difficult
to manage. (Katrina killed over 1,800)."

This is a really bad hot take. Number one, Hurricane Katrina was a one-time
weather event. Sea level rise means you're always going to be dealing with
trying to hold back the sea. In parts of the world that are already struggling
with poverty, how are they gonna come up with the billions of dollars to
engineer, build, and maintain sea walls and dykes?

And that's not even getting into the fact that if you're starting out with
much higher sea level, storm surge is gonna cause that much more damage. On
top of that, significantly warmer seas are going to cause much stronger
storms.

People displaced by said consequences of climate change are going destabilize
governments and/or cause conflicts. There are many hot spots in the world
where long standing tensions could burst into open conflict if a climate-
related disaster or crisis hits.

------
lcall
We don't have to be surprised about some of these events, since they have been
predicted in the scriptures, for now, for a long time (ice melting, storms,
quakes, waves of the sea heaving themselves beyond their bounds, fires/smoke,
and other significant catastrophic events--not just the usual levels of them).

I do appreciate the science and am glad for progress in our efforts. But it
seems to me we are not competent to solve such things when we have largely
rejected the instructions given by the earth's Creator (like, honesty, the
Golden Rule, etc, etc): we have a hard time trusting each other even when we
say we agree. I'm glad we can share our own thoughts. We need His help both to
address important issues globally, and in our personal lives.

And we can be OK. Related thoughts at
[http://lukecall.net/e-9223372036854581820.html](http://lukecall.net/e-9223372036854581820.html)
, a simple site w/ no javascript or sales).

------
charliesome
I highly recommend reading David Wallace-Wells' "The Uninhabitable Earth" \-
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41552709-the-
uninhabitab...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41552709-the-
uninhabitable-earth)

The book is quite information dense, intellectually honest with regard to the
likelihood of various outcomes, and offers the clearest and broadest
assessment I've yet read of where we are and what lies for us in the future.

Describing the contemporary climate discourse as "alarmist" denies the
severity and scale of the problem we face.

------
Gravityloss
I thought Greta Thunberg was pretty factual?

~~~
smt88
She is aggressive, emotional, and passionate about the _need for change_ , but
she doesn't present new facts or policies herself. She leaves that up to
scientists.

> "I don’t want you to listen to me. I want you to listen to the scientists,
> and I want you to unite behind the science, and then I want you to take real
> action."[1]

She's even been asked to make specific recommendations, and she says to follow
the science.

1\. [https://www.axios.com/greta-thunberg-testimony-climate-
chang...](https://www.axios.com/greta-thunberg-testimony-climate-
change-13876b47-d76d-4538-8a0b-8ac3ac8e7ba1.html)

------
baxtr
I am not sure if flagging this helps. Why not discuss a controversial
position?

~~~
goodmachine
Flagging helps here because the author (with whom, fwiw, I basically agree -
let's have more nuclear power!) cannot be trusted to supply reliable
information, ie not to distort data whenever it suits him.

[https://www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-
monitor/853/exposi...](https://www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-
monitor/853/exposing-misinformation-michael-shellenberger-and-environmental-
progress)

[https://theecologist.org/2018/sep/20/nuclear-power-
lobbyist-...](https://theecologist.org/2018/sep/20/nuclear-power-lobbyist-
michael-shellenberger-learns-love-bomb)

[https://news.mongabay.com/2019/08/michael-shellenbergers-
slo...](https://news.mongabay.com/2019/08/michael-shellenbergers-sloppy-
forbes-diatribe-on-amazon-fires-commentary/)

~~~
thu2111
Neither can many journalists, but we don't systematically flag stories found
in the NY Times.

The article in question gives many citations, interviews with original sources
and is in general an excellent piece of journalism. It's also arguing against
a ridiculous, extreme position whose prime proponents have frequently admitted
they're lying. Trying to suppress this article because it's written by someone
in favour of nuclear power is exactly what makes people suspicious of _all_
environmentalist narratives because how do they know they're getting the full
picture?

------
Miner49er
The author is a paid advocate for nuclear power.

~~~
jumbopapa
Isn't that one of the cleanest options available that can actually meet our
energy demands?

~~~
MisterTea
He's also against renewables. This is a shill piece.

~~~
jumbopapa
Is he against renewables as a matter of principle or because he finds them
less effective? I think there's a big difference.

------
the-dude
This submission is now flagged. Please unflag it, there is nothing wrong with
the article.

~~~
bryanlarsen
It's a dupe of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21648582](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21648582)

------
malvosenior
It's interesting to compare and contrast climate change and nuclear war. When
I grew up it was common knowledge that the world could end at any point in
time via nuclear holocaust. It was more or less the most direct existential
threat to humanity the world had ever seen. It did spawn some nihilistic
artistic movements and general detachment, but I'd say that the anxiety people
felt was much lower than what you hear from the younger generations re:
climate change.

Even on this site, you'll see many people say that they don't want to have
kids because of climate change. I don't recall people in the 80s saying they
wouldn't reproduce due to the future threat of nuclear war.

I'm not sure what the exact cause is but I suspect it has something to do with
the how the different generations process authority and media messaging.
Earlier generations being much more skeptical of what they are told.

~~~
hjkthkrleh
> how the different generations process authority and media messaging

The big difference is that the current generation gets it's information from
Instagram/..., from peers, not authority, thus at the same time they can be
skeptical of authority while totally believing whatever circulates on
Instagram (for example the recent fake fact how "Amazon, the lungs of the
planet, are burning", the fake fact being that Amazon generates 20% of the
world oxygen)

~~~
goatlover
Also the fake fact that the Amazon rain forest was being burned down instead
of an increased fraction of the forest was being burned this year to clear for
more farmland over decline in the percentage in recent years.

Which is an issue, because it's best if as much of the Amazon is preserved as
possible, but not the apocalyptic one of the entire rainforest going up in
smoke.

------
labster
This article manages to be mostly correct while at the same time being several
shades of ok boomer. Sure, we're not all going to die. But on the other hand a
major source of geopolitical instability comes from crop failure, and people
still seem rather alarmed about that war in Syria and all the refugees.

The fact that we're in a global mass extinction event is somewhat troubling as
well, even given that not all of the extinctions are caused by climate change.

It's not the one-meter sea level rise (optimistic case). It's the one meter
plus more hurricanes with more storm surge. Yes, we can managed retreat. But
people _really_ don't want to do that, and then one day you have your sewer
system under water.

That could have happened with a big enough hurricane anyway, but climate
change just makes a lot of problems bigger. It's almost never a prime mover,
it's a statistical problem, which in the short term makes the numbers a little
worse for all of us. But enough of those numbers are changing that we should
be alarmed. Life expectancy decreasing a year or two, as it is in the US right
now, should be alarming, even if it is statistics, and climate is not really
that different.

And if you're using "15 if statements", it doesn't usually mean you're wrong,
it just means you need to refactor your code.

------
draklor40
Hurting people is precisely the point of all of this alarmism. The goal is not
to solve the "climate crisis", but to subvert the guilt of the people for
self-serving needs of the few that stand to gain for society taking up
measures deemed by them to "solve" the crisis.

~~~
smt88
OK, I'll bite.

How do you explain the hundreds of thousands of scientists worldwide who have
studied the environment professionally for, collectively, millions of person-
years?

What is their self-serving motive? Surely a biologist would still have funding
and things to study either way. The same is true for physicians, geologists,
physicists, and many of the other specialties who have confirmed the finding
that there is a climate crisis.

The same is not true of 100% of the climate-crisis denial, where you can see
multi-trillion-dollar businesses actively astroturfing their side of the
conversation.

~~~
draklor40
There is no question that the climate is changing. But what is the crisis here
? Are the apocalyptic warnings anywhere close to reality? And lets look at the
proposed solutions: \- Going meatless. There is more and more evidence that
the methane/CO2 emissions of meat industry is not very significant, atleast
when you compare it to construction, cement and other industrial pollutants.
The more important question is, what is the alternative ? Insects protein ?
GMO crop fueled veganism? Jurassic park is all about how unintended
consequences can arise out of stupid interventions ? Meatless burgers etc are
full of junk nutrition and full of stuff like sunflower and vegetable oils,
oils a century ago were considered industrial oils and used as paint thinners.
\- Green energy. Germany reversed their decision on Nuclear reactors to go
green and the energy costs are 2x that of France. How do you expect to be
competitive with other industries then ? It was the freeing up of stored
chemical energy by James Watt that powered the greatest poverty lifting
experiment in the history of Manking. There is no way Germany would get to
100% green energy by 2050 unless fusion, or everyone lives like they did in th
18th century or you kill off half the population. \- People consume less ?
Pray why is that virtue-signaling dipshits like Lenardo Di Fraudio,
Attenborough fly around in private jets whereas we plebs have to give up on
our tiny cars and electronics ? A single virtue signaling Hollywood nincompoop
consumes 100x more than any average person would in an entire lifetime. \-
More taxes so people consume less ? Aren't we taxed enough ? \- Tax the rich ?
Gates and Bezos dont have a 100 billion sitting around in cash. Most of it is
locked up as assets in Stock or another form. Besides, whatever millions they
have paid so far is more than what 100,000 people would pay in a lifetime.

~~~
smt88
> _There is no question that the climate is changing. But what is the crisis
> here ?_

The core problem is that humans (and most other living things on earth)
evolved to live in a certain climate. For each organism, the tolerance for
change differs. If we lose an intolerant, important organism (let's say
plankton, for example) and it goes extinct, then there's a chain reaction that
ends up making the planet uninhabitable for us.

> _Are the apocalyptic warnings anywhere close to reality?_

It depends on the warning. Will human life on earth end in 10 or 50 years?
Probably not. But will we have a mass migration crisis that will threaten
every wealthy country? Yes, and it will happen in less than 50 years as
natural disasters and poor crop output drive people from their birth
countries.

Climate models from Exxon and public-sector scientists have been pretty
accurate at describing the current state of our climate, so predictions from
sober, professional scientists are worth paying attention to.

The rest of your arguments fall into a few categories:

A) Attacking a straw man. No one seriously things that going meatless would
instantly solve the problem. There is no single solution. It requires many
large changes to small aspects of our lifestyles. Eating less meat (not zero
meat) for people who can afford it is helpful.

There is a helpful list and rank of different approaches[1].

B) "Green energy (excluding nuclear) is too expensive and can't compete with
fossil fuels in an open market." This is not true[2].

C) "Nuclear must be part of the answer." I think this might be true or might
not. It's another huge prediction, isn't it? Why are you skeptical of some
predictions about 2050, but not others?

D) "Celebrities are hypocrites." Yes, they are. But it has nothing to do with
the argument environmentalists are making. I find them irritating too, but it
doesn't make environmental concerns any less reasonable. Celebrities are a
tiny fraction of environmentalists.

E) "Taxes are bad." Taxes in the US have rapidly gone down in the last few
decades, but increasing them is a separate argument from the environment.
Taxing _carbon producers_ is a serious proposal, but that's not taxing Gates
or Bezos -- it's forcing companies to pay for the damage they do to the air
and environment the rest of us need to survive.

1\. [https://www.drawdown.org/solutions-summary-by-
rank](https://www.drawdown.org/solutions-summary-by-rank)

2\.
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/dominicdudley/2019/05/29/renewa...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/dominicdudley/2019/05/29/renewable-
energy-costs-tumble/)

~~~
draklor40
You made your points well and I thank you for it. But my questions are behind
the motivations of these alarmists mentally damaging our kids.

How are movements like the Extinction Rebellion, Great Thunberg, being funded
? How is she getting all the money to do her travel ? How did she go from
doing strikes by herself at the school to the UN in less than a year ? I have
heard of fairytales, but please don't tell me that she got there because of
organic, viral support from people. There is BIG MONEY behind this. And how
did she get so many celebrities to endorse her and have so many meeting
arragned ?

I just don't see the people behind these protests and that makes me super
skeptical of how "organic" these movements are.

Before someone accuses me of conspiracy theories. James Cameron produced a
movie on How Vegan athletes are rewriting nutrition science (haven't watched
it). Applying my "follow the money" universal rule, I came across an article
that points out tothe fact that James Cameron has invested a lot of money in
Vegan food corps

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-03/-avatar-d...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-03/-avatar-
director-sees-global-salvation-in-plant-based-investing)

This is the kind of propaganda hiding real intentions that irks me to no end.

