Click to go to Amazon*
UPDATE: The page this links to may or may not be “inactive” at Forbes. Perhaps they’ve run out of electrons? If the article link doesn’t work. Try Google Cache. Web archive. Or Tallblokes PDF.
At some point there will be a rush — a phase change as real environmentalists realize they are being used as useful idiots for multinational giants and Big Bankers. Then there will be a scramble to outgreen the establishment Greens by denouncing some key aspects of false alarm. We’re not there yet. But the Michael Moore documentary is significant and Michael Shellenberger fits a similar mold. We’ll know the moment has arrived when there is more cheering for rather than vitriol against the “traitors”.
Michael Shellenberger was, a long time ago, very Green. Among other things, he was named a Time magazine Heroes of the Environment (2008), winner of the 2008 Green Book Award. In 2015, Shellenberger joined with 18 other self-described ecomodernists to coauthor An Ecomodernist Manifesto. He’s been shifting through a transition over the years from extreme Green, to pragmatic Green (pro nuclear in 2004, see his TEDX in 2017) and now to a pro-civilization, pro power, anti-alarmist. But seemingly not as far as to become a climate science skeptic?
This is what I mean by extreme Green:
Some people will, when they read this imagine that I’m some right-wing anti-environmentalist. I’m not. At 17, I lived in Nicaragua to show solidarity with the Sandinista socialist revolution. At 23 I raised money for Guatemalan women’s cooperatives. In my early 20s I lived in the semi-Amazon doing research with small farmers fighting land invasions. At 26 I helped expose poor conditions at Nike factories in Asia.
He’s seen the light (or perhaps just the data):
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.
How easily bullying and namecalling silences people
At first he didn’t speak because he was embarrassed. Then he was afraid:
…mostly I was scared. I remained quiet about the climate disinformation campaign because I was afraid of losing friends and funding. The few times I summoned the courage to defend climate science from those who misrepresent it I suffered harsh consequences. And so I mostly stood by and did next to nothing as my fellow environmentalists terrified the public.
At least he’s honest:
I even stood by as people in the White House and many in the news media tried to destroy the reputation and career of an outstanding scientist, good man, and friend of mine, Roger Pielke, Jr….
Back in 2004 he was criticized as A radioactive wolf in sheeps clothing. So this is part of a long transition. It’s not like he discovered the wonders of nuclear power last year.
His new book is Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All.
Agreeing with the IPCC but disagreeing with their recommendations
His list of points, as he said “from” the IPCC, FAO and IUCN:
- Humans are not causing a “sixth mass extinction”
- The Amazon is not “the lungs of the world”
- Climate change is not making natural disasters worse
- Fires have declined 25% around the world since 2003
- The amount of land we use for meat — humankind’s biggest use of land — has declinedby an area nearly as large as Alaska
- The build-up of wood fuel and more houses near forests, not climate change, explain why there are more, and more dangerous, fires in Australia and California
- Carbon emissions have been declining in rich nations for decades and peaked in Britain, Germany and France in the mid-seventies
- Adapting to life below sea level made the Netherlands rich not poor
- We produce 25% more food than we need and food surpluses will continue to rise as the world gets hotter
- Habitat loss and the direct killing of wild animals are bigger threats to species than climate change
- Wood fuel is far worse for people and wildlife than fossil fuels
- Preventing future pandemics requires more not less “industrial” agriculture
Lukewarm? Does Shellenberger still think CO2 needs to be reduced?
He’s an energy and policy skeptic, but not necessarily (yet) a skeptic of their science. He’s called a “science communicator” so we hope takes a hard look at it. As long as junk science rules, we won’t figure out how the climate works, or stop science from being abused and used again for the next scare, and the one after that. I suspect he still thinks CO2 should be reduced. If I’ve missed it, let me know.
UPDATE: Charles Battig reviews the Shellenberger book with Michael Moore’s documentary, and Bjorn Lomborg’s new book.
He [Shellenberger] reflects upon his early devotion to environmentalism as a manifestation of an “underlying anxiety and unhappiness in my own life that had little to do with climate change or the state of the natural environment.” It became a quasi-religion offering “emotional relief” and “spiritual satisfaction” for those, like him, who may have lost the guidance of traditional spiritual faiths.
Schellenberg concludes with the observation that “the trouble with the new environmental religion is that it has become increasingly apocalyptic, destructive, and self-defeating.”
It’s easy to be cynical about a slick marketing campaign (which the book promotion certainly is). It’s a tad pompous to apologize on behalf of “environmentalists everywhere”, as if he is a self annointed spokesman, and it means something. At least his book and interviews will open some new eyes, and that can’t be a bad thing.
Here’s hoping he really looks at the science of CO2, not just rehash the options for a different kind of low carbon future.
h/t Another Ian. Charles M. Climate Skepticism. Adam W. John Droz. Eduard H.
* Yes, that’s an affiliate link, and I might get a small commission.
So what about the trillions and trillions of dollars which have done nothing? What is the point of raising money for Guatamalans and not saying anything about thousands of billions of dollars worth of useless windmills and solar farms? Sorry?
And what about the all the false predictions in their thousands which have done so much damage? Fake scares none of which eventuated. And pushing the idea that every natural disaster was someone’s fault? Australia is among the many countries who have spent vast fortunes over the last 30 years uselessly in trying to stop something quite natural and NOT on anything else which might actually benefit us or anyone else. It’s been a money go round which has enriched opportunists and climate baggers on a massive scale.
What has been the point of raising donations for needy causes while this fr*ud has been the biggest scam in world history and how has all this cash helped supply electricity to the poor. All the windmills and solar panels are in rich countries!
You really feel that oops! is not good enough. And this is not the first and certainly not the last of many.
Will someone please admit the CO2 level is natural and mankind has no control over it whatsoever and higher CO2 is great. It’s just ocean surface temperature when 98% of all CO2 is dissolved in the oceans. And no one has ever proven anything else.
And will someone please point out the UN and EU are behind all this and the IPCC and WHO and the current real global disaster brought to you by the same people.
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Here’s his apology. Forbes has censored it but zerohedge to the rescue.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/forbes-censors-award-winning-environmentalists-apology-over-three-decade-climate-scare-so
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“Shellenberger graduated from the Peace and Global Studies (PAGS) program at Earlham College in 1993”
So not a scientist’s bootlace. Another lifetime professional activist who knew better and shouted down real scientists and made a living from it. And now a promoter of nuclear energy without any idea of the terrible risks or the total lack of a solution for nuclear waste or the sheer lack of uranium. There is less uranium than oil.
If it wasn’t for ignorant self opinionated ratbags like this, perhaps the tens of trillions and decades wasted would have given us fusion power by now, or at least Thorium reactors.
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How much space is needed to store the whole world’s nuclear waste, even without fuel reprocessing? The answer is surprisingly small and a little corner of many of our outback properties (think NT cattle stations) would hold centuries amount even if surrounded by a 10km x 10km boundary.
Only if we persist with the once through U235 cycle and continue to ignore breeder reactors and fuel reprocessing.
Massive amounts of money, time and effort has been spent chasing controlled fusion. It’s been 20 years away for over half a century and still is.
On Thorium (and Uranium) MSRs, I will agree with you
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We do not need hundreds of years. We need hundreds of thousands of years. It’s not about area or weight. Its the danger from the environment, flooding, terrorism. And there is the heat output so you can’t just stick it all together. The sarcophagus at Chernobl alone will have to be replaced every 100 years at least for another 100,000 years. The 2016 model cost $1.5Billion Euros.
Breeder reactors mean a plutonium based society, the most dangerous solution for the risk of terrorists, war and health.
Massive amounts of money on fusion? Not a fraction of 1% of the $US30 Trillion spent on useless windmills and Green schemes.
And how much has been spent on Thorium?
We have wasted tens of trillions doing nothing useful and 30 years. Now he wants to apologise?
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yawn
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A CSIRO Nuclear Physicist explained in the 1970s that a remote area in Australia equivalent to a football stadium in dimensions with holes drilled into the ground would be sufficient space to securely store nuclear waste for as long as necessary if Australia had more nuclear reactors like Lucas Heights plus nuclear power stations and even nuclear ships.
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Yes, he is an optimist. That was always the way. Put it in the middle of the desert and everything will be fine. Or a salt mine, because the coming back. And the Great Artesian Basin, flooding events, terrorism, war? Besides, that’s what is being done today. Lucas heights has their waste in 44 gallon drums. Manyana.
So on the one hand you have the alarmists who tell you Manhattan was going to be underwater two years ago. And the optimists who tell you it will never flood. The other science group is Que sera sera.
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Just stick the stuff down the hole it came out of, at the end of the mines useful life, & push the dirt back over it.
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Nuclear power offers an abundant supply of low-carbon energy. But what to do with the deadly radioactive waste?
The race is on to develop new strategies for permanently storing some of the most dangerous materials on the planet.
Ensia Aug 16, 2019 · 11 min read
Originally published at ensia.com on July 31, 2019.
Skip forward to Cameron, Texas, on January 16, 2019. This was a nerve-wracking day for Liz Muller, co-founder of California startup technology company Deep Isolation and her father, Richard Muller, professor emeritus of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and now chief technology officer at Deep Isolation.
The father-daughter team had invited 40 nuclear scientists, U.S. Department of Energy officials, oil and gas professionals, and environmentalists to witness the first-ever attempt to test whether the latest oil-fracking technology could be used to permanently dispose of the most dangerous nuclear waste.
At 11:30 a.m., the crew of oil workers used a wire cable to lower a 30-inch (80-centimeter)-long, 8-inch (20-centimeter)-wide 140-pound (64-kilogram) canister — filled with steel rather than radioactive waste — down a previously drilled borehole. Then, using a tool called a “tractor” invented by the industry to reach horizontally into mile-deep oil reservoirs, they pushed it 400 feet (120 meters) farther away from the borehole through the rock.
Five hours later, the crew used the tractor to relocate and collect the canister, attach it to the cable and pull it back to the surface — to the cheers of the workers. Until then, few people in the nuclear industry believed this could be done.
By avoiding the need to excavate large, expensive tunnels to store waste below ground, the Deep Isolation team believes it has found a solution to one of the world’s most intractable environmental problems — how to permanently dispose of and potentially retrieve the hundreds of thousands of tons of nuclear waste presently being stored at nuclear power plants and research and military stations around the world.
“We showed it could be done,” Elizabeth Muller says. “Horizontal, directional drilling has come a long way recently. This is now an off-the-shelf technology. Using larger canisters, we think about 300 boreholes with tunnels up to 2 miles (3 kilometers) long would be able to take much of the U.S.’s high-level nuclear waste. We think we can reduce by two-thirds the cost of permanent storage.”
[Remainder at:]
https://medium.com/ensia/nuclear-power-offers-an-abundant-supply-of-low-carbon-energy-5bfe066e7568
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Also in entirety at Climate Change Dispatch:
https://climatechangedispatch.com/renowned-green-activist-apologizes-for-the-climate-scare/
News gets around, no thanks to MSM “News” though. In my neck of the woods “News”, especially TV, has degenerated into what I call Prime Time Slime. They even refer to their nightly broadcast at one channel as their “show” as in “Later in the show …”
Where videos are edited down to the bare essential to sensationalize, out of context, dumbed down, superficial, back stories and truth be damned (US Dems are not the party of slavery and the KKK – there was a “switch”, apparently).
Similarly in print and radio. Remember the Covington Catholic student Nick Sandmann whose lawsuit CNN was forced to settle? Our govt run Radio New Zealand website regurgitated the BBC’s first false report without correction. Journalistic ethics? Ptui!
Michael Shellenberger’s mea culpa might be a bit too awkward for the MSM “show” I suspect, given their complicity in Stephen Schneider’s “scary stories”.
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>Stephen Schneider’s “scary stories”
Perhaps worth expanding:
Stephen Schneider and the “Double Ethical Bind” of Climate Change Communication
By Judith Curry
On the first anniversary of Steve Schneider’s untimely death, it is worth reflecting on his contributions at the intersection of climate science, policy, politics and media in the public communication of climate change. Schneider’s views on this topic are infamously characterized by his 1989 statement (page 5 of the link):
Continues>>
https://judithcurry.com/2011/07/21/stephen-schneider-and-the-“double-ethical-bind”-of-climate-change-communication/
>”…the right balance is between being effective AND being honest”.
The conjunction “and” indicates Schneider, in his hopefulness, meant these actions were to be carried out concurrently. Unfortunately, we got effectiveness first and belated honesty only now a distant second.
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Telling the truth doesn’t sell a lot of ads.
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O/T on this
” edited down to the bare essential ”
In the cattle game there is Bikini Stud. So named because it covers the bare essentials.
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‘Oops’ is definitely not good enough.
The world has been turned inside out by this …jobs have been lost careers and reputations ruined …billions flushed …a whole generation of children have been lied to…indoctrinated …turned into an unquestioning hysterical damaged mob…an incipient activist army for the Left and Global Socialism.
Tony Abbott’s life and career were destroyed by it even more so than Roger Pielke Jr’s and that was bad enough …a sinister intervention using the power of the Presidency and the Democrat Congress in sync with dictator for life Xi ….to cut the ground out from under both of those men.
At the behest of those foreign lions of Global Socialism…remembering Obama had virtually called …at the G20 ….for young Australians to undermine the Abbott climate policy… Australia was broken and has been broken ever since….the only once democratic country in modern times to allow an incompetent narcissist internationalist with delusions of world relevance to veto the people’s vote….in a coup against a new democratically-elected Prime Minister in order to obey the edict …not of the policymakers Australians had just voted into power in a landslide…but of the foreign dysfunctional despots and dictators at the UN.
As a result we now have one of the coup plotters…. who is only in government let alone PM at all because Tony Abbott won government for them all with a massive seats buffer…ie Morrison leading Australia towards energy chaos and insecurity …the end game being Australia crippled and precarious as the only modern nation on the face of the earth with zero reliable baseload electricity forever…totally dependent on weather-dependent intermittents and their weather-dependent props…while all of Australia’s competitors and trading partners…every single one of them…will have baseload security forever in coal…gas…nuclear….huge hydro and multiple transmission links to neighbouring countries that have those sources.
Because of the CAGW hoax it’s become impossible to trust many institutions and scientists in the field and even across the board…as natural science is manipulated and moulded to fit the requirements of Political Science…Social Science and the Global Socialist policy…and those who seek objective truth are ostracised sued and sacked.
Nothing from government…authority in general or the once-revered institutions can be believed any more.
Australia’s fate is increasingly in China’s hands …not our own…as the Communist Chinese dictatorship owns more and more of our essential services on which absolutely everything else depends …and increasingly influences our children via schools and universities.
All of this great unravelling …every bit of it…along with the madness of the mobs…has only been possible because the LW journalists of Australia and the world want it to happen…it’s their playbook and they could put a stop to it at any time…they are the orchestrators and choreographers of the whole wretched catastrophe.
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Just one thing you got wrong there “truth”. The root of the problem is not the journalists. The root is the professors who trained them.
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A curious coincidence having read a politician’s early career info today…
Michael Shellenberger:
Bill de Blasio:
Possibly already mentioned here somewhere, but the communications head of Extinction rebellion is now a proponent for nuclear also. I cynically wondered how much her pay increased after reading that… 😉
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Forbes article is no longer available???
Auto-moderation still SNAFU???
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Same on another blog.
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The Forbes link no longer works. Is Forbes apologizing for publishing an apology?
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If:
“Editor’s Note:
This page is no longer active
—-
We regret any inconvenience.
———————————————-
-can that be called an apology? Maybe they have just noticed Jo’s link to them:
“Good grief: a Sceptic has linked to us!
Quick: Panic! Take it down before we’re drowned in Sceptics!”
I’ll rank that as an `apology’ for what little it’s worth.
Forbes is `regretting’ publishing that page …(we have to assume it’s embarrassing Forbes readership.)
But Schellenberger has still got it wrong: he’s not apologizing for other enviromentalists even though he thinks he is, but only for himself. C’mon Schellenberger: stop trying to spread the blame and dig deep into those pockets of yours, dip into all that Green Slush you were paid, and start paying for the damage you’ve caused.
(Prediction: he won’t.)
Anyway, that’s now two retractions (Greens score = gazillion – 2 or 96.90% .
3, if I count Lovecraft’s one some years back. = 96.85%
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Maybe google sent them an email expressing doubts about their bottomline’s trajectory?
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Michael Shellenberger’s apology was published yesterday on Principa-Scientific, also a shortened version was published today.
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Here is the link.
https://principia-scientific.org/prominent-eco-activist-shellenberger-apologises-for-climate-scare/
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There is something very admirable in the person who admits publicly they have been wrong. Much more respectable than just yelling insults at those who point out the bare facts that show your mistake. Kudos to Mr Shellenberger.
Oh – wait! He’s got “Shell” and “Berger” in his surname. Obviously being paid by oil companies and MacDonalds.
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Do I sense the worm beginning to turn, ever so slowly, now that the money has left the room, and the gravy train is slowing to a crawl.
What’s going to happen when enough scientists really do start to come out, you know, checking their past comments to see if they ‘really’ supported it, and finding that if they didn’t, then they can say ….. hey, I had my doubts all along really, just wasn’t game to come out and say so.
A little like a snowball rolling down the hill.
Then there will be the journalists with their ….. ‘just following orders’ response, you know ….. hey, those scientists were supposed to know, so we just believed them, and their, umm, consensus.
Tony.
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And of course he has written a book about it. The first of many books I assume from many people. It’s one way of getting out, except he still has friends inside.
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And I think the threat of real extinction has woken up a few doomsayers to what real doom can look like. How many people have died from Climate Change in 30 years? We just lost a third of a million to a virus.
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As of 29 June:
Grand Total Deaths = 499,913.
https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200629-covid-19-sitrep-161.pdf?sfvrsn=74fde64e_2
That’s half a million and growing.
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“But there are also reasons to believe that environmental alarmism will, if not come to an end, have diminishing cultural power.
The coronavirus pandemic is an actual crisis that puts the climate “crisis” into perspective. Even if you think we have overreacted, Covid-19 has killed nearly 500,000 people and shattered economies around the globe.
Scientific institutions including WHO and IPCC have undermined their credibility through the repeated politicization of science. Their future existence and relevance depends on new leadership and serious reform.
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.
Nations are reverting openly to self-interest and away from Malthusianism and neoliberalism, which is good for nuclear and bad for renewables.
The evidence is overwhelming that our high-energy civilization is better for people and nature than the low-energy civilization that climate alarmists would return us to.”
https://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2020/6/29/on-behalf-of-environmentalists-i-apologize-for-the-climate-scare
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Death tolls always grow, Sam. It is a thing that happens.
In the time taken for me to read your post, muse, and decide to reply someone, somewhere in Australia, has died of something. By the time I have finished writing this someone else would have done the same thing.
(quoting from ABS data for those playing at home)
We get roughly 160,000 people die each year in Australia. Globally, by a quick online search, over 58 million die each year. Factor in the discussion between Died With and Died From and we are likely to end up with Wuhan causing roughly 1% or less of all deaths this year.
So, my point? Wuhan in real terms has been an economical disaster that will be looked back on in bewilderment by future generations.
My second point? Despite being statistical noise in global death context, yes it HAS killed about half a million more people than Climate Change(tm) has.
Lets face it, Intentional Self Harm is going to rob us of more people. Look after your friends and family, drink your Rhino Milk and start placing the world’s problems in context.
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57 million people died in 2018 around the world
That’s over 1 million a week
In the last 6 months, that’s 28 million have died around the world from all causes
Lets put everything into perspective
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But should he Not have written a book about this ?
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I think you are missing many points. Everyone is welcome to write books, exposes. And to be judged.
He was afraid to say anything because of his loss of income. And the first to publish sells the most. Now he can sell millions. What exactly are the motives? Pure and innocent? No.
And at what point did he actually admit it was all rubbish, the ‘science’, the trillions of dollars spent on lies, tens of billions of ours alone? For what? To make capitalists richer? At what cost to billions of people, often the poorest? It was the excuse of a Colonel in the Wehrmacht after the war was lost. A soldier who still believes in the Fuhrer and the cause. It was a religion he now says. This is rationalization. It was also a job, a job which was over.
This is a book of excuses nothing more, published for quick and substantial profit. The first of many. Now that it is all collapsing in the face of the pandemic and that 30 years of lies have lost all credibility. That’s the Inconvenient Truth.
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Thirty years of lies and now it is actually really truly cooling. Nobody can have missed it. Kirye (on Notrickszone) has made it rather obvious for even people like the recent re-canters. And she’s only one. The warming lies have become more than obvious too.
In a way, the Covid pandemic brought it all out, making it obvious.
Mankind has very little effect.
Darn.
We can’t call those two Deniers any more … I’ll just have to get over it.
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But perhaps it doesn’t matter how much Schellenberger makes from his book.
If he succeeds in lancing the boil of climate alarmism we shall collectively end up much better off.
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“It was the excuse of a Colonel in the Wehrmacht after the war was lost. A soldier who still believes in the Fuhrer and the cause. It was a religion he now says. This is rationalization. It was also a job, a job which was over.”
But the pay is still good on the warmist side, and the bandwagon is rolling on, with BEV subsidies doubling in Europe and many counties and localities pledging to convert to 100% renewable power. The Democracies will do the same if they sweep in November. So your parallel to the German colonel is not correct.
00
Bill
His book would have been critiqued by most of the audience here.
The hatchet he feared wasn’t coming from there.
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Ian he did not write this book for us.
He wrote it to persuade his former allies of the brazen fakenes of the whole climate scare scam.
Surely that gets a gold elephant stamp ?
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Tony, forgive me for “blaming” you for this, but your excellent work on wind and comment here have sort of struck a chord.
In at least some ways, it’s not so much that the worm is turning, as you say, or that there remain opinions to be changed,
but that on the leftish side of these various arguments they are telling bigger and bigger lies to move the needle of opinion
just a little bit, while on the conservative side we are finally getting to the point the our needles are pegged.
In another thread you listed all the wind nameplates and pointed out that this billions of investment produced ZERO (caps your if I recall correctly).
So now it time for us to stop accepting this, because it wont’ stop, and ratepayers will reach a threshold. We have to go to the window, and throw
it open, and yell I’M mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it any more”.
I think you may be right; once we quite types finally get up off the couch the bullies are in trouble. And you’ve correctly pointed out a “king is wearing no clothes moment”.
The system produces ZERO power. There is a billion dollar railroad in California, with no train. The mob is against slavery, and in Madison Wisconsin tore down the statue of an abolitionist who died fighting to free the slaves. Three of the city council members in Minneapolis who just voted to defund the police are spending public funds on private security for themselves.
I think it’s more than the worm turning, I think we are close to all looking at the naked king and upchuking at our social stupidity. Often, then, we go looking for someone to blame. In the US, we mostly use lawyers nowadays, but also have a different tradition and gun and ammunition sales are through the roof.
In the US folks are taking down statues. Windmills seem to fail often enough on their own not to need the help.
I do have one suggestion. One creative lawyer here is trying to force businesses and agencies that put in a few cells and batteries and brag about being “100% alternative”
do actually be disconnected from the grid, or fail truth in advertising. The law is an ass, but it can be kind of fun when it’s the ass you are riding. Eeeh-ahhhw!
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‘Worm beginning to turn’ Tony?
Hopefully, yet more likely a grub moving to the next juicy fruit. The history of English Parliaments demonstrates how easily those dedicated to a cause are able to renounce and promote the current meme with equal enthusiasm.
Would be nice for Mr. Shellenberger to put his ill gotten gains where his mouth is and contribute to the defense of Mark Steyn, Tim Ball, Peter Ridd or any of the poor bastards who have suffered due to his lack of integrity, silence and greed.
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It is fascinating to read articles including in The Australian today about Ingeus Energy and profit/loss and sale of businesses.
Born Lucky repeating business plan?
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“I remained quiet about the climate disinformation campaign because I was afraid of losing friends and funding.”
Isn’t that it? It’s about the cash. It’s an industry based on disinformation and deceit for cash.
How many hundreds of thousands of people are now dependent on the Green handouts? And those Green jobs are all pushing Climate Change/Global Warming/Evil Carbon. And those Green votes which mean our $80Bn submarines to defend Australia will be the slowest, most expensive and useless submarines in the world and we have not even started building them! The damage spans and damages generations, killing jobs, wrecking manufacturing, causing real hardship. For what?
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Your right about the submarines.
With drone technology, you don’t need to accommodate for fragile human bodies at crushing depths.
Much of the military is totally outdated and obsolete to the technological advances.
Russia and China waited while the West went whole hog into keeping obsolete technology functioning.
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He still believes in “climate change” however. He’s been listening to Alex Epstein obviously with his latest evolution.
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And US athletes want to take their Black Lives Matter protests to the Olympics? And what? Lecture the Japanese on racism? Or the Chinese? Sport was to be the great race free leveler. Which I suppose is why they have races.
It’s all the same, Climate Extinction, Black Lives matter, Eat the Rich, down with Capitalism. All by privileged white people, the protest generation with nothing better to do, Hollywood, big business, Silicon Valley and billionaires and politicians who will profit from it, money and power, like Climate Change aka Global Warming.
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The primary desire is to shout at other people how to live their lives. The cause, that is a far distant second.
Believe desperately in one thing this week, another the next, yet another diametrically opposed the week after. But keep on shouting.
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>US athletes want to take their Black Lives Matter protests to the Olympics?
Why not? It’s been done before – 52 years ago:
1968 Olympics Black Power salute [Tommie Smith and John Carlos]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Olympics_Black_Power_salute
For the record – “On the morning of October 16, 1968,[2] US athlete Tommie Smith won the 200 meter race with a world-record time of 19.83 seconds. Australia’s Peter Norman finished second with a time of 20.06 seconds, and the US’s John Carlos finished in third place with a time of 20.10 seconds.”
“Smith, Carlos, and Australian silver medalist Peter Norman all wore human-rights badges on their jackets.”
“Smith [later] stated that the gesture was not a “Black Power” salute but rather a “human rights” salute.”
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>It’s all the same, Climate Extinction, Black Lives matter, Eat the Rich, down with Capitalism.
All the same because there’s an ideological foundation:
The Russian Origins of Black Neo-Marxism
By Gary Gindler
This philosophical concept belongs to Noel Ignatiev, a white American of Russian origin, who is the ideological founding father of numerous radical black movements in America. The author of this concept was even lucky enough to see his best students — Black Lives Matter (BLM) — in action.
Continues>>
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/06/the_russian_origins_of_black_neomarxism.html
I recommend the comment thread also – arguments that the ideology predates Ignatiev.
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Can anyone name a prominent person who has gone over to the dark alarmist side? The flow does seem to be one of enlightenment that includes those who believed in the IPCC reports until they actually read one of them.
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Richard Branson
Rupert Murdoch
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Boris Johnson
Scott Morrison
Ita Buttrose
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The Weekend Australian, quoting Christopher Pyne, Scott Morrison its not on our side, being the left leaning Black Hand Faction Liberals In Name Only.
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So this chap can write a book about his conversion.
Colour me unimpressed.
‘I was a naive idiot, now I’ve half come to my senses – buy my book. By the way, socialism is awesome and blm etc.’
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The comment above was supposed to be a reply to TdeF June 29, 2020 at 10:56 pm, who asks:
‘For what?’
40
I think I will suggest that the local libraries get copies.
There are lots of other local other greenies who may usefully read his book.
44
Thanks Jo for this post. I do not know this bloke and have not read his book.Some thoughts :
1 : Everyone here who is critical of this bloke, should read what he actually wrote for Forbes. Unfortunately Forbes has removed the link which illustrates the power of the Extinction idiots on the media. But fortunately there is still a copy to read at Google cache :
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lM_nkr3eFO8J:https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2020/06/28/on-behalf-of-environmentalists-i-apologize-for-the-climate-scare/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au
2: If people do read it you will see that he is sincere and informed in admitting that he was wrong in beating the global alarmist drum for decades.
3 : Finally, many people long ago stopped listening to real scientists with researched views about the climate change scam. Maybe they’ll listen to one of their own former heroes ?
84
Just went to Forbes where the article and the links at all complete
30
“Maybe they’ll listen to one of their own former heroes ?”
Like Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace?
50
And now your link to the cache has gone
“404. That’s an error.
The requested URL /search?q=cache:lM_nkr3eFO8J:https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2020/06/28/on-behalf-of-environmentalists-i-apologize-for-the-climate-scare/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au was not found on this server.
That’s all we know. “
00
I can still read it at : https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lM_nkr3eFO8J:https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2020/06/28/on-behalf-of-environmentalists-i-apologize-for-the-climate-scare/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au
14
Global Warming Policy Foundation to the rescue:
https://www.thegwpf.com/michael-shellenberger-on-behalf-of-environmentalists-i-apologize-for-the-climate-scare/
Enjoy.
40
Grr: Global Warming Policy Forum
50
I can’t help wondering if this is an attempt by the UN Church of Climatology to reinvent itself in some way while still attempting to keep the plebs afraid and willing to put more money in the UN coffers to keep them safe.
For a start he hasn’t said how bad the unreliable ‘renewables’ are for the environment with their deadly landfill waste when they reach the end of life after about 25 years.
It also appears that he has a concern because he lost income from the scam and is now looking to a book to revive it.
40
I’m confused, the Forbes page is available;
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2020/06/28/on-behalf-of-environmentalists-i-apologize-for-the-climate-scare/?fbclid=IwAR1Y654d3PTHmWlU94moz6sYVDzgSa0djmK45kyJ_OK_5XYS2bf2mo93yiI#4b2f99f1fa84http://
11
Thanks Nic. How curious. I’ll amend, but who knows?
31
Well two minutes ago it says at the top that ‘this page is no longer active’ but the article in full appears below.
10
They might have a crappy archiving system.
14
As of 12:50 pm EST the Forbes link is closed. You betcha.
00
Tallbloke has a PDF copy of the article here
70
How wise of him.
He knows the game well. 🙂
80
Reading about this “conversion” of Mr. Shellenberger has me thinking of Galileo Galilei. He, perhaps, of the phrase (in English) “And yet it moves.”
Shellenberger publicly admits to following false ideas for many years and in a hushed voice restates his belief in a CO2 global warming climate.
I wonder if his head hurts?
[John, the spam filter caught this. No Idea why it did so but I’m sorry for the delay]ED
20
Shellenberg’s article has been disappeared. Forbes was sold in 2014 to Hong Kong’s Integrated Whale Media Investments which is now apparently about to be swallowed by the $100 billion in assets HNA Group.
The Washington Post has expressed some concern about the growing Chinese control of American media…. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2017/12/14/chinese-ownership-is-raising-questions-about-the-editorial-independence-of-a-major-u-s-magazine/
21
Curious minds may speculate on a possible China interest in suppressing Shellenberg’s promotion of Western nuclear energy, intending to dominate the market for mass produced Gen IV nuclear reactors themselves.
41
Beta pug
Your post is dated after mine. The link to Forbes shown at 16 from nic worked without problem and I have just this second tried again and it is still there with all the links. This is from the UK, Perhaps Australia is using different servers?
20
The link at #16 fails in the US (or least on AT&T Internet here in Northeastern Ohio) with:
EDITOR’S NOTE BETA
This page is no longer active.
We regret any inconvenience.
More about our terms
Back to Forbes
20
Ric
Strange, from the UK I get the no longer active bit but the article and all it’s links are still there. I don’t know if anyone has got a non conspiracy explanation?
10
Tonyb:
I pulled up the page from link #16 again and then looked at the source HTML for the page and sure enough, the article content is actually in the source HTML but is being overwritten by the “This page is no longer active” content leaving the article content grayed-out in the background and not readable or scrollable. It may display differently depending on which Internet Browser is being used (I am using Chrome).
30
Ric- confirmed
“This page is no longer active” 11pm Perth Western Australia
00
Interesting, I can see it perfectly with no grayling out on my iPad
20
you might be behind some kind of caching proxy.
00
The article is (still) in 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/#16d933ce5dc3
20
… not anymore. 🙁
10
They are just popping up an opaque, hovering window. You can read the source using Firefox.
20
Seems like some one os trying to hack the original Forbes link to prevent un-informed alarmists from becoming better informed.
Queer indeed !
52
And another scientist speaks out
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/06/29/climate-alarmism-versus-integrity-at-national-academies-of-science/
60
Prof. Berkholt’s letter hits the nail on the head: the integrity of the scientific method is at stake.
Gorebuller and lukewarmers both argue “realpolitik” and hope for some easy compromise. This may end the CO2 nonsense, but does nothing to restore the integrity of the scientific method.
When it comes to scientific question: is the net effect of our radiatively cooled atmosphere on the solar heated oceans to warm them or cool them, there can be no compromise, no middle ground. Black or white, wrong or right.
There is no way forward without admission that not just the AGW conjecture, but the entire radiative greenhouse effect conjecture was completely false.
170
I see this as a non-apology in promotion of book sales.
There will be many more of these from environmentalists, journalists and scientists in the near future as the abject failure of their “solutions” becomes increasingly undeniable.
But there is a real correction needed: that is to admit that there is no net radiative greenhouse effect for the weak radiative gas CO2 to add to. And that admission is just too hard for any Gorebuller to make. Even lukewarmers like Anthony Watts dare not go there.
The integrity of the scientific method is at stake. It cannot be restored with a pathetic “warming, but far less than we thought” face-saving soft-landing. To end this global outbreak of Lysenkoism, the truth must be told, and reputations destroyed, otherwise nothing will be learned and the door to the next pseudo-scientific hoax left open.
150
Exactly. As in #6.1.2.1. Consistently unscrupulous rationalizations. And a retirement plan. No apology for the trashing of science to make a profit.
104
To paraphrase- The change of mind by Michael Shellenberger will lift the standards for both sides of this debate
320
He hasn’t changed his mind. Just pragmatism and profit.
84
So he just in it for the money? Heartland will sign him up quick smart, that is the IPA does not get him first
112
Opinions for hire. Unless he actually knew something about meteorology or chemistry or physics or power generation.
How else do you make any sort of living with a degree in “Peace and Global Studies”.
He should be classed with faith healers, necromancers and wizards. Why train doctors for health when you can consult with self appointed experts?
83
Peter, you have a problem with Heartland and the IPA, but not with left leaning organisations like the Australia Institute or Fabian society – with as much, if not more clout as their right-leaning counterparts?
Why is that?
50
So he just in it for the money? Heartland will sign him up quick smart, that is the IPA does not get him first
19
yawn !
Its to try to get people to buy his book. !
A pre-sale headline.
40
@ AD.. it must be deliberate. Think about it.
He can’t really be that unaware, can he ?
20
Oh?
Heartland won’t want to touch him. Tell you what: Why don’t you volunteer and offer to write a book?
Like “Life of a Warmer on a Sceptic Blog” Or “Freezing your butt off with a blog-full of Sceptics“. You could use all the ad hominens you claim to have collected from here as a touch of humour.
We’ll be able to help you there, by Fact Checking it for you.
50
“will lift the standards for both sides of this debate”
Not from you it won’t.
You are still totally unable to produce any empirical evidence of even the most basic meme of the AGW scaremongering…
ie.. warming by atmospheric CO2
80
Back-up pdf available in this article
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/06/29/schellenberger-on-behalf-of-environmentalists-i-apologize-for-the-climate-scare/
10
He claims that environmental groups have received hundreds of millions of dollars from fossil fuel interests.
I have never seen proof of this.
Save me the chore of reading yet another shallow book – if you have read it, is there proof of these $$$ or is he still trading in exaggerations? Geoff S
70
‘On behalf of environmentalists everywhere, I would like to formally apologize for the climate scare we created over the last 30 years.’
Nope. Sorry. Not good enough. It will take much more than a simple apology to atone for the monumental damage perpetrated against Science, Civilisation, Freedom, Wealth, Prosperity, and The Enlightenment.
“Oops” won’t cut it. There is no evidence that the same follies that allowed this descent into madness will not immediately manifest themselves in alignment with the next trendy “cause”.
Your judgement is flawed, your credibility compromised. The trust deficit is huge. It is a long way back from where you’ve been.
150
He’s basically another Bjorn Lomberg. They remain “luke-warmers”, ie believe manmade CO2 is affecting the worlds climate to some degree, to be allowed to remain in the discussion/ debate. Also to retain government funding or tenure. Because that’s where the big bucks are. Which is pretty well the same for Judith Curry, Roy Spencer and others as well. But he’s a good communicator and hopefully he could also make a film as well. Only to be banned by Youtube and never seen on MSM. I’m still waiting for Planet of the Humans to be shown on 4 Corners on the ABC.
140
Totally agree, couldn’t have said it better myself.
20
No apologising noticeable here – more RE sooner
“David Bidstrup. Another “road map” showing the way to the economic abattoir”
https://catallaxyfiles.com/2020/06/29/david-bidstrup-another-road-map-showing-the-way-to-the-economic-abattoir/
30
The choke points hidden in the blaze of more nameplate
20
Here’s another virtue signaller.
“AGL will be the first top 50 company to link executive pay to carbon reduction as part of a new climate action statement launched on Tuesday. The policy will commit the company to be carbon net neutral by 2050 through a number of initiatives including offering customers the choice of carbon neutral gas and electricity.”
AGL share price was $27 in April 2017, now $17. Perhaps the CEO Brett Redman should focus more on return to shareholders rather than virtue signalling, pretending he can change the global climate. AGL rejected an offer from Alinta to buy Liddell coal-fired generator and says it will simply shut it down starting in 2022. Fortunately Liddell is continuing to provide up to 1500 MW of electricity in NSW to keep the lights on. Qld imports from coal generators provide 600 MW. Wind in NSW delivers an average of 465 MW from a nameplate capacity of 1700 MW (and sometimes delivers less than 60 MW), while solar delivers an average of 410 MW (and zero every night).
50
How do they do that?
Every home is connected to ….. the grid.
If the grid is 70% coal fired power, and when you add in natural gas fired power, that percentage climbs to around 80%, all of that being fossil fuelled power at ….. the grid.
AGL sells ….. grid power.
Unless your home is wired DIRECTLY to ONLY renewable power sources, then you are getting ….. grid power, which is 80%
Carbonfossil fuelled.I don’t care if they plant a tree somewhere to umm, ‘offset’ your carbon (sic) supplied by the grid, you are actually still getting that power from the grid, and causing the emissions of Carbon Dioxide.
Tony.
150
How do they do it? Same as ACT government: “The ACT Government has a target for 100% renewable electricity by 2020. Most of that renewable energy is coming from wind farms in South Australia, Victoria and NSW, while a smaller fraction is coming from solar farms within the ACT.” Clever little selective electrons.
80
But what about “green energy” Tony?
For a surcharge premium price.
sarc.
20
Tony
“offering customers the choice of carbon neutral gas ”
Just what are they proposing to run through the pipes?
40
Puffery mixed with hyperbole.
50
Back to heating with dung then?
30
It’s certainly a welcome sight to see leading environmental figures coming out of the green closet and speaking out against the fake alarmism. However, what I think is not properly understood by Shellenberger and others is the real ideology driver behind all left-wing causes, which is socialist totalitarianism, rather than malthusianism. He knows that his environmental cause has been hijacked, but doesn’t fully why. The telltale sign of a modern left-wing extremist cause is that it always ends up with western democracy, colonialism and white skinned people as the root cause of their purported evil. This was also the central theme with the recent BLM riots, when the removal of the statues, which are symbols of our western democracy, quickly became the central focus. The refugee cause and open border policy was exactly the same, with an aim to falsely blame the west for impoverishment from people living under totalitarian regimes and then demanding we take in millions of people with opposing cultural views. IMO – Left-wing extremism is the greatest threat to world peace since WW2 and is rapidly working to divide society by race, religion and gender, in order to cause civil unrest and collapse so that a restart with totalitarianism might occur. Obviously with COVID the conditions to create conflict are now vastly greater and the left-wing extremists are looking for any one-off issue that can be hijacked to ignite a fire.
Of course the undeniable reality is that the system of western democracy has evolved over time to become the only peaceful system of government, providing security, freedom, fairness and prosperity, which is why so many people, including those of colour, are so desperate to migrate to such a country and flee from the violence of totalitarianism. As Shellenberger notes, the rich countries have been reducing emissions for 50 years, meaning the the rising GHG situation is being driven by poor countries, a point always twisted in reverse by the MSM and others of the left. Western democracies are also the only countries trying to create multi-cultural societies, which involves making the original white occupants a minority group by choice and yet again we see this point being twisted by the left to falsely assert only white people are racist. The time has come for the silent majority to become noisy and take back the power before it’s too late.
120
All good, except the steady climb of CO2, ‘rising GHG situation‘ is due to slightly warming oceans and nothing else. Rising ocean surface temperature releases CO2, not CO2 heats the oceans. That’s ridiculous.
In fact human CO2 is tiny and irrelevant in any estimate. It’s only the IPCC insistence man made CO2 is stuck in the atmosphere forever that allows anyone to claim the increase is man made. It isn’t. And Green opportunists rely on slight casual correlation being causation and proof, which is ridiculous.
As for the CO2 producing warming and endless disasters, not a single prediction has been true in 30 years. CO2 did not cause the Australian bushfires. CO2 does not produce the world’s hurricanes. It does not produce wars and rapid sea rises and droughts and floods.
Climate Change is a science free zone.
133
Tde-F – I assume that everyone on this site understands the non-issue of CO2. If you look beyond the fake science of CC to understand the driving force, it’s clear that like all purported left-wing moral causes, CC is portrayed as another “white man” infliction on planet earth and humanity, aimed at furthering their narrative that western democracy needs to be abandoned and replaced with socialist totalitarianism to save the world by brutal enforcement of a fossil free and low energy existence. When you combine Shellenberger’s latest book with Planet of the Humans, the CC narrative starts to crumble in the public domain and ultimately the infighting will expose the true Marxist agenda and fake science. In terms of where we head next with global energy policy, the nuclear future is obvious and Australia stands to be a huge beneficiary, being home to the largest uranium deposits. In my opinion the best way to defeat the Marxist movement is by using their own CC scare to push the nuclear option and people such as Shellenberger and Zion Lights provide the perfect opportunity to start the discussion.
80
“You can’t be an environmentalist and NOT BE pro-nuclear”. Tagline from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObcgG9vjUbs&t=4320s Pandora’s Promise.
With Shellenberger and Mark Lynas (UK big green). The difference seems to me that these guys are quite serious on their climate agenda but much more nuanced and actually do some research. Also that technical solution exist.
But having a luke-warm position on CO2 seems totally sensible to me. Do we think the change in radiative balance will do nothing?
10
Shellenberger is clearly an environmentalist but not a Marxist. In the climate debates I think we have all assumed that environmentalist = Marxist, but this is not necessarily the case and Shellenberger + Zion Lights now join Patrick Moore as part of a group of real environmentalists that were fed up with the Marxist hijacking. The point to note here is that these people were leaders of their environmental cause, but as soon as they realised their cause had been hijacked and spoke out, they were quickly outcast, vilified and discarded by the Marxist mob.
51
BTW Zion Lights was the Ext reb expert (?????) who changed her mind and now works for Shellenberger’s group.
The puzzle is why it takes decades to wake up and apparently this revelation can then occur rather quickly.
Even Lomborg couldn’t believe it at first but checked the data and realised very quickly that their so called mitigation would be a disaster.
Shellenberger apparently ignored the data for decades and didn’t bother to check it out. Zion Lights changed her mind very quickly when she was told to check the data for herself. Like poor Greta she had been frightened since childhood by the left wing loonies and only woke up after she looked up the data for herself at the age of 36 and by then the mother of two kids.
So how much longer do we have to wait for the rest of these donkeys to look up the data for themselves and admit they were wrong?
And of course I’m referring above to their so called mitigation of their so called CAGW [snip].
[Was caught by the spam filter. the snip takes care of the F word. ]ED
20
Mark Lynas apologising and recanting on anti-GMO crops. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf86QYf4Suo
10
Mark Lynas still a committed global warming activist,I believe.
40
Ummmm ? I see that a witch hunt is happening on the blog today.
That’s a pity. Why ?
1: The general public and the pollies they elect, were not listening to any of the ‘deniers’ anyway.They had become “Climate scare” believers. Which is why there is the push for ruinables and for coal fired power to be stopped. Not based on scientific evidence it was. Stupid it was; irrational it was. But then that is normal for most people.
2: So we are all blessed that the real Covid pandemic disease has broken the Climate Change scare’s hold over the public thinking. Dealing with the reality of a very scary death dealing infectious disease happening up close & personal, has broken the illusion…The Climate Change scare is naked of evidence to support it. The Emperor has no clothes.
37
Of course the COVID 19 pandemic is a threat to both warring sides of the Climate war.
On one side the scary Warming Alarmists have lost the ear of the public and thus the pollies who are all far more worried about this new infectious disease.
While on our side, this new disease threatens to undermine the main focus of our intellectual & maybe social life in an argument where we know we are ‘right’. There is room for some deep psychological research in this whole process from either perspective.
However as WXC made clear in his big comment on Weekend Unthreaded today, globally this Covid 19 will be around for a long time..
21
Jesus guys, get off your high horses. Looking on youtube Shellenberger has been saying all this since 2014. His focus has always been on energy. You can say he hasn’t joined the CO2 fight. Well, how far has that gotten us??? He looks like he has always been hands on, on the ground, what might work. There is a video pre Obama, where he is saying, that after 20 years of climate action, the numbers aren’t adding up. I don’t know when, during those Obama years, after giving renewables a shot, that he saw they wouldn’t work, but by 2014 he was willing to go out there and fight for nuclear.
from wikipedia on his writings—-
In 2004, Nordhaus and Shellenberger, both long-time strategists for environmental groups, co-authored a controversial essay, “The Death of Environmentalism: Global Warming Politics in a Post-Environmental World.” The paper argues that environmentalism is conceptually and institutionally incapable of dealing with climate change and should “die” so that a new politics can be born. The essay was debated.[4][59]
In, 2007, Houghton Mifflin published Nordhaus and Shellenberger’s Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility (Houghton Mifflin, 2007). Wired Magazine called Break Through “the most important thing to happen to environmentalism since Silent Spring.”[60] The book is an argument for what its authors describe as a positive, “post-environmental” politics that abandons the environmentalist focus on nature protection for a new focus on technological innovation to create a new economy. Time Magazine named Nordhaus and Shellenberger two of its 32 Heroes of the Environment (2008) calling Break Through “prescient” for its prediction that climate policy should focus not on making fossil fuels expensive through regulation but rather on making clean energy cheap.[2] Break Through was awarded the Green Book Award, 2009, whose other recipients include E.O. Wilson and James Hansen.[3]
Their writings have focused on the intersection of climate change, energy innovation, and politics. The two predicted the failure of cap and trade for its focus on making fossil fuels expensive rather than on technology innovation to make clean energy cheap.[61][62] They faulted the Kyoto climate treaty for being focused on what they called “shared sacrifice” rather than shared technological innovation.[63] They have criticized green cultural life as a consequence of status anxieties among Western consumers.[64] And they have argued for a “theology” of ecological modernization that embraces technological innovation and human development.[65]
Nordhaus and Shellenberger have argued for a “climate pragmatism” and an embrace of modernization and human development. They are co-authors of an alternative framework to the United Nations process focused on energy innovation, pollution control and adaptation.[66][67][68]
In 2011, Nordhaus and Shellenberger started The Breakthrough Journal, which The New Republic called “among the most complete efforts to provide a fresh answer” to the question of how to modernize liberal thought,[69] and The National Review called “…the most promising effort at self-criticism by our liberal cousins in a long time.”[70]
An Ecomodernist Manifesto
In April 2015, Shellenberger joined with a group of scholars in issuing An Ecomodernist Manifesto. This proposes dropping the goal of “sustainable development” and replacing it with a strategy to shrink humanity’s footprint by using nature more intensively. The authors argue that economic development is, in fact, an indispensable precondition to preserving the environment.[71][72]
The other authors were: John Asafu-Adjaye, Linus Blomqvist, Stewart Brand, Barry Brook. Ruth DeFries, Erle Ellis, Christopher Foreman, David Keith, Martin Lewis, Mark Lynas, Ted Nordhaus, Roger A. Pielke, Jr., Rachel Pritzker, Joyashree Roy, Mark Sagoff, Robert Stone, and Peter Teague.[73]
Sorry, I can’t see him as someone after a quick buck.
50
Just bought his book on Amazon and downloaded to my Kindle. It will be an interesting read, if nothing else.
40
Isn’t that what books are for, if nothing else?
45
Some are for burning, some are for decoration, some are for stopping papers blowing away or rolling up, for holding open a door, for hollowing out and using as storage, for carving/sculpting… Many uses for books…
41
O/Topic, but this is big. The social media (and other) platforms are now cranking up the resistance to interfere with the next US election. Trump’s campaign channel was kicked off Twitch, and several channels were killed off Youtube, including Stefan Molyneux. In the case of the latter they are running with a white nationalist, far right BS narrative which could not be further from the truth. His Wiki entry is running with that, needless to say. The co-ordinated splurge across all leftist platforms is predictable.
Sure the climate change battle is a big one, but if you lose the free speech battle, all others will fail as well. If the GOP does not react now they are basically rolling over and dying.
111
Here is a link to the original article
http://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2020/6/29/on-behalf-of-environmentalists-i-apologize-for-the-climate-scare
Of course Michael Shellenberger is already tainted in the eyes of the environmental movement due to his long-standing support for nuclear power as the “solution” for climate change. So like Patrick Moore’s disavowal of GreenPeace, Shellenberger’s retraction will be ignored as a “sellout” to “Big Oil” etc
50
It is a headline looking for book sales. Why reward a climate change believer still believing there are such things as ‘greenhouse gasses”.
This is from a Shellenberger essay in 2008:
https://prospect.org/features/getting-real-climate-change/
Since he wrote that, trillions have been spent on ambient energy collection for electricity generation and it remains a long way from being economically viable. Michael Moore beat him to announcing its failure. This guy makes a living out of sensationalism. He has a good sense of fads and tries to run ahead of them. Can hope the book may be an indication that the IPCC will have difficulty making “climate change” look worse than CV19. UN has already lost funding for WHO. It will have great difficulty getting the admin fees for the trillions it was hoping to redistribute from wealthy nations to dictators of poor nations.
60
I’ve often wondered if I should accept an apology from a Leftist for being wrong.
I don’t.
1) They have done too much damage to easily repair and it will cost a lot.
2) We told them again and again. They refused to listen to reasoned debate and facts.
3) They constantly abused us.
4) There is billions of words of truth written, all easily accessible and they kept their heads in the sand. They refused to do any research.
5) The only thing they could possibly do to earn some respect is to devote the rest of their lives to spreading the truth with no pay. They should also liquidate their assets and give them to either a charity or to promote the truth about climate.
91
The NSW Environment Minister has announced that his new ministerial car is a Tesla 3 EV that can be driven from Parliament House in Sydney CBD three times return to his northern suburbs Sydney electorate. Of course his ministerial driver will deal with recharging waiting time and is paid to do that by taxpayers.
And can you believe (sarc) that he is the first Australian cabinet minister or MP to have an EV. How many years have EV been available, and how often have politicians promoted the use of EV? Like Union Labor & Greens 50 per cent emissions reduction policies for May 2019 federal election, and none of them drive an EV?
Like the Turnbull Government providing $300 million of taxpayer’s monies for promotion of EV to fleet operators, $100 million to Macquarie Bank fleet leasing.
When did you last spot an EV on the road?
Crony capitalists want EV transition for wealth creation and hope we do not understand that most electricity here comes from coal, gas or diesel generators, despite their investments, taxpayer subsidised, in so called renewable wind and solar toys.
70
I vaguely recall seeing press releases NSW and Victorian police have purchased Tesla pursuit vehicles; I await the first ramming by a vehicle driven by a juvenile offender.
40
An electrifying moment, hopefully no fire from battery pack.
40
Everyone will be on chargers.
43
>When did you last spot an EV on the road?
Plenty where I live in Mt Maunganui NZ. You have to have eyes in the back of your head to spot them because you can’t hear them coming.
Not just EVs on the road. eScooters, eBikes, eMobility/Golf Carts will clean you out anywhere if you’re not extra vigilant nowadays in this place.
Fortunately I’ve had a lot of practice working around eForklifts in kiwifruit packhouses. Been some very nasty accidents with those.
It is still the diesel and gas FLs that do the heavy lifting though. I’m wondering how e-tug ship assist will work out:
World first: Ports of Auckland to add electric tugboat to its fleet
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/395942/world-first-ports-of-auckland-to-add-electric-tugboat-to-its-fleet
30
Very dangerous in old Amsterdam where bikes and pedestrians and kindergarten children in boxes on bikes and electric cars share the old cobbled streets. You cannot hear the electric cars coming at all.
43
on old cobbled streets you can – they aren’t floating. Apart from that, silence is a problem easily solved.
22
That was my experience riding around Amsterdam. Totally silent. Scary. Easily solved, of course. And in Australia I have a mirror in my helmet.
43
Your experience is undeniable. If you were cycling on cobbles or any rough surface you have your bike’s noise but more importantly the internal noise coming from vibrations. These would have overcome the tyre on road sounds.
A person standing beside the road would have heard you both.
11
You are welcome to your theory of noise generation. It was not my experience. And that was the problem to which Richard C referred.
21
Yeah, 308 with a 4 barrel.
23
“Yeah, 308 with a 4 barrel.”
Side pipes?
There is another 308 that is quite noisy but I’ve never seen one in a 4 barrel.
20
Thanks for bringing that up Dennis?
What happened to the $300 million? Has it been accounted for? Is there a report?
20
While searching for the EV leasing incentive by the “Turnbull Government” I found this from the Morrison led Government 2020;
https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/press-releases/toyota-welcomes-federal-government-hydrogen-initiative/
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Here is a link to Macquarie Leasing taxpayer fundeding for EV;
https://practicalmotoring.com.au/car-news/australian-government-commits-100m-electric-vehicle-leasing-plan/
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Craig Kelly MHR is not on a witch hunt I am glad to report.
Here is what he has to say on his Facebook page :
“Throughout history, men have gone mad in herds and have only regained their senses one at at time.
Proving this old adage, former climate zealot Michael Shellenberger is the latest to regain his senses, and he apologises for the all the Climate Lies and the phony scare campaign. …Who will be next to regain their senses ?”
Who will welcome Schellenberger to reality next ?
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Only three people here agree with Craig Kelly !
Ummmmmm ?
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Schellenberger was also in the movie, Pandora’s Promise, promoting nuclear power. A good egg.
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You have to love the way some extreme Greens are now embracing nuclear power, something which was utterly unacceptable 30 years ago. What changed? Nothing.
And the disinformation on Carbon Dioxide is so pervasive that language has changed and nuclear marketing people promote nuclear power as having no emissions, a term now synonymous with Carbon Dioxide and not at all with nuclear power.
As the world forgot about the dangers of a pandemic, they now have forgotten about the dangers of nuclear power. And thanks to the Greens, no alternative power has been promoted except those acceptable to druids, earth, wind, fire and water. We now have druids pushing nuclear fission power, even breeder reactors. That is very worrying.
Couldn’t we in Australia at least build or even rebuild a few coal power stations considering we have 300 years of the stuff? And they are a lot cheaper and faster to build. And their ’emissions’ are clean and even good for the planet. If we would only stop blowing them up!
In Victoria which under Labor has banned gas exploration for years, we are now running out and building a huge new gas import facility by ship near Geelong. We are likely importing our own gas from the North West shelf via Singapore. It’s all past parody going straight from coal to nuclear and importing gas when we have all the coal power we need. Our public energy policy is just nuts while we pay the world’s highest electricity prices instead of the lowest?
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You see that despite the apologies for 30 years of deceit, misinformation, fake climate crisis and extinction, we are still not allowed to use our own coal, which is our major export. And now we have to import gas even though it is one of our major exports?
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An ‘advantage’ to nuclear power is that if ordered in the near future, the design and manufacture will be from China, there being no current competitor.
On the other hand, same could be said about an up-to-date coal station.
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Lucky, if the Coronavirus causes world GDP to shrink by say 5%, we may find that nobody wants any new power stations of any kind for several years, even China.
And they mightn’t even need coal and iron ore either.
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“..as a manifestation of an “underlying anxiety and unhappiness in my own life that had little to do with climate change or the state of the natural environment.” It became a quasi-religion offering “emotional relief” and “spiritual satisfaction”.”
For him and for how many others? A very neat summary.
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https://quillette.com/2020/06/30/on-behalf-of-environmentalists-i-apologize-for-the-climate-scare/
Here’s an article by Shellenberger in Quillette, apologizing for the climate scare
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