Apocalypse Never

Michael Shellenberger is a lifelong environmentalist, IPCC contributor, and was co-creator of the Global Apollo Program (the precursor to the Green New Deal). So his green credentials are impeccable.

In this book, he lays out the case for “environmental humanism,” showing that we don't have to choose between economic prosperity and protecting the environment. We can do both.

Environmental alarmism (especially about climate change), he argues, exaggerates the problems and offers solutions that fail to solve the problem, sometimes actually making things worse. It is only by taking a step back from the apocalyptic rhetoric and looking at the actual science that we can see common sense ways to improve our environment, protect our natural world, and still enjoy the benefits of a thriving industrialized society.

This is an amazing book that really opened my eyes and showed that I, like most people, had a lot of these issues dead wrong. It's a fast read that is incredibly informative and surprisingly optimistic. A must-read for anyone interested in environmental issues.

I've been very interested in climate change lately. From How to Avoid a Climate Disaster to The Uninhabitable Earth, Less Is More, and tons of articles and YouTube videos in between.

But Michael takes an entirely different approach. He claims that many environmentalists have Malthusian views. They oppose the extension of cheap energy and agricultural modernization to developing nations by using left-wing and socialist language of redistribution. It wasn't that poor nations needed to develop; it was that rich nations needed to consume less.

“Malthusians raise the alarm about resource or environmental problems and then attack the obvious technical solutions. Malthus had to attack birth control to predict overpopulation. Holdren and Ehrlich had to claim fossil fuels were scarce to oppose the extension of fertilizers and industrial agriculture to poor nations and to raise the alarm over famine. And climate activists today have to attack natural gas and nuclear energy, the main drivers of lower carbon emissions, in order to warn of climate apocalypse.”

I don't remember ever opposing nuclear myself, but my enthusiasm for it grows daily. Nuclear energy is basically zero pollution and has a radically low environmental footprint. What matters most is power density. Solar and wind simply aren't power-dense. You need vast amounts of land to create a comparably low amount of electricity. Not to mention they are extremely weather dependent. And that they don't work at night and very poorly in winter. Battery storage isn't an answer. Especially not for seasonal differences in production. This is why, wherever they built a lot of solar/wind, they also build coal/natural gas plants. And that's why oil giants support renewables and oppose nuclear because it means more oil/gas consumption.

The gist to be pro-nuclear is very clear: the denser the fuel, the less of an impact on the environment. Solar and wind are not dense. Neither is wood. Coal is denser than wood. Oil is denser than coal. Nuclear is FAR denser than anything.

We shouldn't be against solar on top of existing buildings. But cutting down forests to build solar plants is ridiculous. We can't be up in arms against Brazilians cutting down forests for agriculture while not having issues when we do the same but for renewables. Wind plants are not that great since they kill many birds and bats. Not to mention they look ugly.

The path to low emissions is clear: no wood, as little coal as possible (only allow it in the transition period), as little oil as possible, maximize solar/hydro when conditions allow, nuclear for the majority of energy, and natural gas (or hydrogen if we figure out how to produce it efficiently) to cover the spikes.

One thing is clear throughout the books I read on climate change: cheap, reliable, and abundant electricity is a prerequisite for prosperity.

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This book is noteworthy for its evenhandedness. The author, Michael Shellenberger, acknowledges that there are environmental concerns that humanity is properly concerned with, but his remedy is moderate and sensible. A key selling point for Shellenberger's message is his background as a leftwing activist for environmental causes. This background makes him familiar with the mindset and arguments of the left and gives his policy prescriptions involving sound economics a greater persuasive impact.

The theme of the book is “don't panic.” The book provides useful correctives to the hysteria that accompanies so many messages about environmental concerns.

For example, we hear about the Amazonian rain forest being the “lungs” of the world:

“According to an Oxford University ecologist who studies them, Amazon plants consume about 60 percent of the oxygen they produce in respiration, the biochemical process whereby they obtain energy. Microbes, which break down rainforest biomass, consume the other 40 percent. “So, in all practical terms, the net contribution of the Amazon ECOSYSTEM (not just the plants alone) to the world's oxygen is effectively zero,” the ecologist writes. “The same is pretty much true of any ecosystem on Earth, at least on the timescales that are relevant to humans (less than millions of years).”12 As for lungs, they absorb oxygen and emit carbon dioxide. By contrast, the Amazon, and all plant life, store carbon, though not 25 percent, as the student climate activists who sued Brazil claimed, but rather 5 percent.”

How about forest fires?

“Would we be having such hot fires in the Sierra, I asked, had we not allowed wood fuel to build up over the last century? “That's a very good question,” said Keeley. “Maybe you wouldn't.” He said it was something he might look at. “We have some selected watersheds in the Sierra Nevadas where there have been regular fires. Maybe the next paper we'll pull out the watersheds that have not had fuel accumulation and look at the climate fire relationship and see if it changes.”96 Fires in Australia are similar. Greater fire damage in Australia is, as in California, due in part to greater development in fire-prone areas, and in part to the accumulation of wood fuel. One scientist estimates that there is ten times more wood fuel in Australia's forests today that when Europeans arrived. The main reason is that the government of Australia, as in California, refused to do controlled burns, for both environmental and human health reasons. As such, the fires would have occurred even had Australia's climate not warmed.”

Obviously, the key to finding a solution is know what the problem is.

48% of the population believes that climate change will cause human extinction. This means that 48% of the population is being needlessly terrified:

“What the IPCC had actually written in its 2018 report and press release was that in order to have a good chance of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius from preindustrial times, carbon emissions needed to decline 45 percent by 2030. The IPCC did not say the world would end, nor that civilization would collapse, if temperatures rose above 1.5 degrees Celsius.24 Scientists had a similarly negative reaction to the extreme claims made by Extinction Rebellion. Stanford University atmospheric scientist Ken Caldeira, one of the first scientists to raise the alarm about ocean acidification, stressed that “while many species are threatened with extinction, climate change does not threaten human extinction.”25 MIT climate scientist Kerry Emanuel told me, “I don't have much patience for the apocalypse criers. I don't think it's helpful to describe it as an apocalypse.”26”

The message that Shellenberger seems to have absorbed and wants to share is that human technology and reason has historically provided an answer to environmental problems and constraints in the past and we have every reason to believe that they will solve our future problems. Shellenberger shares the story of how elephants were being exploited to near extinction until the invention of plastic.

Wealth and technology make dealing with environmental problems easier. One such technological solution could be nuclear power. Shellenberger points out that nuclear power doesn't have a carbon footprint and nuclear waste is far easier to manage than we've been led to believe. As such, environmentalists have submarined the one technology that might benefit the environment, typically out of a misplaced fear of nuclear weapons.

This book is written from Shellenberger's perspective with his biographical details providing the narrative for his book. The book is accessible to the lay reader and filled with information that an informed reader should know.