Environmentalist Apologizes For Participating In Wacko Climate Alarmism

In the world of battling the outright insane religious beliefs of the climate doomsday cult, it is rare to see one who believes in climate change (at least, anthropogenic climate change, presumably) admit their wrongdoings and the dangerous nature of the climate alarmist movement that has traumatized young generations into believing the world will not even be around by the time they reach adulthood and that it is the fault of their parents and grandparents (and capitalism, because of course) that they are in such a situation. Usually, we just meet wacko after wacko pushing ever-more insane crap that has no basis in reality.
 
However, we do sometimes see actual climate scientists pushing back against the insane agenda of the climate doomsday cult (and suffer the consequences as a result). But even rarer than that is to see someone who used to participate in the very same climate alarmism and scare tactics recognize the error of their ways and attempt to not only atone but even apologize for it.
 
Which brings us to Michael Shellenberger, who wrote the following on environmentalprogress.org: “On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare.”
 
He begins by writing: “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.”
 
It must have taken a lot for the guy to come to grips with just how wrong the entire doomsday cult of climate change is and to come forward and apologize for having been a part of it. He further explains that he, himself, has been a climate activist for 20 years and an environmentalist for 30, has worked with the UN’s IPCC, serving as an Expert Reviewer of their Assessment Report. He even succeeded in convincing the Obama administration to invest in renewables.
 
He is, by no means, a “climate denier” (and that term has roots in “Holocaust denier” to delegitimize any opponents to the climate cult). He even explained that at 17, he lived in Nicaragua “to show solidarity with the Sandinista socialist revolution.” The guy is very much a Leftist, but at the very least, he is honest enough and sane enough to recognize the damage the Leftist climate cult has created.
 
Which is why he shares the following factoids:
 

• “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 declined by 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 are declining in most rich nations and have been declining in Britain, Germany, and France since the mid-1970s”
• “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 wildfire than fossil fuels”
• And “preventing future pandemics requires more not less ‘industrial’ agriculture”

 
So the guy is very much a liberal, and yet, he is willing to go against the cult by sharing these facts that directly contradict the cult’s narrative and rhetoric. Surely, there must be a reason, particularly for doing it now as opposed to any other time.
 
Well, as he explains, it wasn’t until last year that he began to be openly against the climate scare. Not because he believed it until last year, or because he was fully on board with the idea, but because of a couple of factors. For one, he says that he felt “embarrassed” about doing so, seeing as he, himself, was an alarmist for most of his life. As he explains, “for years, I referred to climate change as an ‘existential’ threat to human civilization, and called it a ‘crisis.’”
 
But that was only part of the reason for his avoidance of outspoken dissent. For the most part, he explains that he “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.”
 
“Gay Pride” month just ended, and I can’t help but make a noticeable connection between what Shellenberger said and what people on the Left often say about gay people: that it’s hard to come out to friends and family out of fear of rejection and consequences. That it’s hard to be gay or lesbian or whatever at work because of “persecution” or even for the potential of being fired just for that reason alone. However, the truth is that, in this day and age, it takes no courage at all to come out as gay or whatever else. Coming out as a conservative, a Christian, a Trump supporter, or even just as sane enough to not believe the climate cult’s agenda takes considerably more courage because THAT has more consequences in this day and age.
 
When you are a climate scientist and you offer a dissenting opinion towards the climate cult agenda, people will bash you into next week and there will outright be calls for your termination at your job. I have no doubt that Shellenberger truly was afraid of the consequences of doing what he’s doing and have no doubt that he already has, to one extent or another, suffer said consequences. I don’t know if he has suffered in terms of his job (and he wrote a book debunking the climate alarmists, which I will get to in a moment), but I have no doubt that, if nothing else, he has lost people he once considered “friends” for offering such dissent.
 
After all, being part of such a radical movement and then being outspokenly against it will brand you a traitor to the cause and leave you with few honest friends.
 
But what finally got Shellenberger to swallow said fear and come out against the insanity of the cult was a number of things. For one, there is what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said regarding what will happen in a 12 years if we “don’t do something” about climate change. Though that’s not the ONLY thing that got Shellenberger to act, of course. As he explains, “last year, things spiraled out of control.” AOC’s doomsday “prophecy” and a high-profile environmental group from Britain declaring “Climate Change Kills Children” (didn’t know Planned Parenthood changed their name to “Climate Change”) were among the many reasons Shellenberger decided to be outspoken.
 
But perhaps what were the biggest reasons were a poll that said that “half of the people surveyed around the world last year said they thought climate change would make humanity extinct,” and another poll that said “in January, one out of five British children told pollsters they were having nightmares about climate change.”
 
The fact that the climate cult is TRAUMATIZING children with crap that is absolutely not true is what got Shellenberger to write his book: “Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All.”
 
The Left is outright abusing children, filling their minds with pessimistic outlooks of a grim world that they will inherit supposedly because of their parents and grandparents and because of the economic system of capitalism. These jackals are scaring children half to death just to obtain political power.
 
The fact that Shellenberger has a daughter himself was also a part of it, as she has had to tackle the topic of climate change, and even though Shellenberger has taught her well with regards to the topic, her friends are still misinformed and she would likely be the only dissenting opinion in her group of friends were she to try and correct them, which would undoubtedly cause her to suffer the consequences of such dissent.
 
So, Shellenberger decided to write a book and was kind enough to share some highlights from it for our understanding.
 
For example, he writes that:

• “Factories and modern farming are the keys to human liberation and environmental progress.”
• “The most important thing for saving the environment is producing more food particularly meat, on less land.”

 
As you can see, he is still used to using Leftist terminology like “saving the environment” as opposed to simply saying “protecting” it, as that would be a bit more accurate, I’d say.
 

• “The most important thing for reducing air pollution and carbon emissions is moving from wood to coal to petroleum to natural gas to uranium.”

 
As I have stated in the past, if the Left truly cared about moving away from fossil fuels while also truly helping the environment, they would advocate for nuclear power, since that would accomplish both, but alas they are adamantly against it for a number of reasons ranging from “they are extremely stupid and misinformed” to “they don’t actually care about the environment, just the power they can obtain through abusing it as a narrative”.
 

• “100% renewables would require increasing the land used for energy from today’s 0.5% to 50%.”
• “We should want cities, farms, and power plants to have higher, not lower, power densities.”
• “Vegetarianism reduces one’s emissions by less than 4%.”
• “Greenpeace didn’t save the whales, switching from whale oil to petroleum and palm oil did.”
• “’Free-range’ beef would require 20 times more land and produce 300% more emissions.”
• “Greenpeace dogmatism worsened forest fragmentation of the Amazon.”
• And “the colonialist approach to gorilla conservation in the Congo produced a backlash that may have resulted in the killing of 250 elephants.”

 
In the book, aside from these factoids, Shellenberger also explains the reasons as to why the climate cult operates as it does, and honestly, it’s not for reasons one would be shocked to hear: financial, political and ideological motivations. There is money in environmentalism for those interested and the political Leftists view it as a means to achieve global communism, a system in which they and only they get to profit and thrive, trying to replace God with government.
 
But regardless of that, I am glad that Shellenberger has realized the error of his ways and has recognized the dangers of the climate cult. I am glad that he formally chose to apologize for having been a part of it (apology certainly accepted) and more importantly, I am glad that he chose to speak out against the climate cult (even if he won’t necessarily call them that) and wrote a book debunking their lies.
 
What’s more, Shellenberger offers a good bit of hope for the future. Though he recognizes that the faulty ideology of Malthusianism, which has been repeatedly debunked for a couple of centuries now, even by yours truly, is “more powerful than ever” as a result of the Left’s indoctrination of children in school, there is reason “to believe that environmental alarmism will, if not come to an end, have diminishing cultural power.”
 
He says this because the Chinese coronavirus pandemic has led to the WHO and even the IPCC to lose credibility. Remember, it was the WHO that was doing the bidding of the Chinese, telling people that there was no “human-to-human” transmission even though that was proven to have been a lie from the Chinese. No one has any reason to trust the WHO anymore, and by extension, the other “scientific” institutions under the UN (or even in general).
 
I would say more, but this article is already rather long and I must draw it to a close. In conclusion, I would simply like to say that Shellenberger is certainly forgiven and that I hope he will not get discouraged by the Left’s tactics of destruction that will definitely come for him soon enough.
 
I hope and pray that Shellenberger is successful in at least convincing a good amount of people of the reality that is separate from the cult’s depiction of it.
 
Proverbs 12:22
“Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight.”