Apocalypse
Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All
by Michael Shellenberger
Read or Download at: http://best.ebookcollection.space/?book=0063001691
Climate
change is real but it’s not the end of the world. It is not even our most
serious environmental problem.
Michael Shellenberger has been
fighting for a greener planet for decades. He helped save the world’s last
unprotected redwoods. He co-created the predecessor to today’s Green New Deal.
And he led a successful effort by climate scientists and activists to keep
nuclear plants operating, preventing a spike of emissions.
But in 2019, as some claimed
“billions of people are going to die,” contributing to rising anxiety,
including among adolescents, Shellenberger decided that, as a lifelong
environmental activist, leading energy expert, and father of a teenage
daughter, he needed to speak out to separate science from fiction.
Despite decades of news media
attention, many remain ignorant of basic facts. Carbon emissions peaked and
have been declining in most developed nations for over a decade. Deaths from
extreme weather, even in poor nations, declined 80 percent over the last four
decades. And the risk of Earth warming to very high temperatures is
increasingly unlikely thanks to slowing population growth and abundant natural
gas.
Curiously, the people who are
the most alarmist about the problems also tend to oppose the obvious solutions.
What’s really behind the rise
of apocalyptic environmentalism? There are powerful financial interests. There
are desires for status and power. But most of all there is a desire among
supposedly secular people for transcendence. This spiritual impulse can be
natural and healthy. But in preaching fear without love, and guilt without
redemption, the new religion is failing to satisfy our deepest psychological
and existential needs.
No comments:
Post a Comment