Book Review: Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All by Michael Shellenberger

Climate change is not the end of the world.

Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All by Michael Shellenberger. Narrated by Stephen Graybill. Harper Audio, 2020. 12 hours (approx.).

Introduction

The Associated Press published an article with this headline: “U.N. predicts disaster if global warming is not checked.” In that article, a senior U.N. environmental official claimed that if global warming isn’t reversed in 10 years, then rising sea levels could wipe entire nations off the face of the Earth. 

Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of “eco- refugees,” threatening political chaos, said Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program, or UNEP.

He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control.

As the warming melts polar icecaps, ocean levels will rise by up to three feet, enough to cover the Maldives and other flat island nations, Brown told The Associated Press in an interview on Wednesday.

Coastal regions will be inundated; one-sixth of Bangladesh could be flooded, displacing a fourth of its 90 million people. A fifth of Egypt’s arable land in the Nile Delta would be flooded, cutting off its food supply, according to a joint UNEP and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study.

This article was published in the summer of 1989. The apocalyptic scenario the U.N. official describes was predicted over the next 30 years. Those 30 years have passed and all the nations are still on the map. The crops are growing. The rainforests are not burning.

Michael Shellenberger is an environmentalist who helped save the world’s last unprotected redwoods and co-created the predecessor to today’s New Green Deal. He is a Time magazine “Hero of the Environment” and founder of Environmental Progress. His recent book Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All meticulously goes through a number of environmental concerns and challenges the alarmistic rhetoric with research and data from the United Nations and other sources.

Less it be said Shellenberger is an anti-science climate denier: climate change is real and a serious problem, but the apocalyptic prophesying espoused by activists is neither accurate nor helpful, argues Shellenberger .

Each chapter of Apocalypse Never tackles a different climate or environmental issue. I will give a couple of highlights.

Chapter 1: It’s Not the End of the World

High school student Lauren Jeffry, 17, was in a science class when the teacher made an off handed remark about climate change being the apocalypse. The young people around her were convinced that the world was going to end. They had 10 years to live, the students said. After an Extinction Rebellion protest Jeffry says, “I was hearing people my age say things I found quite disturbing: ‘it’s too late to do anything;’ there is no future any more;’ ‘we’re basically doomed;’ ‘we should give up.’”

This is called ecoanxiety. It was defined by the American Psychological Association in 2017 as, “a chronic fear of environmental doom.”

“Studies find that climate alarmism is contributing to rising anxiety and depression, particularly among children,” says Shellenberger. He cites a 2020 study that found one in five British children have ecoanxiety.

Is this anxiety justified? It stems from three major climate change claims: the “billions will die” claim, the “natural disasters are worsening” claim and the “disruption of society” claim.

The “billions will die” claim comes from professor Johan Rockstrom, joint director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. He believes we can not feed, water or shelter everyone if the world's temperature goes up by four degrees. 

However, two colleagues of Rockstrom’s at Potsdam found that food production may increase with warmer temperatures. Also, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) predicts food production will rise 30% by 2050 unless “sustainable practices” are implemented; then it rises only 20%. Using fertilizers and the newest farming machines and irrigation techniques matter more than rising temperatures. “Technological change significantly outweighs climate change in every single one of FAO’s scenarios,” concludes Shellenberger.

In 2006 professor Roger Pielke, Jr. of the University of Colorado in Boulder and Peter Hoeppe of Munich Re’s Geo Risk Research/Corporate Climate Centre organized a workshop for 32 of the world’s leading experts to discuss whether human caused climate change was making natural disasters worse, more costly or more frequent. While all 32 agreed on 20 statements declaring climate change real and human caused, it was also agreed that more people and more property in harm's way explained the rising cost of natural disasters.

To illustrate this point contrast these two pictures of Miami Beach.

To “normalize” loss means to adjust for this kind of massive development. Once this is done there is no trend of rising costs. Normalized and adjusted for inflation, the great Miami hurricane of 1926 cost $200 billion compared to $145 billion for hurricane Katrina (2005). As for frequency: between 1900 and 1959 Florida was struck by 18 hurricanes. Between 1960 and 2018 it was struck by 11.

Professor Michael Oppenheimer claimed that a 1.1 meter or 3 feet 7 inch sea level rise would be an “unmanageable situation.” Oppenheimer describes an “unmanageable situation” as a disruption of economics or of a person’s livelihood, his ability to control his own destiny or people dying. However, on the societal level these things have happened, are happening and will continue to happen and each time humans have adapted and overcame.

All this suggests the ecoanxiety that Lauren Jeffry and many others feel is unwarranted. Shellenberger says, “Anyone who believes climate change could kill billions of people and cause civilizations to collapse might be surprised to discover that none of the IPCC [Intragovernmental Panel on Climate Change] reports contain a single apocalyptic scenario.”

Chapter 2: Earth’s Lungs Aren’t Burning

The pictures several celebrities shared of the Amazon forest on fire were fake or misleading. More importantly, the claim that 20% of the Earth’s oxygen is generated by the Amazon is wrong. “There’s no science behind that,” said Dan Nepstad, a lead author on a report on the Amazon by the IPCC. “The Amazon produces a lot of oxygen, but it uses the same amount of oxygen through respiration, so it’s a wash.”

Chapter 3: Enough with the Plastic Straws

Plastics have done a lot of good including saving the elephants by replacing ivory in many applications such as piano keys. Meanwhile, paper bags and glass bottles are not as environmentally friendly as one might believe. For example, glass bottles consume 170% to 250% more energy and emit 200% to 400% more carbon than plastic bottles due mostly to the heat energy required in the manufacturing process. 

As for plastics polluting the water Shellenberger says, “A well managed refuse and landfill system can cost 10 times more than open dumping, yet will be necessary to avoid river and ocean pollution. Many experts thus believe rich nations seeking to reduce plastic waste in the oceans should improve trash collection in poor ones.” 

Chapter 4: The Sixth Extinction is Canceled

The mountain gorillas of Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are not threatened by the prospect of oil exploration. They are, however, threatened by a $35 million charcoal industry. Charcoal production has turned portions of Virunga National Park into a moonscape. This is exacerbated by a criminal cartel engaged in illicit charcoal trade. This mafia-like organization threatens both human and animal life. Liberating the Congo from charcoal dependency requires oil and natural gas power. Hydroelectric is cost prohibitive. 

Chapter 5: Sweatshops Save the Planet 

To be sure, the conditions in sweatshops are deplorable, and consumers ought to pressure companies into improving said conditions. However, they are necessary to industrialize poor nations. From 1981 to 2015 the population of humans living in extreme poverty plummeted from 44% to 10% due to industrialization. Wealthy people and nations have better environmental records. They also have fewer kids.

Chapter 6: Greed Saved the Whales, Not Greenpeace

Whale oil was replaced by better, cheaper alternatives such as petroleum and palm oils. “While whalers over hunted whales, historians conclude that there is no evidence that American whaling contracted because of a serious shortage of whales. The creation of a substitute with a much higher power density was sufficient.”

Moreover, “environmentalists often blame capitalism for environmental problems, but it was communism that made whaling worse than it needed to be.” Historians found records that the Soviet Union was whaling at a far greater rate than they had reported. “It did so even though it was no longer profitable to do so thanks to Soviet central planning.” Had there been freer markets, Japan and Norway may have switched to palm oils much sooner.

Michael Shellenberger.

Chapter 7: Have Your Steak and Eat It, Too

Switching to a vegetarian or vegan diet would only reduce carbon emissions by less than 10% according to some studies. Other studies place it under 5%. This is because no meat diets are cheaper, and the vegan or vegetarian thus spends more money on pollution-generating consumer goods. 

Industrial farming reduces the land needed for meat production, thus less forests are destroyed for grazing pastures. While factory farms’ conditions can be deplorable, they are “drastically” improving. 

The Annals of Internal Medicine published two of the largest and more rigorous studies of meat consumption to date (i.e., 2020). “They found that any negative health impacts of eating red meat...would be too small to matter.”

Chapter 8: Saving Nature is Bomb

Nuclear power is our best hope for fighting climate change. It is safe and reliable. Yet many climate activists including Bill McKibben, Greta Thunberg, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are against it. Shellenberger suggests such activists are displacing their fears of nuclear weapons on to nuclear power.

McKibben along with then senator Bernie Sanders urged Vermont legislators in 2005 to commit to reducing emission to 25% below 1990 levels by 2012 and 50% by 2028 through the use of renewables and energy efficiency. However, Vermont’s emissions rose 16% between 1990 and 2015 because, in part, the Vermont Yankee nuclear power station was shut down. McKibben advocated for this. Vermont could not generate enough electricity without Vermont Yankee, so they imported it from the New England Power Pool, which uses natural gas.

Chapter 9: Destroying the Environment to Save It

Solar and wind make electricity more expensive because they are unreliable and “energy dilute,” which means they require extensive amounts of land, transmission lines and mining. If we consider all the energy needs of the United States (not just electricity) 25% to 50% of the country's land would be needed for renewable energy production.

Solar panels require 16 times more materials (cement, concrete, glass and steel) compared to nuclear plants. They create 300 times more waste. Solar panels also contain toxic materials such as lead. Meanwhile, wind turbines endanger bird, bat and insect life. The hoary bat is expected to go extinct if wind farms continue to expand.

Chapter 10: All About the Green

Many environmental organizations receive funding from fossil fuel billionaires. For example, 350.org is funded in part by Tom Steyer. While Steyer claimed to have divested himself of fossil fuels with the possible exception of a few dregs, “Steyer had retained millions in investments in coal mining, oil pipelines and fracking for petroleum and natural gas,” according to Shellenberger. 

Chapter 11: The Denial of Power

Malthusian philosophy has influenced climate activists’ way of thinking. The tenets and history of Malthusian thought are too complicated to summarize here. However, it appears they believe in a limit to economic growth and oppose the “extension of cheap energy and agricultural modernization to poor nations.” Shellenberger goes on to describe Malthusian solutions to climate change: 

Economic growth would have to end; rich nations must return to farming and transfer wealth to poor nations so they could improve their lives modestly but not industrialize; and the human population would have to shrink to between 100 million and 2 billion.

Chapter 12: False Gods for Lost Souls

In this chapter, Shellenberger finds parallels between climate activism and traditional religion. He says, “It [climate activism] provides a new story about our collective and individual purpose. It designates good guys and bad guys, heroes and villains, and it does so in the language of science which provides it with legitimacy.”

Shellenberger ends on a positive note. He says “conventional air pollution” peaked in developed nations 50 years ago. Carbon emissions have or will peak in most others. Land for meat production is shrinking, forests are growing and wildlife is returning.

Criticism & Conclusion

At 12 hours long, Apocalypse Never is well researched and thorough. It is filled with data, interviews, history and policy. However, being a layperson I lack the knowledge to question this evidence. For that I turned to Dr. Peter Gleick’s review of the book.

Dr. Peter Gleick.

Gleick’s objections are primarily philosophical: he is a Malthusian whereas Shellenberger is (allegedly) a Cornucopian. The former believe “exponential human population growth and economic demands will outrun global resources needed to support people, undermining long-term sustainability.” Whereas the Cornucopians maintain that, “technological advances can sustain societal needs…”

Gleick claims, “the book suffers from logical fallacies, arguments based on emotion and ideology, the setting up and knocking down of strawman arguments, and the selective cherry-picking and misuse of facts, all interspersed with simple mistakes and misrepresentations of science.” But he doesn’t go into many details, writing instead that, “a comprehensive catalog would require its own book.” That book would be most welcomed.

Some of the details Gleick does go into are compelling. A report by the American Meteorological Society says, “The severe Four Corners drought in the U.S., intense heat waves on the Iberian peninsula and in northeast Asia, exceptional precipitation in the mid-Atlantic states, and record-low sea ice in the Bering Sea were all examples of extreme weather events ‘made more likely by human-caused climate change.’”

Gleick also points out that Shellenberger seemingly contradicts himself. He, Shellenberger, admits that whale killings continued even after the discovery of cheap petroleum and, later, palm oils. He also acknowledges that, “When it comes to protecting the environment by moving to superior alternatives, public attitudes and political action matter.” Gleick rightly points out that Greenpeace has worked to change these attitudes.

Gleick's criticism that Shellenberger makes “ugly ad hominem attacks on scientists, environmental advocates, and the media” is exaggerated. In particular, concern for an environmental advocate’s or organization’s motives is valid especially when that advocate or organization takes money from fossil fuel companies. This is not an ad hominem.

Gleick’s argument boils down to a kind of Pascal’s wager: be a Malthusian because its worst case scenario is better than a Cornucopian’s. Shellenberger responds to Gleick here.

In conclusion, Apocalypse Never is not the final word on climate change. Malthusians and Cornucopians will argue about it until the Earth does end. Shellenberger may have made mistakes, but none of the criticism I have read refutes his main point: climate change is not the end of the world.

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