Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All

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 with a fact-based approach to climate change 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 climate alarmism and 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.

How can we solve real environmental problems without the fear-mongering?

• Environmental Science vs. Fiction: Separate the facts from the media hype. Learn why carbon emissions are already declining in developed nations and the risk of extreme warming is increasingly unlikely.
• The Truth About Extreme Weather: Discover the surprising data showing that deaths from floods, droughts, and storms have plummeted by 80 percent over the last four decades.
• The Motives Behind Alarmism: Uncover the powerful financial and political interests driving apocalyptic narratives that ignore real-world progress and pragmatic solutions like nuclear power.
• A New Environmental Humanism: Move beyond a religion of fear and guilt toward an approach that satisfies our deepest needs while protecting the natural world.