Top 86 Quotes & Sayings by Michael Shellenberger
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American author Michael Shellenberger.
Last updated on December 23, 2024.
Nobody is suggesting climate change won't negatively impact crop yields. It could. But such declines should be put in perspective.
We should be concerned about the impact of climate change on vulnerable populations, without question. There is nothing automatic about adaptation. But it's clear that there is simply no science that supports claims that rising sea levels threaten civilization much less the apocalypse.
Chernobyl' is supposedly about the lies, arrogance, and suppression of criticism under Communism, but the mini-series portrays life in the Soviet Union in the 1980s as inaccurately, and melodramatically, as it portrays the effects of radiation.
Nuclear is the largest source of clean, carbon-free power in rich nations, and the science shows it is the safest way to make reliable electricity.
The reason renewables can't power modern civilization is because they were never meant to. One interesting question is why anybody ever thought they could.
Wind energy threatens golden eagles, bald eagles, burrowing owls, red-tailed hawks, Swainson's hawks, American kestrels, white-tailed kites, peregrine falcons, and prairie falcons, among many others.
The Amazon uses as much oxygen as it produces.
Hydroelectric dams remain the way many poor countries gain access to reliable electricity, and both solar and wind might be worthwhile in some circumstances. But there is nothing in either their history or their physical attributes that suggests solar and wind in particular could or should be the centerpiece of efforts to deal with climate change.
When climate goes away as an apocalyptic concern, something else will emerge. No doubt about it.
For years, I referred to climate change as an 'existential' threat to human civilization, and called it a 'crisis.'
Before progressives were apocalyptic about climate change they were apocalyptic about nuclear energy. Then, after the Cold War ended, and the threat of nuclear war declined radically, they found a new vehicle for their secular apocalypse in the form of climate change.
Homelessness has become a human rights crisis.
In truth, humankind has never been at risk of running out of energy.
If you look at all the energy that is used by an iPhone, not just to make it and to power it, but also to power all the servers, all of the stuff that you don't see that the iPhone is connected to, it uses as much energy as a refrigerator.
Nations are reorienting toward the national interest and away from Malthusianism and neoliberalism, which is good for nuclear and bad for renewables. The evidence is overwhelming that our high-energy civilization is better for people and nature than the low-energy civilization that climate alarmists would return us to.
Nuclear is the only energy source that has proven capable of fully replacing fossil fuels at low-cost in wealthy nations. While hydro-electric dams can sometimes play that role, they are limited to nations with powerful rivers, many of which have already been dammed.
The main problem with biofuels - the land required - stems from their low power density.
Environmentalism, apocalyptic environmentalism in particular, has become the dominant religion of supposedly secular people in the West.
I believe Forbes is an important outlet for broadening environmental journalism beyond the overwhelmingly alarmist approach taken by most reporters, and look forward to contributing heterodoxical pieces on energy and the environment in the future.
Paid child care would make child care more efficient, allowing more children to be cared for by fewer adults, and thus free up parents to work more.
Climate change is an issue I care passionately about and have dedicated a significant portion of my life to addressing.
Climate change has completely overshadowed the conservation concerns that used to be so important to the Democratic Party.
There has always been enough fossil fuels to power human civilization for hundreds and perhaps thousands of years, and nuclear energy is effectively infinite.
Now that Europe has developed through deforestation and fossil fuel use it is telling Brazil not to develop through deforestation and fossil fuel use. Bolsonaro is the backlash against such hypocrisy.
Hypocrisy demonstrates how unaccountable one is to conventional morality.
In reality, Chernobyl proves why nuclear is the safest way to make electricity. In the worst nuclear power accidents, relatively small amounts of particulate matter escape, harming only a handful of people.
Journalists and activists alike have an obligation to describe environmental problems honestly and accurately, even if they fear doing so will reduce their news value or salience with the public.
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.
At 17, I lived in Nicaragua to show solidarity with the Sandinista socialist revolution. At 23 I raised money for Guatemalan women's cooperatives. In my early 20s I lived in the semi-Amazon doing research with small farmers fighting land invasions. At 26 I helped expose poor conditions at Nike factories in Asia.
Climate change is happening. It's just not the end of the world. It's not even our most serious environmental problem.
There is good evidence that the catastrophist framing of climate change is self-defeating because it alienates and polarizes many people. And exaggerating climate change risks distracting us from other important issues including ones we might have more near-term control over.
I actually argue that renewables are worse than fossil fuels. It's a physical manifestation of lower power densities. More land, more materials, more mining, more metals, more waste.
We have good examples of successful adaptation to rising sea levels. The Netherlands became a wealthy nation despite having one-third of its landmass below sea level, including areas a full 7m below sea level, as a result of the gradual sinking of its landscapes.
Dealing with environmental lawsuits and grassroots resistance is expensive. Industrial wind and solar developers have to hire lawyers, public relations specialists, and scientists willing to testify that this or that project poses only a modest threat to endangered birds and bats.
Facts still matter, and social media is allowing for a wider range of new and independent voices to outcompete alarmist environmental journalism at legacy publications.
Only nuclear can lift all humans out of poverty while saving the natural environment. Nothing else - not coal, not solar, not geo-engineering - can do that.
The flip side of renewables' low energy density is their low return on energy invested.
Why are the people who are most alarmist about climate change so opposed to the technologies that are solving it? One possibility is that they truly believe nuclear and natural gas are as dangerous as climate change.
It's when the conservationists became environmentalists that everything went bad. It stopped being about the environment. It became about controlling society.
Making anything more labor-intensive makes it more expensive.
If you care about the environment, you want food and energy production to become more efficient and centralized. You want to put less inputs in and get more outputs out and get less waste.
I became an environmentalist at 16 when I threw a fundraiser for Rainforest Action Network. At 27 I helped save the last unprotected ancient redwoods in California. In my 30s I advocated renewables and successfully helped persuade the Obama administration to invest $90 billion into them.
What we need to talk about is what we want America to look like: what a sustainable, economically prosperous America looks like in the 21st century, and what we need to do to get there.
The only countries that have successfully moved from fossil fuels to low-carbon power have done so with the help of nuclear energy.
The industrial revolution in England was only made possible through intensified agriculture and the use of coal for manufacturing, which delivered far more energy for far less labor.
Trump gives progressives a way to channel whatever guilt they might have - whether from preventing homebuilding, benefitting from unfair taxes and pensions, or depriving black and Latino students the teacher quality and school funding they need - into a sanctimonious tribal rage against Republican racism.
Recognizing nuclear as renewable, and saving Diablo Canyon, would be a bold move for Governor Newsom. It would upset his traditional anti-nuclear environmental allies.
There are major groups, including the Sierra Club, that support efforts to deprive poor countries of energy.
If you want to save the natural environment, you just use nuclear. You grow more food on less land, and people live in cities. It's not rocket science.
Neither solar nor wind are actually substitutes for coal or natural gas or oil.
If you think modernity is mostly to blame for pollution, visit Africa where people still burn wood and dung as an energy source.
Like many environmental documentaries, 'Planet of Humans' endorses debunked Malthusian ideas that the world is running out of energy.
Less land is being converted into agriculture globally in part because farmers are growing more food on less land.
The underlying problem with solar and wind is that they are too unreliable and energy-dilute.
Nuclear is just a huge part of moving towards a cleaner electrical system.
Hypocrisy is the ultimate power move. It is a way of demonstrating that one plays by a different set of rules from the ones adhered to by common people.
Some amount of fear of nuclear weapons is necessary for nuclear deterrence to work.
The idea that we're going to replace oil and natural gas with solar and wind, and nothing else, is a hallucinatory delusion.
You cannot power the world on wind and solar.
Cold white wine is so good with fatty, fried food.
Related Authors
Brian Tracy Quotes
American
Author
Cassandra Clare Quotes
American
Author
Frederick Lenz Quotes
American
Author
Henry David Thoreau Quotes
American
Author
J. K. Rowling Quotes
English
Author
Jodi Picoult Quotes
American
Author
John Green Quotes
American
Author
Joyce Meyer Quotes
American
Author
Marianne Williamson Quotes
American
Author
Neil Gaiman Quotes
British
Author
Richelle Mead Quotes
American
Author
Rick Riordan Quotes
American
Author
Robert Kiyosaki Quotes
American
Author
Stephen King Quotes
American
Author
Terry Pratchett Quotes
English
Author
Virginia Woolf Quotes
British
Author