Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All

I was assuming this would be a current version of other books I’ve read and mostly agreed with, particularly Bjorn Lomborg’s 2001 “The Skeptical Environmentalist” and Gregg Easterbrook’s 1995 “A Moment on the Earth”. Unfortunately, this was not along those lines at all. While heavily footnoted, there is very little data in this book. Chapter 1 begins with noting that decadal death tolls for natural disasters have fallen sharply in last century. This is true. He also cites that the Dutch have adapted quite well to subsidence putting much of their nation under sea level, and they have been able to survive and thrive, suggesting cities around the world can do the same in the 21st century. By 2100, the IPCC predicts global GDP will exceed 500 trillion dollars, meaning everyone will be rich enough to do what the Dutch can do. Moving to wildfires, and he rightly points out that fire suppression and accumulation of wood and shrub play a much bigger role in wildfires in both California and Australia than climate change. He should have mentioned the role of above ground power lines in California, which spark fires during windstorms when knocked over. The question about whether natural disasters are getting worse due to climate change is contentious and depends on your frame of reference. If an Indian Ocean cyclone in 1970 has top wind speeds of 100 mph and kills 100,000 people on landfall is followed by a cyclone in 2020 with a top wind speed of 120 mph but only kills 500 people, have things gotten worse due to climate change? The final point is that carbon emissions are already down sharply in the EU and US over the last 20 years, but he asserts that environmentalists get zero credit for this. Chapter 2 opens with anecdotes about various celebrities lamenting the demise of the Amazon. The Amazon is not the “lungs of the Earth”, but Shellenberger doesn’t really make metaphorical sense in this discussion. Lungs do not produce oxygen, they transmit it from the atmosphere to the blood. Razing the Amazon would not change oxygen levels. The real argument for saving the Amazon is preserving species, not avoiding a fall in atmospheric oxygen levels. He does rightly point out that over the last few decades there has been net forest expansion around the world (temperate and boreal, but still net decline in tropical), and a CO2 fertilization effect driven global increase in plant cover, along with a reduction in land use for agriculture due to rising productivity. An area the size of Alaska has been freed up by rising livestock productivity. Chapter 3 starts off with the famous turtle with the straw in his nose. Shellenberger rightly points out the main threats to species are direct killing and loss of habitat to human agriculture. He does rightly argue that plastics are fine, especially as they allow us to substitute for animal products. What we need is better waste management, especially in poorer countries, so that debris does not end up in the oceans. Chapter Four opens with the recent famous IPBES prediction that we are at risk of losing 1 million species. Shellenberger doesn’t really tease this out. The IPBES did not identify 1 million actually at risk, it did a projection that there are 10 million species and that 10% of them are at risk, but even that is confusing. In what timeframe? In the next 10 years or next 1000? In fact, we have only identified 1.6 million species, 350,000 of which are beetles. Of the species we really care about, the vertebrates, there are only 5000 mammals, 10,000 birds, 10,000 reptiles, 7,000 amphibians, and 33,000 fish. We should try to save all of them, but I’m willing to do without the anopheles mosquito. The IPBES relies on the species area model of extinction that was derived from islands and has clearly been shown not to actually be valid. The best source of biodiversity risk assessment is the IUCN, and they clearly do not support the notion that a mass extinction is under way. Shellenberger then returns to the DRC and its Virunga National Park, home to gorillas. He laments the charcoal mafia that is chopping down trees to make fuel for the impoverished local residents. I agree, creating an effective distribution network of propane gas for cooking would help save the forest. He also laments that baboons from the park eat the crops of local farmers but Shellenberger offers no solution to this problem he highlights. Instead he goes onto a digression about letting European oil companies drill for crude oil in Virunga. That is totally beside the point. That unrefined crude cannot be used by the locals for fuel, nor does it stop baboons from eating crops. He concludes the chapter by suggesting that the DRC go ahead with the Grand Inga Dam on the Congo River. This would be the largest hydroelectric station in the world, twice the size of the Three Gorges Dam, producing 40 gigawatts and costing 80 billion dollars. Who’s paying for it? Chapter Five makes the point that working in an urban sweatshop factory is actually a major step up in quality of life for rural people in poor countries. Also that as we raise agricultural productivity, we return farmland to nature. On page 100 he makes the odd statement that “power dense factories and cities require energy dense fuels.” What they require is lots of electricity, and what is the energy density of electricity? That’s totally undefined. Chapter Six begins by telling us how awesome whales are. Historically, humans have hunted whales, and Greenpeace did not save them. Who said they did? Does Shellenberger in fact oppose the ban on whaling? He does not say. He notes that 20th century whaling was mostly for blubber to be rendered into margarine or soap, and was driven out of business by cheaper palm oil. He bizarrely blames continued whaling in the 1960’s by Norway and Japan to a rigged international margarine market that forced those countries to rely on blubber instead. He then turns to natural gas. On page 118 he states that “climate activists…have claimed that natural gas is worse for the climate than coal.” But then on page 120 he says “most environmentalists support natural gas as a substitute for coal”. Hmmm. Turning to Atlantic salmon, he declares it the “world’s healthiest food” due to low saturated and trans fat. He correctly points out that fish farming is good for preserving wild fish stocks. He then confuses environmentalist opposition to GMO’s as opposition to fish farming. The opposition is to the use of a GM salmon. He shifts back to natural gas and confuses the technology of fracking that made massive amounts of cheap nat gas available in the US in the 2000’s, with the decision to prioritize coal over nat gas in the 1970’s for electric power. Back then supplies were much more limited, and nat gas was a highly regulated industry, only freed by the Carter administration. Chapter Seven begins with an inaccurate quote from CNN, where CNN claimed scientists say “we must immediately eat less meat to halt the climate crisis”. He then quotes the co-chair of the IPCC report CNN was referencing who informs him explicitly that “we don’t want to tell people what to eat”. He states he once thought cutting out meat would cut carbon emissions by 70%, which is not correct. He rightly concludes that ending meat consumption would make minimal difference to the climate. He shifts to praising factory farming again, which is hyperefficient and spares land and reduces methane emission from bovine flatulence. He also makes a bizarre claim that farmers raising low fat pigs harm the environment (page 140). Perhaps he could calculate how much extra carbon was emitted by not raising fat pigs. The rest of the chapter is a useless paean to carnivorism. When talking about the Atlantic salmon, he called it the world’s healthiest food for being so low in fat, and now tells us fat is good for us. Contradictory? He never seriously wrestles with the moral argument for vegetarianism, that modern factory farming is unnecessarily cruel in its methods and practices and should be shunned. Chapter Eight is the heart of the book. He is correct that nuclear is a reliable producer of carbon free power. But his discussion leaves out any sense of perspective. There are currently 435 nuclear reactors worldwide, 97 of which are in the US, with a combined capacity of 370 gigawatts and producing 10% of world electricity. But there are only 46 new plants under construction, which takes 10 years on average. He must be aware that nuclear construction peaked 45 years ago, when the world began work on 40 plants annually, that number collapsed and has been under 5 plants for many years. Lazard in 2018 found the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) for new wind and solar to be 20% of that for new nuclear, and that nuclear LCOE will rise 23% in the 2020’s while RE continue to plummet. Compared to 1997, by 2018 wind was annually producing 1258 more TWh, solar 584, and nuclear only 299. Total nuclear power generation worldwide in 2018 was still 2563 TWh, but that reflects capacity built before 1997 and still online. He mentions disposal problems with used solar panels or wind turbine blades. Perhaps we can dump them in or on Yucca Mountain. Shellenberger ignores the immediate history of RE. Costs have fallen so much that deployment is exploding. The first terawatt of RE was installed by 2018, the second by 2023, and two more by 2030 likely. Nuclear will bring less than 100 gigawatts of net new power online by 2030, a drop in the bucket. Already, China produced in 2018 more from wind alone than nuclear (wind 366 TWh, nukes 277 TWh, solar 177 Twh). The US nuclear fleet has a total capacity of 100 gigawatts, but is on average 39 years old, and starting to age out. Only 8 plants are less than 10 years old. Several plants are only able to stay open due to zero emission credits effectively subsidizing them. Shellenberger also claims on page 168 that if nuclear is not used then “fossil fuels must be used”. Not true. When California closed San Onofre nuclear power station, it lost 19 TWh/year in generation, but replaced that with 47 TWh from renewables and energy efficiency. Californians pay a lot more for electricity, in fact we pay on average 16 cents per KWh, compared to a national average of 10 cents. However, up to 1970, US and California per capita electricity consumption was the same and rose in tandem. After 1970, California pursued an aggressive policy of energy efficiency, and while US consumption rose 100%, California has stayed flat. We pay more but use half as much. Fair trade. He then moves on to Hollywood and Ralph Nader, and blames them for souring America on nuclear power. But the collapse in new nuclear starts after 1975 was a global phenomenon, not just American. He does not grapple with or explain the immense financial problem of nuclear power. The main impediment to nuclear power is not irrational fear by the public. The main problem is the massive capital required and the cost of that capital. A new plant would need 7 billion dollars and ten years, and at 90% capacity, it would sell about 7900 GWh, at a price of 10 cents per KWh, that would generate about 800 million dollars per year. If the company secured a 40 year loan at 8% interest, it would pay 600 million dollars every year just to cover the loan. What if there are massive cost overruns? Who would provide this amount of capital for 40 years? Who would take on the bankruptcy risk? Because of the massive capital involved, a nuclear plant needs guaranteed revenue for forty years, which means they can only exist in a highly regulated power market. In a free market, nuclear would have to compete with other power providers, for example solar companies providing power for 2 cents per KWh during daytime. Or wind providers. In a truly free market, nuclear would be the high cost power of last resort, which would destroy its economics as it has such massive capital costs it has to sell its full output 24/7. This is why no deregulated electricity market in the world has any nuclear plants under construction. It’s got nothing to do with irrational fear, which I don’t think figures in Chinese or Indian decision making. Chapter Nine is mostly an attack on solar and wind. Shellenberger is right that the main drawback is intermittency. But his economic analyses are deeply flawed. He denounces rooftop solar because the payback is so long but neglects the obvious solution of financing it. I put solar on my roof in 2016 for 25,000 dollars. My house uses about 12 MWh per year, and I used to pay about 3000 dollars per year to SCE. I financed my solar system at 6% over 20 years, and I pay less monthly then I did to SCE. I did not buy the Powerwall storage system, that is a gimmick for survivalists. Storage is very expensive, but the costs are dropping rapidly, and that will change everything in 10 years, just as utility solar went from an expensive vanity in 2010 to the cheapest power of all in 2020. Shellenberger misstates the cost of a 100% solar plus storage or wind plus storage grid. Getting that last 10% accounts for much of the cost, because you need a lot of wasteful storage that mostly sits idle. The same numbers would be generated by a hypothetical 100% nuclear grid. In fact, solar (daytime power, more in summer) and wind (more in evenings and winter) complement each other. In addition widescale integration of power and complex demand management can offset much of the intermittency limitations. There will of course need to be a massive increase in storage, but costs are dropping and new technologies are likely to come along. We then read about the slaughter of birds and insects by windmills. This is a minor problem, and he provides no evidence otherwise. What bird species have been driven extinct by windmills? Is it not likely that birds will eventually adopt flight and migration patterns away from these? Siting windmills to minimize these hazards is important. Shellenberger does not mention offshore wind, which is actually far better and more reliable source of wind power, and will likely become the dominant wind energy in the 2030’s. Offshore windmills are unlikely to harm wildlife in a material way or cause bird extinctions. Shellenberger states that “no amount of technological innovation can solve the fundamental problem with renewables” because they are “unreliable and energy dilute”. If he is referring to the amount of surface area needed to generate power, he needs to actually do the math. He claims that solar panels generate 50 watts per square meter. That’s a little light, modern panels can do 125 watts, but perhaps he is taking into account capacity issues. Let’s use his numbers. Even he concedes that 18,000 square miles would be enough to provide the entire electric power needs of the US. Why is that in any way a prohibitive amount? Earlier, he pointed out that an area the size of Alaska has been returned to nature due to improved agriculture, and that is 660,000 square miles. We can’t use 18,000 for solar power? We use more land area to grow corn for ethanol, why don’t we just use that land? Or the 20,000 square miles currently leased out for oil and gas drilling by the BLM? He then makes much of the fact that the needed storage would take up another 250 square miles. I find his arguments here completely unpersuasive. He then says that if the US used solar for all its power needs (I assume this means all cars are electric, and so is heating and industrial), it would require 50% of the US surface area (page 191). That would be a bit under 1.9 million square miles and I have no idea what he is talking about there. Shellenberger appears to believe that the size of the physical footprint of a power plant is the most important factor determining its attractiveness. If we developed fusion power, and it used half as much land as nuclear fission, but cost five times as much, would he suggest we have to switch to fusion? I don’t think so, because fission power is not land constrained, so the increased density of hypothetical fusion is practically meaningless. Shellenberger makes valid arguments against biofuels. Chapter Ten is basically a long ad hominem attack on various villains, as Shellenberger sees them, who instead of opposing nuclear on principle, were merely grifting for natural gas for decades. He bizarrely claims that Governor Jerry Brown singlehandedly killed so many nuclear power plants between 1976 and 1979 which otherwise would have resulted in California having zero carbon power emissions currently. Actually, for California to generate all its power from nuclear would require 30 additional nuclear power plants in the state. Brown killed the only seriously proposed plant, Sun Desert, but there were not 29 others he stopped. Shellenberger rightly complains that skeptics of global warming are sometimes attacked for their alleged ties to fossil fuel industries. I agree that is unfair. But the same applies in the other direction, and his game of connect the dots in this chapter is off-putting to say the least. Chapter Eleven begins with some flightshaming of celebrities who attended a conference on climate change. This is a totally petty thing to do. Flightshaming or strawshaming is ridiculous. Personal behavior is not going to end climate change, it is a public policy matter entirely. I might have solar and drive a hybrid, but those decisions made economic sense as they saved me some money. I still can have an opinion about climate change if I drive a gas guzzler. Flying for that matter, is the highest hanging fruit. Let’s solve everything else first, as modern life requires air travel, and flight requires jet fuel. Air travel makes up less than 5% of carbon emissions. If we get rid of the other 95% by 2050, we can then figure out what to do about planes. If flying only raises CO2 concentrations by 1-2 ppm per decade, we might decide to do little or nothing. We’ll see. He then moves on to complain that the World Bank and NGO’s are trying to stifle development in poor countries. Poor countries are sovereign and develop themselves, and don’t need permission from the World Bank or NGO’s. In the scheme of things, World Bank funding is trivial, almost all investments come from the private sector and the national government. He finishes up whining about Paul Ehrlich’s misguided Malthusian doomsaying from the 1960’s, but what relevance does that have today? Outside of Africa, the biggest problem most countries face is a collapse in fertility below replacement. Chapter Twelve concludes the book by rambling about what he calls “apocalyptic” environmentalism being a type of religion. He calls on “rational” environmentalists to oppose them. I’ll sign up for that, but not for nuclear power. @nayyerali10.

APOCALYPSE NEVER—Amazon reviewApocalypse Never is an extremely important—and highly readable—book about Earth’s environment and contemporary human society. The author is a lifelong environmentalist. This book carries forward Michael Shellenberger’s personal mission—to protect the natural environment and to achieve the goal of universal prosperity for all people.Shellenberger explains, “I wrote Apocalypse Never because the conversation about climate change and the environment has spiraled out of control.” In England, for example, leaders of an organization called Extinction Rebellion have made claims on national television, that because of climate change “Billions of people are going to die. Life on Earth is dying. Governments aren’t addressing it.”A 16-year old Swedish girl became an international celebrity in 2019 for crying out that same message. In September 2019, a survey of thirty thousand people around the world found that 48 percent believed climate change would make humanity extinct.Many young people are suffering psychic trauma because they have heard some of their elders predicting over and over again that “our kids will be dead in ten to fifteen years,” while declaring that awful fate has been proven scientifically.Shellenberger interviewed Sarah Lunnon, a representative of Extinction Rebellion, about the basis for her statements on television that billions would die because of global warming. She said that scientists like Johan Rockström from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany are saying it.Shellenberger interviewed Rockström by telephone. Rockström told Shellenberger, “We don’t have evidence that we can provide freshwater or feed or shelter today’s world population of eight billion in a four degree [Celsius] world. My expert judgment, furthermore, is that it may even be doubtful if we can host half of that, meaning four billion.”Shellenberger asked Rockström whether anyone has done a study of food production at four degrees. Rockström replied, “I must admit I have not seen such a study. It seems like such an interesting and important question.”Shellenberger comments, “In fact, scientists have done that study, and two of them were Rockström’s colleagues at the Potsdam Institute. It found that food production could increase even at four to five degrees Celsius warming above preindustrial levels and that . . . fertilizer, irrigation, and mechanization mattered more than climate change.”We learn from the book that in 1989, thirty years previously, Associated Press reported that a senior U.N. environmental official claimed that if global warming wasn’t reversed by the year 2000 rising sea levels would wipe entire nations off the face of the Earth, ice caps will melt away, the rainforests will burn, and the world will warm to unbearable temperatures. Governments have a ten-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effects before it goes beyond human control.Shellenberger explains, “I also care about getting the facts and science right . . . Much of what people are being told about the environment, including climate change is wrong, and we desperately need to get it right. I decided to write Apocalypse Never after getting fed up with the exaggeration, alarmism, and extremism that are the enemy of a positive, humanistic, and rational environmentalism.”In Apocalypse Never Shellenberger says “Climate change is happening. It’s just not the end of the world. It’s not even our most serious environmental problem.”The book takes readers along with Shellenberger in his investigatory travels to Africa, England, India, Indonesia, and South Korea. Shellenberger reports interviews in person and by telephone with interesting people including environmental scientists and activists.In 291 pages of text and 19 color photos the book presents many surprising facts about the Earth’s environment and climate. For example carbon dioxide emissions are declining in most rich nations and have been declining in Britain, Germany, and France since the mid-1970s; the Amazon River basin is not “the lungs of the world;” climate change is not making natural disasters worse; and projected future global food supply exceeds consumption demand by 20% to 30%.Statements of fact are supported by references in 104 pages of notes citing scientific sources including studies from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and other leading scientific bodies.Michael Shellenberger and his wife Helen traveled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2014 to study the impact of widespread wood fuel use on people and wildlife, particularly the fabled mountain gorillas in Virunga National Park.Congo was at the center of the Great African War (1988-2003). The war involved nine African countries and caused the deaths of three to five million people, mostly due to disease and starvation, but many by violence and atrocities. Another two million were displaced from their homes or fled seeking asylum.The U.S. Department of State warned against travel to Congo because it was not safe due to widespread crime and lack of effective policing. For security, Michael Shellenberger hired a guide and translator, Caleb Kabanda, who has a reputation for keeping his clients safe.Michael and Helen saw extreme poverty in Congo. They met Bernadette Semutaga (Bernadette), age 25, near Virunga National Park, home of the mountain gorillas. Bernadette told them, “I got married when I was fifteen years old. When I met my husband he was an orphan. He had nothing.”Bernadette and her family lack basic medical care. Her seven children often go hungry and get sick. Bernadette was in fear of the heavily armed militias that roam the countryside robbing, raping, kidnapping, and murdering.Bernadette is among the one billion people, one in seven worldwide in the early 21st century, who lack access to clean water, sanitation facilities, and electricity. Bernadette farms to survive. She must spend several hours each day walking to fetch water and firewood, hauling and chopping wood, building and fanning smoky fires, and cooking over them. Wild animals eat her crops.Congo is rich in natural resources, but energy poor. Bernadette lives near Goma, the provincial capital city. Shellenberger told his Congolese guide, Caleb Kabanda, that he was in Congo in part to study the relationship between energy scarcity and conservation. Caleb said of Goma, “can you imagine a city of nearly two million people relying on wood for energy? Its’ crazy!”The Congolese people hope for the completion of a planned hydroelectric dam that would bring them electricity. The book informs us that such dams in poor countries have been opposed by a non-governmental organization known as International Rivers. Their opposition is based on the loss of white water rafting if such dams are completed.The book takes us to visit Indonesia, where Shellenberger traveled to investigate the working conditions for factory workers. Indonesia is rich both in natural resources and in energy. In Indonesia, Shellenberger met Suparti, a 25-year old woman from the island of Java. She was raised in a strict Islamic community where she couldn’t go to social gatherings if men were there.Suparti’s family home had no electricity or TV. She worked alongside her parents and siblings in the fields. After she turned seventeen years old, Suparti left home for a city in Sumatra where she had an aunt and a sister. She found work in a factory that supplied products to Mattel, the American maker of toys and dolls.At age eighteen Suparti changed jobs, taking work at a chocolate factory. Over the next seven years she moved to progressively more responsible positions. Her wages more than tripled since her first job. Eventually her work involved the factory’s computer systems. By age twenty-five Suparti was able to purchase a flat-screen TV, a motor scooter, and even a home.Suparti told Shellenberger that she missed home, but had no desire to go back; that her parents encouraged the Muslim way of marriage where religious teachers would introduce her to someone they think is a good match. However, Suparti preferred to get to know the man before marriage. She wanted four children, two boys and two girls. At age twenty-one she met her future husband via Facebook. They married and have a child.This review is just a brief sampling of the book. A few of the chapter titles, listed below, provide a foretaste of the richness of detail and thoughtful analysis in Apocalypse Never:• It’s Not the End of the World• Earth’s Lungs Aren’t Burning• The Sixth Extinction Is Cancelled• Greed Saved the Whales, Not Greenpeace• Destroying the Environment to Save It• False Gods for Lost SoulsThis book may make Michael Shellenberger famous—or infamous in the opinion of people who were already trying to impede its circulation not seven days after it was issued.

Before I was born, Rachel Carson and the Whole Earth folk alerted the world to the noxious things governments and their connected insiders were getting away with; half a century later, with the pendulum swung far too far the wrong way thanks to misguided celebrities and truanting teens, a new author with impeccable credentials breaks with his own past to present what the debate lacks: facts.In short, this book's important.I can't imagine the painful shift in worldview the author had to go through to write it - he basically turns his entire personal history and life experience through 180 degres to reach the beliefs he now holds - but whatever it costs him, it's worth it.Yes, it's well written and nicely sequenced - as any professional book should be - but its value comes from filling in the blanks the environmental movement consistently and unforgivably fails to fill. Over a quarter of the book is footnotes and attributions. Properly contextual scientific data, reasonable assumptions and projections instead of doom-mongering, a look at history and trends instead of media-friendly snapshots.Yes, there are more forest fires, but it's because the controlled burns of the past don't happen, and disasters are getting pent-up. Yes, there are natural disasters, but they harm fewer people in developed economies, despite a far larger population. Yes, there may be a tipping point beyond which catastrophe becomes likely, but it's more like a 4C rise than 2C, impossible on current trendlines. Yes, we burp a lot of Co2 into the atmosphere - but levels in developed countries have been falling for decades, and are already starting to peak in much of the developing world.All this means good news for the planet. Yes, our pale blue dot is fragile and we shouldn't abuse it. But it also lets us thrive economically with its resources, build better lives, create more opportunities for ourselves. Technology is solving climate-related problems - and has been solving them for hundreds of years. We live in a dynamic system. Coastlines change, seasons fluctuate, and in response populations move and cities die and grow. Humans are adaptable.Most unforgivable of all? That friendlier technologies - fracking, natural gas, nuclear, intensive farming - are consistently opposed by those who claim to love this planet most. The worst environmental issues may already be behind us. Far too many green-thinking people are charlatans, however well-meaning. And chapter by chapter, this book explains why.The author takes on multiple green shibboleths and demonstrates just how many of them stem from the excitable imaginations of activists - not real science or observed reality. All the more poignant when you learn the author is himself a lifelong activist - the real deal, living and working with peasants in Brazil and Nicaragua in his socialist youth, not an "armchair activist" applauding truanting teens on YouTube.For those of us (most) who care deeply about the world we share, but want to base our decisions on actual facts rather than histrionics, this book lets you rebut essentially every argument. The world isn't perfect, but nor is it dying, and it doesn't have an expiration date of a few years ahead. Indeed, on the evidence, we're treating that planet better and better as we learn more about it.This book is both enjoyable and informative. Everyone with even a passing interest in ecology should read it.And a final word to all those "activists" who'll doubtless be turning on the author in fury: we might have taken you a bit more seriously if you didn't all dress like postapocalyptic children's entertainers.

This man was born in 1972 and has been a serious environmentalist since age 15. He says that the science behind the IPCC is 'broadly correct' but that the 'picture promoted by apocalyptic environmentalists is inaccurate and dehumanising'. He has travelled to the Congo - Goma - and to Indonesia, and has talked and listened to the people there who are truly poor. What will help them is infrastructure: sewers, dams, good roads and cheap energy. Cheap energy can only be produced by nuclear power. He thinks much the same as James Lovelock and Bjorn Lomborg. Like them, Shellenberg is experienced and well informed. The BBC will ignore this important book which illustrates just how disgraceful the BBC has become. However, the author can easily be found on YouTube, Twitter and Sky News Australia,

This is a much needed counter to environmental alarmism, which is more harmful to the environment than many people realise. Well researched, full of footnotes and data, presented in a clear and unambiguous fashion, highly recommended.

Regardless of the hype, this is not a climate change denier crib book, nor is it a scare-mongering diatribe; in fact its not (only) about climate change at all. Open-minded people from either side may be surprised. Rather like Lomborg's Skeptical Environmentalist, Shellenberg, a long time environmental activist who has worked in the countries most affected, reviews the statements put out by activists and lobbying groups against the science and also investigates where they came from. In many cases he finds they were cherry picking, exaggerations or errors but is also able to highlight where there are real problems and who is most likely to be affected.What resonated with me, as a development economist, is the solutions proposed in many cases, which is where this book goes against the grain of activist prescriptions. Extinction Rebellion and their ilk seem to operate from a position of "human activity created these problems, therefore human activity should be shut down". As with the carbon emissions debate, this places all the burden on developing countries, effectively denying the world's poorest access to the comforts that we in the west take for granted. Shellenberg's position in many cases is that development and technological progress are the solution, not the problem. The way to stop erosion, for example, is to provide access to electricity so that energy-poor villagers dont have to cut down trees for fuel. In that regard, if you truly want to reduce carbon emissions, nuclear is a far better solution than wind or solar (see also the recent Michael Moore documentary that was banned from YouTube). On climate change, he does NOT deny it is happening, but believes that i) the amount of change will be far less and over a far longer period than the doomsayers claim; ii) that rising temperatures could be beneficial, eg in terms of crop yields; and iii) technological change will help humanity to deal with the negative results, as it has done for similar crises in the past. This is exactly the argument against the Malthusian population explosion adherents that keep re-emerging. If Malthus had been right none of us would be here.Overall this is an intelligent and stimulating book. I suspect it may be criticised by both sides for not being extreme enough. I strongly support its advocacy for those in developing countries who are most vulnerable, not just to the environmental problems but also to the "solutions" put forward by lobbying groups.Read this with an open mind. You may not agree with everything in it, but hopefully it will lead you to question some of the wilder positions held by both sides, and better yet, to form your own opinion based on (unbiased) evidence

I liked the book as it agrees with my world view. In addition, I have also travelled to a number of countries the author used as background to make his case. And his conclusions are so logical.- Poor countries must be allowed to develop low cost dependable energy resources, using gas, coal, and hydro. This will reduce the ever encroaching deforestation of the wild life habitat.- to save nature we must address the poverty of the poor, energy scarcity is a major obstacle.- Intensive modern farming reduces the total area required for crops, leaving more land for wild life.- Over fishing of the oceans can be stopped with fish farms, closer to the consumers, saving the wild life in the oceans.- Nuclear power has been vilified by politicians with a big stake in the oil industry.- Nuclear power is one of the cheapest ways to generate reliable stable electrical energy.