There Will Be No End of the World. Why Environmental Alarmism Harms Us

Michael Shellenberger is the founder and president of Environmental Progress, named a hero of the environment by Time magazine, and a recipient of the 2008 Green Book Award from the Stevens Institute of Technology, as well as a reviewer of the IPCC assessment report. For 20 years, he has written articles on energy and the environment for leading world publications. The climate is indeed changing, but it is not the end of the world. And it is not even the most serious environmental issue. Often, those who panic the loudest about environmental problems are also likely to oppose their obvious solutions. So what is actually behind the rise of apocalyptic environmental thinking? Although media attention has been focused on environmental issues for several decades, many of us still do not know the basic facts. Carbon dioxide emissions peaked and have been declining in most developed countries for more than a decade. Mortality from extreme weather events, even in poor countries, has decreased by 80% over the past 40 years. And the risk that the Earth's atmosphere will heat up to very high temperatures is becoming increasingly unlikely due to the slowing population growth and an abundance of natural gas. Michael Shellenberger has fought for decades to make our planet greener. He saved the last sequoias in the world, co-authored the predecessor to today's Green New Deal, and along with climate scientists and activists, made tremendous efforts to keep nuclear power plants running, which helped prevent a sharp increase in harmful emissions. When rumors spread in 2019 that billions of people would die and panic swept the globe, Michael decided that as an experienced environmental activist, a leading energy expert, and the father of a teenage daughter, he simply had to contribute to separating science from fiction. The result of his research is the book There Will Be No End of the World. Michael Shellenberger methodically dismantles the principles of apocalyptic thinking that so