The more passionate the assertions, the more they need to be assumed to be unsupported by facts

A rare and much needed admission from a leader in the environmentalist movement. From On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare by Michael Shellenberger.

As with Shellenberger, I have been an environmentalist and conservationist all my adult life, though on a tiny scale compared to him. Mine is an interest, not a career.

I am also a Classical Liberal for whom evidence, reason, and logic are critical in determining appropriate policies. As with many global institutions, Global Environmentalism became, not a catalyst to improvement, but a commercial sector with institutional interests dependent on subsidies and grants which could only be sustained by fear and panic rather than fact-based decision-making.

Early in his mea culpa he lists some of the more indisputable facts which are not well known to the broader public.

Humans are not causing a “sixth mass extinction”

The Amazon is not “the lungs of the world”

Climate change is not making natural disasters worse

Fires have declined 25 percent around the world since 2003

The amount of land we use for meat—humankind’s biggest use of land—has declined by an area nearly as large as Alaska

The build-up of wood fuel and more houses near forests, not climate change, explain why there are more, and more dangerous, fires in Australia and California

Carbon emissions are declining in most rich nations and have been declining in Britain, Germany, and France since the mid-1970s

The Netherlands became rich, not poor while adapting to life below sea level

We produce 25 percent more food than we need and food surpluses will continue to rise as the world gets hotter

Habitat loss and the direct killing of wild animals are bigger threats to species than climate change

I would only add that overfishing is a bigger threat to ocean ecology than micro-plastics or even plastic bags.

The balance of the article outlines some of the arguments in his book.

What is notable are not the facts being recounted. They are well (but not broadly) known and well established. What is notable is that these facts are being made known to a broader public by a paid up member of the global Environmentalism syndicate.

I wish him well and that his book is successful at getting the word out. Question every assumption, examine the facts, understand the context, know the context and then measure, measure, measure. Passion is fine for quick dopamine fixes but sustained confidence in the facts and humility in the face of discovery is the only viable road towards progress.

The more passionate the assertions, the more they need to be assumed to be unsupported by facts.