Thread by @ShellenbergerMD

Why everything they say about the environment is wrong

- Climate's not most important env. problem

- No sixth mass extinction

- Growth mostly good for people & nature

- Alarmism hurts kids, poor nations & nature

Please retweet to get the facts out!

environmentalprogress.org/apocalypse-nev…

Last year, @GretaThunberg & others wrongly claimed we are in "mass extinction" while @AOC claimed "world is gonna end in 12 years"

"I want you to panic," said @GretaThunberg

Today 1 in 5 UK children report nightmares

Eco-anxiety rising around the world

Panic causing real harm

@GretaThunberg @AOC - People living in extreme poverty fell from 44% to 10% since 1981

- Malnutrition declined from 20% to 11% since 1990

- Life expectancy increased 40 years thanks to industrialization

- Poor nations will also achieve prosperity, if we let them

@GretaThunberg @AOC - Thanks to tech changes including switch to nat. gas, cleaner cars, cleaner-burning coal, etc, US & other nations saw massive declines in air pollution

- Natural gas fracking reduced "mountaintop removal" coal mining by 62% from 2008 to 2014

@GretaThunberg @AOC There are real and serious environmental problems that we should pay more attention to:

- Number of wild animals in the world has declined by half since 1970

- The largest declines occurred in developing nations, pointing to real world trade-offs that we should be sensitive to

@GretaThunberg @AOC But we are *not* causing a "sixth mass extinction"

- 0.8% of 112,432 species have gone extinct since 1500

- 73% of species are *not* threatened

- Biodiversity of islands — ecological hotspots — has *doubled*

- "Mass extinction" claims based on grossly flawed model

@GretaThunberg @AOC - There is no evidence that the number of polar bears is declining

- 2x more polar bears were killed by hunting btwn 1963 and 2016 than exist in the wild

- Nat. Geo photographer apologized for making misleading claims

@GretaThunberg @AOC But isn't some amount of exaggeration justified?

Here's what a leading conservation scientist says:

"If it's actually true that we're in a sixth mass extinction then there's no point in conservation biology"

Making people depressed hurts conservation

Inspiring people helps it

@GretaThunberg @AOC The only scenario for mass death from climate change is running out of food

But food surpluses have been growing for millennia

- Today we produce 25% more food than we need

- African farmers can increase yields 100% with irrigation, fertilizer, tractors

@GretaThunberg @AOC Climate change is NOT making natural disasters worse

- Death toll declined 90% in 100 years & 80-90% in last 40 years

- Cost of natural disasters has not risen, once you account for greater wealth — just look at Miami Beach

@GretaThunberg @AOC Sea-level rise is occurring very slowly, allowing plenty of time for adaptation

Humans have significant experience adapting to life below sea level

Netherlands became a rich nation farming as much as 7 meters below sea level

Dutch are now helping Bangladeshis adapt

@GretaThunberg @AOC Mainstream news reporters @nytimes @cnn and other outlets falsely claimed last year that Amazon was "lungs of world"

Scientists debunked notion that Amazon supplies world with oxygen 50 years ago

@GretaThunberg @AOC @nytimes @CNN European nations that condemned Brazil for deforestation themselves deforested Europe for 1,000 years, from 900 - 1900

Then, from 1900 to today, thanks to industrialized agriculture, much of Europe has reforested

Developing nations will follow the same pattern — if we let them

@GretaThunberg @AOC @nytimes @CNN But isn't Brazil persecuting indigenous people?

Many people are persecuted & oppressed in Amazon — I know, I lived there — but indigenous have also been given huge reserves

A tribe of 19,000 Yanomami Indians control an area larger than the nation of Hungary (pop.: 10,000,000)

@GretaThunberg @AOC @nytimes @CNN Plastic waste *is* a threat to sea life, but it's not the most important threat

E.g., fishing boats & invasives threaten albatross more

Plastic straws = 0.03% of plastic waste in ocean

Paper bags need to be reused 43x to have smaller impact on environment than plastic bags

@GretaThunberg @AOC @nytimes @CNN Most plastic waste comes from poor and developing nations that can't yet afford a waste management system

Thus, if we want to reduce plastic waste in the ocean, we should help, not hinder, economic development in poor nations

We should not condemn growth as @GretaThunberg did

@GretaThunberg @AOC @nytimes @CNN Plastic provided an alternative to "bio-plastics" made from sea turtle shells (e.g. "tortoise shell glasses) & elephant tusks

And we should celebrate fact that population size of sea turtles is increasing, showing "even small sea turtle populations have the capacity to recover"

@GretaThunberg @AOC @nytimes @CNN We should celebrate other conservation successes made possible by economic growth:

- 25x increase in protected areas since 1962

- Use of land for farming — our largest use of nature — is near its peak & capable of declining soon

- Reforestation catching up to deforestation

@GretaThunberg @AOC @nytimes @CNN - Total amount of land humans use to produce meat peaked in 2000

- Land used for livestock & pasture declined an area 80% size of Alaska

- Meat production doubled since 1960s but greenhouse gases *declined* 11%

- Modern meat production requires 20x less land

@GretaThunberg @AOC @nytimes @CNN - Soil erosion in US declined 40% — in just 15 years — while yields rose

- 80% of all degraded soils are in poor and developing nations which experience soil loss at 2x rate of developed nations

- Netherlands doubled yields while *reducing* fertilizer

@GretaThunberg @AOC @nytimes @CNN - "Free range" beef requires nearly 20x more land & creates 300% more emissions

- If every nation raised its agricultural productivity to the same level as its best farmers, food yields would increase 70% globally

@GretaThunberg @AOC @nytimes @CNN All of these positive trends require consuming larger quantities of energy

Energy consumption allows prosperity and moving from wood and dung to fossil fuels to nuclear

I illustrate this through the three heroines of Apocalypse Never: Bernadette, Suparti, and Helen

@GretaThunberg @AOC @nytimes @CNN And yet apocalyptic environmentalists & many well-meaning people today:

- promote wood fuel

- oppose hydro-electric dams for poor nations like Congo

- promote energy for charity rather than for development

@GretaThunberg @AOC @nytimes @CNN And many green NGOs, European governments, and UN agencies including @UNDP @UNEP oppose modern agriculture and promote the continuation of inefficient farming in poor nations

@GretaThunberg @AOC @nytimes @CNN @UNDP @UNEP Those who promote continued use of wood fuels & inefficient agriculture in poor nations are Malthusians in the long tradition of rich world elites who justify poverty & even starvation

@GretaThunberg @AOC @nytimes @CNN @UNDP @UNEP Malthusians have long used environmental alarmism to promote policies to undermine food and energy productivity

@GretaThunberg @AOC @nytimes @CNN @UNDP @UNEP But famines occur from war and political oppression not resource scarcity

As it became clear that population growth was slowing, fears of "overpopulation" & U.N. funding declined

It was then that apocalyptic Malthusians switched their focus to climate change

@GretaThunberg @AOC @nytimes @CNN @UNDP @UNEP Rich world development agencies used climate alarmism to divert money from agricultural modernization, contributing to the food crisis, according to a former World Bank official

These are just a few of the slides that my incredible colleague @Madi_Czerwinski created

I am grateful to her, my colleagues, and our supporters, for helping create Apocalypse Never

environmentalprogress.org/praise-for-apo…

No book on the environment has ever been praised by a larger & more prestigious group of scientists & scholars

And now, thanks to many of you, Apocalypse Never is a best-seller

I hope you read it & send copies to family & friends

/END

amazon.com/Apocalypse-Nev…