Share this page!

Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Twitter logo
2 Sep, 11 tweets, 4 min read
The people blaming climate change for floods in New York are spreading misinformation & pseudoscience

The damage caused by floods in the U.S. has *declined* dramatically last 70 years

The reason New York is flooded is because of bad infrastructure not a few more inches of rain
The cost of disasters overall is rising, but that rising cost is explained by rising wealth. When you “normalize” the data by accounting for economic growth, as IPCC & every other *scientific* body does, the cost of floods and other disasters to are flat or declining.
Activist scientists and reporters sometimes seek to trick people into believing there is a trend of rising costs by cherry-picking a very short period of time, like the last few decades, even when there is data going back twice as long. This has been done on floods in the US.
More rain is neither a necessary nor sufficient cause of flooding, whereas bad infrastructure is both necessary & sufficient

Similarly, higher temps are neither a necessary nor sufficient cause of high-intensity forest fires while bad forest mgmt is both necessary & sufficient
Recently, some media claimed disasters had become 5x more frequent, but the increase is entirely explained by better reporting. In other words, disasters haven’t become 5x more frequent. The activist scientists & journalists who misled people should be ashamed of themselves.
Humans are not passive victims of our environment. If we were there wouldn’t be nearly 8B of us. When bad things happen, we respond. When our levees fail, as they did in New Orleans in 2015, we improve them, and they perform well. We will do the same in NYC.
All else being equal, we shouldn’t want to change average global temps, bc we have built our civilization around the climate we have, but not all else is equal. Rising temps are a side effect of our incredible success & resilience, which require energy.
If we had to choose we’d rather see slightly warmer temps than slightly cooler ones, but we should try to limit higher temps, and thus emissions, and are already doing so, through tech innovation that is also lowering the cost of energy. US emissions are 14% below 2011 levels
It is wrong to mislead people about trends of rising resilience to the climate & declining emissions. Lying is wrong, as a rule and climate pessimism is contributing to rising anxiety, particularly among children, and despair, which is simply unwarranted. We should be optimistic.
The flooding means we should upgrade our infrastructure but we already knew that. We’ve been talking about it for 20 years. There is bipartisan support for it. But it is disingenuous to label weather-dependent renewables uniquely vulnerable to extreme weather as “infrastructure”
“Flood disasters from former hurricanes are not at all uncommon in places like NY & NJ”

@RogerPielkeJr with the receipts, once again

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Michael Shellenberger

Michael Shellenberger Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @ShellenbergerMD

Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
14 Sep
For years, energy experts have said that the declining cost of renewables & natural gas means we don't need nuclear

But now, as gas prices reach historic highs, nations are returning to coal and diesel, and reconsidering their closure of nuclear plants

michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/skyrocketing…
Over the last decade, energy experts repeatedly assured policymakers around the world that increasing the use of renewables, while shutting down nuclear plants, would make energy supplies more secure, while lowering prices.
But those reassurances have come into question as gas prices have spiked, resulting in street protests & contributing to inflation

“The sudden slowdown in wind electricity production off the coast of the U.K. in recent weeks whipsawed through regional energy markets” — @WSJ
Read 39 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
9 Sep
Media pundits & political leaders should have roundly condemned yesterday's assault by a white woman wearing a gorilla mask on black California gubernatorial front-runner @larryelder. Instead they downplayed it. The double standard is appalling.

michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/assault-on-b…
Imagine for a moment that a white woman wearing a gorilla mask threw an egg at the first black American with a serious chance of becoming governor of California as he visited homeless encampments with black and Latino community leaders.
Imagine that, seconds later, both the gorilla-masked woman and a white man punched the candidate’s security guard. And imagine that somebody fired a pellet gun into the crowd.
Read 32 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
7 Sep
“Making broad racial generalizations, and stripping minorities of agency, does not lead to racial progress — it does the precise opposite,”argued @Ravarora1 last summer.

Afterwards “I lost friends, former classmates, colleagues, and social connections.”

nypost.com/2021/09/04/wha…
“The handful of young moderates in my social circle who support my work messaged me in private, saying they respected my views but were unable to publicly support or share them on social media”
“The editor of my local newspaper (who happens to be white), started taking to social media to accuse me of downplaying racism in our society and spreading misinformation…& described my views as “alt-right” (frequently used to describe white nationalism).”
Read 5 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
4 Sep
When people die from floods, blackouts, and fires because you failed to upgrade sewers & evacuate; maintain & weatherize power plants; and manage forests: just blame climate change

They said climate change was an “inconvenient truth” but it‘s become quite convenient
NYC’s mayor said “in the age of global warming, the unpredictability of weather events can topple even the best laid of plans…”

But was forced to admit that “travel bans and evacuations of basement apartments… were not employed”

nytimes.com/2021/09/03/nyr…
“Anger seemed particularly palpable in Queens, where 12 people perished as water gushed into subterranean spaces, leaving residents to drown in their own homes. Many of those basement apartments were illegal, according to the city’s Department of Buildings.”
Read 12 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
3 Sep
The chaos, violence, & drug death crisis in California worsen

The open drug scene in San Francisco yesterday was worse than anything I’ve seen in over 25 years here

Violence, chaos, death

There is a solution. Shelter First. Treatment First.

But that requires new leadership
California spends more on mental illness per capita than any other state & has the worst outcomes

Most everyone on the street suffers addiction and/or mental illness

Many were recently released from prison

They need psychiatric & addiction care
People can be found lying face down on sidewalks across cities

Open drug scenes are crowded and spreading
Read 22 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
2 Sep
The media accuse Larry Elder of being far-right, but they have misrepresented much of his agenda, *most* of which is mainstream

I support Elder's opponent & have concerns about aspects of Elder's agenda

But we should argue over facts, not lies

michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/whatever-hap…
For many decades it has been big news for black Americans to be the “first” of anything, and for good reason. The history of white supremacy has meant that black achievement is something we all should celebrate.
We spent a decade discussing our first black president, before & after the election of Obama. Cities still celebrate the first black mayors, police chiefs, and governors. Why then aren’t we talking about the possibility of the first black governor of California, Larry Elder?
Read 36 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Like this author's thread?

Get emails when @ShellenbergerMD has new unrolls!

Check out other threads from @ShellenbergerMD!

Read all threads by @ShellenbergerMD

:(