Environment
Climate Expert: Young People Think The World Is Ending. There’s No Science For Any Of It.

Michael Shellenberger has been an environmentalist for decades. But, he recently came to the realization that the hysteria surrounding climate change and the view of a looming apocalypse were overhyping and even mischaracterizing our ever-changing globe.
As a father to a young daughter, Shellenberger realized that young people were being fed a narrative that’s scaring them into thinking the world will end in a matter of years if there isn’t drastic change from humans.
The fear, Shellenberger told “The Sara Carter Show” Monday, is doing more harm than good.
“I became very concerned about this last year,” he explained. “My daughter is 14. She’s fine because I explain the science to her. But a number of her friends are very worried that they won’t live long enough to have kids… It’s become very anti-human story that’s been told there’s so much negativity. Apocalypse in there. There’s a science for any of it. The IPCC, which actually invited me to be an expert reviewer, that’s the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, invited me last year to be an expert reviewer. They don’t predict any deaths from climate change. So, you know, in one of the strategies that climate alarmists have used has been to confuse people into thinking natural disasters have gotten worse.”
There is, however, evidence, Shellenberger explained, that shows great progress with the environment such as a decreased number of deaths from natural disasters, which he describes in his new book, “APOCALYPSE NEVER: WHY ENVIRONMENTAL ALARMISM HURTS US ALL.” He also explains why nuclear power is the future of clean energy.
“The truth is, they’ve gotten better. We’ve had a 90% decline in deaths from natural disasters, that something we should celebrate, that hardly anybody gets killed by hurricanes or cyclones or floods anymore. And most of those problems are manageable. So what I wanted to do is write ‘APOCALYPSE NEVER’ to separate out science from science fiction.”
Shellenberger believes our planet is changing and that there are real issues to be solved, but they aren’t the issues getting enough attention. Moreover, they’re issues that have gotten lost in the hysteria.
Shellenberger said, “There are serious environmental problems in the world. Climate change is real. It’s not one of our most serious environmental problems. And I think we’ve really lost sight of the fact that we still have two billion people that are living in dire poverty that still use wood as fuel, and we’ve sort of forgotten about them.”
“And so one of the things I wanted to do with the ‘APOCALYPSE NEVER’ was to tell the story of of the aspirations of people in Africa and Asia and Latin America who still wanna live modern lives and deserve to and expose the ways in which so many of my colleagues have been trying to kind of keep people down in the very in various ways.”
The reason that positive information is suppressed is because of both financial and political interests, Shellenberger said,. He also explained that the recent environmental news shows progress, but “you just never hear it because there’s people that are trying to get control over the economy, over your over our lives, over our society. Most of them don’t have very good motivations, I’m afraid to report.”
“There’s financial interests here. There’s political interests. And I think there’s just a lot of lost souls, as I say, people that are trying to kind of construct a new religion when really what we need to be doing is just caring for the planet, caring for each other. It’s really simple things that make a difference in terms of improving our environment. We don’t need this kind of radical takeover of the economy.”
Because his views are unpopular among the environmentalist community, Shellenberger’s new book has been censored by both Forbes and Youtube for spreading “false information.” He’s chosen to not back down and his book continues to be a best-seller.

Economy
New York first state to ban natural gas and other fossil fuels in new buildings

The environmentalists are beating down policymakers are they have won a huge battle in New York. On Tuesday, New York became the first state in the country to ban the use of natural gas and other fossil fuels for heating and cooking in most new buildings.
The law does not affect existing buildings, and exempts renovations. “It also includes exceptions for a variety of new buildings, including hospitals, manufacturing facilities, and restaurants. But it does not allow cities or counties to opt out” reports National Review.
As is standard with government oversight, the rules do not apply equally across the board, highlighting its hypocrisy.
The state’s Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul endorsed a ban on natural-gas hookups in new construction during her state-of-the-state address in January. “Her spokeswoman reassured environmental activists earlier this week that the law would not include a loophole allowing localities to exempt themselves from the ban” adds National Review.
“The new law will not have any loopholes that will undermine the intent of this measure,” Katy Zielinski said in a statement provided to the New York Times. “There will not be any option for municipalities to opt out.”
State Republicans, however, oppose the measure, worried that it will raise costs for consumers, stress the electrical grid, and have little environmental benefit. “A first-in-the-nation, unconstitutional ban on natural gas hookups in new construction will drive up utility bills and increase housing costs,” state Senate minority leader Robert Ortt said in a prepared statement.
Until recently, environmental groups tended to view natural gas positively and as a relatively clean bridge fuel in the transition to a low-carbon environment. The shift from coal to natural gas, which is cheap and abundant, helped the U.S. power industry lower its carbon emissions by a third between 2005 and 2019, according to a Cato Institute report from last year.
National Review writes:
But, over the past decade, many environmental groups have changed their position after research found that a larger fraction of methane in the atmosphere came from industrial sources than had previously been thought.
In 2019, Berkeley became the first U.S. city to ban gas hookups in most new homes or commercial buildings, drawing a lawsuit from the California Restaurant Association. Last month, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the ban. Gas-industry representatives and New York Republicans have suggested the new legislation could be struck down in court along similar lines.
Other progressive cities and counties have instituted their own bans on new gas hookups. In 2021, New York City passed a ban on natural-gas hookups in new buildings under seven stories, which is set to take effect in December. The law will apply to taller buildings beginning in 2027.
In March, the Bay Area’s air-pollution regulators voted to phase out and eventually ban the sale of new gas furnaces and water heaters in the Northern California region, a move that energy experts and economists say will be costly for residents and will likely have limited environmental impact.
“There is no problem with natural gas appliances,” Ben Lieberman, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute told National Review at the time. “They’re not zero-emitting, but they’re very, very low-emitting. There’s no real problem with the emissions, and they’re economical in use, and consumers prefer them for that reason.”
In New York, most homes rely on natural gas for heating, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and there will likely be significant legal battles for the new legislation ahead.
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