1ARalp.docx - Climate Change Impact not catastrophic...

Climate Change Impact not catastrophic
Shellenberrger 19,
Michael Shellenberrrger , energy Specialist, Forbes, Why Apocalyptic Claims About Climate Change Are Wrong,
Environmental journalists and advocates have in recent weeks made a number of apocalyptic predictions about
the impact of climate change. Bill McKibben suggested climate-driven fires in Australia had made koalas
“functionally extinct.” Extinction Rebellion said “Billions will die” and “Life on Earth is dying.” Vice claimed the
“collapse of civilization may have already begun.”
Few have underscored the threat more than student climate activist Greta Thunberg and Green New
Deal sponsor Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The latter said , “The world is going to end in 12 years if we don't
address climate change.” Says Thunberg in her new book, “Around 2030 we will be in a position to set off an
irreversible chain reaction beyond human control that will lead to the end of our civilization as we know it.”
Sometimes, scientists themselves make apocalyptic claims. “It’s difficult to see how we could accommodate a
billion people or even half of that,” if Earth warms four degrees, said one earlier this year. “The potential for multi-
breadbasket failure is increasing,” said another. If sea levels rise as much as the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change predicts, another scientist said , “It will be an unmanageable problem.”
Apocalyptic statements like these have real-world impacts. In September, a group of British
psychologists said children are increasingly suffering from anxiety from the frightening discourse around climate
change. In October, an activist with Extinction Rebellion (”XR”) — an environmental group founded in 2018 to
commit civil disobedience to draw awareness to the threat its founders and supporters say climate change poses
to human existence — and a videographer, were kicked and beaten in a London Tube station by angry commuters.
And last week, an XR co-founder said a genocide like the Holocaust was “happening again, on a far greater scale,
and in plain sight” from climate change.
Climate change is an issue I care passionately about and have dedicated a significant portion of my life to
addressing. I have been politically active on the issue for over 20 years and have researched and written about it
for 17 years. Over the last four years, my organization, Environmental Progress, has worked with some of the
world’s leading climate scientists to prevent carbon emissions from rising. So far, we’ve helped prevent emissions
increasing the equivalent of adding 24 million cars to the road.
I also care about getting the facts and science right and have in recent months corrected inaccurate and
apocalyptic news media coverage of fires in the Amazon and fires in California , both of which have been improperly
presented as resulting primarily from climate change.