Introduction
In Apocalypse Never, Michael Shellenberger displays great personal courage in admitting to his intellectual dishonesty up till then. He does not seek to claim ignorance was responsible for his earlier writings. Instead he bluntly admitted to his personal weaknesses and flaws. Today’s column begins by pursuing this further, before evaluating his newly arrived-at policy stances. Shellenberger is aware that his critics may seek to strategize their responses to his views as a case of simple climate denialism. But, he argues this would be a result of the intellectual inertia that has been created by the very climate alarmism he had helped to foster.
Indeed, he has further confessed that: “until last year (2019) I mostly avoided speaking out against the climate scare. Partly that’s because I was embarrassed. After all, I am as guilty of alarmism as any other environmentalist. For years, I referred to climate change as an existential threat to human civilization, and called it a crisis. But mostly I was scared …of losing friends and funding.”