Top 44 Michael Shellenberger Quotes

If you look at all the energy that is used by an iPhone, not just to make it and to power it, but also to power all the servers, all of the stuff that you don’t see that the iPhone is connected to, it uses as much energy as a refrigerator.

Like many environmental documentaries, ‘Planet of Humans’ endorses debunked Malthusian ideas that the world is running out of energy.

Recognizing nuclear as renewable, and saving Diablo Canyon, would be a bold move for Governor Newsom. It would upset his traditional anti-nuclear environmental allies.

The idea that we’re going to replace oil and natural gas with solar and wind, and nothing else, is a hallucinatory delusion.

Solar makes electricity expensive for two inherently physical reasons. Sunlight is dilute, requiring 10 to 15 times as much materials and mining, and up to 5,000 times more land, than non-renewables. And sunlight is unreliable, which reduces the value of solar as it becomes a larger part of energy supplies.

Homelessness has become a human rights crisis.

Paid child care would make child care more efficient, allowing more children to be cared for by fewer adults, and thus free up parents to work more.

If you want to save the natural environment, you just use nuclear. You grow more food on less land, and people live in cities. It’s not rocket science.

We should be concerned about the impact of climate change on vulnerable populations, without question. There is nothing automatic about adaptation. But it’s clear that there is simply no science that supports claims that rising sea levels threaten civilization much less the apocalypse.

Humankind has never transitioned to energy sources that are more costly, less reliable, and have a larger environmental footprint than the incumbent – and yet that’s precisely what adding large amounts of solar and wind to the grid requires.

Most people think of solar and wind as new energy sources. In fact, they are two of our oldest.

Privately, many climate and energy experts admit that the fastest, easiest, and cheapest way to decarbonize energy supplies is with nuclear power.

The nature of nuclear weapons makes it impossible to either ban the bomb or wipe out an enemy’s arsenal. Nuclear deterrence was unavoidable.

Reporters have an obligation to report accurately and fairly on all issues they cover, especially ones as important as energy and the environment.

The renewable industry claims technical innovations will improve solar and wind – but in reality nothing can change the lower power density of sunlight and wind.

Why are the people who are most alarmist about climate change so opposed to the technologies that are solving it? One possibility is that they truly believe nuclear and natural gas are as dangerous as climate change.

Nuclear is the largest source of clean, carbon-free power in rich nations, and the science shows it is the safest way to make reliable electricity.

Trump gives progressives a way to channel whatever guilt they might have – whether from preventing homebuilding, benefitting from unfair taxes and pensions, or depriving black and Latino students the teacher quality and school funding they need – into a sanctimonious tribal rage against Republican racism.

Wind energy threatens golden eagles, bald eagles, burrowing owls, red-tailed hawks, Swainson’s hawks, American kestrels, white-tailed kites, peregrine falcons, and prairie falcons, among many others.

Environmentalism, apocalyptic environmentalism in particular, has become the dominant religion of supposedly secular people in the West.

Less land is being converted into agriculture globally in part because farmers are growing more food on less land.

Making anything more labor-intensive makes it more expensive.

You cannot power the world on wind and solar.

Before progressives were apocalyptic about climate change they were apocalyptic about nuclear energy. Then, after the Cold War ended, and the threat of nuclear war declined radically, they found a new vehicle for their secular apocalypse in the form of climate change.

Now that Europe has developed through deforestation and fossil fuel use it is telling Brazil not to develop through deforestation and fossil fuel use. Bolsonaro is the backlash against such hypocrisy.

Climate change is happening. It’s just not the end of the world. It’s not even our most serious environmental problem.

In reality, Chernobyl proves why nuclear is the safest way to make electricity. In the worst nuclear power accidents, relatively small amounts of particulate matter escape, harming only a handful of people.

All renewables thus require a material throughput – from mining to processing to installing to disposing of the materials later as waste – that is orders of magnitude larger than for non-renewable energy sources.

Journalists and activists alike have an obligation to describe environmental problems honestly and accurately, even if they fear doing so will reduce their news value or salience with the public.

Normally skeptical journalists routinely give renewables a pass. The reason isn’t because they don’t know how to report critically on energy – they do regularly when it comes to non-renewable energy sources – but rather because they don’t want to.

The industrial revolution in England was only made possible through intensified agriculture and the use of coal for manufacturing, which delivered far more energy for far less labor.

Voters must feel that that the burden of new housing is being shared equally and not falling disproportionately on any one group.

There are major groups, including the Sierra Club, that support efforts to deprive poor countries of energy.

Climate change has completely overshadowed the conservation concerns that used to be so important to the Democratic Party.

If you care about the environment, you want food and energy production to become more efficient and centralized. You want to put less inputs in and get more outputs out and get less waste.

Hypocrisy is the ultimate power move. It is a way of demonstrating that one plays by a different set of rules from the ones adhered to by common people.

The only countries that have successfully moved from fossil fuels to low-carbon power have done so with the help of nuclear energy.

We have good examples of successful adaptation to rising sea levels. The Netherlands became a wealthy nation despite having one-third of its landmass below sea level, including areas a full 7m below sea level, as a result of the gradual sinking of its landscapes.

Climate change is an issue I care passionately about and have dedicated a significant portion of my life to addressing.

When climate goes away as an apocalyptic concern, something else will emerge. No doubt about it.

There is good evidence that the catastrophist framing of climate change is self-defeating because it alienates and polarizes many people. And exaggerating climate change risks distracting us from other important issues including ones we might have more near-term control over.

The flip side of renewables’ low energy density is their low return on energy invested.

Allowing for suburbanization of California’s ranches and farmlands would still allow for strong protections of California’s truly natural areas like Yosemite, the redwoods, and oak woodlands and green spaces near cities.

Facts still matter, and social media is allowing for a wider range of new and independent voices to outcompete alarmist environmental journalism at legacy publications.