I Was Invited to Testify on Energy Policy. Then Democrats Didn’t Let Me Speak

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Quillette

Today, shortly after giving expert testimony to Congress about energy policy, I had the startling experience of being smeared by sitting members of the United States House of Representatives.

The context was a special House Committee hearing to evaluate a Democratic proposal similar to the one proposed by Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, which would spend $2 trillion over four years on renewables and other climate programs.

Congressional interest in my testimony stems in part from the fact that I advocated for a Democratic energy proposal very similar to Biden’s between 2002 and 2009. Back then, the Obama administration justified the $90 billion it was spending on renewables as an economic stimulus, just as Biden’s campaign is doing today.

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Prominent Environmentalist Censored By Forbes, Called 'White Supremacist' For Writing Sense About Climate Change

A whopping 62% of Americans are afraid to share some of their political views because somebody might be offended. As we all know now, if you offend somebody, you can lose your job and have your life destroyed. Michael Shellenberger, a prominent environmentalist who believes that climate alarmism is misguided, is feeling the fury of the mob.

 

Several years ago, I received an invitation to attend a conference hosted by the Breakthrough Institute, an organization that promotes technological solutions to problems like climate change.

I'm glad I went, not just because they paid for my trip to a luxurious resort by the Golden Gate Bridge in Sausalito. For the first time ever, I met environmentalists that I actually agreed with. The group has a generally optimistic view of our life on this planet, and while it believes climate change is a serious issue that needs to be addressed, it also believes that we can fix it using technology. Hence, they refer to themselves as ecomodernists, and I proudly apply that label to myself.

Most importantly, Breakthrough views environmental issues through a humanitarian lens; that is, the group believes that a prosperous planet first and foremost needs prosperous people. Encouragingly, the conference was attended by some of the brightest minds from across the ideological spectrum, and I was grateful to be invited several years in a row.

One of the founders of the Breakthrough Institute is Michael Shellenberger, an intellectual heavyweight who has been an environmental activist for 30 years and will serve as a reviewer on the UN's next major climate report. He just wrote a new book called Apocalypse Never that debunks several myths about climate change. An article posted on the website of his new organization, Environmental Progress, provides a good summary. It also apologizes for climate fearmongering, and it provides a list of facts that contradict the prominent media narrative, which we reprint here:

• Humans are not causing a “sixth mass extinction”

• The Amazon is not “the lungs of the world”

• Climate change is not making natural disasters worse

• Fires have declined 25% around the world since 2003

• The amount of land we use for meat — humankind’s biggest use of land — has declined by an area nearly as large as Alaska

• The build-up of wood fuel and more houses near forests, not climate change, explain why there are more, and more dangerous, fires in Australia and California

• Carbon emissions are declining in most rich nations and have been declining in Britain, Germany, and France since the mid-1970s

• Netherlands became rich not poor while adapting to life below sea level

• We produce 25% more food than we need and food surpluses will continue to rise as the world gets hotter

• Habitat loss and the direct killing of wild animals are bigger threats to species than climate change

• Wood fuel is far worse for people and wildlife than fossil fuels

• Preventing future pandemics requires more not less “industrial” agriculture