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| Click above for the article Selected screenshots with my comments below |
Bill McKibben is, like Paul Erlich, a repeat offender of the “wildly wrong predictions” category. Of course predicting is fraught, especially about the future, as Yogi Berra would say. The thing is, though, with McKibben and Erlich is that (a) they are unfazed by massive misses in their predictions and (b) the public is just as keen give props to their lates predictions. That’s especially true if they’re catastrophist. The more catastrophist, the more they are lapped up.
McKibben:
1989: “If we keep burning fossil fuels we will head to a world with temperatures same as in hell”. (The End of Nature, MCKibben, p124). Strictly, no. Not even IPCC worst case is near that scary scenario.
2008: “McKibben argues that humankind’s impact on the planet will require the same Malthusian program developed by Ehrlich and Commoner in the 1970s. Economic growth would have to end. Rich nations must return to farming and transfer wealth to poor nations so they could improve their lives modestly but not to industrialise. And the human population would have to shrink to between 100 million and 2 billion” (Shellenberger, p 244). This is alarmist in the extreme. Not to mention wrong.
2014: "Natural gas is worse for the climate than coal." No, it’s not. Gas produces one-third the CO2, 25x less sulphur dioxide, only a fraction of nitrous oxide, and almost no mercury; overall gas is 1/8th as deadly as coal. (Ibid p118)
2017: “Vermont is completely capable of replacing (and far more) its over output with renewables...”. Turns out, no, it wasn’t. Closure of theYankee Nuclear station led to spike of 16% in carbon emissions, vs planned 25% reduction. (ibid p154)
2018: “We’re headed in a direction where we will wipe out civilisations”. (ibid, p3)
2019: McKibben and his 350.org endorsed fossil fuel billionaire Tom Steyer in presidential race. Together they went on to successfully lobby to close nuclear power stations around the country.
“If Steyer and other fossil fuel and renewable energy investors get their way and kill some or all of the remaining 99 U.S. nuclear reactors, which provide nearly 20% of America’s electricity, they will not only make a fortune, they will spike emissions and eliminate the only real hope for phasing out fossil fuels before 2050” (ibid. p221)
2019: “Climate change is the greatest challenge humans have ever faced”. Really? Greater than the Black Death (killed half all Europeans); the control of infectious disease; the great wars of Europe; the spread of nuclear weapons? (ibid p260)
SUMMARY: McKibben holds the views that (a) climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions is going to be catastrophic and (b) we should close nuclear power stations and ban new nuclear. He is holding mutually contradictory views. They are incoherent. They are non-scientific. They are -- presuming (a) is correct -- dangerous.
