Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All by Michael ShellenbergerMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book is must reading for everyone, but particularly environmentalists. Each concept - energy generation, plastic waste, adaptation, natural disasters, prosperity vs. preservation, and many others - are treated clearly and thoroughly, with copious footnotes. Of particular interest is Shellenberger's treatment of environmentalism as religion substitute, where each can feel that they by doing some small thing are performing heroic service to the world. He contrasts that with the needs of poor people to gain enjoyment and meaning from their lives, not be inhabitants of an elites' back to the-way-it-was vision of earthly paradise. He shows how agricultural modernization using machinery, fertilizers, and GMOs create food surpluses while freeing people to stop being low production farmers and to be city workers and dwellers. The economic clarity of his illustrations are among the most valuable contributions of this book to approaching and solving the environment of panic created and spread by environmental alarmists. Malthus, Ehrlich, McKibbins are all honored by the left and are all monumentally wrong. Shellenberger gives them the attention they deserve.
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