Environmentalist Censored For Shifting His Opinion On Climate Change
By
Joe Martino
Joe Martino
In Brief
- The Facts:Forbes.com deleted a new article from environmentalist Michael Shellenberger. His perspective on climate change shifted, and he decided to write about it. Forbes wasn't having it.
- Reflect On:Why are we deciding
to censor different perspectives as opposed to explore them? Is our
emotional intelligence so undeveloped collectively that we cannot have
civil conversations?
What Happened: Michael
Shellenberger, a long time environmentalist who has been in the
trenches helping to save the world’s last unprotected redwoods,
co-created the predecessor to today’s Green New Deal and led an effort
to keep nuclear power plants operating in order to prevent a spike of
emissions, has shifted his perspective on climate change. Prior to
today, he was holding the perspective that we must be alarmed about the
fact that the world will end in a short amount of time if we don’t act
to reduce carbon emissions immediately.
He shifted his opinion based on
exploring emerging science on the subject. He then went on to write a
book called Never Apocalypse, which seeks to help explore what we can do
to better our environment from a grounded and accurate point of view,
as opposed to alarmism.
He wrote an article on Forbes website titled “On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize For the Climate Scare.” Two days later, Forbes decided to remove his article.
Why It Matters: The
fact that Forbes removed an article that was grounded, calm, well
written and explored new conversations illustrates the emerging culture
of ‘censor anything that can get us in trouble’ or ‘censor anything that
doesn’t agree with mainstream conjecture.”
We’ve come into a time where our
collective lack of emotional intelligence is surfacing deeply for us to
address. When we disagree on something, we struggle to explore things
together. When a company says something they feel might get them in
trouble, they run away in fear that the angry mob will come after them.
All that happened here was a man wrote
an article that brought some new light to a conversation that has been
very polarized and is causing people to react out of emotion instead of
logic and the heart. Instead of listening and exploring, censorship
ensues.
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The Takeaway: I spoke
at a high school here in Toronto last year. At the end of my talk, many
students came up to me to talk, discuss ideas and share feedback. The
vast majority of them explained to me that they were terrified that the
world was going to end in just a few years. They felt they had no future
because of the acts of generations prior who were causing CO2 levels to
rise so high that the world would end.
I thought to myself, wow, an entire
generation of kids being pushed into fear, anxiety and depression based
on information that isn’t even accurate. This information was created by
politicians and pushed out by media. Scientists categorically do not
agree with the idea that the world is coming to an end as a result of
CO2 emissions. Yet not enough people are telling people this, most of
media is staying silent on other perspectives and censorship even shuts
down opposing ideas.
What type of world will we create if we
can’t discuss basic ideas? What type of world will we create when we
choose to run, hide and censor as opposed to having important
conversations? How can we stop identifying so deeply with positions, so
that we can be more free to shift ideas when new information helps us
understand things better?
Looking Deeper:
I made a film last year called Regenerate: Beyond The CO2 Narrative.
After 10 years of researching and investigating climate change, I came
to many conclusions that I felt needed to be shared, yet were extremely
rare in public discourse. One of the most important aspects of Regenerate was
that we simply are looking at our environment from such a limited point
of view that we can’t identify the real issues we face, and that our
level of thinking, or consciousness, is completely disconnected from the
solutions required to truly shift our relationship with earth. Thus, we
are creating solutions that never truly address making the environment
cleaner or better long term.
I encourage you to check out the film
trailer below, and if you wish to watch the film, it’s available on our
member platform called CETV. You can start a free 7 day trial to watch
it if you like. We also discuss this story in more detail in episode 2
of The Takeway, an orignal show we have on CETV.
Watch the full film here.Start Your Free 7 Day Trial To CETV!
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