I believe there is room for nature conservation but not the sort of radical Malthusianism we saw yesterday.
Small-footprint technologies like nuclear energy are highly compatible with both nature conservation and ecomodernism.
My "litmus test" for whether a 'climate activist' actually is a straightforward climate activist or whether they have another agenda altogether (Marxism or Malthusianism) is whether they are willing to at least grudgingly support nuclear energy.
Michael E. Mann is anti-nuclear. He's an extremist. My guess is he's mostly a Malthusian.
Dr. James Hansen is a totally legitimate climate scientist whose agenda is protecting Earth. He supports nuclear energy as an alternatice to fossil fuels.
It's one thing to not whiz in the well. It's something else to insist that humans are a diabolus ex machina that somehow parachuted in and started trashing the joint by nature.
If humans are a cancer on the planet...well, what does THAT conclude? And are these folks going to take that to its logical conclusion?
Now the movement is simply Jonestown without the Kool-Aid.
That is indeed the easiest way to separate the Malthusians from the genuine Climate Change concerned. The Malthusians include the Western Financial Elites who are just cynically using climate change to promote their Totalitarian Global Oligarchy. Just as they used covid. They were always fiercely anti-nuclear.
It's getting trickier now. We're seeing them change tactics, since their hypocrisy is so blatant and irrational. Now many of them are claiming support for "safe" nuclear. But where the rubber-meets-the-road, they do zip to actually do anything that facilitates nuclear energy. Like Colorado democrats voting to continue their state ban on nuclear power, but trying to keep it quiet, no media.
And now they are in a bigger quagmire because the financial elites are on a craze to build 100's of GWs of giant A.I. Data Centers that require super-reliable 24/7, 365 days/yr power. Wind & solar scams aren't going to cut it. Good enough for us lowly serfs, who can just do without when the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine. So they are forced to choose from building more fossil or build nuclear. They must be torn. Might cause some sort of psychotic breakdown.
Phenomenal moment, Ted. Wish I had been in the room. I probably would have stood with the Climate Defiance people just to mix it up. I resonate with the vision of abundance, harnessing technology for a better future, etc. Yet there’s something ineffable about the connection we have with nature—walking alone in a wild place, tapping into a wisdom that ecosystems and progress are not at odds. I’m not ready to sacrifice the appeal to nature, the biomimicry that holds the blueprint for everything - even genetic agriculture, nuclear energy, and affordable housing - all rooted in the same laws of physics that govern the cosmos. To me, it feels like the next evolution of environmentalism, not its death - embracing abundance while still honoring the sacredness of the natural world that guides us. Perhaps I am a fool for putting the environment at the center of my “ism,” yet modernism, rationalism, and humanism are all inside my interpretation of environment. Without a doubt, pluralism is essential, and I am grateful for the voice and data you and your team are bringing to the front.
Norm, have you ever calculated your own carbon footprint ?
I believe that you actually have two carbon footprints:
1. Your personal 👣 that includes your travel, driving, public transit, hearing, and any deductions for home solar that you may have. This shouldn't be too complicated.
2. Your _real_ carbon 👣. How many legislators have you convinced to veto nuclear, wind, solar, or other non-fossil fuel projects ? Here's an example: Andrew Cuomo and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. each beat approximately one-half of the blame for increased fossil fuel emissions following the shutdown of Indian Point in which they were instrumental.
I'll note the increase in emissions per year resulting from the shutdown of Indian Point. for the next comment.
The increase in emissions after the closure of Indian Point was 4.5 million pounds of CO2 per year. So, if we give half of the blame to Andrew Cuomo and half to RFK, Jr , each's _real_ carbon 👣 is 2.25 million pounds of C02/year plus whatever emissions from flights, driving,transport, etc. That's a mammoth 👣 👣 👣 👣
I'm still not sure, working where I do, that there is a coherent movement called "environmentalism". There are many actors from the Sierra Club and NRDC (big money) to the grassroots Facebook group against a specific solar development. Then there are middle of the road, more pragmatic, and also heavily financed groups such as EDF and TNC. Disagreements between carbon-first and biodiversity first groups exist, perhaps most notably with regard to renewables on federal land. Perhaps climatism is not environmentalism at all, perhaps climate has only exacerbated environmental groups' disagreements that were there all along.
Environmentalism and the climate movement are two very different things. Every day I read about climate activists' plans to trash the landscape and monkey around with ill-understood aspects of our natural environment. That's nearly the opposite of environmentalism. You do a disservice to all those people working hard, and succeeding, at preserving and bringing back the beauty of our world; the habitats ,the animals, the plants that mean so much to so many of us.
Ted, how does one contact the event organizers to get an invite next year?
The website for the conference says that we should do so, but there is no contact method. I have written two books on the topic and have a Substack that focuses on the origins and cause of human material progress and how we can use that knowledge to promote future material progress.
I appreciate where you’re coming from, Ted. I have a couple questions that maybe you can address in future posts:
1) Do you not think it would be better to refer to “Environmentalists” rather than “environmentalists”? I consider myself an environmentalist insofar as I am deeply saddened by stories like this:
And wish that the world would do more to preserve our natural endowment of wonder and beauty. Does the “eco-“ in ecomodernism care about this at all? Or is it really all about humans?
2) I’d also be curious to hear an elaboration on what sounds like your opposition to pricing in the externality of carbon pollution. You think it’s hopeless politically? I mean it sort of appears that way but maybe the next generation will be more open to it.
Environmentalism is against technological solutions to global warming problems? Where do you get your information? Or is this article a political hit job? Yes, it is against exponentially increasing growth. But this is a scientific fact. Exponential growth is destructive, no matter if you're talking about bacteria or humans. So, can we possibly come to a middle of the road solution to the climate mess? Technology with curbs on appetites for instance. Global cooperation for instance. Consultation about the best way forward for instance.
There is no statement indication that climate change is a natural process and it cannot be controlled by humans. We need to understand the changes and do the planning and engineering to deal with them in our everyday activities
Indeed we can control climate change. Aerosols in the atmosphere for instance - a very bad way to do it, even if Bill Gates approves.
Best way, add giant reflecting mirrors at the L1 point between the Sun and the Earth. The mirrors could be adjusted to shift prevailing winds preventing drought for instance in one area and excess rainfall in another area. And of course you could reduce temperature in the equatorial regions while allowing high latitude regions to continue the warming that is happening, be it natural or anthropogenic.
Once thought to be too expensive, the SpaceX Starship, if successful, will lower cost of moving material to orbit so much, by up to 1000X, that Solar modulation would be feasible, maybe practical. The big difficulty is to find some agreeable means to control it. Certainly using the UN is looking like a bad idea, real bad idea.
I'm sad that this essay inserts support for nuclear expansion into almost every paragraph as a kind of shibboleth that labels people as either pro-human or anti-human. I'm an MIT graduate who worked as a prominent Canadian anti-nuke environmentalist for several decades. I am appalled by what's become of the environmental movement. But — never having been "religiously" opposed to nuclear energy — I am also surprised that the bright and creative people who design nuclear generating stations have so spectacularly failed over the past five decades or so to design one that meets the most basic criteria for acceptability.
I don't know about "religiously". Could be. Could also be corruption. How much have you been paid? (full disclosure: I've never made one cent from nuclear power). Could also be that you are a member of the Doomer Cult. Or a Malthusian. Whatever your real reasons to oppose nuclear are, the one thing they ain't is rational.
Nuclear has been a spectacular success, with the US completing 1 NPPs per month by 1974. With 2 NPP/month on order. At that rate the US would've been 100% zero emissions nuclear electricity by the early 1990's. And utilities weren't building them due to subsidies, or emissions reduction, they were building them because they were the most economical source of electricity.
You and your partners-in-crime are responsible for that not happening. And you need to fess up. You caused climate change, and you caused tens of millions of deaths due to unnecessary emissions. And even more deaths due to human impoverishment.
Those criteria include (1) the ability to provide electricity profitably and reliably, without multi-year outages and premature "retirements"; (2) inherent safety by design, making the self-powered distribution of the station's humongous radiotoxic inventory impossible; (3) separation from nuclear-explosive fuels like U233 and HEU and nuclear-explosive by-products like Pu239 and other shortcuts to nuclear explosives for client nations and subnational groups like terrorists. (4) I've got a few more, but those first three are already so apparently insurmountable that there doesn't seem to be any reason to continue. Established NGSs in the US that changed hands for a few cents on the initial dollar are now being subsidized by state taxpayers because otherwise their owners would decommission them. And the industry responds with SMRs which virtually all experts agree will produce MORE expensive electricity! Surely THAT will solve the problem! ;-)
2) quit making arm-waving arguments. They have inherent safety by design, except the Chernobyl military reactors which are illegal by IAEA standards for commercial reactors. And the distribution of radioisotopes has proven to be minor in the worst case scenario of Fukushima, 3 meltdowns, with old inferior design reactors, that were easily avoidable with minor modifications. But zero deaths vs millions of deaths due to your alternatives. You're responsible for those millions of deaths.
3) HEU?? you mean HALEU. It isn't "nuclear explosive". And Pu239 isn't separated in commercial reprocessing plants. And commercial nuclear power doesn't nor hasn't been used nor would be used for "nuclear explosives". Nor will future thorium MSRs produce weapons usable U-233.
Most likely cause of nuclear war is the demand for fossil energy leads to energy wars, like the recent pipelines being blown up. That alone could have sparked WW3.
And much more to the point bioweapon WMDs are easily made in a basement lab by any microbiology expert. The most dangerous thing by far. Already released Worldwide with the SARS-CoV-2 bioweapon. Killed ~24M people already. Nuclear weapons via commercial reactors is a non-issue.
4) The subsidies on Commercial Nuclear Power proposed are trivial compared to the subsidies that now exist for wind, solar and CCS. While nuclear being undeniably much cleaner with a far lower $/ton of CO2 avoided cost than any of them.
As for SMRs, this expert (like many others) concludes they are the path forward for unlimited, zero emissions, lowest cost energy. The exact opposite of what you claim:
Energy Transition: Nuclear SMRs vs Renewables, Energy Transition Crisis:
"This video explains how advanced small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) technology can be used to completely replace all of the energy we now derive from fossil fuels, for less investment than what’s already been spent on renewable energy in the last two decades alone."
Industry apologists have tried to blame over-regulation for the demise of construction of new reactors financed by willing investors, but Breakthrough Institute has already brilliantly dismantled that claim! So it isn't the crazy anti-human environmentalists that have killed all of the nuclear Renaissances, it seems to be a combination of an intractable technology and an industry that can't solve the intractable problems after decades of effort and serious subsidies. People who stake their credibility on forecasting that "this time will be different" are seriously risking their credibility, IMO.
It's a lot more than over-regulation. It's false absurdities like LNT and ALARA. It's corruption and NGO dark money. Rather than "crazy anti-human environmentalists" its more like Big Money Mercenary ENGOs that are funded to the tune of $billions/yr. And refuse to release the names of their big donors (typically make multi-million$ personal donations annually). It's irrational subsidies that contort the electricity markets and grid economics to disfavor nuclear or any baseload power source. While corrupt politicians pump vast subsidies into political favorites rather than a technology neutral free market subsidy like the CF&D.
I know what you mean and agree, but the title is precisely wrong. Environmentalism means including the positive and negative externalities in decision-making. To do so correctly increases, not undermines, abundance. If "environmentalism" is hopelessly damaged as a word, then we need a new one or just actively subsume taking account of externalities in the abundance agenda.
There's EnviroMentalism and EcoLogicalism. The former is fundamentally cultish or dogma, the latter is rationalist or Science based (I'm talking Real Science not Fauci-Science).
I believe there is room for nature conservation but not the sort of radical Malthusianism we saw yesterday.
Small-footprint technologies like nuclear energy are highly compatible with both nature conservation and ecomodernism.
My "litmus test" for whether a 'climate activist' actually is a straightforward climate activist or whether they have another agenda altogether (Marxism or Malthusianism) is whether they are willing to at least grudgingly support nuclear energy.
Michael E. Mann is anti-nuclear. He's an extremist. My guess is he's mostly a Malthusian.
Dr. James Hansen is a totally legitimate climate scientist whose agenda is protecting Earth. He supports nuclear energy as an alternatice to fossil fuels.
It's one thing to not whiz in the well. It's something else to insist that humans are a diabolus ex machina that somehow parachuted in and started trashing the joint by nature.
If humans are a cancer on the planet...well, what does THAT conclude? And are these folks going to take that to its logical conclusion?
Now the movement is simply Jonestown without the Kool-Aid.
P.S. My mind is wandering right now and I would so love to be enjoying one of those fields of flowers near Diablo Canyon !!
Beautiful area, Montana de Oro, SLO County.
From a recent visit to MdO:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/29050464@N06/53818866788/
Wonderful area! The walk onto PG&E land is very nice too, just south of MdO. You need a permit.
That is indeed the easiest way to separate the Malthusians from the genuine Climate Change concerned. The Malthusians include the Western Financial Elites who are just cynically using climate change to promote their Totalitarian Global Oligarchy. Just as they used covid. They were always fiercely anti-nuclear.
It's getting trickier now. We're seeing them change tactics, since their hypocrisy is so blatant and irrational. Now many of them are claiming support for "safe" nuclear. But where the rubber-meets-the-road, they do zip to actually do anything that facilitates nuclear energy. Like Colorado democrats voting to continue their state ban on nuclear power, but trying to keep it quiet, no media.
And now they are in a bigger quagmire because the financial elites are on a craze to build 100's of GWs of giant A.I. Data Centers that require super-reliable 24/7, 365 days/yr power. Wind & solar scams aren't going to cut it. Good enough for us lowly serfs, who can just do without when the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine. So they are forced to choose from building more fossil or build nuclear. They must be torn. Might cause some sort of psychotic breakdown.
I agree but careful with the "litmus test" for motives. Better just not worry too much about motives and go straight to policy.
Phenomenal moment, Ted. Wish I had been in the room. I probably would have stood with the Climate Defiance people just to mix it up. I resonate with the vision of abundance, harnessing technology for a better future, etc. Yet there’s something ineffable about the connection we have with nature—walking alone in a wild place, tapping into a wisdom that ecosystems and progress are not at odds. I’m not ready to sacrifice the appeal to nature, the biomimicry that holds the blueprint for everything - even genetic agriculture, nuclear energy, and affordable housing - all rooted in the same laws of physics that govern the cosmos. To me, it feels like the next evolution of environmentalism, not its death - embracing abundance while still honoring the sacredness of the natural world that guides us. Perhaps I am a fool for putting the environment at the center of my “ism,” yet modernism, rationalism, and humanism are all inside my interpretation of environment. Without a doubt, pluralism is essential, and I am grateful for the voice and data you and your team are bringing to the front.
Norm, have you ever calculated your own carbon footprint ?
I believe that you actually have two carbon footprints:
1. Your personal 👣 that includes your travel, driving, public transit, hearing, and any deductions for home solar that you may have. This shouldn't be too complicated.
2. Your _real_ carbon 👣. How many legislators have you convinced to veto nuclear, wind, solar, or other non-fossil fuel projects ? Here's an example: Andrew Cuomo and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. each beat approximately one-half of the blame for increased fossil fuel emissions following the shutdown of Indian Point in which they were instrumental.
I'll note the increase in emissions per year resulting from the shutdown of Indian Point. for the next comment.
The increase in emissions after the closure of Indian Point was 4.5 million pounds of CO2 per year. So, if we give half of the blame to Andrew Cuomo and half to RFK, Jr , each's _real_ carbon 👣 is 2.25 million pounds of C02/year plus whatever emissions from flights, driving,transport, etc. That's a mammoth 👣 👣 👣 👣
https://www.eenews.net/articles/3-states-with-shuttered-nuclear-plants-see-emissions-rise/
I'm still not sure, working where I do, that there is a coherent movement called "environmentalism". There are many actors from the Sierra Club and NRDC (big money) to the grassroots Facebook group against a specific solar development. Then there are middle of the road, more pragmatic, and also heavily financed groups such as EDF and TNC. Disagreements between carbon-first and biodiversity first groups exist, perhaps most notably with regard to renewables on federal land. Perhaps climatism is not environmentalism at all, perhaps climate has only exacerbated environmental groups' disagreements that were there all along.
This is terrific Ted. Great to see the Climate Defiance tribute to your work.
"...they transgress a natural order that humans have no choice but to submit to."
So, according to the enviros we are (or, we WERE) essentially living in a Rousseauian "noble savage" world, where everything is perfect.
A fundamentalist Christian would say such a world where the Fall never happened...except it did.
A more interpretive Christian would say that the world was never perfect to begin with, and not just merely due to man's free will.
An atheist who sticks to principles and logic would take a quasi-theodicial approach and say...yet we have disease and pestilence, and here we are.
None of this fits any kind of reason and logic, and maybe that's the quiet part out loud.
Environmentalism and the climate movement are two very different things. Every day I read about climate activists' plans to trash the landscape and monkey around with ill-understood aspects of our natural environment. That's nearly the opposite of environmentalism. You do a disservice to all those people working hard, and succeeding, at preserving and bringing back the beauty of our world; the habitats ,the animals, the plants that mean so much to so many of us.
Ted, how does one contact the event organizers to get an invite next year?
The website for the conference says that we should do so, but there is no contact method. I have written two books on the topic and have a Substack that focuses on the origins and cause of human material progress and how we can use that knowledge to promote future material progress.
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/a-manifesto-for-the-progress-based
I appreciate where you’re coming from, Ted. I have a couple questions that maybe you can address in future posts:
1) Do you not think it would be better to refer to “Environmentalists” rather than “environmentalists”? I consider myself an environmentalist insofar as I am deeply saddened by stories like this:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/10/09/wildlife-populations-decline-wwf-report/
And wish that the world would do more to preserve our natural endowment of wonder and beauty. Does the “eco-“ in ecomodernism care about this at all? Or is it really all about humans?
2) I’d also be curious to hear an elaboration on what sounds like your opposition to pricing in the externality of carbon pollution. You think it’s hopeless politically? I mean it sort of appears that way but maybe the next generation will be more open to it.
Cheers,
Jason
Environmentalism is against technological solutions to global warming problems? Where do you get your information? Or is this article a political hit job? Yes, it is against exponentially increasing growth. But this is a scientific fact. Exponential growth is destructive, no matter if you're talking about bacteria or humans. So, can we possibly come to a middle of the road solution to the climate mess? Technology with curbs on appetites for instance. Global cooperation for instance. Consultation about the best way forward for instance.
I mean I disagree with Yglesias too quite often, but Jesus H these people are nuts!
There is no statement indication that climate change is a natural process and it cannot be controlled by humans. We need to understand the changes and do the planning and engineering to deal with them in our everyday activities
Indeed we can control climate change. Aerosols in the atmosphere for instance - a very bad way to do it, even if Bill Gates approves.
Best way, add giant reflecting mirrors at the L1 point between the Sun and the Earth. The mirrors could be adjusted to shift prevailing winds preventing drought for instance in one area and excess rainfall in another area. And of course you could reduce temperature in the equatorial regions while allowing high latitude regions to continue the warming that is happening, be it natural or anthropogenic.
Once thought to be too expensive, the SpaceX Starship, if successful, will lower cost of moving material to orbit so much, by up to 1000X, that Solar modulation would be feasible, maybe practical. The big difficulty is to find some agreeable means to control it. Certainly using the UN is looking like a bad idea, real bad idea.
I'm sad that this essay inserts support for nuclear expansion into almost every paragraph as a kind of shibboleth that labels people as either pro-human or anti-human. I'm an MIT graduate who worked as a prominent Canadian anti-nuke environmentalist for several decades. I am appalled by what's become of the environmental movement. But — never having been "religiously" opposed to nuclear energy — I am also surprised that the bright and creative people who design nuclear generating stations have so spectacularly failed over the past five decades or so to design one that meets the most basic criteria for acceptability.
I don't know about "religiously". Could be. Could also be corruption. How much have you been paid? (full disclosure: I've never made one cent from nuclear power). Could also be that you are a member of the Doomer Cult. Or a Malthusian. Whatever your real reasons to oppose nuclear are, the one thing they ain't is rational.
Nuclear has been a spectacular success, with the US completing 1 NPPs per month by 1974. With 2 NPP/month on order. At that rate the US would've been 100% zero emissions nuclear electricity by the early 1990's. And utilities weren't building them due to subsidies, or emissions reduction, they were building them because they were the most economical source of electricity.
You and your partners-in-crime are responsible for that not happening. And you need to fess up. You caused climate change, and you caused tens of millions of deaths due to unnecessary emissions. And even more deaths due to human impoverishment.
Those criteria include (1) the ability to provide electricity profitably and reliably, without multi-year outages and premature "retirements"; (2) inherent safety by design, making the self-powered distribution of the station's humongous radiotoxic inventory impossible; (3) separation from nuclear-explosive fuels like U233 and HEU and nuclear-explosive by-products like Pu239 and other shortcuts to nuclear explosives for client nations and subnational groups like terrorists. (4) I've got a few more, but those first three are already so apparently insurmountable that there doesn't seem to be any reason to continue. Established NGSs in the US that changed hands for a few cents on the initial dollar are now being subsidized by state taxpayers because otherwise their owners would decommission them. And the industry responds with SMRs which virtually all experts agree will produce MORE expensive electricity! Surely THAT will solve the problem! ;-)
1) see my previous comment.
2) quit making arm-waving arguments. They have inherent safety by design, except the Chernobyl military reactors which are illegal by IAEA standards for commercial reactors. And the distribution of radioisotopes has proven to be minor in the worst case scenario of Fukushima, 3 meltdowns, with old inferior design reactors, that were easily avoidable with minor modifications. But zero deaths vs millions of deaths due to your alternatives. You're responsible for those millions of deaths.
3) HEU?? you mean HALEU. It isn't "nuclear explosive". And Pu239 isn't separated in commercial reprocessing plants. And commercial nuclear power doesn't nor hasn't been used nor would be used for "nuclear explosives". Nor will future thorium MSRs produce weapons usable U-233.
Most likely cause of nuclear war is the demand for fossil energy leads to energy wars, like the recent pipelines being blown up. That alone could have sparked WW3.
And much more to the point bioweapon WMDs are easily made in a basement lab by any microbiology expert. The most dangerous thing by far. Already released Worldwide with the SARS-CoV-2 bioweapon. Killed ~24M people already. Nuclear weapons via commercial reactors is a non-issue.
4) The subsidies on Commercial Nuclear Power proposed are trivial compared to the subsidies that now exist for wind, solar and CCS. While nuclear being undeniably much cleaner with a far lower $/ton of CO2 avoided cost than any of them.
As for SMRs, this expert (like many others) concludes they are the path forward for unlimited, zero emissions, lowest cost energy. The exact opposite of what you claim:
Energy Transition: Nuclear SMRs vs Renewables, Energy Transition Crisis:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=yBF2fGUO5cQ
"This video explains how advanced small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) technology can be used to completely replace all of the energy we now derive from fossil fuels, for less investment than what’s already been spent on renewable energy in the last two decades alone."
Industry apologists have tried to blame over-regulation for the demise of construction of new reactors financed by willing investors, but Breakthrough Institute has already brilliantly dismantled that claim! So it isn't the crazy anti-human environmentalists that have killed all of the nuclear Renaissances, it seems to be a combination of an intractable technology and an industry that can't solve the intractable problems after decades of effort and serious subsidies. People who stake their credibility on forecasting that "this time will be different" are seriously risking their credibility, IMO.
It's a lot more than over-regulation. It's false absurdities like LNT and ALARA. It's corruption and NGO dark money. Rather than "crazy anti-human environmentalists" its more like Big Money Mercenary ENGOs that are funded to the tune of $billions/yr. And refuse to release the names of their big donors (typically make multi-million$ personal donations annually). It's irrational subsidies that contort the electricity markets and grid economics to disfavor nuclear or any baseload power source. While corrupt politicians pump vast subsidies into political favorites rather than a technology neutral free market subsidy like the CF&D.
I know what you mean and agree, but the title is precisely wrong. Environmentalism means including the positive and negative externalities in decision-making. To do so correctly increases, not undermines, abundance. If "environmentalism" is hopelessly damaged as a word, then we need a new one or just actively subsume taking account of externalities in the abundance agenda.
There's EnviroMentalism and EcoLogicalism. The former is fundamentally cultish or dogma, the latter is rationalist or Science based (I'm talking Real Science not Fauci-Science).