Apocalyptic activists want to establish new religion’: Michael Shellenberger

US-based environmentalist Michael Shellenberger says “apocalyptic environmentalists” are not driven by combating climate change but by establishing a “new morality” as the prominence of religion wanes.

Mr Shellenberger, the president of independent think tank Environmental Progress, said he had decided to write a book arguing against climate change alarmism because the movement had “just got too crazy and someone had to say something”.

Mr Shellenberger said his own previous alarmism came from the unhappiness of his life at the time rather than a commitment to climate change.

While acknowledging human-induced climate change is happening, Mr Shellenberger’s book Apocalypse Never argues it would not lead to the end of life as we know it.

“There was something we called a conservation movement which was focused on protecting wildlife and the habitats that they occupy,” Mr Shellenberger told Sky News.

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“That existed up until 1970 until which point this anti-human, Malthusianism tradition took over and it really is the paranoid side of environmentalism. It is the neurotic concern with your body being poisoned.

“It really had more to do with the fear of nuclear weapons but it also had more to do with some kind of first world problems of paranoia and really radical Left thinking. That really took over the conservation movement which was a very humanistic and rational movement until about 1970.

“We need to lift everyone out of poverty and we need to do our best to protect natural places and things have just spiralled out of control.”

Mr Shellenberger said apocalyptic environmentalists were in the “grip of a religion”.

“Ultimately I think these are people who themselves feel very alienated, feel very socially isolated. I think there is a lot of anxiety and depression around apocalyptic environmentalism. “It really doesn't have anything to do with the environment,” he said.

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“They don’t have much to say about nature at all. It is really about establishing a new morality of not eating meat or not using plastic of not driving or not flying.

“And I think that stems from this vacuum of people not being in religion anymore and needing a different kind of faith.”

He said the claims that the world was heading down a climate apocalypse was damaging the mental health of young people.

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He also questioned why the movement was being led by a 17-year-old, Greta Thunberg.

“I’m very bothered that the Greens and the centre-Left coalition have basically made the World Bank stop funding development,” Mr Shellenberger said.

“They used to fund roads, electrical grids, indoor plumbing ... and now they fund democracy workshops, empowerment workshops, solar panel and battery hook-ups for remote villages.

“The way that everyone climbs out of poverty is the same.

“What the World Bank is basically doing is funding programs to make poverty sustainable rather than to make poverty history.”