• Privacy Policy
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
Climate Change Dispatch
  • Home
  • Videos
  • Who We Are
  • Facts Vs. Fearmongering
    • Real science vs Junk Science
      • 1100-plus Peer-Reviewed Studies
      • 97% – Myth of the Climate Change Consensus
      • Michael Crichton: Aliens Cause Global Warming
      • Climate change and its causes
      • Climate Science Primer
      • CO2 is not pollution
      • Deceptive Surface Temperature Records
      • Editorial: Great Global Warming Hoax
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 1
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 2
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 3
      • Why CO2 Is A Minor Player In Global Climate
      • Why Politicized Science Is So Dangerous
    • Facts Not Fear
      • A Simple Question For Climate Alarmists
      • Climate Change – The Facts
      • Climate Change Fears Are Empirically Baseless
      • Global Warming 101
      • Global Warming Q&A
      • Understanding The Medieval Warm Period
      • Ocean Cycles and Climate
      • Overview of Plate Climatology Theory
      • Precautionary Principle
      • Should We Celebrate Carbon Dioxide?
      • The Skeptics Handbook
      • Weather Versus Climate
      • Why I’m a GW skeptic
      • Winning the climate debate with facts
      • Why Aliens Cause Global Warming
    • Greenhouse FAQs
      • CO2, Plants, & Industry
      • How much have temps changed?
      • How much have temps changed?
      • How much have temps changed?
      • Is global warming real?
      • Measuring temperature
      • Swimming in CO2?
      • Scientists urge caution?
      • Today’s warming trend
      • Variations in temperature
    • Gore’s Greatest Goofs
      • Deconstructing the Truth
      • Fact-Checking Al Gore’s Latest Predictions
      • How Gore Created The Global Warming Hoax
    • Inside Real Climate
      • Closer look at the 97% Consensus
      • GW’s Amazing Story
      • IPCC gets failing grade
      • Real Climate Exposed!
      • Truth about Real Climate
      • We’ve Been Conned
      • What is there a 97% consensus about?
    • Behind the IPCC
      • 1,000 Scientists Dissent
      • Climategate: Caught Green-Handed!
      • Climategate Inquiries
      • Climategate Inquiries 2
      • NIPCC Report Now Available
      • Understanding the Climategate Inquiries
  • Submissions
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Videos
  • Who We Are
  • Facts Vs. Fearmongering
    • Real science vs Junk Science
      • 1100-plus Peer-Reviewed Studies
      • 97% – Myth of the Climate Change Consensus
      • Michael Crichton: Aliens Cause Global Warming
      • Climate change and its causes
      • Climate Science Primer
      • CO2 is not pollution
      • Deceptive Surface Temperature Records
      • Editorial: Great Global Warming Hoax
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 1
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 2
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 3
      • Why CO2 Is A Minor Player In Global Climate
      • Why Politicized Science Is So Dangerous
    • Facts Not Fear
      • A Simple Question For Climate Alarmists
      • Climate Change – The Facts
      • Climate Change Fears Are Empirically Baseless
      • Global Warming 101
      • Global Warming Q&A
      • Understanding The Medieval Warm Period
      • Ocean Cycles and Climate
      • Overview of Plate Climatology Theory
      • Precautionary Principle
      • Should We Celebrate Carbon Dioxide?
      • The Skeptics Handbook
      • Weather Versus Climate
      • Why I’m a GW skeptic
      • Winning the climate debate with facts
      • Why Aliens Cause Global Warming
    • Greenhouse FAQs
      • CO2, Plants, & Industry
      • How much have temps changed?
      • How much have temps changed?
      • How much have temps changed?
      • Is global warming real?
      • Measuring temperature
      • Swimming in CO2?
      • Scientists urge caution?
      • Today’s warming trend
      • Variations in temperature
    • Gore’s Greatest Goofs
      • Deconstructing the Truth
      • Fact-Checking Al Gore’s Latest Predictions
      • How Gore Created The Global Warming Hoax
    • Inside Real Climate
      • Closer look at the 97% Consensus
      • GW’s Amazing Story
      • IPCC gets failing grade
      • Real Climate Exposed!
      • Truth about Real Climate
      • We’ve Been Conned
      • What is there a 97% consensus about?
    • Behind the IPCC
      • 1,000 Scientists Dissent
      • Climategate: Caught Green-Handed!
      • Climategate Inquiries
      • Climategate Inquiries 2
      • NIPCC Report Now Available
      • Understanding the Climategate Inquiries
  • Submissions
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
Climate Change Dispatch
No Result
View All Result

Shellenberger: No, 60 Minutes, Humans Are NOT Causing A ‘Sixth Mass Extinction’

by Michael Shellenberger
January 03, 2023, 8:25 AM
in News and Opinion
Reading Time: 4 mins read
A A
3
Share on FacebookShare on XwitterShare on Linkedin

60 minutes mass extinctionOn CBS “60 Minutes” last night, scientists claimed that humans are causing a “sixth mass extinction” and that we would need the equivalent of five planet Earths for all humans to live at current Western levels.

“No, humanity is not sustainable to maintain our lifestyle — yours and mine,” claimed Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich. “Basically, for the entire planet, you’d need five more Earths. It’s not clear where they’re gonna come from.” [emphasis, links added]

Both claims are wrong and have been repeatedly debunked in the peer-reviewed scientific literature.

The assertion that “five more Earths” are needed to sustain humanity comes from something called the Ecological Footprint calculation.

I debunked it 10 years ago with a group of other analysts and scientists, including the Chief Scientist for The Nature Conservancy, in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, PLOS Biology.

We broke down the six measures that comprise the Ecological Footprint and found that five of the six, including food and forestry, were either in balance or surplus. The only thing out of balance was humankind’s carbon emissions.

But reducing carbon emissions requires that neither rich nations become poor nor poor nations remain poor. Rather, it simply requires that we move toward energy sources that produce fewer carbon emissions, namely natural gas and nuclear.

To its credit, CBS notes how wrong Ehrlich has been over the years. “The alarm Erlich sounded in 1968 warned that overpopulation would trigger widespread famine,” noted CBS News’ Scott Pelley. “He was wrong about that. The Green Revolution fed the world.”

Ehrlich despises humanity. Nothing he says should be given the slightest credibility.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 2, 2023

But Pelley goes on to claim that Ehrlich is right about humans causing a “sixth mass extinction.” He’s not. He’s wrong about that, too.

To cause a “mass extinction,” humans would need to be wiping out 75-90% of all species on Earth.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the main scientific body that tracks species, says just 6% of species are critically endangered, 9% are endangered, and 12% are vulnerable to becoming endangered.

Further, the IUCN has estimated that just 0.8% of the 112,432 plant, animal, and insect species within its dataset have gone extinct since 1500. That’s a rate of fewer than two species lost every year for an annual extinction rate of 0.001%.

The huge increase in biodiversity during the last 100 million years massively outweighs the species lost in past mass extinctions.

The number of genera, a measure of biodiversity more powerful than species count alone, has nearly tripled throughout this time period.

After each of these past five mass extinctions, the biodiversity in the fossil record dips between 15 to 20%. But each extinction is followed by much larger growth.

Conservationists, it turns out, are skilled at maintaining small populations of animals, from yellow-eyed penguins of New Zealand to mountain gorillas of central Africa. The real challenge is expanding the size of their populations.

But it’s not the case that humankind has failed to conserve habitat. By 2019, an area of Earth larger than the whole of Africa was protected, an area that is equivalent to 15 percent of Earth’s land surface.

The number of designated protected areas in the world has grown from 9,214 in 1962 to 102,102 in 2003 to 244,869 in 2020.

In fact, in rich nations around the world, wild areas are coming back, thanks to the more efficient use of land for producing food in general and meat in particular.

Humans use about half of the ice-free land surface of the Earth. Of that half, we use about half for meat production, which is one of the greatest threats to endangered species.

But the amount of land humans use for meat has declined massively in recent decades, nearly an area the size of Alaska.

But if we’re not creating a “sixth mass extinction,” or using up “five Earths,” why do so many people, including “60 Minutes,” believe we are?


Michael Shellenberger is the best-selling author of “Apocalypse Never” and “San Fransicko“, Time Magazine’s “Hero of Environment”, Green Book Award Winner, and Founder of Environmental Progress.

Read rest at SubStack

  • Truth
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Gettr
  • Threads
  • gab-logo Gab
  • Mastodon
  • Buffer
  • Telegram
  • Email
  • Copy Link
  • Share Using More Networks…
Share via
  • Facebook
  • Like
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Digg
  • Tumblr
  • VKontakte
  • Print
  • Email
  • Reddit
  • Buffer
  • Love This
  • Weibo
  • Pocket
  • Xing
  • Odnoklassniki
  • WhatsApp
  • Meneame
  • Blogger
  • Amazon
  • Yahoo Mail
  • Gmail
  • AOL
  • Newsvine
  • HackerNews
  • Evernote
  • MySpace
  • Mail.ru
  • Viadeo
  • Line
  • Flipboard
  • Comments
  • SMS
  • Viber
  • Telegram
  • Subscribe
  • Skype
  • Facebook Messenger
  • Kakao
  • LiveJournal
  • Yammer
  • Edgar
  • Fintel
  • Mix
  • Instapaper
  • Copy Link
  • Truth
  • gab-logo Gab
  • Gettr
  • Baidu
  • Mastodon
  • Threads
  • Bluesky

Join our list

Subscribe to our mailing list and get interesting stuff and updates to your email inbox.

Thank you for subscribing.

Something went wrong.

We respect your privacy and take protecting it seriously

Related Posts

Energy

‘Green’ Waste Piles Up As Solar Panels And Wind Turbines Pollute Landfills

May 27, 2025
Energy

MISO Ignored Warnings Before Holiday Blackout Left Blue City In The Dark

May 27, 2025
Extreme Weather

‘Doomed From Birth’: How Climate Alarmism Is Stoking An Epidemic Of Youth Anxiety

May 26, 2025

Comments 3

  1. Spurwing Plover says:
    2 years ago

    Remember this is the very same 60 Minutes that lied about Alar in Apples and ruined the lives of apple growers the lied then and their still lying to us the whole M.S. Media vast controlled media

  2. John Hassard says:
    2 years ago

    The only thing mankind will run out of is the materials for green energy. Mainly the batteries.
    The population will get balanced by nature, the way it has always worked.

    • Paolo Jacomelli says:
      2 years ago

      I suppose all the people at the COP 15 biodiversity summit don’t know what they are talking about either.

Stay Connected On Social Media

gab-logo

Donate Today

Beating back the alarmist narrative takes time and money. Please donate today to help!

Recent Posts

  • wind turbine blades landfill‘Green’ Waste Piles Up As Solar Panels And Wind Turbines Pollute Landfills
    May 27, 2025
    Solar and wind waste is piling up with no clear plan for disposal, raising new questions about the cost of going green and the myth of net zero. […]
  • new orleans blackoutMISO Ignored Warnings Before Holiday Blackout Left Blue City In The Dark
    May 27, 2025
    Nearly 100,000 lost power in New Orleans after MISO cut the grid, raising alarm over blackout risk tied to green energy replacing coal and gas. […]
  • protest FFF world on fire‘Doomed From Birth’: How Climate Alarmism Is Stoking An Epidemic Of Youth Anxiety
    May 26, 2025
    Hollywood heirs like Ramona Sarsgaard and Violet Affleck are spiraling into climate panic—fueled by activism, media hype, and elite institutions. […]
  • Biden touting green economyGOP’s Big, Beautiful Bill Would Rescind $500 Billion In Green Energy Handouts
    May 26, 2025
    The House-passed BBB would repeal $500B in green handouts, slash subsidies, and undo key parts of the inaptly named Inflation Reduction Act. […]
  • humpback whale ny coastHow Climate Buzzwords Hijacked The Language To Hide Environmental Harm
    May 26, 2025
    Climate buzzwords like ‘carbon footprint’ and ‘green energy’ mislead the public and mask real environmental damage. […]
  • north sea oil rigTrump Urges UK To Cut Sky-High Bills With More Drilling, Less Renewables
    May 23, 2025
    Trump urged the UK to slash sky-high energy bills by expanding oil and gas drilling, embracing fracking, and ditching costly renewables and imports. […]
  • Ocean waves near pierMeteorologist Slams CNN For Stoking Debunked Fears Of A Collapsing AMOC
    May 23, 2025
    CNN pushes debunked AMOC collapse claims to fuel coastal flooding and economic panic—ignoring data, expert doubts, and real insurance cost drivers. […]
  • NY Times headline screencapNYT Decries NOAA Staffing Cuts While Ignoring Altered Temperature Records
    May 23, 2025
    NYT highlights Trump rollback of climate programs, but skips over NOAA’s temp data tampering and holes in the climate crisis narrative. […]
  • gavin newsom joe bidenSenate Strikes Down California EV Mandate In Blow To Biden’s Climate Agenda
    May 23, 2025
    Senate overturns California EV mandate, striking down one of Biden’s final climate moves in a blow to draconian green energy rules. […]
  • mountain wind turbinesOregon Ranks Near The Bottom In Rolling Out Its Green Energy Schemes
    May 22, 2025
    Oregon’s green energy push is more talk than action—marked by failing wind turbines, oil leaks, risky offshore plans, and stalled climate policies. […]

Get Instant Email Notifications

Enter your email address to receive notifications of new posts by email either instantly or daily. Check your Junk folder for any verification emails upon subscribing.

Submit a tip

Please enter your email, so we know you're human.

Books We Like

very convenient warming

exposing great lie

Have a suggestion? Let us know! We swap out books based on your input. We participate in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. See here.

  • About
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact Us

© Portions copyright Climate Change Dispatch

Share via
  • Threads
  • gab-logo Gab
  • Mastodon
  • Buffer
  • Telegram
  • Email
  • Copy Link
  • Share Using More Networks…
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Videos
  • Who We Are
  • Facts Vs. Fearmongering
    • Real science vs Junk Science
      • 1100-plus Peer-Reviewed Studies
      • 97% – Myth of the Climate Change Consensus
      • Michael Crichton: Aliens Cause Global Warming
      • Climate change and its causes
      • Climate Science Primer
      • CO2 is not pollution
      • Deceptive Surface Temperature Records
      • Editorial: Great Global Warming Hoax
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 1
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 2
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 3
      • Why CO2 Is A Minor Player In Global Climate
      • Why Politicized Science Is So Dangerous
    • Facts Not Fear
      • A Simple Question For Climate Alarmists
      • Climate Change – The Facts
      • Climate Change Fears Are Empirically Baseless
      • Global Warming 101
      • Global Warming Q&A
      • Understanding The Medieval Warm Period
      • Ocean Cycles and Climate
      • Overview of Plate Climatology Theory
      • Precautionary Principle
      • Should We Celebrate Carbon Dioxide?
      • The Skeptics Handbook
      • Weather Versus Climate
      • Why I’m a GW skeptic
      • Winning the climate debate with facts
      • Why Aliens Cause Global Warming
    • Greenhouse FAQs
      • CO2, Plants, & Industry
      • How much have temps changed?
      • How much have temps changed?
      • How much have temps changed?
      • Is global warming real?
      • Measuring temperature
      • Swimming in CO2?
      • Scientists urge caution?
      • Today’s warming trend
      • Variations in temperature
    • Gore’s Greatest Goofs
      • Deconstructing the Truth
      • Fact-Checking Al Gore’s Latest Predictions
      • How Gore Created The Global Warming Hoax
    • Inside Real Climate
      • Closer look at the 97% Consensus
      • GW’s Amazing Story
      • IPCC gets failing grade
      • Real Climate Exposed!
      • Truth about Real Climate
      • We’ve Been Conned
      • What is there a 97% consensus about?
    • Behind the IPCC
      • 1,000 Scientists Dissent
      • Climategate: Caught Green-Handed!
      • Climategate Inquiries
      • Climategate Inquiries 2
      • NIPCC Report Now Available
      • Understanding the Climategate Inquiries
  • Submissions
  • Contact Us

© 2025 Climate Change Dispatch