On Thursday, July 15 at 7 p.m. best-selling author Michael Shellenberger will be guest speaker at Ocean City Music Pier. Named one of TIME Magazine’s Heroes of the Environment in 2008 for a book he co-authored with Ted Nordhaus (Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility), Shellenberger has been called “environmental guru,” “climate guru,” “North America’s leading public intellectual on clean energy,” and “high priest” of the environmental humanist movement for his writings and TED talks. The author/journalist has been invited to speak to the public by Tricia Conte, the founder of Save our Shoreline – Stop the Wind Farms Off the Coast of NJ.
“Our proposal to invite journalist and author Michael Shellenberger, ‘North America’s leading public intellectual on clean energy,’ to come to Ocean City is made in the spirit and with the intent of adding important and relevant information and opinions to the public debate,” Conte said in a press release, charging New Jersey politicians including Governor Phil Murphy, Senate President Steve Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin with using “blunt force to implement or hide the real costs of their Energy Master Plan” while working with Orsted on offshore wind development.
“As you know, for more than two years the Danish company Orsted has invaded New Jersey spending millions of dollars pushing corporate propaganda for their unprecedented, ill-advised industrial wind farm, while simultaneously unleashing their foreign agents to lobby and mislead elected and appointed officials in Ocean City and across New Jersey,” Conte said, explaining how “Orsted has also forced their corporate propaganda into our public schools,” which she called unacceptable.
“It is in the best interest of all Citizens of Ocean City and New Jersey to have a full, open and honest debate, encouraging alternative views and a range of information, to help Citizens determine whether to support or oppose President Biden’s and Governor Murphy’s radical and unprecedented proposal to irrevocably and negatively alter the environment, the economy and the future of the Jersey Shore and the Atlantic Coast,” Conte added.
In his numerous writings which include several books on the subject of energy and the environment, Shellenberger has noted “the underlying problem with solar and wind is that they are too unreliable and energy-dilute…the reason renewables can’t power modern civilization is because they were never meant to.” The author/journalist has been an environmental and social justice advocate for over 25 years who was credited with helping save California’s last unprotected ancient redwood forest, while inspiring Nike to improve factory conditions in Asia.
He’s also become a rather controversial figure in the environmental movement because of his break from the common core, sometimes extreme views on green energy taken by non-government environmental organizations. His research and writing have appeared in The Harvard Law and Policy Review, Democracy Journal, Scientific American, Nature Energy, PLOS Biology, The New Republic, and cited by the New York Times, Slate, USA Today, Washington Post, New York Daily News, and The New Republic.
Conte said Shellenberger has been invited to speak to the public on July 15 to “present his respected views of so-called ‘green energy to help educate the Citizens of Ocean City and New Jersey about the risky, unreliable and ill-advised proposal to build industrial wind farms off the New Jersey Coast.”
The Ocean City Music Pier is located at 825 Boardwalk in Ocean City. The event is sponsored in part by OCNJ Daily and OCNJDAILY.com, Oves Restaurant, Starfish Boats, Talbot Insurance Agency, Chris Cook Cooling & Heating LLC., and others. A $25 minimum donation per person is requested. Get tickets at https://shellenbergeroceancitymusicpierjuly157pm.eventbrite.com
For more information contact Tricia Conte at 609-525-4778 or SaveTheWhalesNJ@gmail.com.
