Twitter Files journalist Michael Shellenberger censored a Wikipedia editor
The conservatives' climate-denying culture warrior isn't actually a free speech advocate.
Michael Shellenberger proves that doing the right thing doesn’t necessarily pay, but going right-wing does. He turned a short stint of progressive advocacy into a lucrative career espousing anti-environmentalism and right-wing conspiracy theories.
Elon Musk handpicked him to ‘report’ on the Twitter Files. His stories about government censorship won the hearts and minds of conservatives who felt their inability to say the N-word on Twitter was an attack on free speech.
But his commitment to free speech is fickle. A Wikipedia editor stepped forward credibly accusing Shellenberger of verbally abusing and threatening them in an attempt to censor criticism and information about his public relations experience.
From progressive advocate to right-wing culture war chameleon
Shellenberger wasn’t always the right’s culture war hero.
He co-founded public relations firm Communication Works early in his career and worked on campaigns that targeted Nike’s sweatshop labor and corporate logging of redwood forests. Lumina Strategies, a firm he co-founded in 2002, dedicated itself to advancing progressive causes like helping parents educate their children about sexual orientation issues.
But his career took a turn after he teamed up with Ted Nordhaus. Shellenberger and Nordhaus co-founded the Breakthrough Institute, a think tank that promoted fracking and platformed climate deniers, in 2003. The pair also co-founded American Environics, a social values research and political strategy firm.
They made waves with their 2004 essay ‘The Death of Environmentalism’ that blamed environmentalists and progressives – not conservatives – for inaction on the climate crisis. Many of their claims were misleading or outright false, including that the environmental movement changed the rhetoric of ‘global warming’ to ‘climate change’ when it was a Republican strategy to downplay the seriousness of the crisis.
Their false retelling of history to push anti-environmental and anti-progressive narratives was a common tactic. Robert J. Brulle, an expert on the climate denial movement, wrote that the pair’s 2009 essay ‘The Green Bubble’ was “rife with historical inaccuracies and fabricated statements” and was “political fiction in which facts are created to support their argument.”
But Shellenberger eventually became too extreme for Nordhaus and left the Breakthrough Institute. He founded his own pro-nuclear, anti-renewable energy organization Environmental Progress in 2016 and then conducted public relations for The Nuclear Energy Institute, according to its 2017 end-of-year report.
His 2020 book Apocalypse Never was a quintessential example of the modern delay-is-the-new-denial tactic and easy fodder for academics. His claims like “[c]limate change is not making natural disasters worse” and the “build-up of wood fuel and more houses near forests, not climate change, explain why there are more, and more dangerous, fires in Australia and California” were thoroughly debunked by scientists.
Shellenberger’s more recent work is a veritable right-wing-conspiracy-du-jour. He latches on to anything that captivates conservative audiences, from COVID-19 to UFOs to the January 6th insurrection.
He’s also a Save Right Whales Coalition member who amplified the ‘offshore wind development is killing endangered North Atlantic right whales’ conspiracy. The coalition is an astroturfing campaign funded by fossil fuel interests that sends its donations to Environmental Progress.
Shellenberger’s ability to legitimize conspiracies in the eyes of conservatives and his extensive public relations experience make him a right-wing billionaire’s wet dream. Unsurprisingly, Musk chose him for his Twitter Files public relations campaign.
Shellenberger’s Twitter Files ‘reporting’ landed him a role as one of the Republicans’ star witnesses in The House Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government hearing. He entrenched himself as a free speech hero on the right.
Shellenberger’s cashing in on what he calls the “Censorship Industrial Complex.” He solicited donations for Environmental Progress in a Twitter post, asking, “How much would you pay to prevent that kind of totalitarianism from emerging in the West?”
“I suspect that you, like many of us, would sacrifice significantly to avoid living in the kind of repressive society that existed under fascism and Communism,” he added.
Free speech for me but not for thee
A Wikipedia editor going by the name Hobomok found it concerning that the Michael Shellenberger Wikipedia article was filled with overt praise and lacked his work’s abundant criticism from environmental experts and academics. “This page has had questionable edits throughout its history […] Recently there have been more than a few edits which seem like advertisements for Shellenberger's new book,” commented Hobomok on the article’s Talk page.
They edited the article in 2020 to better reflect reality. “I've recently attempted to clean the page up by removing a lot of cherry picked and misleading quotes which either misrepresent what was said in various articles or purposefully cut clauses in half,” wrote Hobomok.
Shellenberger took to Wikipedia in 2021 to disparage Hobomok’s edits. “What you did here violates wikipedia policy. You wrote a completely biased attack on me. Somebody needs to come in here and provide some objective moderation,” he responded to Hobomok.
He stated, “Hobomok spread misinformation, is biased and should be banned from editing this page.” He also asked Hobomok to stop editing the article until he talked to them.
Shellenberger’s attempts to directly influence the content of the Wikipedia article were highly unusual. One Wikipedia editor sarcastically wrote, “To be honest I doubt that someone of Shellenberger's stature would be posting on his own Wikipedia talk page, unprofessionally calling people names in a childish manner. Probably a fake account.”
Shellenberger was indeed the childish person calling people names on Wikipedia. He emailed Hobomok asking for a phone conversation that Hobomok says they agreed to because they were interested to hear what a notorious climate denier would have to talk about.
Shellenberger tried to paint himself as an expert in their conversation, telling Hobomok that his book Apocalypse Never was “one of the best-selling environmental books of all times” and that he was “published in Nature Energy.” “I've been on the front page of the New York Times,” gloated Shellenberger.
He told Hobomok that he sold more books and reduced more carbon emissions than Bill McKibben. He complained it was unfair that he – not McKibben – had to deal with criticism.
He mainly objected to Hobomok labeling him a “former public relations professional.” Shellenberger asked Hobomok to remove the comment or else he was “going to make a bigger deal of this.”
He explained that they would be “fine” and never have to deal with each other again if Hobomok removed the comment. Shellenberger shouted “Please take it off!” during their conversation and then begged Hobomok to remove it, adding that he was “asking nicely.”
Shellenberger let slip that his issue with the “former public relations professional” comment wasn’t that it was misinformation. He complained that it appeared in the first sentence of the Wikipedia article – a place most visitors would likely read – and told Hobomok they could put it further down.
Shellenberger’s extensive public relations experience challenges his credibility as a so-called journalist. Hiding that information in the main body of the Wikipedia article helps his carefully manicured public image.
But describing Shellenberger as a former public relations professional was probably too charitable if anything. His Twitter Files ‘reporting’ reads like straightforward public relations for Musk and Twitter.
Hobomok recalls that Shellenberger hurled insults at them. He said Hobomok was a “fucking coward” and looked “like a fucking idiot.”
Shellenberger threatened to “escalate” his attacks multiple times during the phone call. He said he would “escalate” on Wikipedia and wherever else he needed if Hobomok did not give in to his censorship demands.
Hobomok thinks it’s pathetic that Shellenberger, now 52 years old, acted so childish. “He came off as both insecure and trying to set his own narrative about himself in that phone call. His public-facing persona is pure projection. I think he's incredibly insecure,” says Hobomok.
Hobomok removed the “former public relations professional” comment from the Wikipedia article after their phone call to be “amicable.” They then had a moment of clarity and decided to re-add the comment.
“Someone being able to call a Wikipedia editor and threaten them into changing a page because they don't like the way experts have received their work sets a really bad precedent, and I wasn't about to let it begin there,” says Hobomok.
Hobomok’s re-addition of the “former public relations professional” comment sent Shellenberger into a tirade. “This page about me contains inaccurate and misleading information and is grossly one-sided, particularly when compared to other environmental journalists and authors such as Bill McKibben,” wrote Shellenberger on the Wikipedia article’s Talk page.
He claimed that Hobomok “admitted to [him] that the PR reference was aimed at discrediting [him].” Hobomok responded that he “misconstrued and totally misrepresented” their conversation.
Shellenberger’s censorship attempts had mixed results. The "former public relations professional" comment is still in the Wikipedia article's first sentence.
But Shellenberger intimidated Hobomok enough that they deleted their Wikipedia account. “He's also been on a number of different oil and gas podcasts […] I do not want the harassment that comes with dealing with those types,” worries Hobomok.
Shellenberger isn’t wrong that we need to worry about censorship. Unfortunately, he’s part of the problem.
Isn't part of the ethics of Wikipedia is that if you're too close to the source, you shouldn't be editing articles about them without backing them up with sources? Shellenberger *is* the source. You definitely shouldn't be editing articles if you *are* the source.