The Great Climate Grift

August 22, 2025

Doug Leyendecker

Welcome to This Week’s Leyendecker View

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.
–Helen Keller

FAVORITE READS OF THE WEEK

Too big to fail
The giant climate change lie.

“In this case significant errors were made in economic analysis, the peer review process broke down, media and policy analysts were far too credulous, and the flawed analysis has been adopted as gospel in policy guidance for banks and others managing the global financial system.”

The world is about to enter a 15-year dystopia
Former Google Exec, Mo Gawdat, predicts chaos.

“There is absolutely nothing wrong with AI. There is a lot wrong with the value set of humanity at the age of the rise of the machines.”

FAVORITE VIDEO OF THE WEEK

Two freak accidents shaped human evolution
Another reason for us to feel lucky.

THINKING OUT LOUD

Remembering Climate Change
Have we wasted trillions of dollars?

One of this week’s Favorite Reads of the Week is about the big climate change lie—that hydrocarbons are causing rapid and dangerous climate change. The very lie that drove a lot of domestic and global policy in recent years. It’s an example of the policy frenzy that was born from climate change hysteria, where we place all of the blame for the changing climate on our use of hydrocarbons.

When asked if I “believe in” climate change, I always answer, “The climate is always changing.” Because, of course, it is. The question, then, is if there’s something about today’s changing climate that is unprecedented and man-made.

I often wonder why we see essentially zero mention of the dramatic climate change that happened in the 1930s, when there were numerous significant heat waves and droughts. During that time, there were not, of course, thousands of commercial airplanes in the air and billions of cars on the ground, to say nothing of the fuel powering air conditioning, computers, internet, and TVs a billion times over. Have our climate change prophets tried to memory hole the 1930s climate data because it would cast doubts on their end-of-the-world climate narrative, which would materially affect their personal livelihood?

From a Yale article about the 1930s: “The critical context that’s typically left out is that the 1930s were the decade of the Dust Bowl—the grim result of relentless over plowing of the Great Plains followed by natural oceanic cycles that favored a multiyear drought, which coincided with the Great Depression.”

Over plowing turned the soil to dust, which created the perfect storm for the Dust Bowl when drought came. But the drought’s catalyst was “natural oceanic cycles”—something humans cannot control. If a dust bowl were to happen today, you think climate scientists would blame oceanic cycles? Or hydrocarbons?

Either way, humanity and the earth survived the 1930s climate crisis. We adjust. The earth adjusts.

Climate hysteria now has us focused on “clean energy.” There is nothing “clean” about making a battery, EV, solar panel or wind turbine. And we also have no sense yet of the costs or environmental impacts of the decommissioning and disposal of these items. Yet “green energy” sources are the only solution the climate prophets preach.

So what does it take to build those EV batteries, solar panels and wind turbines? Mining minerals, transporting minerals, processing minerals, transporting processed minerals to intermediate goods producers, manufacturing those intermediate goods, transporting those intermediate goods to finished goods producers, manufacturing the finished goods, transporting the finished goods from the factory to wherever they need to go. What’s so clean about this process?

There’s more. Since solar panels and wind turbines reduce the reliability of our electricity grid, their use requires us to integrate giant battery systems and/or build more power plants to back them up. What’s clean about making and eventually disposing of those giant battery systems? What’s clean about building more power plants than we really need?

Why are we spending trillions on clean energy that’s not clean, and certainly not an improvement in energy cost and reliability? Why aren’t we spending much less on clean energy that’s not actually clean and instead focusing more on finding the step-change energy source that is cheaper, cleaner and highly reliable?

If most of the voters in Silicon Valley believe hydrocarbon-made climate change is real, why have they gone all in on AI and not on energy innovation? Or have they already tried to go all in on energy innovation but couldn’t find worthwhile investment returns?

AI is projected to require an enormous amount of additional energy. It appears that those Silicon Valley folks care more about increasing their wealth than they do about saving the planet.

How can the supposed fragility of the planet take precedent over the very real economic output humans need? In order for an economy to increase prosperity and reduce poverty, it needs ever cheaper and reliable energy, not more expensive and unreliable energy.

Over the last couple of decades, what role have government-mandated and outsized investments in more costly and not actually clean energy played in our lackluster economic output? Have we misallocated trillions of dollars that shaped up to produce little, or maybe even a negative, returns?

You’ve probably guessed that I think climate change is a religion. It seems telling that as formal religions went into decline over the past several decades, climate change preachers and their followers grew in number. I guess we humans are born with guilt and need “priests” to tell us how to assuage it. Or maybe this is just a phenomenon of Western Judeo-Christian cultures.

The risk of religion is zealotry. Zealots, by definition, blind themselves to alternative viewpoints to protect their world view and insulate themselves from challenges to their ideology. Zealots will go to great lengths to convince you their ideas are the only true and right ideas—especially once their identity is wrapped up in them. Sound like the world we live in today?

A few years ago, a good friend sent me an essay with a very unique perspective. The essay’s author purports that the earth’s molten core has a cycle. When the core is in the expansion stage of its cycle, it makes the surface of the earth hotter, which naturally changes climate. Just a couple weeks ago, scientists confirmed that, recently, the earth’s core has been leaking out— through volcanic eruptions and plumes—with greater frequency.

Evidence indicates more heat is presently radiating from the earth’s core. If it is true that this has the effect of warming the climate, then, to some degree, we have wasted ungodly sums of money trying to end the use of hydrocarbons—the very energy source that unleashed prosperity and reduced hunger and poverty on a global scale.

And what other climate influences have we failed to consider? Even if hydrocarbons have an influence, they can’t possibly be the only influence. There is something deeply hubristic about humans deciding there’s only one influence on climate and only humans can control it.

In our fool’s errand to control the climate, we’ve also terrified an entire generation. Millions have been programmed to think that an uninhabitable hellscape awaits to cut their lives short. Birth rates have plummeted, partially out of the belief that it would be cruel to bring children into a world that’s burning.

Time will tell how climate hysteria plays out. But the industrious among us should reject the religious pull of climate change and remain rooted in pragmatism—and optimism. Step change demands it.

THE RANDOMS

Anyone who got their hopes up over the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska needs to realize that a negotiation of this nature can take quite a while. For one, there has to be some kind of win for Putin, or the Russians will send him to Siberia—or worse.

Reminds me of an old epiphany: The only way to defeat a terrorist is to make him more afraid of you than you are of him. So how do the United States, Ukraine and Europe make Putin more afraid of us than we are of him?

Boston doesn’t support Trump’s illegal immigration policies, so maybe they should get less federal support for illegals living in MA.

The New York Times ran an article about how RV building destroys the rainforest. OK, so how about they write an article about what building EVs destroys?

Those who feel merit has enabled our achievements will naturally believe merit is the foundation to success. Those who feel DEI policies enabled our achievements will naturally believe DEI is the foundation to success. If our experiences shape our beliefs, then so long as DEI remains at the center of the achievement discourse, then aren’t we as a society preaching entitlement over empowerment?

If I had more money, I would surely make more mistakes. Temperance is my world.

ECONOMIC NEWS

Economy

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The cheapest states to live in
America’s best-performing cities

Labor

Does HR still need humans?
Job market gloom keeps rising
How to give a productive review

BUSINESS

Finance

Private equity getting more creative
Wall Street likes Ether
Hedge fund investors want lower fees
30 great finance quotes
Corporate pensions are fully funded

Real Estate

Demand for apartments grows
More foreigners are buying US homes
How about a maximalist garden?

Tech