The Real Climate Change Disaster

Welcome to This Week’s Leyendecker View

FAVORITE READS OF THE WEEK

Higher education is toast
A new education system is beginning.

The economics of culture
Our greatest economist, Thomas Sowell, thinks it matters.

TAKE A LITTLE MINDCATION

How to live worry free
Learn something from the Sicilians.

THINKING OUT LOUD

The Real Climate Change Destruction
It’s right before our eyes

Bill Gates has backtracked. Climate change will no longer doom humanity. “People will be able to live and thrive in most places on Earth for the foreseeable future,” he said. Pretty stunning from a man who preached catastrophe for decades, even putting his doomsaying in his 2021 book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster. So what gives? Why the change of heart?

Who knows exactly, but there are several possible reasons.

Maybe Bill realized that climate change policies have hamstrung economic potential. No economy can grow with higher energy prices, which climate change policies have created. For decades, both Europe and the United States have struggled to measurably grow their economies because playing defense on climate became more important than playing offense on economy.

Maybe Bill realized that higher energy prices were a tax on the poor, which they are. That’s not good in a world where wealth and income inequality are growing, and Bill supposedly has a sensitive spot for the poor.

Maybe Bill noticed that global banks were giving up on net zero because they know how important traditional energy is to their financing business and to the global economy. Bill could just be following the money.

Maybe Bill realized that EVs, solar panels, and wind turbines are not really clean since they all require mining, processing, transportation, further processing, manufacturing and assembly, and ultimately disposition, all of which require energy. And all these processes have a carbon footprint. There’s nothing clean about making and ultimately disposing of clean tech products.

Maybe Bill’s own clean tech investments were not working out. Since worthwhile returns on green investments have not been happening, even with government subsidies, many investors have started to abandon clean tech, even before Trump was elected.

Maybe Bill realized that without hydrocarbon-generated electricity, the AI economy can’t happen. He is still a Microsoft investor, right?

Like a large number of people, maybe Bill was stuck in a mass psychosis created by the constant drum beat that hydrocarbons will destroy the earth. How many people in the Western world now think industry is bad? How many people in the Western world now think capitalism is bad? How many people in the Western world are now afraid to have children?

And maybe Bill realized that thousands of people are dying because of climate change policy. What? Yes, climate change policy has now killed hundreds of thousands of people. 

The Ukraine war is a direct consequence of Europe’s climate change policies. Europe’s refusal to use their own natural resources of coal, oil, and natural gas led them to dependence on Russian hydrocarbons, which gave Russia the financial capital and political leverage to invade Ukraine. Europe’s continued purchase of Russian hydrocarbons has allowed the war to continue.

The Ukraine war has taken the lives of somewhere between 270,000 and 620,000 Ukrainians and Russians. Many more thousands have been injured. And billions in Ukrainian assets have been destroyed. Is Europe now going to pay the $1T and growing cost to rebuild Ukraine?

Europe’s climate change policies have also led to their deindustrialization, making their economy less competitive in the global arena. Now Europe has to play catch up to China and other countries who have not burdened themselves with high energy costs and a climate change bureaucracy, none of which will unravel quickly or easily.

Bill was on the losing end of the climate change prophecy, and people like Bill Gates do not like to lose. Time was always going to prove the climate doomsday prophets little more than snake oil salesmen. But the damage is done. Their apocalyptic narratives have pervaded culture and dominated news and government policy for several decades. So much so that it induced a mass psychosis so severe that we walked right into hundreds of thousands of deaths, billions of dollars in asset destruction, and weakened Western economies while strengthening autocracies and their sphere of influence.

Bill Gates played a role in perpetuating doom. No less, his about-face is welcome. Maybe now he can help break the spell of mass psychosis. Maybe common sense can finally make a comeback. Let’s hope it does.

THE RANDOMS

Democrats won big this week. It should not have been a surprise. In the United States, progress has always come in fits and spurts. Two steps forward, one back. Two steps back, one forward. This is by design. Our Founding Fathers built friction into the system to prevent us from capricious, careless, rapid change. It can be frustrating, but it’s better than the alternative.

Should we feel good that almost 12% of our population is on food stamps? Kind of reminds me of an old epiphany: Do we have a minimum wage problem, or do we have a problem creating enough jobs that pay more than the minimum wage?

Here’s a little inflation anecdote: I recently had work done on my sprinkler system. The technician charged $150 an hour. That’s $150 an hour for someone to dig a very shallow hole in the ground, unscrew a broken sprinkler head, and screw a new one on. Inflation in services still seems to be growing.

Trump’s geopolitical strategy seems to be aggregating Western economic powers and values to function as a counterweight to China’s attempts to aggregate authoritarian powers. What Western country really wants to deal with China’s mercantilist economy and autocratic political systems?

So far, no hurricanes have made landfall in the US this season. Damn, that climate change!

What do you think would happen if we made the repercussions of white-collar crime significantly more onerous? Why should educated members of society be treated so much more leniently than people born into the great challenge?

ECONOMIC NEWS

Economy

US added jobs in October, says ADP
While layoffs are surging
Auto sales tumble
Restaurant traffic keeps falling
US factory activity languishes

Labor

Better become an AI power user
Walmart is paying big bucks
White-collar jobs are vanishing
Palantir thinks college is a waste
Labor hoarding is over

Healthcare

Trump works obesity drug deals
Here comes the supercomputer for drugs
Are UnitedHealth and AARP swindlers?
The medical debt free-ride may be ending

The Lone Star

University of Austin gets $100MM gift
Houston is making AI servers for Apple
How Austin’s Tito’s conquered the country

BUSINESS

Finance

An M&A bonanza could be coming
Private capital zombies are piling up
AI debt floods the credit market
10 things Warren Buffett does differently

Real Estate

Rent-to-income ratio highest since 1980
Commercial real estate takes another hit
Why it’s so expensive to build houses

Tech

Can a California law improve the internet?
Apple prepares to sell low-cost laptops
NEO, the home robot: Order today!
Every family needs a code word

AI

Amazon and OpenAI sign a big deal
AI browsers are cybersecurity nightmare
Bloom, the hot new AI energy provider
This AI app lets you be anywhere
AI can do half our tasks better

Energy Transition

EU weakens 2040 climate goals
Another bank pulls out of climate alliance
New Zealand ratchets down methane goals
Eliminating hydrocarbons dream is impossible

THE NATION

The Washing-Tone

Trump working rare earth deal with Japan
Trump and non-Chinese start-ups sign rare earth deal
Nvidia CEO praises Trump
Trump warns Nigeria over Christian violence

Trade

Did China awaken a sleeping giant?
Canadians get gloomy on economy
Trump counters China rare earth policy

Social Trends

The BIG risk to our future
Young people are now seeking a purpose
Banning phones in schools works
Colleges face a financial reckoning

GEOPOLITICS

Global

How countries rank in quality of life
Do Mexico’s cartels control the country?
The $124T world economy by country
Al Qaeda about to take over a country

Europe

The mutiny of middle England’s moms
Europe experiences an economic reversal
French Parliament says no wealth tax

Ukraine

Russia gaining ground in Ukraine
Russian crude deliveries plunge
Russian bombs can fly farther
UK sends Ukraine deep strike missiles
Germany sends in “Patriot” air defense system

Middle East

Kazakhstan joins Abraham Accords
The new US stabilization plan
Hamas threatens all foreign peacekeepers

China

China’s exports fall
And they have a new aircraft carrier
China wants to sell cheap energy
China filling up oil reserves
China not happy with Japan’s new PM

War Creep

US to trim forces in Eastern Europe
South Korea ups its defense budget
US upgrades old Puerto Rico naval base

MAKING A BETTER YOU

Mind

Get more quiet time.
How to stop sweating the small stuff
How to grow empathy
The 37% rule on decision-making

Body

Get more outside time.
This diet helps reduce cholesterol
Best exercises for back pain
How to get more deep sleep

FUN STUFF

Let your hair down, baby! Even if you’re all alone.

The Extraordinary

The wildlife comedy photo awards
Blausen Medical demo, whoa!
A 1956 refrigerator ad, wow!

Music That Found Us

Oh, those 1970s!
Foreigner’s “Feels Like the First Time”
The Car’s“Let’s Go”
Def Leppard’s “Photograph”
Bob Marley’s “Turn Your Lights Down Low”

Worth a Watch

Sydney Sweeney is a badass in Christy.
Ethan Hawke shines in Blue Moon.
Daniel Day Lewis in Anemone.
Can you resist Troll 2?
Stranger Things, the final season.

The Yum Yums

Global breakfast anyone?
The full British breakfast
Classic French breakfast
Typical Italian breakfast
Mexican breakfast recipes
Low-key American breakfast
Traditional Chinese breakfast
Mediterranean breakfast recipes
Traditional Indian breakfast
Typical Argentine breakfast
A Russian breakfast

PARTING THOUGHTS

I’m not a white nationalist. I’m an economic nationalist. The globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia. 
– Steve Bannon

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

The Grand Experiment
October 31, 2025

Headhunter’s Secrets: The Dynamic Change Leader
October 29, 205

Do They Want Us to Fail?
October 24, 2025