The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: Is the Era of ‘Climate Change Orthodoxy’ Dying?

Episode Date: November 19, 2025

Decades of consensus around so-called climate catastrophe are now running into new economic, technological, and geopolitical realities. Mix in AI and its unprecedented demand for large-scale electricity generation, and we have a global climate conversation that demands to be reckoned with. Victor Davis Hanson breaks down how the foundations of decades of “green orthodoxy” are shifting on today’s episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In a Few Words.” “The people who have been the avatars of climate change, never suffer the consequences of their own ideology. Barack Obama said the planet would be inundated pretty soon, if we didn't address global climate change. Why would he buy a seaside estate at Martha's Vineyard or one on the beach of Hawaii if he really did believe that the oceans would rise and flood his multimillion-dollar investment? “The inconsistency of the global warming narrative, the self-interest in the people who promote it, and the logic that they have not presented, empirically, the evidence that would convince us that we have to radically transform our economies on the wishes of a few elites that do not have the evidence, but do have a lot of hypocrisy in the process.” (0:00) Introduction (0:58) Shifting Perspectives on Climate Change (2:28) Global Skepticism (5:12) Geopolitical Factors (6:16) Third World Demands (8:30) Hypocrisy Among Climate Change Advocates (9:49) Conclusion 👉Don’t miss out on Victor’s latest short videos by subscribing to The Daily Signal today. You’ll be notified every time a new piece of content drops: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1⁠  👉Want more VDH? Watch Victor’s weekly, hour-long podcast, “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” now! Subscribe to his YouTube channel, and enabling notification:  ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@victordavishanson7273?sub_confirmation=1⁠  👉More exclusive content are available on Victor’s website: ⁠https://victorhanson.com⁠   👉The Daily Signal cannot continue to tell stories, like this one, without the support of our viewers: ⁠https://secured.dailysignal.com/⁠  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For most of my life, at least for the last 35 years, we have accepted the climate change orthodoxy. There was always debate, but the dominant narrative said, no, we have to radically change our economy and move away from fossil fuels to renewable, and that was usually wind and solar. I didn't think in my lifetime that I would see an end to that. And then something's happened lately, artificial intelligence. This seems to be the greatest technological breakthrough since the industrial evolution. takes huge amounts of electricity. We don't have it.

We're going to have to build 100, 1 gigawatt plant. That's the size of a large nuclear reactor. We're going to have to build 100 per year, or the equivalent of clean coal or natural gas. And we will not get it by subsidizing wind turbines and solar panels. Hello, this is Victor Davis-Hanson for the Daily Signal. For most of my life, at least for the last 35 years, we have accepted the climate change orthodoxy.

We used to be global warming, and then when things were not always warming, but they were cooling. They changed the name to climate change to suggest whatever the temperature extreme was, it was all due to carbon emissions caused by, in general, humans, but in particular, Westerners who were polluting the planet with heat. That was the dominant narrative. I didn't think in my lifetime that I would see an end to that dominance, even though there were inconsistencies. The planet is 4 billion years old, and man has only been here for 300. hundred thousand years, and we only have accurate record keeping of temperature fluctuations for the last 150 years. And even within that period, we have cyclical changes between decades of abnormal temperatures,

whether too hot or too cold. Before the industrial revolution, in some cases, by tree rings and ice in the Arctic sampling. So there was always debate that the dominant narrative. said, no, we have to radically change our economy and move away from fossil fuels to renewable, and that was usually wind and solar. And then something's happened lately. King Gustav the 16th, the hereditary monarch of, you know, figurine as it is, not an actual person in power. And Sweden kind of mused openly the other days. He's known as a rabid environmentalist. He said, why are you, basically, I'm not quoting him literally, he said, why are we ruining the economy

of Europe by having exorbitant power cost, electricity costs, when we only contribute to 6% of global warming worldwide? Then Bill Gates shocked the world and said he never, he no longer believes that there is an impending climate change crisis. This was followed by a lot of other people who said, let's take a different look at this. And of course, the second tenure of Donald Trump has people in it in energy, interior treasury, who are saying, you know, we're not going to subsidize this anymore. And this is collated with disasters that were caused by global climate change worries or Armageddon, such as the high-speed rail program in California that was supposed to replace automobiles, $15 billion, $20 billion, not one foot of track

laid the solar plant down in the desert of California that is being dismantled or the battery storage in Moss Landing near Monterey that has caught fire twice. They could go on. So there was a lot of skepticism, both by individuals who were influential and by the general public for good cause. So what is causing this? Well, the first thing is, in reference to Bill Gates, is artificial intelligence. It's going to require an unprecedented level of electrical generation. It takes huge amounts of electricity. We don't have it, and we will not get it by subsidizing wind turbines and solar panels. Sam Altman, one of the pioneers of artificial intelligence,

said if the United States wants to achieve preeminence in the field, and this seems to be the greatest technological breakthrough since the industrial evolution, we're going to have to build 100 gigawatt, one gigawatt plant. That's the size of a large nuclear reactor, a thousand megawatts. We're going to have to build, he says, 100 per year, or the equivalent of clean coal or natural gas. So that influenced Bill Gates. that shook him up. That's not compatible with his prior green idea that we're going to supplant

fossil fuels. Another reason is geostrategic. People are starting to become aware that Russia is a bad actor and Iran is a bad actor and they depend on oil exports and therefore the high price of oil to fuel their military ambitions. When the United States became the largest producer of fossil fuels, during the first Trump administration, then Biden, for all of his green rhetoric, pivoted in his third and fourth year so he could win the election and began pumping oil again. Donald Trump took that 12 to 13 million barrels, as increased it to 14 million, and the price of world oil is going down, and that hurts Iran, and that hurts Russia, and that benefits our allies like Europe and Japan. that would like more liquefied natural gas shipped from the United States. And so there was geostrategic reasons. Let's be frank.

Everybody has sort of seen what China is doing. It's playing the West. It talks a great game about global warming. You've got you guys, we all have to reduce our emissions. And then what does it do? Two things. It subsidizes cheap export of solar panels and wind turbines below the cost of production to bankrupt competing industries in Europe and the United States to get the West hooked

on solar and wind, even though it is a very expensive and unreliable source of electricity. Meanwhile, as we get hooked on Chinese exports, they build two to three coal or nuclear plants per month. Affordable energy that will give them a competitive hedge over the West. Then there's the third world that has been telling us for the last 20 years that we are culpable for global warming, even though the two greatest heat emission areas in the world are China and India. Nonetheless, governments in Latin America, Africa, and Asia say you people owe us because you started the industrial revolution in the mid-19th century and you've been polluting the planet ever since and you create all of your industries and your affluent

lifestyles by burning fossil fuels and therefore you should pay us not we pay you or we don't have to cut back we're late to the game and we should say to them wait wait wait wait wait we burn more fossil fuels in the past because we created the industrial revolution And we do today. We provide you the cars. We provide you the industrial plants. We provide you the plastics. If you want us to stop, we won't export it to you. And then maybe we'll pay reparations and you can do your own industrialization. But don't take stuff from us that requires fossil fuels that's essential to your economies and then tell us that we have to pay an added tax on it because we're warming up. planet as if it's only for our purposes as well as yours. Then there's the, I guess it would be, what would we call it, the hypocrisy. The people who have been the avatars of climate change never suffer the consequences of their own ideology.

Barack Obama said the planet would be inundated pretty soon if we didn't address global climate change? Why would he buy a seaside estate at Martha's Vineyard or one on the beach of Hawaii if he really did believe that the oceans would rise and flood his multimillion dollar investment? Why would John Kerry fly all over the world on a private plane and then tell the rest of us that we're flying too much commercial when his carbon imprint was a thousand times more than the individual Americans? Why would people on the California coast say we have to have wind in solar. And we have to get kilowatt age up to 40 cents a kilowatt the cost because we want to use less fossil fuels. And then the temperature from La Jolla to Berkeley is between what,

65 and 75 year round. We're here in Bakersfield or Fresno or Sacramento. It can be 105 and poor people can't afford to run their air conditioners. Add it all up, the inconsistency of the global warming narrative, the self-interest in the people who promote it, and the logic that they have not presented empirically the evidence that would convince us that we have to radically transform our economies on the wishes of a few elites that do not have the evidence, but do have a lot of hypocrisy in the process. Thank you very much. This is Victor Davis-Hanson for the Daily Signal. Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal.

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