The Climate Grift Unravels
Bill Gates’ stunning reversal sparks infighting among alarmists.
Dr. Matthew Wielicki
Date: 30 October 2025
In a surprising twist, Bill Gates—one of the most prominent funders and voices in the climate alarmism movement—has released a memo just ahead of major UN talks, dialing back his decades-long rhetoric on climate change as an apocalyptic threat. Titled “Three Tough Truths About Climate,” Gates now admits that while climate change poses challenges, especially for the poor, “it will not lead to humanity’s demise.”
This marks a stark departure from his previous doomsday warnings, and it’s already causing rifts in the climate community, with figures like Professor Michael Mann publicly expressing disappointment and accusing Gates of undermining the narrative they’ve pushed for years.
Mann, known for his hockey stick graph and aggressive defense of climate catastrophism, took to X to blast the memo, calling it “bull$hit” and insisting that climate change remains the existential crisis they’ve long claimed—it’s just “still coming down the line.” His post, shared on October 28, 2025, highlights the growing tension: the grifters are starting to turn on each other as the data refuses to cooperate with their predictions.
As I’ve argued extensively on Irrational Fear, the real “threat” was never modest warming of 1.5–2°C itself. It was always the hyped-up feedback loops: supercharged hurricanes, catastrophic sea-level rise flooding islands, disrupted food systems leading to famine, and billions migrating as climate refugees. Yet, none of this has materialized. In fact, the latest IPCC report’s Table 12.12 (from AR6, 2021) paints a clear picture: white cells dominate categories like tropical cyclones, mean precipitation, fire weather, and more, indicating no detectable emerging signal or trend in either direction.
White cells indicate lacking or low confidence in an emerging signal of change,
meaning no clear trend in impacts like cyclones, floods, or droughts. Source:
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_Chapter12.pdf
The data simply isn’t there to support the hysteria.
I’ve covered this in depth in previous posts:
- Is Climate Change Causing Increased Numbers of Refugees? – Spoiler: No, predictions of 200 million climate migrants by 2050 were wildly exaggerated.
- Greening Earth & Booming Crops – Despite claims of agricultural collapse, crop yields have soared with CO2 fertilization and moderate warming.
- The Sea-Level Lie: Exposed – Recent studies debunk the alarm over accelerating rises; rates remain steady and manageable.
- Hurricane Hype Busted: Data Disproves Climate Supercharging Claims – Deaths from storms are down, and intensity trends show no “supercharging.”
All these existential threats live in hypothetical models built on shaky assumptions, as I’ve discussed repeatedly. Now, even Gates seems to be reading the room, or perhaps my Substack, and acknowledging the grift is up. But why the shift? There’s no new data justifying it; observations haven’t suddenly changed. This could be Gates seeing the writing on the wall, or a UN salvage operation to pivot from failed climate goals to real issues like poverty and health.
Meanwhile, the focus on “Net Zero” emissions has backfired spectacularly on the world’s poorest. For the first time, more people in Sub-Saharan Africa lack access to electricity today than in 2000, thanks to UN and international policies refusing to fund fossil fuel projects under the guise of the climate crisis.
Global access has improved, but Sub-Saharan Africa stagnates due to anti-fossil fuel policies.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/829803/number-of-people-without-access-to-electricity-by-region/?srsltid=AfmBOooXFcE6DbJeptVUfwT0WUgcNJOERLyvwlnhdmxLcSnK-uF_5ejT
Liberty Energy’s comprehensive report, Bettering Human Lives (2024), lays this out brilliantly—credit to Secretary of Energy and former CEO Chris Wright for championing “net zero poverty” over virtue-signaling emissions targets.
The goal should be abundant, affordable energy to lift billions out of poverty, not funneling trillions into ineffective “solutions” that enrich institutions while delivering nothing. As Wright argues, energy poverty is the real crisis, and fossil fuels remain essential for development.
This reversal is a clear sign that the narrative is crumbling. They’ve lied for decades, and now the infighting begins. But to really unpack it…
Subscribe to Irrational Fear to read the full article and support independent analysis on IrrationalFear.com. In the subscriber-only section, we’ll go quote-by-quote through Gates’ new letter and contrast his statements with his earlier proclamations about “code red for humanity” and “billions of climate refugees.” We’ll also examine how leading climate figures — Michael Mann, Bill McKibben, and others — have reacted to Gates’ apostasy. Their outrage reveals just how dependent the climate industry has become on keeping the climate crisis narrative afloat.
Dr. Matthew Wielicki
Earth science professor-in-exile, climate and cultural realist, political orphan, pluralist, husband, father, friend, optimist, Irrational Fear Substack. Dr Matthew Wielicki also appears in the documentary Climate: The Movie on Clintel’s YouTube channel.
This article by Dr. Matthew Wielicki was first published on his substack Irrational Fear.
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