In a recent video, John Stossel reminds us that not so long ago, “politicians said climate change was going to kill us, so we must move to net zero emissions.” Many promised that we might reach net zero by 2050.

Several European countries embarked on the venture to achieve such a significant goal by working to get as much power as they needed through renewables. Of course, costs rose, power grids went down, and the ability to meet that green dream faded.

Alex Epstein, author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, says in the video, “The power outages are the starkest illustration of bad electricity policy.” Even worse are the many Europeans who died during the summer heat wave. “These places in Europe can't keep cool in the summer, even though we’ve had this technology for a hundred years called air conditioning!" 

Many European countries are walking back their non-zero push. The German Chancellor now says rules must "better align climate targets, market realities, companies and jobs." He regrets they also decided to phase out nuclear energy.

Notice how American concerns about energy use and climate change nearly vanished when we realized how much energy would be needed for artificial intelligence and data centers. Last year I talked about a memo Bill Gates posted before a conference in Brazil that climate change would “not lead to humanity’s demise.” Years before he wrote his book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, but also explained the difficulty of achieving a net zero goal.

The doomsday environmentalists have come face-to-face with the physical realities of chemistry and physics. We will probably hear less climate fearmongering in the future.