Bill Gates recently acknowledged something many conservatives have long argued: The world isn’t coming to an end, and the “climate catastrophe” narrative may be exaggerated. Like Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Gates says the planet is likely to warm by 0.5 to 1 degree Celsius by 2100 — a manageable challenge with impacts that can be mitigated. And given the explosion in data center electricity demand, it’s clear we need to radically rethink our energy policies.
Joe Rogan recently interviewed Princeton’s William Happer, along with Richard Lindzen of Harvard and MIT. Both are esteemed climatologists, and in the interview, they explained how the modern CO₂ greenhouse gas narrative took shape in the late 1980s and, in their view, spun out of control. Given Rogan’s massive audience and the consensus among these prominent physicists that much of the climate change narrative is misleading, the interview is a sign that public sentiment may be shifting away from climate alarmism.
Unfortunately, generations of schoolchildren — and the educators who taught them — were swept up in the hysteria, much like the children in “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” (no relation). A recent report in The Lancet found that climate change is the No. 1 source of anxiety among people 25 and under. Increasing numbers say they are choosing not to have children because of this fear.
That narrative has also led to trillions of dollars being spent on misguided and inefficient “renewable” projects worldwide. Consider Germany. Beginning in the 1990s, it mandated that a portion of its diesel fuel come from renewables. By 2007, Germany required 6 percent renewable diesel, with a binding target of 25 percent by 2030. The results have been devastating. In Malaysia and Indonesia, massive tracts of old-growth rainforest were clear-cut to plant palm oil for “renewable biodiesel.” Flying into Singapore today, it’s hard to spot untouched forest in Malaysia. Large parts of Borneo have also been destroyed: In 1985, roughly 75 percent of the island’s forests remained; by 2005, that number had dropped to 50 percent. Estimates suggest 100,000 orangutans have been lost over the past 40 years — largely in the name of “renewables.”
The U.S. helped fuel similar destruction. The 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act created ethanol mandates that initially relied on excess American corn. But soon afterward, large areas of the Amazon were cleared to grow sugarcane for ethanol. The deforestation in South America and Southeast Asia continues today — again, under the banner of renewable energy.
Closer to home, New Hampshire lawmakers in 2010 mandated that by 2025, 25 percent of the state’s electricity come from renewables. At the time, opposing the idea would have been political suicide. It sounded pleasant, it was far off in the future, and even the power companies played along. Investor-owned utilities such as Eversource and Liberty simply pass the costs of renewable projects — plus a profit margin — on to ratepayers.
Well, here we are in 2025. As a result of these and similar mandates, New England now has some of the highest electricity rates in the country, with New Hampshire the fifth-highest in the Lower 48. As of March 2025, the average residential rate in New Hampshire was 23 cents per kilowatt-hour, compared with 11 to 12 cents across Texas and the Southeast.
According to the New Hampshire Department of Energy, the state’s electricity mix is 56 percent nuclear, 25 percent natural gas, 7 percent hydroelectric, 6 percent biomass, 3 percent wind, 2 percent coal, and 1 percent solar. Given these hard numbers — and the reality of long, cold, dark winters — it’s reasonable to ask how Eversource and Liberty can possibly meet a 25 percent renewable mandate. By burning more wood? By buying carbon credits from sunnier states? It isn’t clear — but the mandate doesn’t make sense for New Hampshire, and lawmakers should either repeal it or scale it back to something realistic.
To be clear, I am not opposed to clean, renewable energy. Solar power in states like Florida and Texas makes tremendous sense: It produces peak electricity on hot, sunny summer afternoons, exactly when demand for air conditioning is highest. That’s a genuine win-win.
But as we’ve seen with the destruction of rainforests for biodiesel and ethanol, misguided “feel-good” policies can cause enormous harm. What New Hampshire needs now is an honest reassessment of where its energy policy is headed. The renewable mandate is a dead end.
A better approach is embracing Pennsylvania’s Marcellus shale, which offers decades of affordable, clean-burning natural gas — a practical bridge between today’s power sources and tomorrow’s reliable, low-carbon nuclear energy. There is no other realistic path. And the sooner we recognize this inconvenient reality, the sooner we can begin lowering electricity costs for New Hampshire families and businesses.
