Bill McKibben [pictured above] recently published an essay titled “Pretend you’re running for Congress,” offering guidance on how candidates should talk about climate and energy heading into the 2026 midterm elections. [some emphasis, links added]
His central claim is that elections will hinge on affordability, that energy prices will be decisive, and that candidates should keep the message simple: Republicans are driving demand, blocking clean energy, and raising prices… while renewable energy is cheap, abundant, and inevitable.
On the surface, this sounds pragmatic. But beneath the rhetoric is a familiar problem: the same slogans, the same moral framing, and the same absence of scientific or economic nuance that have defined climate politics for decades.
McKibben tells candidates to keep it simple because energy systems are “intricate and abstruse.” What he really means is that complexity gets in the way of the story. And the story must remain intact.
What’s missing from his essay is striking. There is almost no discussion of climate science itself… no mention of uncertainty, natural variability, or observational constraints.
There is no acknowledgment that climate concern has already peaked politically. And there is no recognition that energy is not merely an input to the economy, but the foundation of human flourishing.
That omission matters because voters, especially younger ones, are no longer responding to fear the way they once did.
Climate Alarm Is Fading Where People Are Already Prosperous
There’s another uncomfortable reality missing from Bill McKibben’s argument: in wealthy countries, concern about climate change as a major national threat is declining, not rising.
Pew’s most recent global survey shows that since 2022, perceptions of climate change as a “major threat” have fallen across much of the developed world.
Countries like Italy, the Netherlands, the UK, Germany, Sweden, Canada, France, and the United States all show noticeable drops. Even places that were once near consensus have cooled.
Meanwhile, concern is rising in several middle-income countries.
That pattern tells us something important.
In countries where basic needs are largely met — where electricity is reliable, food is abundant, air and water are clean, and infrastructure is resilient — climate alarm loses its emotional grip.
People simply stop experiencing it as an existential threat competing with everyday realities.
By contrast, in countries still climbing the energy and development ladder, climate rhetoric is often absorbed alongside broader anxieties about instability, growth, and vulnerability… even when those anxieties are not actually driven by climate itself.
This is not evidence that rich countries are “denying science.” It’s evidence that prosperity changes perception.
And it explains why McKibben’s fear-forward messaging increasingly resonates only within activist circles, not with the median voter in high-income democracies.
I Saw The Consequences Firsthand
I didn’t need polling to understand where this was heading. I watched it unfold in my own classroom while teaching Earth science at the University of Alabama.
Students told me sincerely that they didn’t want to have children. Not because of finances or career uncertainty, but because they believed the planet would be largely uninhabitable within a decade or two. Some were convinced their children would suffer or die because of climate collapse.
That wasn’t activism.
It wasn’t empowerment.
It was despair.
And it didn’t come from understanding climate science more deeply. It came from being immersed in a steady stream of worst-case narratives, stripped of context and probability.
Alarmism Produces Anxiety, Not Stewardship
The landmark Nature survey of 10,000 young people found that nearly 60% were “very” or “extremely” worried about climate change. The dominant emotions were sadness, fear, anxiety, anger, and powerlessness. Optimism barely registered.
This is often cited by activists as proof that governments aren’t acting fast enough.
But it can just as easily be read as evidence that fear-based messaging has crossed from motivation into harm.
🔒 Below the paywall, I’ll show why climate alarmism collapses when confronted with data… and what politicians should actually say in 2026 if they want to be honest, scientifically grounded, and aligned with how people really behave. Subscribe today!
Irrational Fear is written by climatologist Dr. Matthew Wielicki and is reader-supported. If you value what you have read here, please subscribe and support the work that goes into it.
