S8 Ep161: Bill Gates and the Decline of Apocalyptic Environmentalism — Steven Hayward — Hayward analyzes Bill Gates'srecent statement that climate apocalypse is not imminent, characterizing this admission as a potential "death knell" for alarmist environmentalism.
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 4 December 2025
⏱️ 12 minutes
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Summary
- Bill Gates and the Decline of Apocalyptic Environmentalism — Steven Hayward — Hayward analyzes Bill Gates'srecent statement that climate apocalypse is not imminent, characterizing this admission as a potential "death knell" for alarmist environmentalism. Hayward traces the intellectual shift from 1960s Kennedy-era liberal optimism emphasizing growth and technological progress to 1970s Malthusian pessimism predicting resource exhaustion, arguing that modern environmental activism is systematically failing because its catastrophic predictions regarding resource depletion have proven factually incorrect.
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Transcript
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| 0:35.2 | This is CBSI on the world. |
| 0:37.3 | I'm John Batchelor. I welcome Stephen F. Hayward, the Edward Gaylord, |
| 0:41.5 | distinguished visiting professor at Pepperdine University School of Public Policy, to guide me through |
| 0:46.8 | a fresh revelation. The apocalypse is not imminent. We know this because Bill Gates himself, the man who put together Microsoft |
| 0:55.7 | once upon a time and has been a philanthropist these last years, has announced that the |
| 1:01.1 | apocalypse is not imminent, and perhaps the environment is not going to plunge us into toxic |
| 1:07.9 | oceans and the end of seasons by the end of the 21st century. |
| 1:15.0 | Stephen, I exaggerate only a little bit because my memory of this statement by Mr. Gates was |
| 1:23.4 | shocking to many of the editorial pages of the United States, and there were a lot of caveats |
| 1:28.3 | about his remark. What strikes you about his declaration that he's changed his mind? What |
| 1:34.3 | surprised you about it? Good evening to you. Right. Well, thanks, John. Always good to join |
| 1:39.0 | you about these great topics. Well, I think there are three things quickly. One, that he said it at all. |
| 1:44.9 | I mean, he's been aligned with the climate alarmist camp for many years. And his foundation, which is one of the |
| 1:50.2 | largest in the country, has spent a lot of money on climate change advocacy and research |
| 1:54.3 | and so forth. Second, it's something that I think he would not have said or could not have |
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