Energy Secretary Chris Wright has a “dream”: to use natural gas to save the lives of millions of the world’s poorest.
“[T]he biggest challenge [is] 2 billion people on the planet cook their daily meals and warm their houses the same way all our ancestors did, burning wood, dung, and agricultural waste indoors,” causing “2 to 3 million easily preventable deaths alone.”
Wright has taken giant steps to make his dream a reality.
As a pioneer in the use of fracking and then as secretary of energy, Wright has been a leader in dramatically expanding the production of natural gas.
In 2025, he implemented policies that have unleashed record-setting U.S natural gas (and oil) production, even as natural gas prices have remained low (and as oil prices declined, until the conflict with Iran began).
This work has made natural gas plentiful, widely available, and inexpensive.
But accelerating availability of natural gas, particularly for those who need it most, requires overcoming decades of worldwide governmental, academic, and media opposition based on climate change hysteria, such as Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” and then-President Joe Biden’s claim that climate change is an “existential threat.”
Wright is the tip of the spear, eviscerating this hysteria.
In July 2025, the Department of Energy issued “A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate,” a comprehensive scientific report prepared at Wright’s request by five eminent independent scientists that dispassionately examined a vast array of scientific data on global warming and rising carbon dioxide emissions.
The secretary’s foreword to the report is very measured: “Climate change … is not the greatest threat facing humanity. That distinction belongs to global energy poverty. As someone who values data, I know that improving the human condition depends on expanding access to reliable, affordable energy. Climate change is a challenge — not a catastrophe. But misguided policies based on fear rather than facts could truly endanger human well-being.”
The report’s data, analysis, and conclusions, however, dismantle the supposed bases for climate-related regulations that restrict production and use of natural gas (and oil) and strangle liberty and prosperity.
Scientific data, such as those analyzed in the DOE report, indeed show that, instead of causing harm, global warming and increased CO2 emissions are beneficial.
Global warming saves lives. The DOE report discusses a 2015 study, published in the Lancet, that examined over 74 million deaths in 1985 — 2012 in the U.S. and 12 other nations around the world and found that while 0.42% of the deaths were attributable to warmer temperatures, 7.29% — over 17 times as many — were attributable to cooler temperatures.
The Earth’s 1.37 degrees Celsius higher average temperature since 1880, and any future warming, has thus been saving and will continue to save millions of lives.
Increased CO2 emissions improve agricultural productivity. The DOE report explains that CO2 emissions increase global greening. “CO2-induced warming will be a net benefit to U.S. agriculture” and has “boosted productivity of all major U.S. crop types.”
Global warming and increased CO2 emissions do not cause more natural disasters. Concerning fires, the DOE report states: “Global data show that wildfire coverage is constant or declining on every continent.”
Regarding hurricanes striking the U.S., “there is no statistically significant trend since 1920.”
As for tornadoes, “there is a noticeable downward trend in the number of severe tornadoes in the U.S. since 1950,” and since 1990, “the number of weak tornadoes in the U.S. has remained roughly constant.”
The DOE report also debunks the dramatized assertion in “An Inconvenient Truth” that rising sea levels will swallow cities. “Since 1900, global average sea level has risen by about 8 inches.” As the “global average rate of absolute sea level rise is estimated to be 0.12 inches/year,” it will take another century for sea levels to rise by a single foot.
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The most important fact regarding natural disasters, however, comes from data compiled by Oxford University scholars Hannah Ritchie, Pablo Rosado, and Max Roser: Since 1920, as temperatures and CO2 emissions have increased — and the world’s population has quadrupled — average deaths per year from natural disasters have decreased by over 90%.
The natural gas needed to make Wright’s dream a reality is plentiful, widely available, and inexpensive. We must stop allowing climate change hysteria to stand in the way.
David M. Simon is a lawyer in Chicago and a writer at www.dmswritings.com.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
