The Church of Climate — How the West Turned Science Into Faith
There was a time when science meant skepticism — when truth was tested, not preached. That time is over.
In today’s West, science has been replaced by something that looks and behaves like religion, complete with priests, heresies, and excommunication. Whether it’s gender ideology or climate alarmism, the pattern is the same: question the doctrine and you’re a sinner. Accept it blindly, and you’re “enlightened.”
Ben Shapiro’s episode “Trump Fights the Climate Change Cult” lays bare how deeply this rot has spread — from medicine to economics, from academic journals to central banks — and how it’s shaping public policy in ways that punish ordinary people while enriching elites.
The Age of Bad Science
Shapiro begins not with climate, but with a parallel scandal: the medical mutilation of children under the banner of “gender-affirming care.” He reads from a report by The Free Press, which revealed that clinicians at major medical conferences privately admit they’re performing unproven, experimental surgeries — including procedures to “nullify” genitalia — without ethics board approval or long-term data.
“Patients,” one social worker said, “express their needs, and we have to evolve to meet them.”
That, Shapiro noted, is the death of science. Doctors have ceased to diagnose; they now obey. The “scientific method” has been replaced with emotional affirmation.
The same contagion, he argued, has infected the climate field.
A Study Too Broken to Save
At the heart of Shapiro’s argument is a single, spectacular example: a now-retracted Nature study that had claimed the world’s economic output would collapse by 62% by the year 2100 due to climate change. The figure — repeated in media, politics, and finance — was treated as holy writ.
But it was wrong. Entirely.
The paper’s authors quietly admitted their data were skewed by a statistical anomaly in Uzbekistan. Once corrected, the supposed 62% collapse became just 23% — a figure far closer to other mainstream projections. The journal didn’t issue a correction. It retracted the study outright.
Yet the damage was already done.
By the time the truth emerged, the fraudulent data had been cited by the U.S. Congressional Budget Office, the World Bank, and the international “Network for Greening the Financial System,” a coalition of 90 central banks — including the Federal Reserve — that used the study to shape regulatory policy.
Think about that: a bad spreadsheet in a European climate lab influenced how your savings bank calculates risk. That’s not science. That’s superstition dressed in math.
The Climate Church’s Real Power
To Shapiro, this episode proves what the “climate change movement” has become — not an effort to understand nature, but a system of moral control.
The faithful gather at climate summits to chant their catechism: “The science is settled.” Regulators act as inquisitors, punishing industries that fail to meet arbitrary emissions targets. Politicians use it as justification for taxes, mandates, and surveillance.
The irony, Shapiro says, is that their policies hurt the very people they claim to protect.
In Europe, where climate idealism has been pushed farthest, emissions have fallen — but at a catastrophic price. Electricity prices have quadrupled in many regions. Factories have shut down. Families can’t afford heat. The Wall Street Journal now calls Europe’s green transition “costly for consumers and damaging for the economy,” with energy running at 33 cents per kilowatt hour in the U.K. compared to 8 cents in the U.S..
The utopia promised — cheap renewable energy, endless green jobs — has become an austerity regime for the working class.
Trump’s Rebellion Against the Cult
That’s why Shapiro praises Trump’s decision to roll back federal fuel-economy standards, known as CAFE rules, which required automakers to hit 50.4 miles per gallon by 2031 — a target that made most cars unaffordable. Trump lowered it to 34.5 mpg, effectively ending Biden’s backdoor electric-vehicle mandate.
In Trump’s own words:
“We’re terminating Joe Biden’s ridiculously burdensome CAFE standards. It was part of the greatest scam in American history — the Green New Scam.”
Shapiro calls the move “an unequivocally good economic measure.” It lowers production costs, keeps gas vehicles available, and curbs inflation in the auto market.
Critics say Trump is “anti-science.” But Shapiro argues the opposite: he’s anti-pseudo-science — the kind that uses bad models to justify ideological control.
The European Warning
Europe’s example stands as the cautionary tale Trump is trying to avoid. Over the last decade, the European Union has deliberately sacrificed its industrial base on the altar of “net zero.”
By forcing rapid transitions to solar and wind — before those systems could sustain demand — European nations made themselves dependent on imported gas and expensive backup energy. The result? Factories closing, wages falling, and the rise of populist movements from Italy to the Netherlands railing against “green tyranny.”
As the Wall Street Journal reported, the “green transition” has become an “elite project that harms workers and consumers.”
And that, Shapiro says, is the real tell: when elites call sacrifice “progress,” you can be sure it’s someone else doing the sacrificing.
Faith Without Evidence
The deeper issue, Shapiro argues, is not climate data or even economics. It’s groupthink.
Like the gender ideologues he began the episode with, climate activists create moral safety in consensus. Once the “truth” is declared, dissent is forbidden. The scientists know they’re bending rules, but justify it by saying, “Everyone else is doing it.”
In the retracted Nature paper, peer reviewers missed the errors. Regulators ignored skepticism. Institutions built policies around it because it fit the narrative. The process became circular — faith reinforcing faith.
It’s not the first time the “experts” have done this. It’s just the most expensive.
The Price of Green Salvation
For ordinary people, this “climate faith” comes at a cost measured not in carbon but in cash. It’s the family priced out of a new car because of government mandates. The worker laid off when his factory’s electricity bill doubles. The homeowner facing rolling blackouts because wind farms can’t keep up in winter.
These are not unintended side effects. They are features of a belief system that values moral posturing over practical results.
As Shapiro puts it, the same West that once conquered nature now kneels before it — not as stewards, but as penitents begging forgiveness.
Reality Always Wins
In the end, Shapiro insists, reality always reasserts itself. Whether in the field of gender medicine or climate economics, truth is not a matter of consensus. It’s a matter of evidence.
Trump’s rollback of CAFE standards, Shapiro says, is a small but significant act of rebellion — a reminder that governments serve citizens, not ideologies. “Good for the president,” he concludes. “We’re not going to follow Europe down the path of self-destruction.”
If the climate movement truly cared about humanity, it would welcome debate instead of silencing it. But as long as it acts like a cult, it should be treated like one.
Because science that demands faith is not science. It’s theology, and a bad one at that.
Mentally ill
Nailed it. Your articulated what I've been thinking for years. The church of climate, gender, etc. are able to unfairly influence, be explored, indoctrinated in publuc education while classical religion is mostly restricted as both are not treated equally.