Does that mean it’s over? Not even close. Anyone declaring victory now is celebrating far too early. Narratives do not collapse just because reality finally shows up with receipts. They are deeply ingrained, emotionally defended, and socially enforced.
Most people—and by most I mean well north of 95% of the population—have no idea what actually goes on in climate science. None. I have met so-called experts in energy policy and public administration who could not even give a ballpark figure for how much CO₂ is in the atmosphere. Not a decimal, not an order of magnitude, nothing. And these people were not fringe cases. They were the rule. If they don’t know, who exactly do we imagine does?
Which tells us something uncomfortable: the entire debate is narrative-driven. And narratives are notoriously hard to kill. Facts alone don’t do it. Evidence doesn’t do it. Even lived experience often doesn’t do it.
History is merciless on this point. After World War II, there was a very significant portion of the German population that knew they were defeated—and yet did not believe they were wrong. Thousands of respectable, middle-aged women took their own lives because a world without the Nazi Party was, to them, a world not worth living in. That is what happens when belief fuses with identity. Defeat does not equal repentance.
So put the champagne back on ice. What comes next is not triumph but something far uglier: explaining to people that they have been lied to. That the misery they are now guaranteed to endure for years to come flows directly from these policies. That the pain is not accidental, not unavoidable, not the price of virtue—but the result of deliberate deception. That there never was a climate crisis in the first place. And that all of it was for nothing.
Do you see that being said in the mainstream press? Honestly said? Explicitly? Repeatedly?
If not—and you don’t—then the walk through the dark is far from over. The narrative hasn’t fallen. It’s just gone quiet, regrouping, waiting for the next angle.
Buckle up.