The Inconvenient Sequel to Al Gore's 'Inconvenient Truth' Debunked

Monday on radio, Glenn talked with Cato Institute expert Alex Epstein, author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, about Al Gore's latest movie An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power.

"This is probably going to surprise you, but his central claim is that he was even more right than he thought," Epstein said.

In the film, Gore points to the success of the 100 percent renewable city of Georgetown, Texas --- but 100 percent isn't entirely accurate.

"Imagine that Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, wants to cross the ocean without using fossil fuels. He doesn't want to just have a sailboat, right? Well, what does he need? He needs fuel, diesel or some form of oil fuel. So how is he going to be 100 percent solar and wind?" Epstein asked, hypothetically.

Al Gore to the rescue.

"In addition to the engine that's really doing the work, let's put a sail on top of the yacht so that, you know, it gets a little bit of power from the wind. And then [Gore] said, well, Tim Cook, we'll pay the other passenger so they say they got the energy from the engine and you got the energy from the sail," Epstein explained.

Glenn and his co-hosts reacted strongly to the explanation.

"That is awesome," Stu said.

"Oh, my gosh," Glenn said.

"That is awesome," Pat said.

"Oh, my gosh," Glenn said.

"You have to admire it at some level. At some devious level, you have to admire it," Stu said.

"Oh, my gosh," Pat said.

Listen to the full interview for Epstein's recommended approach to debunking climate propaganda --- and why he says there's hope for the future.

GLENN: Welcome to the program, Alex. I am happy to say, I did not go to the -- to the opening weekend of Al Gore's new movie. I'm sure people were beating a path to its door to see all of the truth.

Did he address in the movie, Alex, at all the -- the idea that almost everything he said in the last movie was wrong?

ALEX: This is probably going to surprise you, but his central claim is that he was even more right than he thought.

STU: Wow! What a surprise.

PAT: I love that.

GLENN: Really? Really?

How -- how exactly was he right?

ALEX: Well, one thing that he does is with some of the specific predictions, such as the 20-foot rise in sea levels, he acknowledges them at the beginning and then makes some other points and then pretends that they've been acknowledged and that he's been vindicated. So one of them is I guess clever for that reason, to acknowledge and then to act like you've dealt with them. Which is more powerful than I guess not dealing with them -- or, not acknowledging them.

But I think it's important that the central narrative of the movie is that, A -- you indicated this before -- the Georgetown renewables are taking over the energy world, so fossil fuels are no longer necessary. And, B, climate is more dangerous than ever. Those are the two threads. And he says rightly that those were the two threads of the first movie. So a lot of it hinges on, are those two claims true? And they're not.

GLENN: Okay. Well, take me to the 100 percent renewable city like Georgetown, Texas.

ALEX: So you see a really interesting image because you see this very self-satisfied mayor. And Gore is very happy because this is allegedly the reddest county and the reddest city and the reddest state and the reddest country. Blah, blah, blah. Right? And they're using 100 percent renewable.

Now, the first thing you see if you're a serious viewer is just a lot full of gasoline costs. So this should -- and renewable energy, not renewable electricity.

So this should be a giveaway. And then more broadly, I think if you think about it, you should know that, well, solar and wind are unreliable sources. The proper name for them is not renewables. It's unreliables. So how -- how is the whole town going to be powered at night and in different weather conditions? That should be suspicious, and they should at least give you an explanation if such a magical feat is to be pulled off.

That doesn't happen at all. So if you look into it, this is actually a pretty standard dishonest practice. What happens is there's a grid that has a bunch of reliable sources and then a little bit of unreliable energy. And then people who want to look really good, they pay the grid to say, "Hey, we want credit for all the unreliable energy." So in this case, there's something like 14 percent renewable, which includes hydro, which is reliable. But there's a solar wind portion.

So Georgetown makes a contract with the grid that says, hey, we want you to label all of our grid electricity solar and wind and everybody else as dirty, and we'll pay for that. And that's what Apple and Facebook and Google do. So it's just a pure accounting fraud.

PAT: Wow. That's amazing.

GLENN: Wait. How do you do that? How do you -- they -- if I have -- if I have a -- if I'm connected to the grid and I am using let's say solar. I can only use so much solar for so long during the day. If I'm not using all that solar, I put it back into the grid and then I can claim that I am completely clean, even though at night I may not be using batteries? I may be using the grid?

ALEX: Right. This is -- this is a much worse version of that because it's just -- the percentages are so vastly different. I mean, I've thought about it this way. Imagine that -- you know, with Apple. Imagine that Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, wants to cross the ocean without using fossil fuels. He doesn't want to just have a sailboat, right? Well, what does he need? He needs fuel, diesel, or some form of oil fuel. So how is he going to be 100 percent solar and wind?

And so that's Al Gore's basic solution as well. In addition to the engine that's really doing the work, let's put a sail on top of the yacht so that, you know, it gets a little bit of power from the wind. And then he said, well, Tim Cook, we'll pay the other passenger so they say they got the energy from the engine and you got the energy from the sail.

(laughter)

STU: That is awesome.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

PAT: That is awesome.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

STU: You have to admire --

PAT: Oh, my gosh.

STU: You have to admire it at some level. At some devious level, you have to admire it.

GLENN: So he says the -- catastrophic temperature rise. Sea level rises. Flooding, drought, storms and disease. All of that has come true. Can you take those apart, one by one?

ALEX: Well, can I take them apart all at once and then we can do one by one?

GLENN: Oh, sure. Yeah.

ALEX: Because I think as a viewer of this movie, we have a responsibility, which is to demand that people who document important issues give us the whole picture about those issues. So one thing we should ask ourselves is, what would the whole picture look like? What kind of evidence would we need? And in terms of a climate catastrophe, climate getting catastrophic dangerous, the number one thing we would need to know is what is the trend? What is the global trend? Not just one example, but what is the global trend of climate-related deaths? People dying from storms and floods. Because this is what Gloria is claiming is worse.

Now, anyone watching this movie would infer -- because Gore doesn't give this data, but they would infer that millions of people a year are dying from climate and this is worse than ever. But, in fact, if you look back, millions of people used to die from climate before we were industrialized fully. So in the '30s, you had millions of people who died from climate.

But last year, I don't think anyone could imagine this. They tallied all climate-related deaths from international disaster database from stores -- international disaster database from storms and floods and heat and cold everything that is supposedly getting worse. And last year, the worst year ever -- it's always the worst year ever, there were 6,114 climate-related deaths, globally

GLENN: Wow.

STU: That's a huge drop. It's over 90 percent from not too long ago, less than 100 years ago.

PAT: Hmm.

ALEX: Right. And it's because nature doesn't give us a safe climate that we make dangerous. It gives us a dangerous climate that we make safe.

STU: Hmm.

GLENN: Have you seen -- I saw an article this weekend about the permafrost melting. And they were talking about how in Siberia, these giant holes are opening up. And in the article -- I mean, the headline was something like, climate change, you know, disaster. Permanent frost melting. And I click on it.

And in the article, it quotes scientists as saying, this has nothing to do with climate change. This has something to do with the -- I don't even know. The axis, or the tilt of the earth has changed -- something has changed. But it has nothing to do with climate.

Have you read about this at all?

ALEX: Well, I don't know if it has nothing to do with climate. I think that the spreading of the term "climate change," as an allegedly coherent term, is very destructive to thinking because it's not a coherent term. So I think it's just easier to talk about CO2 levels. So if we think, okay. Do higher CO2 levels cause this? The truth is no. But what I'm concerned about is, is there change? But how is human flourishing going? And what human flourishing needs to go, into advance, is lots and lots of energy for everything in life, including protecting ourselves from the climate.

So I would go so far as to say that even if we want to do it, at this point in technological history, we do not have the ability to make climate significantly more dangerous by emissions, but we can make it far, far safer by our energy.

GLENN: We have Alex Epstein in. He's the author of the book Moral Case For Fossil Fuels. He's also an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and heads up the Center for Industrial Progress.

You know, the -- the -- the current thinking is, just let this -- you know, the old generation like me, die. Because everybody, you know, under 40 believes this to be true. And so now they're just saying, just let it play out. We'll get what we want, you know, from the younger generation once the younger generation sees its power. Do you see that as viable, any way to combat that?

ALEX: Well, I've managed to escape. I'm going to be 37 tomorrow. So I don't know if they want me to die. They probably do.

GLENN: Right. Oh, I do think they want you to die.

STU: They definitely want you to die, Alex. There's no doubt about that.

GLENN: Yeah.

ALEX: So I think that -- I'll tell you, my experience is actually very positive on this. Which is that if these issues are explained a certain way, you can win a lot of people over.

In San Francisco right now, I spoke at Google last week on this, and I had a lot of success.

The key is this: We have to -- the way to do it is to not focus on, is there climate change or not? Which is a very vague kind of thing anyway. Climate non-change. It's just this thing where -- that's not the issue.

The issue is, what is the best policy if we look at the positives and negatives for human flourishing? So I don't have to prove that fossil fuels have no impact on climate. I have no desire to prove that. I just have to show that overall, this is -- it's a really, really good thing that we keep using fossil fuels and, in fact, use more than fossil fuels. And that if we don't, it will be really bad for a lot of people.

And, in fact, Glenn, I don't remember if you remember this, I remember this very well, we talked a couple of years ago. And I had told you that by using energy, we basically multiple our power by 96, by using machines and fuel. And you said, "Hey, could you teach 96 people to do that?" And since then -- to do what you do in terms of persuasion, since then, we have a couple of programs. So if you want to do this, if you 96 listeners, we can just send them 96 programs. And we can see how effective they are in persuading their peers.

GLENN: Hmm.

STU: Hmm. It would be an interesting thing to watch.

GLENN: I'd love that. All right. So let's get some information on that. I'd like to also ask you, Alex, if you would like to come down and hold our hand through the -- the -- you know, The Inconvenient Sequel. Because I'd like to take a group of people who really want to know this, want to know the facts. Want to listen to both sides. And then can go in and decide for themselves with the facts and then go do something about it. I'm really interested in finding people from university camps that would like to discover the real truth and then -- and go out and be able to combat this.

Would you be willing to come down, and we'll take a group of listeners and you can talk to us afterwards and prepare us to go out. And we'll run it on TV and everything else.

ALEX: Yeah. I'd love to do that.

GLENN: Okay. Well, don't -- you're so verbose sometimes.

STU: What time is it right now? It's very early in the morning, I suppose.

ALEX: No, no, no. I have a lot -- I have too many ideas about it.

GLENN: Yeah.

ALEX: So I'll tell you one, but I just want to enthusiastically accept the invitation as the main thing. But one thing that I would consider, because I'm really interested in this, is just giving people before they watch the movie, not any facts, but a few questions or guidelines about it.

GLENN: I'd love that. So give those to us now, if we happen to have somebody in our life who is going to it, that we can say, "Hey, we want you to watch with these questions in mind." What are they?

ALEX: Okay. So one is, what does this movie want us to do? I think that's very important to know. What action does it want us to take?

GLENN: Okay.

ALEX: And then two would be, is it giving us the whole picture that we would need to take that action? Is it giving us the whole picture?

And one thing would be, is it giving us both the positives and negatives of what it tells us to do, or is it just giving one side?

And even with that, you would disqualify 90 percent of documentaries as worthless.

GLENN: Hmm. Alex, thank you so much. Love to have you on again. We'll talk to you off the air. He is the author of the book, moral case for fossil fuels.

STU: Great book you have to read. The central argument it seems Gore makes in all of his previews is, the single most common criticism from skeptics when the film came out focused on the animation showing the ocean water flowing into the World Trade Center memorial site. Skeptics called that demagogic and also absurd and irresponsible. It happened on October 29th, years ahead of schedule.

PAT: So ridiculous.

STU: So he's saying I called a flood of New York, and a flood of New York happened.

GLENN: Sandy.

STU: Now, of course, you're right. Sandy is what he's talking about.

GLENN: But he was talking about sea levels.

STU: Permanent sea level rises of 20 feet.

PAT: Why?

STU: That would displace 100 million people.

PAT: Greenland melted. That's why.

STU: Because Greenland melted. And the amazing part about it, he has such big balls that in that section of -- there's a 70-second section about that claim. In the section, he tells you all of the things that would prove his current claim wrong. It's right -- it's legitimately like the next sentence after the one he features in the movie tells you that the prediction had nothing to do with a hurricane or a storm.

EXCLUSIVE: Tech Ethicist reveals 5 ways to control AI NOW

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By now, many of us are familiar with AI and its potential benefits and threats. However, unless you're a tech tycoon, it can feel like you have little influence over the future of artificial intelligence.

For years, Glenn has warned about the dangers of rapidly developing AI technologies that have taken the world by storm.

He acknowledges their significant benefits but emphasizes the need to establish proper boundaries and ethics now, while we still have control. But since most people aren’t Silicon Valley tech leaders making the decisions, how can they help keep AI in check?

Recently, Glenn interviewed Tristan Harris, a tech ethicist deeply concerned about the potential harm of unchecked AI, to discuss its societal implications. Harris highlighted a concerning new piece of legislation proposed by Texas Senator Ted Cruz. This legislation proposes a state-level moratorium on AI regulation, meaning only the federal government could regulate AI. Harris noted that there’s currently no Federal plan for regulating AI. Until the federal government establishes a plan, tech companies would have nearly free rein with their AI. And we all know how slowly the federal government moves.

This is where you come in. Tristan Harris shared with Glenn the top five actions you should urge your representatives to take regarding AI, including opposing the moratorium until a concrete plan is in place. Now is your chance to influence the future of AI. Contact your senator and congressman today and share these five crucial steps they must take to keep AI in check:

Ban engagement-optimized AI companions for kids

Create legislation that will prevent AI from being designed to maximize addiction, sexualization, flattery, and attachment disorders, and to protect young people’s mental health and ability to form real-life friendships.

Establish basic liability laws

Companies need to be held accountable when their products cause real-world harm.

Pass increased whistleblower protections

Protect concerned technologists working inside the AI labs from facing untenable pressures and threats that prevent them from warning the public when the AI rollout is unsafe or crosses dangerous red lines.

Prevent AI from having legal rights

Enact laws so AIs don’t have protected speech or have their own bank accounts, making sure our legal system works for human interests over AI interests.

Oppose the state moratorium on AI 

Call your congressman or Senator Cruz’s office, and demand they oppose the state moratorium on AI without a plan for how we will set guardrails for this technology.

Glenn: Only Trump dared to deliver on decades of empty promises

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The Islamic regime has been killing Americans since 1979. Now Trump’s response proves we’re no longer playing defense — we’re finally hitting back.

The United States has taken direct military action against Iran’s nuclear program. Whatever you think of the strike, it’s over. It’s happened. And now, we have to predict what happens next. I want to help you understand the gravity of this situation: what happened, what it means, and what might come next. To that end, we need to begin with a little history.

Since 1979, Iran has been at war with us — even if we refused to call it that.

We are either on the verge of a remarkable strategic victory or a devastating global escalation. Time will tell.

It began with the hostage crisis, when 66 Americans were seized and 52 were held for over a year by the radical Islamic regime. Four years later, 17 more Americans were murdered in the U.S. Embassy bombing in Beirut, followed by 241 Marines in the Beirut barracks bombing.

Then came the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, which killed 19 more U.S. airmen. Iran had its fingerprints all over it.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, Iranian-backed proxies killed hundreds of American soldiers. From 2001 to 2020 in Afghanistan and 2003 to 2011 in Iraq, Iran supplied IEDs and tactical support.

The Iranians have plotted assassinations and kidnappings on U.S. soil — in 2011, 2021, and again in 2024 — and yet we’ve never really responded.

The precedent for U.S. retaliation has always been present, but no president has chosen to pull the trigger until this past weekend. President Donald Trump struck decisively. And what our military pulled off this weekend was nothing short of extraordinary.

Operation Midnight Hammer

The strike was reportedly called Operation Midnight Hammer. It involved as many as 175 U.S. aircraft, including 12 B-2 stealth bombers — out of just 19 in our entire arsenal. Those bombers are among the most complex machines in the world, and they were kept mission-ready by some of the finest mechanics on the planet.

USAF / Handout | Getty Images

To throw off Iranian radar and intelligence, some bombers flew west toward Guam — classic misdirection. The rest flew east, toward the real targets.

As the B-2s approached Iranian airspace, U.S. submarines launched dozens of Tomahawk missiles at Iran’s fortified nuclear facilities. Minutes later, the bombers dropped 14 MOPs — massive ordnance penetrators — each designed to drill deep into the earth and destroy underground bunkers. These bombs are the size of an F-16 and cost millions of dollars apiece. They are so accurate, I’ve been told they can hit the top of a soda can from 15,000 feet.

They were built for this mission — and we’ve been rehearsing this run for 15 years.

If the satellite imagery is accurate — and if what my sources tell me is true — the targeted nuclear sites were utterly destroyed. We’ll likely rely on the Israelis to confirm that on the ground.

This was a master class in strategy, execution, and deterrence. And it proved that only the United States could carry out a strike like this. I am very proud of our military, what we are capable of doing, and what we can accomplish.

What comes next

We don’t yet know how Iran will respond, but many of the possibilities are troubling. The Iranians could target U.S. forces across the Middle East. On Monday, Tehran launched 20 missiles at U.S. bases in Qatar, Syria, and Kuwait, to no effect. God forbid, they could also unleash Hezbollah or other terrorist proxies to strike here at home — and they just might.

Iran has also threatened to shut down the Strait of Hormuz — the artery through which nearly a fifth of the world’s oil flows. On Sunday, Iran’s parliament voted to begin the process. If the Supreme Council and the ayatollah give the go-ahead, we could see oil prices spike to $150 or even $200 a barrel.

That would be catastrophic.

The 2008 financial collapse was pushed over the edge when oil hit $130. Western economies — including ours — simply cannot sustain oil above $120 for long. If this conflict escalates and the Strait is closed, the global economy could unravel.

The strike also raises questions about regime stability. Will it spark an uprising, or will the Islamic regime respond with a brutal crackdown on dissidents?

Early signs aren’t hopeful. Reports suggest hundreds of arrests over the weekend and at least one dissident executed on charges of spying for Israel. The regime’s infamous morality police, the Gasht-e Ershad, are back on the streets. Every phone, every vehicle — monitored. The U.S. embassy in Qatar issued a shelter-in-place warning for Americans.

Russia and China both condemned the strike. On Monday, a senior Iranian official flew to Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin. That meeting should alarm anyone paying attention. Their alliance continues to deepen — and that’s a serious concern.

Now we pray

We are either on the verge of a remarkable strategic victory or a devastating global escalation. Time will tell. But either way, President Trump didn’t start this. He inherited it — and he took decisive action.

The difference is, he did what they all said they would do. He didn’t send pallets of cash in the dead of night. He didn’t sign another failed treaty.

He acted. Now, we pray. For peace, for wisdom, and for the strength to meet whatever comes next.


This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Globalize the Intifada? Why Mamdani’s plan spells DOOM for America

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If New Yorkers hand City Hall to Zohran Mamdani, they’re not voting for change. They’re opening the door to an alliance of socialism, Islamism, and chaos.

It only took 25 years for New York City to go from the resilient, flag-waving pride following the 9/11 attacks to a political fever dream. To quote Michael Malice, “I'm old enough to remember when New Yorkers endured 9/11 instead of voting for it.”

Malice is talking about Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist assemblyman from Queens now eyeing the mayor’s office. Mamdani, a 33-year-old state representative emerging from relative political obscurity, is now receiving substantial funding for his mayoral campaign from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

CAIR has a long and concerning history, including being born out of the Muslim Brotherhood and named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror funding case. Why would the group have dropped $100,000 into a PAC backing Mamdani’s campaign?

Mamdani blends political Islam with Marxist economics — two ideologies that have left tens of millions dead in the 20th century alone.

Perhaps CAIR has a vested interest in Mamdani’s call to “globalize the intifada.” That’s not a call for peaceful protest. Intifada refers to historic uprisings of Muslims against what they call the “Israeli occupation of Palestine.” Suicide bombings and street violence are part of the playbook. So when Mamdani says he wants to “globalize” that, who exactly is the enemy in this global scenario? Because it sure sounds like he's saying America is the new Israel, and anyone who supports Western democracy is the new Zionist.

Mamdani tried to clean up his language by citing the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which once used “intifada” in an Arabic-language article to describe the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. So now he’s comparing Palestinians to Jewish victims of the Nazis? If that doesn’t twist your stomach into knots, you’re not paying attention.

If you’re “globalizing” an intifada, and positioning Israel — and now America — as the Nazis, that’s not a cry for human rights. That’s a call for chaos and violence.

Rising Islamism

But hey, this is New York. Faculty members at Columbia University — where Mamdani’s own father once worked — signed a letter defending students who supported Hamas after October 7. They also contributed to Mamdani’s mayoral campaign. And his father? He blamed Ronald Reagan and the religious right for inspiring Islamic terrorism, as if the roots of 9/11 grew in Washington, not the caves of Tora Bora.

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

This isn’t about Islam as a faith. We should distinguish between Islam and Islamism. Islam is a religion followed peacefully by millions. Islamism is something entirely different — an ideology that seeks to merge mosque and state, impose Sharia law, and destroy secular liberal democracies from within. Islamism isn’t about prayer and fasting. It’s about power.

Criticizing Islamism is not Islamophobia. It is not an attack on peaceful Muslims. In fact, Muslims are often its first victims.

Islamism is misogynistic, theocratic, violent, and supremacist. It’s hostile to free speech, religious pluralism, gay rights, secularism — even to moderate Muslims. Yet somehow, the progressive left — the same left that claims to fight for feminism, LGBTQ rights, and free expression — finds itself defending candidates like Mamdani. You can’t make this stuff up.

Blending the worst ideologies

And if that weren’t enough, Mamdani also identifies as a Democratic Socialist. He blends political Islam with Marxist economics — two ideologies that have left tens of millions dead in the 20th century alone. But don’t worry, New York. I’m sure this time socialism will totally work. Just like it always didn’t.

If you’re a business owner, a parent, a person who’s saved anything, or just someone who values sanity: Get out. I’m serious. If Mamdani becomes mayor, as seems likely, then New York City will become a case study in what happens when you marry ideological extremism with political power. And it won’t be pretty.

This is about more than one mayoral race. It’s about the future of Western liberalism. It’s about drawing a bright line between faith and fanaticism, between healthy pluralism and authoritarian dogma.

Call out radicalism

We must call out political Islam the same way we call out white nationalism or any other supremacist ideology. When someone chants “globalize the intifada,” that should send a chill down your spine — whether you’re Jewish, Christian, Muslim, atheist, or anything in between.

The left may try to shame you into silence with words like “Islamophobia,” but the record is worn out. The grooves are shallow. The American people see what’s happening. And we’re not buying it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

How private stewardship could REVIVE America’s wild

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The left’s idea of stewardship involves bulldozing bison and barring access. Lee’s vision puts conservation back in the hands of the people.

The media wants you to believe that Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is trying to bulldoze Yellowstone and turn national parks into strip malls — that he’s calling for a reckless fire sale of America’s natural beauty to line developers’ pockets. That narrative is dishonest. It’s fearmongering, and, by the way, it’s wrong.

Here’s what’s really happening.

Private stewardship works. It’s local. It’s accountable. It’s incentivized.

The federal government currently owns 640 million acres of land — nearly 28% of all land in the United States. To put that into perspective, that’s more territory than France, Germany, Poland, and the United Kingdom combined.

Most of this land is west of the Mississippi River. That’s not a coincidence. In the American West, federal ownership isn’t just a bureaucratic technicality — it’s a stranglehold. States are suffocated. Locals are treated as tenants. Opportunities are choked off.

Meanwhile, people living east of the Mississippi — in places like Kentucky, Georgia, or Pennsylvania — might not even realize how little land their own states truly control. But the same policies that are plaguing the West could come for them next.

Lee isn’t proposing to auction off Yellowstone or pave over Yosemite. He’s talking about 3 million acres — that’s less than half of 1% of the federal estate. And this land isn’t your family’s favorite hiking trail. It’s remote, hard to access, and often mismanaged.

Failed management

Why was it mismanaged in the first place? Because the federal government is a terrible landlord.

Consider Yellowstone again. It’s home to the last remaining herd of genetically pure American bison — animals that haven’t been crossbred with cattle. Ranchers, myself included, would love the chance to help restore these majestic creatures on private land. But the federal government won’t allow it.

So what do they do when the herd gets too big?

They kill them. Bulldoze them into mass graves. That’s not conservation. That’s bureaucratic malpractice.

And don’t even get me started on bald eagles — majestic symbols of American freedom and a federally protected endangered species, now regularly slaughtered by wind turbines. I have pictures of piles of dead bald eagles. Where’s the outrage?

Biden’s federal land-grab

Some argue that states can’t afford to manage this land themselves. But if the states can’t afford it, how can Washington? We’re $35 trillion in debt. Entitlements are strained, infrastructure is crumbling, and the Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, and National Park Service are billions of dollars behind in basic maintenance. Roads, firebreaks, and trails are falling apart.

The Biden administration quietly embraced something called the “30 by 30” initiative, a plan to lock up 30% of all U.S. land and water under federal “conservation” by 2030. The real goal is 50% by 2050.

That entails half of the country being taken away from you, controlled not by the people who live there but by technocrats in D.C.

You think that won’t affect your ability to hunt, fish, graze cattle, or cut timber? Think again. It won’t be conservatives who stop you from building a cabin, raising cattle, or teaching your grandkids how to shoot a rifle. It’ll be the same radical environmentalists who treat land as sacred — unless it’s your truck, your deer stand, or your back yard.

Land as collateral

Moreover, the U.S. Treasury is considering putting federally owned land on the national balance sheet, listing your parks, forests, and hunting grounds as collateral.

What happens if America defaults on its debt?

David McNew / Stringer | Getty Images

Do you think our creditors won’t come calling? Imagine explaining to your kids that the lake you used to fish in is now under foreign ownership, that the forest you hunted in belongs to China.

This is not hypothetical. This is the logical conclusion of treating land like a piggy bank.

The American way

There’s a better way — and it’s the American way.

Let the people who live near the land steward it. Let ranchers, farmers, sportsmen, and local conservationists do what they’ve done for generations.

Did you know that 75% of America’s wetlands are on private land? Or that the most successful wildlife recoveries — whitetail deer, ducks, wild turkeys — didn’t come from Washington but from partnerships between private landowners and groups like Ducks Unlimited?

Private stewardship works. It’s local. It’s accountable. It’s incentivized. When you break it, you fix it. When you profit from the land, you protect it.

This is not about selling out. It’s about buying in — to freedom, to responsibility, to the principle of constitutional self-governance.

So when you hear the pundits cry foul over 3 million acres of federal land, remember: We don’t need Washington to protect our land. We need Washington to get out of the way.

Because this isn’t just about land. It’s about liberty. And once liberty is lost, it doesn’t come back easily.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.