On 22 June 2026, the Danish business newspaper Børsen published a major interview with Harvard professor Naomi Oreskes under the headline: “Harvard professor: Climate deniers control the Trump administration.” (Harvard-professor: Klimabenægtere kontrollerer Trump-regeringen)

Two weeks later, on 6 July, Børsen published my response under the headline: “When Børsen becomes a microphone stand for climate activism.” (“Når Børsen bliver mikrofonholder for klimaaktivisme”)

For readers outside Denmark, Børsen is not a fringe publication. It is Denmark’s leading business daily, read by executives, investors, policymakers and people who care about the real economy. That is precisely why this little episode matters.

Børsen first gave space to a strongly activist interpretation of climate politics. Then it also gave space to a substantial climate-realist reply. That is not yet a revolution. One swallow does not make a summer. But after many years in which climate sceptics, climate realists and critics of green policy have often been dismissed with labels rather than answered with arguments, it is worth noticing.

Perhaps a bit of fresh air is entering the room.

What did Naomi Oreskes say?

In the interview, Naomi Oreskes argued that opposition to the green transition is no longer primarily about economics. In her view, it is about power: the fossil fuel industry and its allies are trying to protect established interests.

She claimed that “climate deniers” now control the American government, that the fossil fuel industry has lied about climate change for decades, and that resistance to wind and solar energy cannot be justified on economic grounds because these technologies are now, she says, the cheapest form of new electricity generation in many places.

She also argued that environmental regulation stimulates innovation, that Trump’s policies represent an attack on science and environmental protection, and that the green transition will ultimately succeed — although, in her view, too late and at unnecessary cost.

These are very big claims. And very big claims deserve very serious questions.

What was my response?

My main point was not that Børsen should not interview Naomi Oreskes. Of course it should. Even if Oreskes is  a prime example of a climate activist disguised as a prominent academic, her views still should be heard.

My criticism was that Børsen treated her activist analysis almost as if the Harvard title itself was already enough evidence. Harvard is a university, not a ministry of truth.

The most unpleasant word in the interview was “climate denier.” It is not a scientific term. It is a political insult. Most critics of current climate policy do not deny climate change. They do not deny that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. They ask questions any serious society must ask:

How large is the problem?

How fast is it developing?

What do the proposed policies cost?

What do we get for the money?

What happens to energy prices, security of supply, industrial competitiveness and ordinary

families’ living standards?

That is not denial. That is democratic debate and economics.

The half-truth about wind and solar

Oreskes repeated the familiar claim that wind and solar are now the cheapest forms of new electricity generation in many places. That is, at best, a half-truth.

Cheap electricity generation on paper is not the same as cheap electricity in the socket.

A modern society needs power when people need it — not only when the weather happens to deliver it. Therefore, the real cost of an electricity system must include backup, grid expansion, storage, balancing, raw materials, regulation and the broader system costs. Which make wind and solar the most costly way of producing power and explains why EU electricity prices are among the highest in the world and gets higher the more EU use wind and solar.

If wind and solar are so overwhelmingly superior, Børsen should have asked the obvious business question:

Why does their expansion still require political targets, special rules, massive grid investments, subsidies, priority access and endless regulation?

A business newspaper should follow the money. Not the piety.

Interests exist on all sides

The oil and gas industry obviously has interests. Nobody serious denies that.

But so do the wind industry, the solar industry, NGOs, foundations, university environments, consultants, lobby groups and the entire green project economy.

Journalists should not decide in advance who are the heroes and who are the villains. They should ask critical questions of all sides.

When critics are branded as “climate deniers”, it becomes legitimate to ignore them. Then one no longer has to listen to the pensioner who cannot pay the heating bill, the company losing competitiveness, or the farmer drowning in regulation. They are no longer citizens with arguments. They become moral deviants.

That is an ugly way to conduct public debate.

Regulation can help — and harm

Oreskes also argued that regulation creates innovation. Sometimes it does. Sensible regulation can solve real problems. I have worked with environment, production and regulation for most of my life. I know very well that environmental problems can be real, and that regulation can be necessary.

But that is only half the story.

Bad regulation can also create bureaucracy, wasted capital, higher prices, technological lock-in and industrial decline. Every company producing something real for customers paying with real money knows this.

The question is not whether regulation is good or bad in the abstract. The question is whether a specific regulation solves a real problem at a reasonable cost, or whether it merely transfers money, power and prestige to politically favored sectors.

That is exactly the kind of question a business newspaper ought to ask.

Why does this matter?