ANKARA
Newly released US Department of Justice documents reveal Jeffrey Epstein's unsettling private views, as the disgraced financier casually framed climate change as nature's ruthless tool for curbing overpopulation, casting ecological disaster not as a crisis but as a possible evolutionary benefit for the species.
Anadolu’s Greenline went through several email exchanges in the Epstein files and examined Jeffrey Epstein's unconventional and chillingly disturbing views on climate change.
In emails spanning 2013 to 2016, the convicted sex offender repeatedly questioned mainstream climate science while weaving in dark, population-control undertones.
He corresponded with physicist Lawrence Krauss, then director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University, and cognitive scientist Joscha Bach, a thinker in AI, philosophy, and consciousness studies.
In both exchanges, the scientists appear to have provided patient and evidence-based responses.
The exchanges opened in January 2013, when Krauss shared his New York Times op-ed “Deafness at Doomsday,” which called on policymakers to take scientific warnings about climate change and nuclear threats seriously.
Epstein replied that he did not fully align with the views but offered support and congratulations. Krauss responded appreciatively: “As usual you are a good friend.”
Forest fires ‘potentially a good thing for the species’
By July 2016, Epstein’s messages to Bach took a far more provocative turn.
Amid discussions touching on cognition and race, “Maybe climate change is a good way of dealing with overpopulation… the earths forest fire. potentially a good thing for the species too many people, so many mass executions of the elderly and infirm make sense is the fundamental fact that everyone dies at some time,” Epstein wrote.
He pushed the analogy further, suggesting ‘society had no obligation to support its less productive members’, comparing it to the brain pruning unused neurons, and questioning why mass early deaths of the elderly or infirm should be off-limits when death is inevitable anyway.
‘Cherry-picked’ climate claims
Later, in December 2016, Epstein circled back to Krauss.
He forwarded a YouTube video titled “Nobel Laureate Smashes the Global Warming Hoax” and spotlighted claims that elevated carbon dioxide levels help plants.
Epstein questioned whether the South Pole was actually cooling and gaining ice, suggested that climate trends need decades of data to assess accurately, and mentioned that he had expressed doubts about global warming being a solvable problem while in Palm Beach with Trump associates.
Epstein's emails downplayed climate change as a solvable threat and framed its impacts -- like forest fires -- as potentially beneficial for population control.
However, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) states that climate change is driving more frequent and intense humanitarian emergencies through heatwaves, wildfires, floods, and storms.
This aligns with the scientific consensus on human-induced climate change, widely accepted since the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988 and its First Assessment Report in 1990, which Epstein questioned by forwarding denialist content and doubting long-term trends.
Krauss, who had recently visited Antarctica during the email exchanges, countered Epstein firmly.
He pointed out that renowned physicist Freeman Dyson had expressed similar ideas, noting that higher carbon dioxide levels -- seen hundreds of millions of years ago -- had supported very large plants of certain types, and that Dyson viewed increased carbon dioxide as essentially acting like “good fertilizer” for vegetation.
However, Krauss questioned what this would actually mean today. He sarcastically asked if it just meant more corn could grow in the Arctic -- and whether anyone really wanted that.
This sarcastic comment pointed out how ridiculous it is to see such changes as a positive thing, while completely ignoring the serious dangers of fast climate change, like extreme weather, rising sea levels, and damaged ecosystems.
Krauss accused these arguments of cherry-picking data, a common habit of people who decide the answer first and then look only for supporting evidence.
“The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is melting at unprecedented rates and, if lost, could add roughly one meter to global sea levels,” he added.
Call for carbon tax amid dark climate agenda
Krauss also stressed the importance of long-term data over cherry-picked snapshots, highlighted emerging direct air capture technologies for carbon dioxide removal at around $100 per ton, and advocated for a carbon tax.
These provocative email exchanges were part of Epstein's broader pattern of engaging with scientists, often at his infamous Zorro Ranch, a sprawling property outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he frequently hosted prominent figures and indulged in eugenics-tinged fantasies about human improvement and population dynamics.
The ranch, purchased in 1993 and featuring a massive mansion and private runway, served as a key hub in his network of elite scientific contacts, including those linked to the Santa Fe Institute.
Across these exchanges, Epstein consistently challenged the climate consensus through the lens of population reduction and selective survival.
