From MasterResource

By Robert Bradley Jr.

“Climate hypochondriacs deserve to be treated with compassion, much like anyone who suffers from mental illness. They shouldn’t, however, expect everyone else to enable their neuroses.” – Allysia Finley, Wall Street Journal

The futile, wasteful climate crusade has created collateral damage for the cause of the Progressive Left. Their political weapon against ordinary living in a free society has run afoul of ordinary folk, consumer and taxpayer all. And with the government lucre running low or out, and the political forces aligned against them, there is fear, even panic, that their cause is hopeless and unconvincing. “Open for work,” hundreds of climate activists have circled around their names on the business site, LinkedIn.

When the climate movement was at its peak in mid-2022, the faithful knew they were winning political battles but losing the war against carbon dioxide (CO2). Consider Tom Huddleston post, Climate change hopelessness is a real condition—these experts have advice on how to cope.

Here is what Huddleston wrote nearly three years ago (with my comments interspersed):

If you find yourself feeling hopeless whenever you think or read about climate change, don’t worry: There’s a scientific explanation. It’s called climate anxiety, and it’s a real mental health condition that can take time to address, according to Portland, Oregon-based environmental psychologist Thomas Doherty. At the Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, Colorado, on Monday, Doherty spoke about the “learning curve” it takes to combat the anxiety, or even despair, stemming from climate change.

The unnecessary mental health issue of alarmism has a multi-disciplinary cure, but there is a lot of billable hours from ‘climate doctors’ to help a victim cope.

Doherty, who specializes in the intersection of psychology and environmental science, said he often tells clients to try and take a step back from those feelings of hopelessness, which can mean “pulling off of the media, going outside, doing stress reduction, all of these kinds of things.”

He also noted that part of coping means taking the time to accept that as a single person, you can only do so much. “I think the key in coping is making sure that we don’t get stuck on certain feelings, but really growing all of the feelings, which is a process and it takes practice,” he said.

How about some advice to take a walk on the optimistic side, learning the arguments for human betterment from CO2 enrichment? Nope, the mother religion (Deep Ecology) has birthed subdisciplines in psychology and in psychotherapy.

Both the United Nations and the American Psychological Association (APA) have found that humans are increasingly at risk of climate change-induced mental health issues. According to the APA, climate anxiety can manifest in people who respond to the news of climate change developments with “negative emotions including fear, anger, feelings of powerlessness, or exhaustion.”

Those feelings aren’t uncommon: In 2021, a global study found that 45% of people between the ages of 16 and 25 said climate anxiety was affecting their daily lives. The Climate Psychology Alliance even offers a directory of “climate-aware” therapists.

Any CO2/climate optimists in the Climate Psychology Alliance? No, just billable-hour rationalizers.

Doherty argued that those negative emotions aren’t inherently bad, because “we should be able to feel all of our emotions” in a healthy way. Sometimes, he said, it’s helpful to talk through your feelings with other people — whether you’re feeling upset about the environment or charged up about your ability to help.

Okay, so can the distraught be simply directed to such websites as WUWT, Climate Etc., Roger Pielke, Jr or Center for Industrial Progress? Even MasterResource?

“Sometimes, we’re going to be … feeling good and feeling inspired,” he said. “One of the biggest dangers is being alone in the process, because when we’re alone, there’s no one to help us in the down cycle.” Doherty also noted that climate anxiety can be heightened by the sheer volume of negative news on the subject. That’s where people like Alaina Wood — a sustainability scientist, and one of Doherty’s fellow Aspen panelists — come in.

The Heartland Institute can help. So can CFACT. Get out of bed and smell the flowers, the greenery aided by CO2 enrichment, in fact.

At Aspen, Wood said she tries to focus on positives to help viewers address their own climate anxiety, and that it’ll take optimism to mobilize enough people to make a real difference against climate change. She too struggles with climate anxiety, she said, and usually follows a simple process to cope.

“I log off my phone,” Wood said. “I take time to go out in nature, whether that’s in my backyard or in the mountains, and just unwind. And take a second to remind myself why I care, why I’m feeling that way.”

Alaina Wood, don’t log off. Log on. The Internet is an amazing place to learn, and what you might discover might well cheer you up and redirect your passion in a better direction.

————

Also see Psychoanalysis on Climate ‘Denial’? (stranger and stranger), April 23, 2025

from THE DAILY CALLER

Audrey Streb
Contributor

The Trump administration filed lawsuits Wednesday against Michigan and Hawaii in an attempt to block the states from seeking damages in court against fossil fuel companies for alleged environmental harm.

The complaint filed against Michigan, the state’s Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel, claims that Michigan’s anticipated lawsuit against the fossil fuel industry interferes with U.S. policy on greenhouse gas regulation and is an “extraordinary extraterritorial reach.” Similarly, the complaint against Hawaii, the state’s Democratic Gov. Josh Green and the state’s Attorney General Anne Lopez, was filed due to the state’s plan to take legal action against fossil fuel companies for their alleged impact on climate change.

Though neither state has filed a lawsuit as of yet, the planned legal actions could drive up energy prices and interfere with how fossil fuel production is regulated, according to the complaints filed by lawyers with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

“At a time when States should be contributing to a national effort to secure reliable sources of domestic energy, Michigan is choosing to stand in the way,” the complaint said. “This Nation’s Constitution and laws do not tolerate this interference,” it continues. The complaint against Hawaii repeats near-identical language.

gov.uscourts.miwd.115297.1.0 by audreystreb on Scribd

In May 2024, Nessel announced that the state would be seeking “attorneys and law firms to serve as Special Assistant Attorneys General to pursue litigation related to the climate change impacts caused by the fossil fuel industry on behalf of the State of Michigan.” Nessel further accused the industry of endangering the state’s environment, economy and residents’ well-being by contributing to climate change.

“As a result of state restrictions and burdens on energy production, the American people are paying more for energy, and the United States is less able to defend itself from hostile foreign actors,” both DOJ lawsuits read.

Hawaii followed in Michigan’s footsteps on April 28, as the state’s governor announced that he had similar intentions to take fossil fuel companies to court.

“We will be filing suit, I believe, on Thursday against the fossil fuel companies,” Green said Monday. “They have to pay their share because climate change and the climate impact is definitely connected to generations of extra fossil fuel that’s been burned,” he continued.

“The United States’ sovereign interests include ensuring that States do not interfere with federal law, including the Clean Air Act, or with the federal government’s exclusive authority over interstate and foreign commerce, greenhouse gas regulation, and national energy policy,” the DOJ lawsuits read.

President Donald Trump declared a national energy emergency on his first day back in office, seeking to expand reliable domestic energy production. He later signed an executive order on April 8 to revive the coal industry, and shortly after moved to exempt several coal plants from Biden-era regulations. The same day, Trump signed an order to shield energy producers from state overreach, stating that “American energy dominance is threatened when State and local governments seek to regulate energy beyond their constitutional or statutory authorities.”

“No amount of Democrat obstruction will stop President Trump from delivering on the promises he made to the American people, including his promise to unleash American energy,” Harrison Fields, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement to the DCNF before the administration went forward with the lawsuits. “Radical, out-of-touch Democrats should clean up the disasters they’ve created in their own states before trying to promote their failed policies to the rest of America.”

USDC Hawaii 1 25cv179. by audreystreb on Scribd

Whitmer in 2023 signed the Clean Energy and Jobs Act, mandating that Michigan achieve 100% green energy generation by 2040. The law also gave the state’s utility regulator authority to override local governments when approving locations for renewable energy infrastructure. (RELATED: ‘Taking Away Local Control’: Whitmer Signs Massive Green Energy Mandate Into Law)

“In order to meet this mandate of 100% green energy, the only way the Whitmer administration can do it is by taking away local control of land,” Republican Michigan State Rep. Matt Hall told the Daily Caller News Foundation at the time. “These local governments are closest to the people and are trying to protect the character of their communities.”

In his statement, Hall pointed to one of the more controversial parts of the legislation that allows the state’s utility regulator — led by appointees of the governor — to override local governments for wind and solar projects, according to MLive. While Michigan currently uses around 17,000 acres for renewable energy, The Detroit News reported that the state may need as many as 209,000 additional acres to meet its clean energy targets.

Hawaii has similarly enacted policies aiming to meet a “zero-emission goal of 100-percent clean energy by 2045.”

The offices of Green, Whitmer, Nessel and Lopez, as well as the White House, did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment. The DOJ referred the DCNF to its press release when reached for comment.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

From THE MANHATTAN CONTRARIAN

Francis Menton

Today there have been widespread electricity blackouts across Europe, beginning in Spain and Portugal in the early afternoon (local time), and then spreading to other countries including France, Andorra, Belgium and the Netherlands. Is this related to the increasing penetration of intermittent generation from wind and solar facilities?

For years, many in the climate skeptic community have warned that expansion of intermittent renewable electricity generation on the grid will, sooner or later, lead to frequent blackouts. The reason for the warning is easy to understand: The grid has some rather exacting operational requirements that the intermittent renewable generation technologies cannot fulfill. Primary among these requirements are, first, minute-by-minute matching of electricity supply with electricity demand and, second, grid-wide synchronization of the frequency of the alternating current. When wind and solar provided relatively small portions of the electricity consumed, other generation sources, particularly thermal (fossil fuel) and hydro, would fulfill these requirements. But as wind and solar come to dominate generation, the problems become much more difficult to solve.

Here at Manhattan Contrarian, I have mostly steered clear of covering this topic. Although I think I understand the main issues, I am certainly not a grid engineer. And there are many smart people who are engineers and who have the job of “balancing” the grid to keep it consistently up and running in the face of the challenges of intermittent wind and solar generation. Maybe they can succeed. I doubt it. But I definitely have wanted to avoid “crying wolf,” predicting over and over that frequent blackouts are imminent, only to find that the engineers have come up with solutions that seem to work reasonably well.

As of this writing, it does not appear that a definitive cause (or causes) of today’s blackouts has been established. However, there is every reason to think that the increasing penetration of wind and solar generation in Spain is the most important part of the problem. Here are links to some articles that have appeared so far today: this one from the Daily Mail at 8:41 AM EDT (which would be 2:41 PM in Spain); this one from Yahoo News at 10:21 AM EDT (4:21 PM in Spain); and this one from Climate Change Dispatch (no time indicated, but based on a paywalled piece from the Telegraph, with a time stamp of 3:21 BST).

According to the piece in the Daily Mail, Spain’s state electricity network operator, known as Red Electric, reported that today’s problem began with “‘a very strong oscillation’ in the electrical network [that] caused Spain’s power system to ‘disconnect from the European system.’” On the question of the initial cause of the “oscillation,” there is only speculation. Proposed causes range from “extreme temperature variations along very high-voltage power lines in Spain,” to a hacking attack.

But whatever the initial cause of the “oscillation,” what is clear is that the Spanish system then lacked the ability to respond sufficiently to keep the power on. Why? The Daily Mail puts forth a very plausible explanation of grid instability resulting from heavy reliance on wind and solar generation. The Mail attributes the theory to “some analysts” (unnamed):

[S]ome analysts have suggested that the Spanish grid operator’s reliance on renewable energy sources to supply the majority of the nation’s electricity could have led to the blackout. Traditional generators, like coal and hydroelectric plants or gas turbines, are connected directly to the grid via heavy spinning machines.  When turned on, these massive machines are in constant motion and the inertia created by their weight and momentum acts like a shock absorber, helping to insulate the grid against a sudden disturbance – for example, in the event of a transmission failure.  Solar and wind power do not provide the natural inertia generated by these so-called ‘spinning machines’, leaving the grid more vulnerable to disruptions and subsequent oscillations in the electrical frequency.

Just before the blackout hit, it seems that solar facilities were generating over 60% of Spain’s electricity:

At 12:30pm local time today – five minutes before the widespread blackouts occurred – solar power was generating some 60% of Spain’s electricity. . . .

But how about wind generation? This is from the Yahoo News piece:

Spain has one of Europe’s highest proportions of renewable energy, providing about 56pc of the nation’s electricity. More than half of its renewables comes from wind with the rest from solar and other sources. That means Spain’s electricity supplies are increasingly reliant on the weather delivering enough wind to balance its grid. For much of the last 24 hours, that wind has been largely missing. The website Windy.com, for example, shows wind speeds of 2-3mph, leaving the country reliant on solar energy and old gas-fired power stations.

So when the “oscillation” occurred, what is going to keep the grid steady on its 50 Hz frequency? From Michael Schellenberger today on X:

[A]ll of Europe appears to have been seconds away a continent-wide blackout. The grid frequency across continental Europe plunged to 49.85 hertz — just a hair above the red-line collapse threshold. The normal operating frequency for Europe’s power grid is 50.00 Hz, kept with an extremely tight margin of ±0.1 Hz. Anything outside ±0.2 Hz triggers major emergency actions. If the frequency had fallen just another 0.3 Hz — below 49.5 Hz — Europe could have suffered a system-wide cascading blackout.

The bottom line is that there were multi-hour blackouts in many places today. A random “oscillation” of some sort, which could have been easily handled in a world of fossil fuel power plants, became a huge problem when wind and solar generators could not respond to it appropriately. And so people were stuck for hours in elevators or subway trains; traffic lights went dark; banking and cell phone networks stopped working; and so forth. But within a few hours all of those were back in business.

So was this really a big deal? As Schellenberger points out, with just “a hair” more frequency variation it could have been far worse. Will that happen some time soon? I’m not going to pretend I know. But I do know that the electricity system in most of Europe and many U.S. states is in the hands of crazed fanatics who have no idea what they are doing. My own bet would be that there are many far worse blackouts to come, until this idiotic “net zero” thing is abandoned.