On April 14 I recorded a podcast with Tom Nelson. He has since posted a slightly edited version on his YouTube site. Go to this link if you would like to watch it — about an hour long. The main subject is the sordid history of EPA’s Endangerment Finding and efforts of people including myself to get it rescinded.
The good news on the Endangerment Finding front is that EPA under new Administrator Lee Zeldin is very much on the job of eliminating the EF. Of course, once it has been rescinded it will face a blizzard of legal challenges. I hope and expect that Zeldin and his team are up to the job of carrying out a rescission that will stick. I offered my suggestions for how to do a rescission that will stand up to challenge in this post from January 26.
Separately, Nelson has made a thing out of compiling a growing list of “Signs That The Climate Scam Is Collapsing.” That list is now up to some 33 items and counting. The current version can be found here. Readers of this blog are likely already familiar with many of the items on Tom’s list. However, today I would like to feature a couple of items from Tom’s list that are important but may be less well known.
Item 3 on Tom’s list is that the funding of something called “NASA GISS” is likely to be terminated as part of the DOGE cost-cutting efforts. GISS is the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. For some unknown reason, GISS is part of NASA, and is located, of all place, in Manhattan, in an office building on upper Broadway near Columbia University. GISS is mainly known for producing a world temperature time series known as GISTEMP, which is systematically massaged and altered in ways to enhance the narrative of climate alarm. For more details than you will ever want to know about the data tampering, go to my 30+ part series “The Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time.”
Tom calls NASA GISS a “climate alarm shop,” which is accurate. For many years it was headed by crazed alarmist James Hansen, until his retirement in 2013. Since then the head has been Gavin Schmidt, who has proved to be Hansen’s equal in spreading alarm. GISS is best known for its regular press releases proclaiming the most recent month or year to be the “warmest ever.” Indeed, GISS’s most recent press release, from January 10, has the headline “2024 Was the Warmest Year on Record.” Since January 20 GISS has not issued any further press releases, which hopefully represents some message control getting exerted by the Trump administration.
Following Nelson’s links, it is not clear to me that the information about the impending defunding of GISS is completely definitive. One link goes to this Wall Street Journal piece from March 29, with the following quote:
It is at NASA, though, where Musk is making the biggest shift in an agency’s priorities to align them with his own—both financially and personally. He is working to recast its programs, reallocate federal spending and install loyalists to aid his decadeslong goal of sending people to Mars.
If true, that would certainly be bad news for GISS; but the WSJ does not mention GISS specifically,. Then there is this piece by Larry Bell at Newsmax today, which uses the WSJ piece to reach the conclusion that GISS is necessarily on the chopping block. From Newsmax:
[As] to NASA GISS, it’s difficult to imagine that any of the three dedicated space exploration action figures [Trump, Musk and new NASA Administrator Jared Isaacson] will wish to continue to divert any more of the agency’s annual $25 billion budget to support climate alarmism by an ugly poster child for DOGE waste spending reform.
So on this item Nelson may be getting a little ahead of himself, but there is certainly a good basis to hope.
Item 9 on Nelson’s list is the final demise of one of the longest-running climate litigations, the one known as Juliana v. United States. This is the case that I have sometimes referred to as the “stupidest litigation in the country.” I have had many posts on it over the years, most recently on April 9, 2024.
The Juliana case was brought way back in 2012 in the federal District of Oregon. The plaintiffs asserted a “constitutional right” to a clean and healthy environment, and sought as a remedy that the court impose a plan to “phase out” all use of fossil fuels. My April 9, 2024 piece included a fairly lengthy summary of the proceedings to that time, which had included three visits to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. After the Ninth Circuit had found a lack of standing for the plaintiffs in a 2020 decision, it had remanded the case back to the District Court with instructions to dismiss; but the District Court instead had given the plaintiffs another chance to amend the complaint to get around the problems. And then the District Court was starting to get the case ready for trial. So after four more years of getting jerked around in the District Court, the government was back in the Ninth Circuit with a mandamus petition when I wrote that post a year ago.
The latest news is that the Ninth Circuit granted the mandamus petition, and now, finally, the Supreme Court has denied a petition for certiorari from the plaintiffs. From Reuters, March 24, 2025:
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a bid by 21 young people to revive a novel lawsuit claiming the U.S. government’s energy policies violate their rights to be protected from climate change. The justices denied a request by the youth activists to hear their appeal of a decision by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals directing a federal judge in Oregon to dismiss the case after holding they lacked legal standing to sue.
So this one case is definitively over. The bad news is that there are many other similar and/or copycat cases out there kicking around in the courts. It will be a long time before they are all killed off, but at least this one is a start.
Check out Tom’s list for plenty more examples of the continuing, if painfully slow, demise of the climate scam.
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You may have seen Ed Miliband’s car crash interview with Sky the other day, where he insisted that gas prices are set internationally by petro state dictators.
Maybe he could explain why UK gas prices are five times those in the US!
Heaven help us when a senior Minister does not appear to understand the very simple laws of supply and demand.
Natural gas, contrary to his naively simplistic beliefs, cannot be simply be traded anywhere in the world. Much of the world’s production flows through pipelines, and is therefore geographically limited in where it can be sold.
Gas can, of course, be shipped as LNG; but there are constraints in terms of the LNG export capacity available in producing countries, the amount of shipping, and the storage facilities available in importing countries.
If you want to bring UK gas prices down, you would start by increasing domestic production, not trying to ban it, as Miliband is.
The Week That Was: 2025 04-26 (April 26, 2025) Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org) The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week:“In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.” — James Madison (1788)
Number of the Week: Increase of 11ºF by 2100.
THIS WEEK: By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Scope: TWTW begins with a discussion of the National Science Foundation. TWTW continues with a brief discussion of the scientific method and why the US National Climate Assessment does not meet the standards needed for its work to be considered physical science. TWTW considers the high scientific integrity of Roger Pielke, Jr. before criticizing his view that fixing the National Climate Assessment will be easy. TWTW then questions the actual physical science supporting EPA’s Endangerment Finding. It concludes with presenting three interesting articles on diverse subjects.
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NSF: The Nation Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency that supports science and engineering in the US. Its counterpart in the medical fields is the National Institute of Health. The NSF’s enacted budget for fiscal year 2024 is $9.06 Billion. The requested 2025 budget is slightly over $10 billion. According to reports, the current request will be cut, and part of its workforce will be cut. On April 24, NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan announced that he has resigned. News reports claimed this is proof of the anti-science bias of the current administration.
The April 12 TWTW discussed a significant problem in US science funding. The U.S. Global Change Research Program publishes what is considered the nation’s premier report on climate change, the National Climate Assessment (NCA), produced by the consulting firm ICF International. The report is endorsed by 15 government agencies including the National Science Foundation. However, the Fifth National Climate Assessment (2023) is a blatantly political report that omits physical evidence that contradicts its general conclusions that the current warming is unprecedented. Further it contains no physical evidence showing the relationship between increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide and increasing temperatures. Yet, it uses the discredited very high emissions scenario to forecast a temperature increase of 11ºF by 2100.
The Fifth National Climate Assessment is not physical science but more a follow-up piece on the highly politicized Sixth Assessment Report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, particularly its Synthesis Report (March 2023). The Synthesis Report contains none of the uncertainty expressed in Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis (2021).
The US National Climate Assessment should emphasize the uncertainty, not omit it. And the National Science Foundations should not be a party to such a poor report. See links under Defending the Orthodoxy, and Science, Policy, and Evidence.
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Zero Omissions: Although its origins are far earlier, the scientific method became established during the controversy on an Earth-centered universe or a planetary system with the visible planets orbiting the sun. The great Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) insisted that only careful observation over long periods of time can resolve the controversy. In 1572, Brahe observed a new bright star (probably a super nova) that triggered doubt in the old Aristotelian belief that the universe was fixed. Brahe developed a research program with improving the instruments used to observe the planets to determine the paths. After his death his assistant, Johannes Kepler used Brahe’s data to explain that the planetary orbits were not circular but formed an ellipse with the sun as one focus and to develop Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion.
This history establishes an important principle in the scientific method; no observations should be omitted. As discussed above, in the reports of the IPCC, particularly the summaries, and in the National Climate Assessment (NCA), important observations are omitted. For example, for 99.9% of Earth’s history, there was no correlation between CO2 and temperature. For the last few glacial periods, CO2 changes have come after temperature changes. Two decades of data collected for measuring the earth’s energy balance reveal that the increase in absorbed heat is primarily due to changes in the earth’s albedo. Thus, these reports are not physical science. They do not use the scientific method.
Some defenders of this practice in climate “science” avoid the issue by claiming that their work is based on “first principles” or fundamental concepts or assumptions, sometimes considered self-evident. Alas, first principles tell us about the patterns of spectra of molecules such as CO2 but cannot tell us precise energy levels. Nor can first principles tell us about the probability of absorbing IR of a certain wavelength. In Quantum Mechanics, first principles can tell us about the spacings of energy levels, but not their amounts. Precise measurements are required. Such issues are omitted in the NCA.
Those who argue from the standpoint of first principles are in the realm of metaphysics, thinking about physics, not in the realm of physical physics. In his 1912 book Problems of Philosophy, the logician Betrand Russell has several chapters evaluating the work of Immanuel Kant questioning “Is a priori knowledge possible?” Can we know something by pure logic alone, without experience or observations? This is a philosophical question, not one for physical science based on observations.
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Misguided Defense of NCA: Roger Pielke, Jr., is a scientist with considerable integrity. He wrote an essay published by the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology titled “Do Not Use the ICAT Hurricane Loss ‘Dataset’: An Opportunity for Course Correction in Climate Science.” Yet Pielke helped develop this dataset. The abstract states:
“A fatally flawed time series of U.S. hurricane losses assembled by an insurance company almost a decade ago has found its way into analyses published in the peer-reviewed literature. The flawed time series is based on undocumented modifications to a research-quality dataset that I and my colleagues [sic.] published almost two decades ago. The uncritical use of the time series has led to erroneous conclusions published in the peer-reviewed literature which then were repeated in important climate science assessments. This paper explains the origin of the flawed dataset and demonstrates its many biases. The errors are so obvious and consequential that papers published in the peer-reviewed literature that rely on the flawed dataset should be retracted. While mistakes happen in science, what matters more is what we in the community do when mistakes are discovered.”
Recognizing his considerable integrity, TWTW takes issue with Pielke’s defense of the National Climate Assessment. In a post “Trump Comes for Climate Research: Making sense of the USGCRP and NCA” Pielke writes:
“To fix the NCA would not be difficult. Three actions are needed.
First, the assessment should be housed within and implemented entirely from a federal agency within the scope of the USGCRP. There should be no oversight or control exerted from the White House.
Second, the report should be led and written by experts chosen by an empaneling team. This team should be selected by a bipartisan group, as is typically done for reports on highly politicized issues. For instance, the majority and minority members of the House Science Committee could each select 6 members of this empaneling committee, with two co-chairs. The empaneling committee would then identify experts to lead and contribute to the report.
Third, before the writing starts, the assessment team should query decision makers — federal, state, local, in business and civil society — to identify what information they perceive to be most useful to their decisions related to climate mitigation and adaptation.
These three steps would ensure that there is no perception of White House influence on the report, that it is authored by experts assembled in a bipartisan manner and that the topics that the report focuses have direct relevance to decision makers. The NCA is far too important to be politicized, and politicization is a choice.
The only addition I’d make today is to explicitly recognize that any NCA should follow the guidelines of the Federal Advisory Committee Act and OMG [sic. OMB] and agency guidelines for scientific integrity and information quality.
I do not expect the Trump Administration to take this (very good) advice.”
To TWTW, Pielke’s recommendations ignore the most fundamental problem: the omission of physical evidence that contradicts the general conclusions. Omission of physical evidence has been a problem for years with the IPCC and the NCA, and with each iteration the problem has been getting worse. The IPCC reports on which the NCA is based have been politicized since “Climate Change 1992: The Supplementary Report to the IPCC Scientific Assessment” which Frederick Seitz asserted was the worst abuse of the peer review process he had witnessed in sixty years of American science. The National Climate Assessment is no better.
The problem of omission of physical evidence is deeply ingrained, and a generation of scientists have been conditioned to accept it. The reports have become more metaphysics (thinking of physics) and propaganda than physical science. The issue is not trust in “the science” or politicalized scientists, the issue is adherence to the scientific method, a process. If physical evidence is omitted, the work is no longer physical science.
Further, Pielke suggests cutting out the White House. The president is elected by the whole people, is accountable to them, and represents their interests. None of the other members of the panel he proposes are elected or accountable to all the people. There is no doubt that the influence of the White House in the past has not conformed to the principles of physical science, but then neither by and large has the pool of “experts” from which the other panel members would presumably be drawn. The only solution is to hold everyone to the principles of science and that can be done only by transparency and freedom of public comment. See links under Seeking a Common Ground.
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Science Supporting the Endangerment Finding? The National Climate Assessment is claimed to support the EPA’s Endangerment Finding. The EPA’s press release on February 27 states [Boldface in original]:
“Action
On December 7, 2009, the Administrator signed two distinct findings regarding greenhouse gases under section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act:
Endangerment Finding: The Administrator finds that the current and projected concentrations of the six key well-mixed greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)—in the atmosphere threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations.
Cause or Contribute Finding: The Administrator finds that the combined emissions of these well-mixed greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles and new motor vehicle engines contribute to the greenhouse gas pollution that threatens public health and welfare.
These findings do not themselves impose any requirements on industry or other entities. However, this action was a prerequisite for implementing greenhouse gas emissions standards for vehicles and other sectors.”
An article in the British medical publication, the Lancet, states:
“In 2009, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) signed the science-rooted Endangerment Finding, stating that greenhouse gases “threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations”. This finding became the cornerstone of most US climate policies and influenced many others globally.”
Carbon dioxide is essential for photosynthesis, which provides the food for all complex plant life and all animal life on Earth. Where is the physical evidence that it threatens the public health and welfare of current and future generations? (Note that the dominant greenhouse gas, water vapor, is not mentioned.) The Endangerment Finding has no basis in physical science. Small corrections are not sufficient. It is wrong. See links under Defending the Orthodoxy.
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Radiation Transfer: In developing a method for estimating the greenhouse effect in today’s atmosphere, William Van Wijngaarden and William Happer use the work of physicist Karl Schwarzschild (1873-1916). TWTW came across a 1906 essay by Schwarzschild. See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy – Radiation Transfer.
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Problems In World Economic Forum? An article in the Wall Street Journal begins with:
“World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab is under investigation by the organization he created after a new whistleblower letter alleged financial and ethical misconduct by the longtime leader and his wife.
The anonymous letter was sent last week to the Forum’s board and raised concerns about the Forum’s governance and workplace culture, including allegations that the Schwab family mixed their personal affairs with the Forum’s resources without proper oversight, according to the letter and people familiar with the matter.
It included allegations that Klaus Schwab asked junior employees to withdraw thousands of dollars from ATMs on his behalf and used Forum funds to pay for private, in-room massages at hotels. It also alleged that his wife Hilde, a former Forum employee, scheduled “token” Forum-funded meetings in order to justify luxury holiday travel at the organization’s expense.
Klaus Schwab in recent days argued against an investigation, telling board members that he denied the unsubstantiated allegations and that he would challenge them in a lawsuit, the people said.
The board of trustees decided to open a probe during an emergency meeting on Easter Sunday. Schwab opted to resign immediately as the chairman, instead of staying on for an extended transition period as previously planned.”
See Article # 1.
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Wind Power, Maybe? An article in the Wall Street Journal begins with (correction by TWTW):
“Germany has invested so many hundreds of billions of euros in its green energy transition over the years that no one can tally the precise amount. Yet the share of wind and solar power in the country’s energy mix in the first quarter of this year managed to fall—by a lot. There’s a lesson for the U.S. here.
Renewable sources made up some 47% of electricity consumption in Europe’s largest economy in the first three months of 2024 2025 the energy trade association BDEW reported Thursday. That’s down from 56% in the first three months of 2024. The drop comes despite Germany’s continuing build-out of renewable generation. The country has added 872 wind turbines with a capacity of 4.3 gigawatts since April 2024, yet wind-power output fell 16%. Ouch.
You can guess what went wrong. February and March were unusually wind-free, onshore and offshore. A lack of rain meant hydropower underperformed. March was sunnier than usual, which helped to boost solar-electricity output compared to a year earlier. But we’re talking about Germany in March. Relatively short daylight hours in a northern latitude meant this boost wasn’t enough to offset the decline in wind generation.
These climactic conditions happen regularly enough that the German language has a word for it: Dunkelflaute, or ‘dark stillness.’ It means renewables alone can’t power an advanced industrial economy, as even Berlin is starting to notice.”
Germany is further down the road of free energy from wind and solar than the US. Yet, many US politicians cling to the belief that wind and solar can power a modern economy, especially high-tech that requires reliable electricity. See Article # 2.
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SEPP’S APRIL FOOLS AWARD – THE JACKSON
It is time for voting on the Annual SEPP’s April Fools Award – the Jackson. The grand prize is a large lump of coal. Last year, the deserving winner of the lump of coal was the US National Science Teaching Association. In 2023, the Association banned the CO2 Coalition from its meeting which the Coalition members paid for and were approved because the CO2 Coalition exhibit pointed out that CO2 is essential for photosynthesis which is the food source of all complex life on Earth.
There are many strong candidates for this dubious honor including leaders of US scientific agencies who signed off on questionable reports on climate change. Get your votes in by June 29 with the reason why you recommend that person for the award. The award will be announced at the 43rd annual meeting of the Doctors for Defensive Preparedness on July 5-6. The decision of the judges is final.
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Increase of 11ºF by 2100. As stated above, the Fifth US National Climate Assessment asserts that under the high emissions scenario, by 2100 temperatures will be 11ºF (6ºC) warmer than today. See link under Defending the Orthodoxy.
NEWS YOU CAN USE:
Censorship
Why Has the Daily Sceptic Been Put on Tortoise Media’s Climate Naughty List?
By Ben Pile, The Daily Sceptic, Apr 12, 2025
Challenging the Orthodoxy — NIPCC
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science
Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2013
Was the Sky Ever Falling? Vacating the Endangerment Finding in an Age of Clarity
Join scientists and economists with a rich history of expertise in climate science and policy as they examine the flawed assumptions, politicized science, and weak statistical foundations that fueled the Endangerment Finding.
In summary, the “drought emergency” talk is highly irresponsible and in contradiction to observed facts on the ground. It is used as a tool to scare people, often with unsupported attempts to connect the fictitious “drought” to climate change.
Nuclear Scientist Says CO2 Is Not Causing Rising Global Temperatures
Scientist Digby Macdonald said politicians need to rethink carefully what they’re doing by condemning CO2.
The Fifth National Climate Assessment is the US Government’s preeminent report on climate change impacts, risks, and responses. It is a congressionally mandated interagency effort that provides the scientific foundation to support informed decision-making across the United States.
By Staff and the private group ICF International, U.S. Global Change Research Program, November 2023
The IPCC’s (International Panel on Climate Change) goal is to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C (3.6℉) above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C (2.7℉) above pre-industrial levels. The 2°C (3.6℉) limit is a best estimate of the maximum temperature rise beyond which the effects of global warming are unpredictable. It is a judgement call. The IPCC’s 1.5°C (2.7℉) goal was exceeded for the first time in 2024. [Emphasis in original]
The Science of Scapegoating: Nature’s Farcical Case for Climate Litigation
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Apr 24, 2025
Link to editorial: Carbon majors and the scientific case for climate liability
By Christopher Callahan & Justin Mankin, Nature, Apr 23, 2025
The abstract begins with: Will it ever be possible to sue anyone for damaging the climate? Twenty years after this question was first posed, we argue that the scientific case for climate liability is closed.
The confidence game
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Apr 16, 2025
Scientists React to US Climate Research Program Cancellation
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Apr 13, 2025
Defending the Orthodoxy – Bandwagon Science
Rapid flips between warm and cold extremes in a warming world
By Sijia Wu, et al., Nature Communications, Apr 22, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
[SEPP Comment: We are experiencing global warming except when we have global cooling? Is Earth’s climate stable except for periods of glaciation or D-O events?]
Atlantic Ocean currents are weakening — and it could make the climate in some regions unrecognizable.
A cold blob of water in the North Atlantic is an ominous sign that a system of currents that regulate the planet’s climate could be weakening.
2024 Disaster Review From CRED
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Apr 19, 2025
Link to: 2024 Disasters in Numbers: A Hot and Stormy Year
By Staff, Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) at University of Louvain (UCLouvain), April 2025
From Homewood: In terms of economic losses, 2024 showed a slight increase over some recent years, but the trend in real terms is if anything downwards:
Climate change triples extreme marine heatwaves in last 80 years
Compiling averages across the globe, scientists have revealed that in the 1940s the sea surface typically experienced around 15 days of extreme heat each year. Today – driven by climate change – that number has jumped to nearly 50 days per year.
By Rob Hutchins, Oceanographic, Apr 16, 2025 [H//t Bernie Kepshire]
From article: A marine heatwave is defined as at least five consecutive days when sea temperatures are in the top 10% of temperatures for that day of the year.
Meanwhile, marine heatwaves caused Peruvian anchovies to move away from their usual waters, leading to the closure of commercial fisheries in 2023 and 2024 with estimated losses of $1.4bn.
[SEPP Comment: When has the climate been stable? During peak glaciation? The Peruvian “heatwave” is called an El Nino, which has been occurring for centuries.]
Climate trauma from wildfire exposure impacts cognitive decision-making
By Jason Nan, et al., Nature, Scientific Reports, Apr 16, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
[SEPP Almost 90 people were killed in this fire which exposed three major government policy failures: 1) failure to maintain power lines; 2) failure to conduct proper vegetation management of fuel and establish firebreaks; and 3) failure to maintain adequate emergency routes, California’s “road diet” was a disaster waiting to happen.]
High probability of triggering climate tipping points under current policies modestly amplified by Amazon dieback and permafrost thaw
By Jakob Deutloff, et al., Earth System Dynamics, Apr 23, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
We include those uncertainties in our analysis to derive probabilities of triggering for 16 previously identified climate tipping points within the Earth system.
[SEPP Comment: What happened when the tipping points were exceeded, did Earth disappear into an abyss?]
No Beef, Lamb, Milk and Cheese Within 25 Years Under Net Zero, Government-Funded Report Confirms
By Chris Morrison, Daily Sceptic Apr 16, 2025
Link to report: Agro-Food System Innovation without Greenhouse Gases
By Staff, UK Fires (Locating Resource Efficiency at the heart of Future Industrial Strategy), Mar 11, 2025
Link to letter to Elon Musk, Department of Government Efficiency
From Attorney for New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (“NEFSA”), Accessed Apr 17, 2025
We Must End Climate Religion’s Hijack of Earth Day
By Vijay Jayaraj, CO2 Coalition, Apr 22,2025
Humanity is not a plague on Earth but its greatest steward. Our ingenuity has cured diseases, doubled lifespans, and connected continents. To solve environmental challenges, we need optimism, not fear; innovation, not austerity; and freedom, not an anti-human dogma.
Exposing Renewable Lobby Lies
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Apr 25, 2025
Video
Energy & Environmental Review: April 14, 2025
By John Droz, Jr., Master Resource, Apr 14, 2025
After Paris!
The crucial line that doesn’t matter
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Apr 23, 2025
For years we were hectored that holding the world to the Paris Agreement limit of 1.5°C of warming from “pre-industrial times”, a term alarmists use to mean “75 years after the industrial revolution” started not “before there was industry”, was critically crucial in its vital importance. But alas their rhetoric was unpersuasive, their plans were unsound or both, and they admit 1.5 is “out of reach.” So now we’re told that while it was essential it didn’t really matter whereas 2.0°C is like this time for sure man unless it’s not.
Social Benefits of Carbon Dioxide
It Is Easy Going Green
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Apr 11, 2025
Video CO2, the magic medicine
IPCC – Summaries omit the benefits of increasing CO2
Percent dry weight (biomass) increases for 300 and 600 ppm increases in the air’s CO2 concentration: cotton
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Apr 16, 2025
From the CO2Science Archive:
Orange man good for mandarin orange
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Apr 23, 2025
From the CO2Science Archive:
Problems in the Orthodoxy
China to keep building coal plants through 2027, state planner says
Surprising as it might seem today, Republicans expressed higher trust in science than Democrats until the turn of the century, eventually dipping lower around 2008, according to the General Social Survey.
[SEPP Comment: The issue is poorly stated. It is trust in scientists, particularly politicized scientists, that is the issue, not trust in science or the scientific method, a process that must be strictly maintained.]
Danna Smith, executive director at North Carolina’s Dogwood Alliance, called the Trump order “absolutely the wrong direction and a devastating blow.” Even as wildfires raged in the Carolinas, killing trees and wildlife, Smith claimed that selective logging and removal of dead trees would harm “standing forests” that are vital to fighting the climate crisis.
The irony appears lost to those clinging to the failed federal policy of yesteryear’s progressives.
Starmer’s Surrender To Brussels Will Force Up Energy Bills
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Apr 17, 2025
But much more seriously we would lose all control over what happens to the carbon price in future. As we know, the Net Zero zealots in the CCC and elsewhere want to see a much higher carbon price in the near future, in order to force our cheap gas power once and for all.
Under Starmer’s craven surrender, there is nothing we could do if the EU wants to do the same.
Mad Miliband Resorts To Lies To Defend Net Zero Agenda
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Apr 20, 2025
And in true Guardian style, Miliband resorts to his planet saving excuse warning that an anti-net zero agenda would risk “climate breakdown”, as if the UK’s 1% of the world’s emissions will make a jot of difference.
Models v. Observations
Mediterranean rainfall data vs climate models
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Apr 16, 2025
Looking to the Pacific, scientists improve forecasts of atmospheric rivers
By David Hosansky, NCAR & UCAR, Phys.org, Apr 18, 2025
The fleet of satellites is expected to provide valuable information about this year’s Atlantic hurricane season, which is forecast to rival 2024, one of the most devastating and costliest hurricane seasons on record for the Southeast and Florida, due to damage caused by Beryl, Helene and Milton.
[SEPP Comment: The hurricane season may have been costly for the Southeast and Florida, but not one of the most devastating ones in terms of wind speed. Information prior to 1964 is poor compared with modern information due to the lack of satellite coverage. Today, storms are routinely named that would have not been noticed without satellite coverage.]
Changing Weather
The hurricane dead zone: Map shows coastline that hurricanes can’t seem to reach
By Doyle Rice, USA Today, Apr 19, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
(It should, however, be noted that the map only shows the location at the moment of landfall, and not any impacts a given storm might have hundreds or even thousands of miles away from where the hurricane made landfall. Regions far away from a dot could still face the wrath of a hurricane.)
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Apr 23, 2025
The second key point is that tropical cyclone landfalls exhibit high variability. And as everybody knows who cares to, the greater the variability, the harder it is to separate noise from signal and the longer the time series you need to develop even medium confidence about a trend.
Finally, the notion that major storms are surging proving a crisis and so forth is undermined by the fact that the trend for “Accumulated Cyclonic Energy” or total destructive horribleness of all storms in a year combined seems to be “flat as a pancake”.
Here we go again, windstorm edition
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Apr 16, 2025
Supposedly it’s spring, despite various local headlines of the “Arctic air will spill into Ontario with possible 15-25 cm of April snow” variety. And with the seasonal upsurge in wind comes the seasonal upsurge in claims that windstorms are proof of man-made climate hysteria. For instance Matthew Wielicki notes that “It’s Tornado Season Again, Again, Again…
So can the dreaded CO2 add causing American tornadoes to become less destructive to its list of blessings? Well, no. Statistics are sharp on both edges and the fact that the United States has gone 11 years without a single EF6 event may be a blessing but it’s not a trend.
Early Atlantic Hurricane Season Predictions
By Kip Hansen, WUWT, Apr 25, 2025
German Droughts Were Much More Common Back In The Old Days, Before 1980!
The Medieval Warm Period In Germany: Inconvenient And Very Real
By P Gosselln, No Tricks Zone, Apr 25, 2025
The Weather and Climate of World War II
By Andy May, WUWT, Apr 17, 2025
Brönnimann and colleagues believe that the unusual weather during World War II was related to the very strong and persistent El Niño that occurred at the time.
While the world as a whole was unusually warm during the war years on average, Europe, northern Siberia, and the central North Pacific suffered through three bitterly cold winters from late 1939 to 1942. The Southern Hemisphere was not spared, sea surface temperatures in the southern mid-latitudes were unusually cool and Australia suffered from a very prolonged drought from 1937 to 1945 (Hegerl, Brönnimann, Schurer, & Cowan, 2018).
Changing Seas
Atmospheric winds have surprising impact on ocean weather
New research improves ocean weather forecasts, enhancing public safety and economic growth
From abstract: Over the past two decades, Arctic sea ice loss has slowed considerably, with no statistically significant decline in September sea ice area since 2005. This pause is robust across observational datasets, metrics, and seasons.
#LookItUp: Canadian Arctic sea ice
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Apr 16, 2025
New Study: Plant Remains Embedded In A Modern Glacier Evidence A Warmer Antarctica 1000 Years Ago
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Apr 21, 2025
Link to paper: A warming pulse in the Antarctic continent changed the landscape during the Middle Ages
By Emanuele Forte, et al., Nature, Communications Earth & Environment, Apr 11, 2025
From article: “We are already seeing more intense droughts, longer heat waves, and more catastrophic floods,” co-author Timothy Bowles, associate professor in environmental science at UC Berkeley, said in a statement.
[SEPP Comment: Study does not address a key question: After decades of global warming, why are grain yields increasing?]
The cocoa price crisis is a Big Government price fixing disaster, not a climate change one
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Apr 24, 2025
Instead, African governments have fixed the price of cocoa for decades, forcing poor farmers to work for a pittance, and keeping the big profits for themselves. Not surprisingly, even though there is a wild price spike, farmers in Ghana are leaving the industry, smuggling crops out (because they get a better price). They didn’t plant new trees, they ran out of money for fertilizer, and didn’t try new varieties. Their children don’t want to farm cocoa, and the yields are falling on old sickly plantations.
Lowering Standards
King Charles wades into politics with letter to Ed Miliband
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Apr 25, 2025
As has been rightly said, the late Queen would not have gone anywhere near such a controversial and overtly political topic.
BBC & Weather Attribution Models
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Apr 12, 2025
I intend to pursue this with the ECU on two grounds:
1) That a obscure correction on an article published last June will not be seen by anybody. Instead a full correction needs to be logged on the BBC Complaints website
2) Now the BBC admits weather attribution is not based on facts, data or evidence, all future BBC reports quoting it must carry on warning notice to this effect.
The Mirage of Milestones: Debunking Ember’s 2025 Global Electricity Review
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Apr 15, 2025
Link to: Global Electricity Review 2025
Record renewables growth led by solar helped push clean power past 40% of global electricity in 2024, but heatwave-related demand spikes led to a small increase in fossil generation.
By Euan Grahm, Nicolas Fulghum, and Katye Altieri, Ember, Apr 8, 2025
[SEPP Comment: At Ember, is the sun bright at midnight?]
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?
Banking on it
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Apr 16, 2025
But there’s a difference between welcoming support and hallucinating it. And thus it is that Scientific American bellows “Big Banks Quietly Prepare for Catastrophic Warming” when in fact big banks do not prepare for catastrophic warming, quietly or otherwise.
The New York Times’ Claim That Climate Change Threatens the Global Economy Is False
By Anthony Watts, Climate Realism, Apr 16, 2025
Small world
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Apr 16, 2025
The New York Times warns us that “The Next Generation of American Scientists Is Losing Faith”. It is of course Donald Trump’s fault, the president being almost as big a bogey as climate change: “Amid sweeping cuts to federal research funding by the Trump administration” world ends, women and minorities hardest hit.
There’s just no pleasing some people
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Apr 16, 2025
Tidbits
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Apr 23, 2025
Wrong, ABC News, Climate Change Didn’t Cause 2025’s Severe Tornado Outbreak
By Linnea Lueken, Climate Realism, Apr 14, 2025
Communicating Better to the Public – Exaggerate, or be Vague?
Extreme Heat Is Coming. One Key Program Could Help Provide Energy Security.
By Christopher R. Knittel, Real Clear Energy, April 23, 2025
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Apr 20, 2025
In short, Miliband’s claim that his green transition would have saved consumers money is pure bunkum.
No, BBC, Electricity is Not Expensive Because of Gas But Because of Renewables Subsidies
By David Turver, The Daily Sceptic, Apr 16, 2025
Perhaps we should take Adam Berman at his word and offer to pay renewables generators just the market value of their output, which on summer days can often be negative. I don’t think we will see many takers. Remember, if something needs a subsidy, it’s more expensive.
[SEPP Comment: See link immediately below. Berman is the Director of Policy and Advocacy at Energy UK.]
BBC Ignore The Renewable Elephant In The Room
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Apr 16, 2025
[SEPP Comment: Provides evidence supporting the issues discussed by the Daily Sceptic above]
Careful Research At BBC News
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Apr 24, 2025
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda
BBC Prefer Propaganda To Facts
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Apr 24, 2025
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda on Children
In crash-test dummy land, we solve teenage girl climate anxiety with $500b in fantasy weather experiments…
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Apr 17, 2025
Expanding the Orthodoxy
Who owns the oceans? The UN wants to tax ships to reduce carbon emissions — a $40b windfall for unaccountable global bureaucrats
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Apr15, 2025
The US delegation left the proceedings, but apparently that doesn’t matter because they don’t have many boats (can we get an exemption too?)
End the UN. It has failed at the only tasks it was set up to do — stop wars and end pandemics.
Questioning European Green
The Green Revolution is Destroying UK Jobs, Livelihoods and Communities
By Chris Morrison, The Daily Sceptic, Apr 24, 2025
Link to: Offshore Wind Energy: Actions Needed to Address Gaps in Interior’s Oversight of Development
By Staff, Government Accountability Office, April 2025
What Does It Cost? The Consequences of the Net Zero Energy Agenda
By Staff, Discovery Institute, Apr 23, 2025 [H/t Willie Soon]
Video
Earth Day Reminder: Fossil Fuels Feed the World
By Vijay Jayaraj, CO2 Coalition, Apr 22, 2025
However, what many analysts and climate activists do not acknowledge is that these life-saving fertilizers are made with the help of fossil fuels. Yes, the same fossil fuels that they blame for destroying our planet and which they brand as “anti-green.”
Non-Green Jobs
Let Ed Run It
The British steel industry’s final days devolve into a cynical game of blamestorming.
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Apr 23, 2025
As here, in fact, because for someone to speak of the debacle of British deindustrialization as the product of the free market would be a prime example of ideology overriding facts if indeed thought worked that way.
Funding Issues
Science Subsidy Trap: Why Public Research Funding Needs to End
Federal Judge Blocks Trump’s Freeze on Climate, Infrastructure Grants
The judge said agencies following the president’s direction cannot ‘hamstring in perpetuity two statutes passed by Congress during the previous administration.’
[SEPP Comment: The court is US District Court for the District of Rhode Island.]
EPA granted appellate stay after judge rules to end GGRF funding freeze
A judge ruled Tuesday to end the freeze and allow grantees to access their funding, but appellate judges granted EPA a stay on that injunction late Wednesday.
The stay came after the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Tuesday granted an injunction to the Climate United Fund, Coalition for Green Capital, and Power Forward Communities — nonprofit “green banks” which received $6.97 billion, $5 billion and $2 billion, respectively, from the Inflation Reduction Act’s GGRF.
[SEPP Comment: According to its website: “Climate United is a national public-private investment fund removing financial barriers to clean energy projects so every American benefits from good-paying jobs, lower energy bills, domestic manufacturing, and cleaner air.”]
When Trump was last in office, his Department of Justice (DOJ) tried and failed to kill the cap-and-trade program. In 2019, the DOJ sued on the basis that California usurped federal authority by implementing its program in conjunction with the Canadian province of Quebec. But a District Court [Eastern District of California] judge ruled in favor of California.
Supreme Court Case Could Spell The End For California’s EV Mandate
These staffers worked in an area known as environmental justice, which helps communities that face a disproportionate amount of pollution exposure, especially minority or low-income communities.
Trump’s EPA Grants Dozens of Coal Plants Exemption From Emissions Rules
UK Electricity Grid Rescued by Gas as Massive Winter Wind Droughts Disrupt Supply
By Chris Morrison, Daily Sceptic, Apr 18, 2025
Shetland’s Viking Windfarm Scandal
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Apr 19, 2025
Revealed: Why UK Electricity Costs So Much
By Sallust, Daily Sceptic, Apr 15, 2025 [H/t Paul Homewood]
£400 Million Bill For Wind Constraint Payments Last Year
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Apr 14, 2025
In future however, if wind capacity is tripled as planned, there will be too much wind power for much of the year across the whole of the country, as on windy days it will exceed demand.
South Africa needs all the products and transportation fuels that renewables cannot provide
By, Ronald Stein, Robert Jeffrey, and Olivia Vaughan, America Outloud News, Apr 7, 2025
The bottom line is that of New York’s grandiose plans for 9000 MW of off-shore wind projects, only South Fork Wind (130 MW) is actually finished, and only Sunrise Wind (924 MW) is actually legitimately under construction. Empire Wind and all the rest have gone into limbo, probably never to come out.
Kentucky Energy Group Breaks Ground for New RICE Power Plant
A Kentucky energy provider has broken ground for a new 75-MW power plant that will use reciprocating internal combustion engine (RICE) technology from Wärtsilä.
The plant is engineered for both continuous and peaking services, with the capability for multiple quick starts and stops per day. “
[SEPP Comment: No estimates of cost of reliable power given.]
Implication of Assessment of Extreme Renewable Resource Lull
By Roger Caiazza, WUWT, Apr 13, 2025
[SEPP Comment: DEFR is the imaginary dispatchable emission free resource technology that New York State agencies are claiming will meet extended periods of low wind and solar and limited electricity storage.]
Blue State Green Energy Overreach Will End Under Trump
The Interior Department announced late Wednesday that it will drastically cut down timelines for environmental reviews of projects that produce coal, oil, gas, uranium and other minerals.
Trump administration moves to expand offshore drilling — including in the Arctic
Siemens Gamesa reportedly received €30 million ($32.2 million) in funding from the European Union for testing of the prototype at the National Test Centre for Large Wind Turbines at Østerild. The new turbine, called the SG DD-276, has a 276-meter rotor. [905 feet]
Wake Physics: Large Wind Farms Are Making Downstream Turbines Unprofitable
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Apr 20, 2025
[SEPP Comment: Will there be a race on who can capture the wind first?]
The Blade Stops Here: France Holds Wind Industry Accountable at Last
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Apr 20, 2025
[SEPP Comment: For deaths of soaring birds such as eagles.]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Storage
America’s Last Stand: China’s Smart Battery Dominance
By Andrew King, WUWT, Apr 16, 2025
Police investigation launched into second fire at battery recycling plant
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Apr 15, 2025
Video
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles
Only Four Electric Car Manufacturers Worldwide Are Making A Profit!
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Apr 12, 2025
The Electric Car Rot
By Jennifer Marohasy, Her Blog, Apr 25, 2025
Celebrate Earth Day by not burning a Tesla
By Anthony J. Sadar, American Thinker, Apr 25, 2025
Link to report: California’s Poverty Rate Soars to Alarmingly High Levels in 2023
New Census Data Show Disproportionate Hardship for Black and Latinx Californians, as the End of Pandemic-Era Policies Reverses Progress
By Alissa Anderson, et al., California Budget and Policy Center, September 2024
From Bryce: People are leaving the Golden State in droves. According to U-Haul, California has come in last place for one-way traffic for five years in a row with more people moving out than moving in. Poverty in Newsom’s state — which already has the highest poverty rate in the country — is increasing.
[SEPP Comment: Bulk of article is paywalled.]
From Refineries to Fiefdoms: Is Newsom Orchestrating a State Takeover of California’s Oil Industry?
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Apr 18, 2025
Buried in the California Energy Commission’s May 2024 Draft Transportation Fuels Assessment is an eye-popping section outlining “highly complex implementation policies” for managing gasoline supply. Among these is a plan for state-owned refineries, described in detail as a fallback option in the event of market “failures.” [Emphasis in original.]
Gavin Newsom Begs Regulators To Keep Refineries In Biz After California Dems Ran Industry Out Of Town
Fifty years ago climate scientists wanted to melt the polar ice caps to save us from global cooling. Now they want to blot out the sun to save us from global warming.
Psychoanalysis on Climate ‘Denial’? (stranger and stranger)
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Apr 23,2025
ARTICLES
1. World Economic Forum Opens New Probe Into Founder Klaus Schwab
Founder quit after board moved to investigate whistleblower allegations, which he denies, including use of luxury property and travel
By Shalini Ramachandran, Jenny Strasburg, and AnnaMaria Andriotis, WSJ, Apr 22, 2025
