We can’t always be what we want to be. There is a real world, and it needs to be acknowledged. Denying this risks fairness in sports, safety in spaces, even winning wars that require a grip on reality.

In most species, males are larger, stronger, and tasked with roles like protection from predation. This holds true for Homo sapiens, as I explored in Parts 1 and 2 of this series. Men historically went to war, led victorious returns, and protected populations.

Denying this risks not just fairness—like in women’s sports—but our ability to reason about the world, and our capacity ultimately to survive.

In the 18th century, Samuel Johnson warned parents to vigilantly correct their children’s deviations from truth: “Accustom your children constantly to this; if a thing happened at one window, and they, when relating it, say that it happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly check them; you do not know where deviation from truth will end.” Johnson believed that small falsehoods, left unchecked, could unravel the fabric of society.

His words resonate today as we grapple with a culture that often prioritizes personal perspective over objective reality.

On Wednesday, a packed courtroom in London heard the UK Supreme Court affirm a fundamental truth: in British law, the terms “woman” and “sex” refer to biological women and biological sex, not men identifying as women. Three Scottish women from For Women Scotland (FWS) successfully argued for the reality of biological sex and the right to exclude men from women’s spaces.

Sex Matters, another women’s rights group, celebrated the ruling: “The protected characteristic of sex – male and female – refers to reality, not to paperwork.” This decision is a step toward reclaiming truth in a world increasingly swayed by subjective narratives.

I’m sometimes told that I don’t always need to be so harsh. That it is more important to be kind. In fact the pendulum has mostly swung too far in that direction, where because of a fear of offending, and then becoming an outcast, too many of my colleagues and also family, continue to let gross untruths pass even with a nod. As though for peace and political correctness it is acceptable to let the child not only pick the window from which it made the observation, but to add absurdly to the reality of what was observed.

For sure, the conversations we have today shape the decisions of tomorrow. Technology, a desire to escape biological destiny, and perhaps a rebellion against past unfairness have fuelled claims that “we can be whatever we want to be.” That we can retell our story to make it closer to the heart’s desire.

The marriage bar, which required women to resign from permanent positions in the public service upon marriage, was in place until 1966 in Australia. This restriction, inherited from British traditions and formalised in Australia under the Public Service Act 1902, meant that married women could only be employed as temporary staff, limiting their promotion opportunities and superannuation rights. The ban was abolished in the Commonwealth Public Service in 1966, and Queensland followed suit within a few years, with departmental approval required for married women to continue working until 1973.

It’s empowering that women can now aspire to careers and leadership. That is different from claiming to be able to change sex. It is not that the pendulum has swung too far and perversely, but rather there is a reluctance to acknowledge any reality leading to absurdities—like biological men competing as women in sports. As though there is no biological difference between the sexes.

At the last Olympics, a biological man won a gold medal in a Paris boxing ring, after beating-up one female competitors after another.

Paperwork declaring him a woman trumped genetic reality, much like the Australian Bureau of Meteorology’s manipulation of historical temperature records to align with climate change narratives.

I’ve been pointing out this truth that Bureau keeps changing the temperature data, and since at least 2014 when I got it on the front page of The Australian newspaper. At the time my claims were considered outrageous. I proved them to be correct. The reality of the lie it is now understood by key Conservative politicians in Australia, yet their reluctance to talk about the matter only increases. And so wrong decisions are made. The price of our electricity increases because, the lies have compounded including in other areas extending to economics and on and on it goes. There is no longer any reality in the market, or to the policies underpinning the transition to so called renewables. Worse, we have an election campaign and none of this is allowed to be discussed.

Johnson’s warning about truth’s erosion was prophetic.

When we allow “their truth” to override the historical temperature data, claims of biological reality and other facts even of markets and economics, we risk losing any shared reality and all becoming poorer.

Nature does not organise with purpose: but only winning strategies survive.

*************

Read more:
Part 1: Biological Realities – What Matters
Part 2: Biological Realities – What Matters
UK Supreme Court Ruling [Epoch Times]
Olympics Boxing Controversy [YouTube link]

The feature photo is by Tobi, taken at Saxon reef in May 2023. These Maori Wrasse fish at the Great Barrier Reef, remind me that nature respects function over pretence.

And much thanks to my daughter for encouraging me to write this Part 3.

By Andy May

In my last post I discussed the evolution from the ICOADS raw sea surface temperature (SST) data to the final ERSST and HadSST SST anomalies. These anomalies are compared in figure 1. The ICOADS anomalies are generated by subtracting the 1961-1990 mean value from all the final raw simple yearly means. This was done last after the simple global mean SST had been computed for all years.

The ERSST and HadSST values start out as anomalies. That is, they are created grid cell by grid cell before processing starts. Obviously, the measurements in each cell are normally from different vessels in different years or months, but the measurements are turned into anomalies by subtracting the 1961-1990 mean for each cell from each measurement captured in the same cell for any specific month. This is before any processing or corrections are performed. Since the cells may be as large as 12,300 sq. km this is of dubious value, but that is the way it is done.

On land with fixed measurement weather stations anomalies make more sense, the elevation of each weather station is different, and the individual weather station will often have been in the same location through the entire period from 1961-1990 and often with the same or similar equipment. Thus, making an anomaly at the beginning of the processing by subtracting the mean weather station value for each month from its 1961-1990 monthly mean is logical. On the ocean where every measurement in any given month is at about the same elevation, but from a different buoy or ship, with different equipment, it makes less sense.

This post is about the difference in the ICOADS data anomaly during the World War II era from 1939 to 1946 as marked in figure 1. It is very noticeable in the raw ICOADS data but disappears in the two final reconstructions shown. There are a lot of known problems that occurred during the war. Shipping lanes changed due to the presence of submarine “wolf packs,” SSTs were beginning to be measured inside engine water intakes rather than with buckets dipped in the ocean, and for those ships still using buckets the type of bucket often changed. These problems are apparent in the ICOADS data, but do they account for the entire radical correction shown in figure 1? The peak raw data anomaly is in 1944 (+2.14°C), yet the 1944 ERSST value is 0.091°C, thus the correction in 1944 is over 2°C. Is this realistic? The total warming since 1900 is estimated to be only about one degree, how is a two-degree correction for an entire year justified? ERSST and HadSST corrected the data, but how much confidence can we have in the corrections? What else was going on at the time?

The Climatic Conditions during World War II

Climatically there was a lot going on during the war. We are fortunate that Stefan Brönnimann of the University of Bern has dug out and digitized a very large database of meteorological data from Germany, the German occupied areas, Sweden, the United States, the Soviet Union, and the UK, and tried to come to some conclusions as to the climate of the Northern Hemisphere during the war. What is presented in this post is mostly from papers he published from 2003 to 2005 (Brönnimann S. , 2003), (Brönnimann, Luterbacher, & Staehelin, 2004), (Brönnimann & Luterbacher, 2004b), and (Brönnimann S. , 2005).

Using the data they collected, Brönnimann and colleagues built monthly maps of surface conditions, upper atmospheric temperature, and geopotential height. Brönnimann and Luterbacher reconstructed the upper atmosphere for the period 1939 to 1944. They found evidence of a weak and disturbed Northern Hemisphere winter polar vortex. This resulted in anomalously high winter temperatures in the upper atmosphere and the surface in Alaska, Canada, and Greenland and very cold winter temperatures in Europe. An example map is shown in figure 2 for January 1942 at an altitude of 500 hPa (around 18,000 feet or 5,500 meters).

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. In figure 3 we show the Niño 3.4 index, the AMO and the PDO with World War II marked as “WWII.”

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).

In figure 3 the prominent World War II El Niño is very clear, and we can see that the AMO and PDO are positive. The North Atlantic Oscillation is not shown, but it is strongly negative during this period (see figure 4 for a plot of the similar Iceland to Aleutian sea level pressure anomaly). There is also evidence of high column ozone in both the Arctic and mid-latitudes, a weak winter polar vortex, and frequent stratigraphic warmings. As Brönnimann and colleagues report, “At the Earth’s surface and in the troposphere, the period 1940–42 represents an extreme climatic anomaly of hemispheric to global extent.”

Figure 4 compares the ENSO 3.4 temperature to central, northern, and eastern European temperature, the Iceland to Aleutian sea level pressure difference, the 100-mbar geopotential height difference between the poles and the mid-latitudes, and the total ozone measurement at Arosa, Switzerland. All these measurements show a distinct anomaly during World War II.

Figure 4 shows that analyzed in the context of the 20^th century, 1940-1942 stands out as a climatic anomaly that is unique. Thus, it seems unusual that the final ERSST and HadSST records shown in figure 1 just carry on through 1940-1942 on the same trend as before as if nothing unusual were happening. They do show a bit of the 1946 cliff in the raw ICOADS data, but it is very subdued compared to the ICOADS data.

I do not question the problems in the raw data, they are firmly documented. I do question the corrections applied by the Hadley Centre and NOAA, however. The corrected data appears to be too consistent with the time before the giant World War II El Niño event and the time after. I would expect some of the anomaly seen in the raw data to survive the correction process.

Works Cited

Brönnimann, S. (2003). A historical upper air-data set for the 1939–44 period. International Journal of Climatology, 23(7), 769-791. doi:10.1002/joc.914

Brönnimann, S. (2005). The Global Climate Anomaly in 1940-1942. RMetS Weather, 60(12).

Brönnimann, S., & Luterbacher, J. (2004b). Reconstructing Northern Hemisphere upper-level fields during World War II. Climate Dynamics, 22, 499-510. doi:10.1007/s00382-004-0391-3

Brönnimann, S., Luterbacher, J., & Staehelin, J. (2004). Extreme climate of the global troposphere and stratosphere in 1940–42 related to El Niño. Nature, 431, 971–974. doi:10.1038/nature02982

Hegerl, G. C., Brönnimann, S., Schurer, A., & Cowan, T. (2018). The early 20th century warming: Anomalies, causes, and consequences. WIREs Climate Change, 9(4). doi:10.1002/wcc.522

Based on and excerpted from an article by Beege Welborn at HotAir

With a clear grasp of both the policy mechanics and the public frustration behind them, Welborn outlines a story that encapsulates much of what’s wrong with our current approach to green energy development.

The Empire Wind Scheme

Empire Wind 1, pushed by Norwegian energy firm Equinor with the full backing of New York’s Governor Kathy Hochul and the Biden administration, was intended to be a showcase for offshore wind. Instead, it showcased something else entirely: how to push through a $3 billion project with double the national average energy costs and virtually no comprehensive review.

Welborn lays it out clearly:

“What was not a bargain were the rates the company locked in with the state of NY before a single survey had been done—they were going to be twice the national average.”​

https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2025/04/17/burgum-takes-the-wind-out-of-the-empire-states-plans-n3801885#google_vignette

From environmental impacts to national security risks to economic irrationality, Empire Wind had it all—yet the project barreled ahead.

Executive Action and Bureaucratic Course Correction

President Trump’s January 20 executive order called for a pause and reassessment of offshore wind projects—a direct response to the rushed approvals and dubious oversight seen under the previous administration.

Equinor, apparently eager to get ahead of that review, jumped the gun. They began construction efforts offshore, quietly deploying ships and robotic equipment to lay the groundwork for their turbine bases.

New Jersey Congressmen Jeff Drew and Chris Smith were outraged at Equinor’s actions in the face of President Trump’s pretty succinct Executive Order, which paused approvals for new farms until their original initial review process could be thoroughly reexamined.

https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2025/04/17/burgum-takes-the-wind-out-of-the-empire-states-plans-n3801885#google_vignette

“Out of nowhere, a bell suddenly rang, and Equinor’s time was up.”

https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2025/04/17/burgum-takes-the-wind-out-of-the-empire-states-plans-n3801885#google_vignette

That bell came in the form of Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, who ordered an immediate halt to all Empire Wind construction. Burgum cited deficiencies in the permitting process and a lack of consultation among federal agencies, calling the Biden-era greenlight “rushed” and analytically insufficient​.

The Trump administration is halting construction of a massive offshore wind project being built in federal waters off the coast of New York and ordering a sprawling review of existing offshore wind permits, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum directed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on Wednesday to order foreign energy developer Equinor to cease all construction activities on its Empire Wind project, according to a memorandum obtained by the Free Beacon. Burgum said the Biden administration green-lit permits for the project and ultimately approved it without conducting proper analysis.

“Approval for the project was rushed through by the prior administration without sufficient analysis or consultation among the relevant agencies as relates to the potential effects from the project,” Burgum wrote. He said the halt on Empire Wind will be in effect indefinitely until further review is completed to “address these serious deficiencies.”

Burgum additionally ordered Interior Department staff to continue a review of federal wind permitting practices related to both existing and pending permits and approvals.

A Coalition of Common Sense

The resistance to Empire Wind wasn’t isolated to a few concerned locals. It was a broad coalition—commercial fishermen, legal advocates, radar and defense experts, and elected officials—who consistently raised concerns about environmental harm, economic waste, and procedural shortcuts.

Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey summed up the concern:

“It’s an alarming development… NEPA review process under the Biden Administration… was completely inadequate.”​

https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2025/04/17/burgum-takes-the-wind-out-of-the-empire-states-plans-n3801885#google_vignette

And Rep. Jeff Van Drew called the project’s halt “a big offshore wind victory,” citing his collaboration with the Trump administration to bring these issues to light​.

While climate cultists and industry advocates went into delicious swoons of doom and despair.

https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2025/04/17/burgum-takes-the-wind-out-of-the-empire-states-plans-n3801885#google_vignette

The Empire Wind saga is a reminder of why process matters. Energy infrastructure—particularly projects with national security, environmental, and economic implications—cannot be waved through without scrutiny. Enthusiasm for projects should never override the need for transparency, due diligence, and cost-benefit analysis.

Thanks to the Trump administration’s intervention and the vigilance of critics across the spectrum, the brakes have been applied to a project that had all the signs of a bureaucratic runaway train.

And thanks to journalists like Beege Welborn, the public is better informed about what’s really going on behind the green curtain.