By Steve Milloy

Now that the Democrats have lost their lock grip on power, what’s a green activist to do? It’s almost comical how the climate left is trying to cloak their agenda in terms they think will melt in Republicans’ ears. For example, Jennifer Granholm, energy secretary in the Biden administration recently penned an opinion piece arguing that President Trump is playing right into Communist China’s evil hands by killing off America’s green economy. 

Translation: The left is furious that Trump has halted the flow of billions of taxpayers’ dollars to subsidize electric vehicles that nobody wants and only the well-off can afford. The new president is killing the “green economy,” as Granholm puts it.

There is nothing green about the climate left’s solutions. 

If the climate movement was truly sincere and intellectually honest in its desire to stop actions contributing to global environmental degradation, it would stand fast against solar panels and electric vehicles. There is nothing green about the climate left’s solutions. 

There is nothing environmentally friendly about using enslaved children in the Congo to mine cobalt for lithium-ion rechargeable batteries used in EVs. They labor with crude tools and bare hands, breathing in cobalt’s toxic dust in cramped pits. Runoff infused with cobalt and other chemicals contaminate the water supply. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, green activists sit blithely unaware or unconcerned in the comfort of their own homes. They are saving the world, they smugly assure themselves, while children suffer in an environmental hellhole.

Far removed from U.S. environmental standards, Indonesia is the center of mining and refining nickel, an essential component in EV batteries. Pea soup-thick brown emissions shroud nickel smelting operations in the Indonesian island of Sulawesi as well as the coal-fired plants that fuel them. Processing waste and chemicals potentially leach into the ground. Dust residue from both ubiquitously blanket nearby communities, while waterways tainted by mining operations have red cast. Whatever else climate activists may try to tell us, there is nothing green going on here.

In Brazil, near the mouth of the Amazon River, a factory refines bauxite into what eventually becomes aluminum. It had been the source of aluminum in the Ford F-150 Lightening, the company’s now cancelled all-electric pickup truck. A lawsuit alleges that toxic elements, including aluminum and other heavy metals emanating from the refinery, have been responsible for cancer, birth defects, neurological dysfunction, digestive disorders, skin conditions, and increased mortality. How can an EV be called green or good for the environment when it’s making thousands of Brazilians sick?

Elsewhere in Brazil this past Christmas season, Brazilian authorities shuttered construction of an EV factory when it was discovered that its builders were working under “slavery”-like conditions. How is that a green virtue? Perhaps green dogma holds that human worth and dignity are small sacrifices that must be made for the common good.

Solar energy, long the prize pig of the climate crowd, isn’t green either. The fact that destroying forest land for solar arrays is bad for the environment should be obvious. Studies have found “the loss of carbon-dioxide gobbling forests for solar installations results in a net increase in greenhouse gas emissions.” Nor should wind farms be considered remotely green when wildlife is being killed and habitats are being disrupted. The same is true offshore, with a number of whale deaths associated with mammoth wind operations.

The same folks pushing “green” have been disingenuous from the start. In 1970, they assured us that human activity would cause an ice age by the 21^st century and that we’d be under food rationing by 1980. Acid rain was a crisis until it wasn’t. Then global warming became the crisis, with much of New York City to be underwater by 2019. In 2008, Al Gore prophesized that the North polar cap would be gone in five years. It wasn’t. In 2009, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown proclaimed,” We have fewer than 50 days to save our planet from catastrophe. Spoiler alert: We’re still here and thriving.

Their seemingly endless lies have been accompanied by Orwellian word games, moving from “global warming” to “change.” Now the Newspeak has shifted to “extreme weather and “overheating.

The truth is there is no green energy. No energy is clean. No energy is dirty. There are only challenges, solutions and tradeoffs. At the time of already high energy costs, choosing reliable, fossil fuel-backed energy is of paramount importance. Word sophistry from our friends on the left won’t change that.

Steve Milloy is a Senior Fellow at the Energy & Environment Legal Institute and former member of the Trump EPA Transition Team.

This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.

Although I didn’t appreciate it at the time, I suppose I first encountered Margaret Thatcher when I was a primary school pupil, and she was the Education Secretary in Ted Heath’s government. Thatcher the Milk Snatcher they called her, as, in 1971, she ended free school milk for children over the age of seven. Just my luck to turn seven that year. The government in which she served was brought down by an energy crisis resulting from repeated miners’ strikes. It seems, in view of her actions towards the miners when she became Prime Minister years later, that Mrs Thatcher neither forgot nor forgave the miners’ actions.

Losing free milk was the least of my issues with Mrs Thatcher. Growing up in a once industrial town in the north east of England, dubbed the largest shipbuilding town in the world, and with coal mines aplenty (in some of which my ancesors worked), my teenage years and my twenties witnessed industrial dereliction on a spectacular scale. Proud working people were thrown on the scrapheap without a moment’s thought. In those days there was no talk of a “just transition”. Rather, Mrs Thatcher referred contemptuously to people who dared to protest at the deindustrialisation of their communities as “Moaning Minnies”. Miners who went on strike in opposition to her ruthless project of coal mine closures were “the enemy within”.

As an articled clerk interviewing deaf miners (or almost all ex-miners, since Thatcher had put them out of work) in the late 1980s, I travelled round former mining communities in Durham and Northumberland, and witnessed the devastation that she had unleashed on those communities. I know well enough that the striking miners were lions led by donkies, but I also saw the fundamental decency of mid-ranking officials of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). One day in Ashington I saw NUM officials acting as a cross between councillors, Citizens’ Advice and the Samaritans. Local people trusted them and came to them with their daily problems. They were the community and the community was them. That’s all gone now, of course. Another infamous Thatcherism is “there’s no such thing as society”. She certainly succeeded in destroying much of the society that I knew as a child and as a young man. No wonder I joined the Labour Party. But that was then and this is now. My Labour Party card was torn up long ago, and I have no regrets about that. I look at the current Labour government and despair. I see only a less competent version of Thatcher’s government, but one that is every bit as destructive.

These thoughts have occurred to me for some time, but I was stirred into talking about them by an article in the Scotsman with the heading: “Just transition? It’s getting as brutal as 1980s mining shutdown for oil workers”. I disagree profoundly with the Scotsman’s statement that “[t]he drive to renewables is clearly a national imperative” but there is much in the article that I do agree with, such as the rest of that sentence and the next one: “…but so too is the economy and energy security. There is little to be gained and too much to be lost by securing one while sacrificing another.” And this:

There is, however, one clear and expert voice capable of cutting through the babble, a voice that has been too seldom heard in this debate: the voice of workers. So far, our drive to renewables is something that has been done to our energy workers, not with them.

The transition underway from Forth Valley to South Wales, from Grangemouth to Port Talbot, is the opposite of just. This transition, the one politicians don’t like to discuss, is brutal, a thing to be suffered not embraced, and measured in redundancies not opportunities. It is the same transition our mining communities endured in the 1980s and cannot, must not, be repeated.

Labour – once the party of the workers – is now just as much their enemy as Thatcher ever was. ‘We’ve been let down big-time by Vauxhall closure’ is the headline to a BBC website article but the workers quoted in it have their understandable wrath turned on the wrong target. It’s not their former employer – Vauxhall/Stellantis – that has let them down, but the Labour government. Without its rabid insistence on net zero and its absurd targets attempting to force on people a lifestyle they don’t want and which will cost them dear, those Vauxhall workers might still have jobs to go to.

It isn’t just jobs that are being destroyed, though. Starmer, like Thatcher, cares not a jot for communities and their love of place. Anyone seeking to protect their landscape from the industrial blight this wretched Labour government is determined to inflict upon them is treated with the same casual contempt. Where Thatcher talked of Moaning Minnies and the enemy within, Starmer talks of blockers and NIMBYs. Nothing and nobody is to be allowed to get in the way of the project, a project which is every bit as dangerous and destructive as Thatcher’s was. He plans to change the law to get what he wants and to stop the “blockers” from protecting their special places. How ironic too that Starmer spoke out in 2021 against the idea of opening a new coal mine in west Cumbria, an area of considerable poverty and unemployment, even though it would have created hundreds of well-paid jobs. Thatcher, I am sure, would have been so proud.

I am left, sad and angry, with floating before me the image from the final page of George Orwell’s Animal Farm:

The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

By Jo Nova

It’s an avalanche. Twenty stories today could have been a Front Page Headline

The newest addition to the grift, graft and fraud list are terrorist organisations. — USAID sent $310 million US dollars to Hamas to build a cement factory in Gaza which would have helped make the tunnels of terror. Senator John Kennedy went on to say Mr Musk discovered the American taxpayer was giving money to Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, and even $10 million to an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group called the Nusra Front. They gave nearly $8 million to help teach Sri Lankan journalists how to avoid binary gendered language .

So far, they found that USAID spent $164 million to support radical organizations around the world.

Question of the week on the suspension of USAID comes from Mike Benz:

What’s the grift to charity ratio?

Forty or fifty billion dollars is a lot of money to spend to NOT create a photogenic fan club and an instant response team to protest the sudden end of the funding. Even if 10% of USAID was spent on things like feeling starving babies in Malawi, that’s still $4 or $5 billion worth of skinny baby photo-ops and impassioned pleas. Where are they?

Were the recipients all the dodgy dealers or terrorists who don’t want to embarrass their donors? Are they Prime Ministers and Presidents who don’t want admit they needed USAID help to “win” their jobs?  Are the governments of recipient-countries silent because the money was being used to control them or foment dissent against them, and they are happy it’s over?

Then we find out USAID spent $268 million on the worlds independent media which presumably makes them dependent media

Without USAID money, journalism as we know it might not exist. The global US media octopus has 6,000 arms. US Taxpayers were spending money  6,200 journalists and 707 news outlets, and nearly 280 organizations to “strengthen” independent media, whatever that means.  And this information was out there, but no one went looking.

USAID programs support independent media in more than 30 countries, but it is difficult to assess the full extent of the harm done to the global media. Many organizations are hesitant to draw attention for fear of risking long-term funding or coming under political attacks. According to a USAID fact sheet which has since been taken offline, in 2023, the agency funded training and support for 6,200 journalists, assisted 707 non-state news outlets, and supported 279 media-sector civil society organizations dedicated to strengthening independent media. The 2025 foreign aid budget included $268,376,000 allocated by Congress to support “independent media and the free flow of information.”

In Ukraine, where 9 out of 10* outlets rely on subsidies and USAID is the primary donor…

 Blaim Game captures this moment:

But US funding of terrorists and extremists will be hard for the Blob to explain:

 

Babylon Bee:

 

In other big news… Donald Trump is bringing back plastic straws~!   We’re in a culture war, and Trump is winning.

 

And of course, in Australia, under the cover of these fireworks, our Uniparty politicians have brought in radical HateSpeech laws after 30 microseconds of discussion and no consultation. That’s is a 7 year jail sentence for reckless speech. By golly, that was odd. Almost like a well funded global shadow government blob called in its last favors to shut down any hints of the Trump-Musk-MAGA contagion arising here in an election year?

More on Australian hatespeech laws soon. The Senators who voted NO were Rennick, Babet, Antic, and Payman, Tyrell and Pocock.

Right about now, we need Donald Trump to say nations that don’t allow free speech can’t be trusted with our nuclear subs or something like that…

Ladies and gentlemen, no matter how often the climate doomsday cult appears to have officially reached peak absurdity, along comes another “journalist” saying: Hold my beer! No longer content with blaming hurricanes, wildfires, and bad hair days on climate change, TIME magazine has now decided that football—yes, the sport where 300-pound men slam into each other at full speed—is somehow under siege from slightly warmer weather.

Jeffrey Kluger’s article, How Climate Change Is Affecting the NFL, is the latest entry in the ongoing competition to see who can produce the most ridiculous climate alarmism. Let’s break this nonsense down, shall we?

OMG, It Was Hot in October!

Kluger kicks off his fever dream with a tale of a 98°F game between the 49ers and the Cardinals on October 6, 2024. Wow, stop the presses! It was hot in California in the fall! What next? Are we going to blame climate change for earthquakes too?

For some perspective, the highest temperature ever recorded in San Francisco in October was 102°F on October 5, 1987. So, a 98°F day in 2024 is hardly unprecedented.

The author even notes that the 49ers changed their pants color to reflect more heat. That’s it. That’s the big climate catastrophe. Pants.

Of course, Kluger doesn’t mention that the hottest recorded NFL game was a 1978 season opener in St. Louis at 105°F, long before carbon hysteria took over the media. Nor does he mention that cold-weather games still happen every season, including the “Ice Bowl” of 1967 at −13°F or the 2016 Seahawks-Vikings playoff game at −6°F. Climate change sure works in mysterious ways.

A Whole 2.8°F Warmer! Over 54 Years!

According to Kluger, a survey by Climate Central (a group that exists solely to push climate fearmongering) found that NFL cities have warmed by an average of 2.8°F since 1970.

Let’s do some actual thinking here.

• No mention of Urban Heat Islands and metropolitan growth.
• The 1970’s was the period of the global cooling scare.
• The average daily temperature can swing 20–30°F in a single afternoon.

This is what Kluger considers an emergency? At this rate, we’ll reach Florida beach weather in Buffalo sometime around the year 2500.

And even if this warming trend were accurate, have these geniuses considered indoor stadiums, cooling technologies, or the simple fact that NFL players are, by definition, peak human athletes? I promise you, a linebacker is more worried about getting blindsided by Aaron Donald than whether the temperature is 85°F instead of 83°F.

Hot Weather Is Dangerous—Unlike Football?

Kluger gravely warns us about the risks of heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Oh, you mean the risks that football players have always faced in summer training camps?

This is the same sport where:

• Players suffer concussions, broken bones, torn ACLs, and spinal injuries regularly.
• A quarterback played an entire game with a broken jaw.
• Some guys have been knocked unconscious mid-play.

But no, the real danger is the thermometer creeping a few degrees higher. Right.

Also, he conveniently ignores the fact that cold weather is far more dangerous than heat. The most common causes of weather-related deaths in the U.S. are cold exposure and hypothermia. But since “global warming” is the villain, you won’t hear that from TIME.

More Heat Waves = More Snowstorms?

Kluger also tries to scare us with stories of a Buffalo Bills game buried under snow in December 2024.

Now, stay with me here—he claims that hotter temperatures caused more snow because the Great Lakes didn’t freeze. So let me get this straight:

1. Warmer weather makes things colder.
2. More heat leads to blizzards.
3. The Great Lakes didn’t freeze because of climate change… but they still managed to dump tons of snow.
4. POLAR VORTEX STRETCHING something, something, rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb.

You almost have to admire the mental gymnastics.

By this logic, turning up your air conditioning makes your house hotter.

NFL Stadiums Need to “Go Green” (For Some Reason)

Of course, no climate propaganda is complete without plugging “green” sports stadiums. Kluger suggests that the NFL must “adjust” to climate change, as if the league isn’t already raking in billions and handling bad weather like professionals.

Here’s an idea: if the climate warriors are so concerned, why don’t they boycott the Super Bowl? After all, it’s powered by evil fossil fuels, with fans flying in on CO₂-spewing jets, eating methane-emitting hamburgers, and cheering under carbon-intensive stadium lights.

Oh, right. They won’t, because all of this is performative nonsense.

The Real Takeaway: It’s All a Grift

Let’s be honest—this article isn’t about football. It’s about shoehorning climate change hysteria into every aspect of life. The game could be played on the surface of the Sun, and these people would still find a way to blame SUVs and gas stoves.

Meanwhile, NFL teams are doing just fine:

• Players train in state-of-the-art facilities with climate control.
• Coaches adjust for heat like they always have.
• The league makes billions, regardless of the weather.

And here’s the real kicker: the NFL is actually expanding into hotter regions. There’s a team in Las Vegas, a city that gets 120°F summers. Why? Because none of these climate scares matter in real life.

Final Score: Reality – 49, Climate Hysteria – 0

At the end of the day, the only thing heating up is the nonsense coming from mainstream media. Climate change isn’t ruining football—bad officiating and Roger Goodell are.

So, Jeffrey Kluger, thanks for the laugh. Maybe next time, try blaming climate change for Tom Brady’s retirement, the Cowboys’ annual playoff choke, or the Jets still being terrible.

That’d be more believable than this nonsense.