The Week That Was: 2025-06-28 (June 28, 2025)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week: “Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. … We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.” ― Karl R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)
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Number of the Week: 1 to replace 20?
THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Scope: TWTW begins with a paper by Nicola Scafetta discussing the deficiencies of Global Climate Models. It presents part of an interview of Judith Curry who was repelled by the careerism that is now entrenched in academic climate science. TWTW summarizes part of a talk by UK energy consultant Kathryn Porter focusing on general comments. TWTW presents a paper on decreasing cloudiness followed by two posts by Willis Eschenbach that demolish an effort to use ocean pH as a proxy for historic ocean temperatures. TWTW discusses an article by Steve Milloy on the closing of the laboratory that experimented with human subjects with PM 2.5, then TWTW discusses New York’s effort to replace the electrical power provided by natural gas generation. TWTW concludes with a presentation of part of the program of the upcoming DDP conference and where to register to attend in person or by Zoom.
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Improving Models: Ron Clutz colorfully presents a paper by Italian Earth Scientist Nicola Scafetta which is a good follow-up on the paper by Richard Lindzen and William Happer discussed in the June 7 TWTW on why climate science is not a physical science. Among other reasons it fails to adhere to the scientific method of requiring presentation of all the evidence, both that which supports the hypothesis and that which does not.
The focus of the Scafetta paper, “Detection, attribution, and modeling of climate change: key open issues,” is that climate modeling is poor. Climate modelers ignore the fact that the models greatly overestimate changing atmospheric temperatures, where the greenhouse effect occurs. If the modelers cannot correctly model the greenhouse effect where it occurs, they cannot possibly model the influence of increasing greenhouse gases on the surface of Earth. Yet the modelers assert that surface temperatures reflect the increasing greenhouse effect. The abstract of the paper states [Boldface added]:
“The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) global climate models (GCMs) assess that nearly 100% of global surface warming observed between 1850–1900 and 2011–2020 should be attributed to anthropogenic drivers like greenhouse gas emissions. These models also generate future climate projections based on shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs), aiding in risk assessment and the development of costly “Net-Zero” climate mitigation strategies. Yet, as this study discusses, the CMIP GCMs face significant scientific challenges in attributing and modeling climate change, particularly in capturing natural climate variability over multiple timescales throughout the Holocene. Other key concerns include the reliability of global surface temperature records, the accuracy of solar irradiance models, and the robustness of climate sensitivity estimates. Global warming estimates may be overstated due to uncorrected non-climatic biases, and the GCMs may significantly underestimate solar and astronomical influences on climate variations. The equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) to radiative forcing could be lower than commonly assumed; empirical findings suggest ECS values lower than 3 °C and possibly even closer to 1.1 ± 0.4 °C. Empirical models incorporating natural variability suggest that the 21st-century global warming may remain moderate, even under SSP scenarios that do not necessitate Net-Zero emission policies. These findings raise important questions regarding the necessity and urgency of implementing aggressive climate mitigation strategies. While GCMs remain essential tools for climate research and policymaking, their scientific limitations underscore the need for more refined modeling approaches to ensure accurate future climate assessments. Addressing uncertainties related to climate change detection, natural variability, solar influences, and climate sensitivity to radiative forcing will enhance predictions and better inform sustainable climate strategies.”
By ignoring the changing climate over Holocene, the current epoch beginning about 11,700 years ago at the end of the Younger Dryas, climate modelers are not trying to model Earth’s climate. Instead, they are attempting to model an imaginary climate for Earth. The modelers ignore that the physical evidence indicates that for the past 8200 years Earth has been getting cooler interrupted by brief warming periods. Further, the modelers ignore that ice core records show that Earth undergoes Dansgaard–Oeschger (D-O) Events, periods of abrupt warming followed by gradual cooling. Also, the Younger Dryas was a period of rapid cooling followed by rapid warming. There are no satisfactory explanations of any of these events, backed by physical evidence, so the climate modelers ignore them? This is not physical science, but political ideology.
Under the Highlights section of his paper Scafetta writes:
“This paper argues that climate science still faces unresolved key issues. Global Climate models struggle in reproducing natural variability at all time scales and may exaggerate warming. Global Climate models likely exaggerate the ECS [Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity] and significantly underestimate solar influences. Empirical models projects moderate warming challenging strict net-zero climate policies. New climate models that better reflect natural climate drivers and variations are needed.”
Scafetta provides three types of key open issues: 1) Climate issues; 2) Expectations; and 3) Solar issues. For Climate issues Scafetta lists:
- “Past climate change and natural climate variability are poorly understood and poorly modeled.
- The equilibrium climate sensitivity to radiative forcing is highly uncertain.
- Global surface temperature records are likely to be affected by non-climatic warming biases such as uncorrected UHI [Urban Heat Island] contamination.
- Cloud formation must be modeled with very high precision to understand climate change.”
Under Expectations Scafetta lists:
- “Fact: current CCMIP6 [Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6] global climate models (GCMs) do not properly model natural climate variability and overestimate the climate sensitivity to radiative forcing (i.e., to CO2 increase).
- The Sun is likely to play an important role in climate change, which remains poorly understood and modeled.
- Future climate change is likely to be moderate under realistic socio-economic pathways that do not require Net-Zero policies.”
- Under Solar issues Scafetta lists:
- “It is possible to approximately reconstruct multidecadal, secular, and millennial changes in total solar irradiance in phase and frequency, but not in absolute amplitude.
- It is plausible that the Sun significantly influences climate change through variations in its luminosity, and through a poorly understood mechanism related to variations in particle fluxes reaching Earth.”
In short, Scafetta’s paper is a polite discussion of the failings of the modeling used by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its collaborators. Further, it provides useful suggestions for improvement. Most likely it will be ignored.
In a related matter, given the changes in climate over the past 2.5 million years (during Icehouse Earth) with long periods of glaciation and relatively short interglacial periods, the pursuit of an Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity appears to be similar to a pursuit for the end of a rainbow. When has Earth had a stable climate? During the depths of a glaciation when today’s major breadbaskets were cold, dusty, and barren? See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy; https://www.sepp.org/twtwfiles/2025/TWTW%206-7-25.pdf for the June 7 TWTW, https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/2021-11/2%20Heinrich%20and%20Dansgaard%E2%80%93Oeschger%20Events%20-%20Final-OCT%202021.pdf for Heinrich and Dansgaard–Oeschger events, and www.stratigraphy.org for Quaternary stratigraphy and chronology (over the past 2.5 million years), and https://stratigraphy.org/ICSchart/ChronostratChart2023-04.pdf for the International Chronostratigraphic Chart.
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Fallen From Grace: Freedom Research issued a video featuring an interview of Judith Curry titled: “Professor Judith Curry: Climate Science Has Become Pseudo Science.” Her “downfall” in the climate community occurred when she began to question many of the assumptions made by the IPCC and by its climate modelers. Posted on WUWT, the introduction to the video sums up the experience.
“𝐑𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐃𝐫. 𝐉𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐂𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐲 𝐝𝐞𝐛𝐮𝐧𝐤𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐲𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐬, 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐞𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠.
‘Your funding, salary increase, and tenure case are tied to agreeing with the ‘consensus.’ It’s really about careerism and resources. They all have to dance to that same drum beat to get professional recognition and professional advancement,’ says Dr. Judith Curry, professor emeritus at the Georgia Institute of Technology, describing the state of climate science and research in recent years.
Curry has published approximately 190 scientific papers and co-authored several significant publications on climate science. Her 2023 book, Climate Uncertainty and Risk: Rethinking Our Response (part of the Anthem Environment and Sustainability series), provides a comprehensive overview of what we can say with certainty about the climate and balances widespread fears about a climate crisis with a realistic perspective.
Throughout her career, Curry has received several prestigious scientific awards, including the Georgia Tech Graetzinger Moving School Forward Award (2011), Georgia Tech Sigma Xi Best Faculty Paper Award (2006), NASA Group Achievement Award for CAMEX-4 (2002), University of Colorado Green Faculty Award (2002), the American Meteorological Society’s Henry G. Houghton Award (1992), and the National Science Foundation’s Presidential Young Investigator Award (1988). She is also an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2007), American Geophysical Union (2004), and American Meteorological Society (1995). She has also served as a Counselor for the American Meteorological Society, elected in 1997.”
The autogenerated transcript that may contain errors begins with [Boldface added]:
“Interviewer: The media wanted, you know, something, you know, a sensational story. Every hurricane, every flood, every wildfire was caused by, you know, fossil-fueled warming. Let’s turn now to three extreme climate events around the globe, which many believe are linked by man-made climate change. The Western drought and dozens of major forest fires, as well as flooding in the East, are all painful demonstrations of the reality of the climate crisis. But they’re all in agreement that global warming is causing more extreme weather events. Back up there with, are every major storm, flood, or wildfire truly evidence that human behavior has triggered a catastrophic climate crisis? Children swept away by monsoon rains, families running from the flames. For scientists, it is unequivocal: humans are to blame. Can we even claim that the extreme weather events are increasing?
Dr. Judith Curry: Oh, they’re not increasing. This is the issue. They’re not increasing, and you’d never believe that to be the case based on the reports in the media.
The interview discusses the fictional 97% consensus then continues with:
“Interviewer: In your book, Climate Uncertainty and Risk, which I have read, by the way, and I find it a very good book, you write that in 2017 you resigned from your faculty position at the Georgia Institute of Technology because academia increasingly felt like “wrong trousers,” well, due to climate consensus enforcement and free speech issues. Well, could you please elaborate on this? What do you mean?
Dr. Judith Curry: Well, there were people—scientists—who did not vocally support the IPCC consensus; they were heavily ostracized, not just in the media but also by what I would call establishment climate scientists, those who participated in the international and national assessment reports and had an outsized media presence. Anybody who criticized their behavior—I mean, many of these scientists were behaving as political advocates, and they were trying to stifle any disagreement, not just about the science but even about the proposed policy solutions. And scientists who weren’t going along with that were not only marginalized, but things became very uncomfortable for them in the universities. So, I said, you know, I don’t really need this. There’s no way I can really fight this at this point. I’m just going to leave and go into the private sector, where I can speak my mind and where I feel I can be more productive.
Interviewer: What I’m thinking is, how on certain topics, such as climate, how can this debate be killed that easily?
Dr. Judith Curry: It’s about careerism. I mean, if your funding, if your research funding, is tied to agreeing with the consensus, if your salary increase, if your tenure case—it’s really about careerism and resources. I mean, so that’s what it’s all about. I mean, the incentives are all pointing in one direction, and, you know, people—the people who are speaking out—are either people who have retired or left academia for whatever reason but who are now either retired, working for the private sector, or working for non-governmental organizations. These are the people speaking out and challenging the consensus and really behaving the way scientists should behave, as opposed to in the universities, where they all have to dance to that same drumbeat if they want to get professional recognition and professional advancement. It’s a very bad state of affairs. Disagreement is the spice of academic life. I mean, this is how we move things forward—by, you know, arguing and disagreeing and trying to respond to the challenges and better understand the whole thing, and that’s how science moves forward. However, when politics is put into play, when you have a politically relevant issue—I mean, climate is just one issue; we certainly saw the same issues in public health during COVID, and there are other fields where they have the same problem—the minute it becomes policy-relevant, there’s an insistence by certain people in power that people go along with and agree with the prevailing view; otherwise, you know, they lose funding. In some cases, you know, academics even lose their job. So, you know, it’s not a good thing. So, it’s mixing politics and science. Whenever you do that, what you get is politics, not science.
Interviewer: What’s the state of science under these conditions, or climate science in particular?
Dr. Judith Curry: It’s not science anymore; it’s become a pseudoscience. You know, the hardcore, physics-based climate dynamics, you know, such as what we had in the 1980s or whatever, I mean, that’s just a small sliver of what we now define as climate science. I mean, what the students are getting their PhDs in—they analyze the output of these climate models, looking for some sort of catastrophe that they can identify and write a paper on, without ever even, you know, critically evaluating these models or how they should be used. I mean, it’s just sort of nonsense, and it’s received so much funding. And also, the journalism has been—you know, like 15 years ago, there were only a handful of journalists who specialized in climate or even the environmental beat, so to speak. Now, you know, until recently, you had, like, 35 people in the climate bureau at a major media outlet, and there were some that were funded by these billionaire donors—Carbon Brief and some of these other things—that were publishing, had huge staffs, and publishing a lot of material, and it was funded by activist donors. It’s not what I would call honest or investigative journalism; it’s journalism that’s designed to advocate for a particular political position.”
The interview then discusses that careerism was getting worse, but the election of President Trump may have upset the culture, and we are now in a transition period, then continues with:
“Interviewer: But you mentioned the climate models. What do these models actually show us? Can they be used to predict that we are going to be in a very bad situation environmentally, climate-wise?
Dr. Judith Curry: Okay, the global climate models are very sophisticated, you know, very sophisticated models, and they’ve been very useful to climate scientists for research to try to, you know, test various ideas and change parameters and things like that. The models, however, do not adequately treat natural climate variability, for starters. They do not adequately resolve extreme weather events. So, the things that we’re most interested in—you know, how much warming is being caused by humans—we don’t know. There’s a factor of three uncertainty in terms of how much warming these different climate models produce. Okay, the so-called climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide varies by a factor of three among these different models, and so this is the most basic parameter, and we don’t really understand what it should be. And so, climate models produce a range of predictions. So, if the climate sensitivity is on the low end, then we don’t need to worry about it very much. If the climate sensitivity is on the high end, yeah, it could be, you know, approaching catastrophic. But as I understand it, the evidence supports it being a climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide on the low end. But these climate models just are not fit for most of the purposes for which they’re used.”
In short, Curry sums up the state of academic climate science. It is not a physical science that pursues physical evidence to test hypotheses but an ideology. See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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Madness of Net Zero: UK independent Energy Consultant Kathryn Porter gave a presentation for the Irish Climate Science Forum. It is largely focused on the problems occurring in the UK, with the government’s goal of net zero. But it gives an indication what the pursuit of a fabled stable climate can lead to. Porter’s transcript, not yet posted, concludes with:
“What Would Sanity Look Like?
We need a fundamental reset. Here is what political sanity would look like:
▪ A proper cost-benefit analysis of net zero, including system costs, not just headline capital costs.
▪ Honest engagement with the public about what changes are feasible and affordable.
▪ Investment in firm, dispatchable capacity to secure the grid.
▪ A much greater focus on nuclear power as the route to decarbonisation
▪ A shift from speed to resilience: better to go slower and succeed than faster and fail.
Above all, we need to abandon the magical thinking that net zero will be fast, cheap, and painless.
It won’t. But it can be achievable if approached with realism, pragmatism, and an unwavering
commitment to system security
Conclusion:
Net zero is not just expensive. It is not just regressive. It is not just inflationary. It is dangerous when pursued recklessly. The events of 8 January, 28 April, and 29 May are warnings. Warnings that our electricity system is being pushed beyond its limits. Warnings that ideology is being allowed to override engineering. Warnings that people may die if we continue down this path without course correction.
It is not anti-environmental to want a stable grid. It is not pro-fossil fuel to insist on realistic transition pathways. It is not populist to point out that people cannot afford trillion-pound transformations.
And it’s also not climate denial to point out that intermittent renewables are inefficient in both their use of capital and natural resources.
It is simply political sanity.”
See link under Challenging the Orthodox
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Decreasing Cloudiness: Kenneth Richards of No Tricks Zone presents a paper published by Geophysical Research Letters describing how cloud cover is diminishing. The plain language summary of the paper states in part:
“Analysis of satellite observations shows that in the past 24 years the Earth’s storm cloud zones in the tropics and the middle latitudes have been contracting at a rate of 1.5%–3% per decade. This cloud contraction, along with cloud cover decreases at low latitudes, allows more solar radiation to reach the Earth’s surface. When the contribution of all cloud changes is calculated, the storm cloud contraction is found to be the main contributor to the observed increase of the Earth’s solar absorption during the 21st century.” [Boldface added]
A decrease in tropical and middle latitude cloudiness appears to contradict the assumption by global climate modelers that an increase in temperature, from whatever cause, will increase water vapor, the source of cloudiness. Will this be another issue the IPCC ignores? See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy, Is the sun rising for comments by Willie Soon, and https://www.sepp.org/twtwfiles/2025/TWTW%206-21-25.pdf for last week’s TWTW.
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Acidic Alarmism: Last week’s TWTW focused on the false claim that increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide is causing ocean acidification. The claim is contradicted by physical evidence over the past 450 million years. Oceans contain fifty to sixty times more carbon dioxide than the atmosphere. Roger Cohen and William Happer calculated that without carbon dioxide oceans would be highly alkaline – roughly ammonia. Adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere would cause a small decline in the pH of the oceans, but they still would be alkaline, not acidic.
In two posts in WUWT, Willis Eschenbach discusses another foolish study relying on ocean pH. This one is published by AAAS Science and attempts to relate Earth’s surface temperature with ocean pH. The title of the paper is “A 485-million-year history of Earth’s surface temperature.” Eschenbach states in the first post:
“Now, there are several noteworthy points in this graph. First, at no time in the past 485 million years has the ocean been acidic. It has always been alkaline (basic), with a pH always greater than 7 (neutral pH).
Second, over that entire time, there has been a huge variety and profusion of shelled animals living in the ocean, apparently unbothered by the variations in alkalinity.”
The title of the second post sums up the AAAS Science paper: “A 485-million-year history of bad science.” See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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No One Harmed? Steve Milloy has pursued the claims that fine particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less, (PM 2.5) is causing hundreds of thousands if not millions of premature deaths. The studies rely on speculation, not physical evidence and often rely on the linear no threshold hypothesis that asserts the human body has no capability of self-repair. The Daily Caller published an article by Milloy titled “Trump Closes Notorious EPA Lab That Conducted Illegal Human Experiments.” The lab tried live human experiments exposing the humans to various concentrations of PM2.5. Milloy writes:
“Fortunately for EPA, it could also admit that no one had been harmed by PM2.5 in its experiments, which failed to elicit a cough or a wheeze among the hundreds of allegedly ‘vulnerable’ human guinea pigs it tried to harm.
PM2.5 has been the most powerful regulatory weapon of the Clinton, Obama, and Biden EPAs. The Obama-Biden and, later, the Biden-Harris war-on-coal air quality rules for greenhouse gases and mercury emissions all actually depend on the validity of its PM2.5 claims. Just this week, the Trump EPA announced it was going to roll back those two rules.”
See link under EPA and other Regulators on the March.
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Mystery Solved? For years under the New York State’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019, the State had demanded that at least 20GW of natural gas power plants be closed by 2040. The State’s Independent System Operator, NYISO, has stated that the State needs at least 20 GW of what they call “dispatchable emissions-free resources” (DEFR) to replace the natural gas generation.
No one knew what the source of dispatchable emissions-free generation would be. Apparently, the State government hopes it will build nuclear plants to replace the natural gas plants by 2040. In 2020 and 2021, the State forced the closure units of 2 and 3 of the Indian Point nuclear power plant which had a total generating capacity of 2.06 GW. One of the claims was that it was destroying eggs and larvae of Shortnose sturgeons, an endangered species. But so could any use of Hudson River water. Can the State build 20 GW of new nuclear power by 2040? See link under Below the Bottom Line for the post by Francis Menton.
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DDP Conference: The 43rd annual meeting of the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness will be held in Tucson, Arizona, from July 4 to 6. The program features the 2022 Nobel co-Laureate in Physics John Clauser speaking on “Serious errors and fudges in the IPCC et al.’s global power balance structure, albedo, and climate feedback assessments.”
Other noted speakers of interest to TWTW readers include Willie Soon, “Measuring the Earth’s Energy Budget”; Michael Connolly “Balloons in the Air: Revisiting Atmospheric Physics, with Data”; Joe Leimkuhler, “Prospects for the U.S. Petroleum Industry”; Jim Steele “Understanding Natural Climate Dynamics Best Prepares Us for Weather Disasters”; and David Legates “9.5 Weeks: My Time in the White House.” For registration in person or by Zoom see https://aaps.wufoo.com/forms/q1f6wbjr18g6o47/
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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. Send your vote to Ken@Sepp.org. If you wish, you will be anonymous. The award will be announced at the 43rd annual meeting of the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness on July 5-6. The decision of the judges is final.
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NO TWTW NEXT WEEK, ATTENDING DDP CONFERENCE
TWTW will resume the weekend of July 12
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Number of the Week: 1 to replace 20? New York State’s Independent System Operator, NYISO, has stated that the State needs at least 20 GW of what is called “dispatchable emissions-free resources” (DEFR) by 2040 to replace the natural gas generation. According to reports the State is exploring a 1 GW nuclear plant, possibly on the shores of Lake Ontario, which does not have Shortnose Sturgeon, but has Lake Sturgeon.
IT’S THE SUN, STUPID | Dr Willie Soon
13-minute Video by Willie Soon, Includes the decline in cloudiness, June 25, 2025
The sun is not stable
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
Summary: https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/CCR/CCR-II/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts
Idso, Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2014
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels
By Multiple Authors, Bezdek, Idso, Legates, and Singer eds., Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, April 2019
Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming
The NIPCC Report on the Scientific Consensus
By Craig D. Idso, Robert M. Carter, and S. Fred Singer, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), Nov 23, 2015
Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate
S. Fred Singer, Editor, NIPCC, 2008
http://www.sepp.org/publications/nipcc_final.pdf
Challenging the Orthodoxy – Radiation Transfer
The Role of Greenhouse Gases in Energy Transfer in the Earth’s Atmosphere
By W.A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer, Preprint, Mar 3, 2023
Dependence of Earth’s Thermal Radiation on Five Most Abundant Greenhouse Gases
By W.A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer, Preprint, December 22, 2020
https://wvanwijngaarden.info.yorku.ca/files/2020/12/WThermal-Radiationf.pdf?x45936
Radiation Transport in Clouds
By W.A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer, Klimarealistene, Science of Climate Change, January 2025
Challenging the Orthodoxy
Scafetta: Climate Models Have Issues
By Ron Clutz, His Blog, June 25, 2025
From: Detection, attribution, and modeling of climate change: key open issues
By Nicola Scafetta, Gondwana Research, May 13, 2025
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1342937X25001273?via%3Dihub
Professor Judith Curry: Climate Science Has Become Pseudo Science
Fifty-minute Video from Freedom Research, Via WUWT, June 25, 2025
“The Madness of Net Zero – Could we have some Political Sanity please?”
Video, Kathryn Porter, Irish Climate Science Forum (ICSF), June 24, 2025
Can We Believe All We Are Told About Climate Change with Dr. Willie Soon
Audio featuring Willie Soon, Heard at Heritage, June 24, 2025
https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/heardatheritage/episodes/Can-We-Believe-All-We-Are-Told-About-Climate-Change-with-Dr–Willie-Soon-e34mbr9
New Study: The Cloud Radiative Effect Is The ‘Crucial Missing Piece’ Explaining 21st Century Warming
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, June 23, 2025
Link to paper: Contraction of the World’s Storm-Cloud Zones the Primary Contributor to the 21st Century Increase in the Earth’s Sunlight Absorption
By George Tselioudis, J. Remillard, C. Jakob, and W. Rossow, Geophysical Research Letters, June 8, 2025
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2025GL114882
BOMBSHELL: Study Reveals Climate Warming Driven by Receding Cloud Cover
By Charles Roter WUWT, June 25, 2025
See links immediately above
Global Warming Caused By Reduce Cloud Cover
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 24, 2025
Clearly climate science should drop their obsession with CO2 and instead start focusing on what is going on in the sky.
pHony Alarmism
By Willis Eschenbach, WUWT, June 24, 2025
Link to: A 485-million-year history of Earth’s surface temperature
By Emily J. Judd, et al., AAAS Science, Sep 24, 2024
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk3705
A 485-million-year history of bad science
By Willis Eschenbach, WUWT, June 27, 2025
See link immediately above
Cleaner Air, Sunshine & Temperatures
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 27, 2025
Which all begs the question – what impact has cleaner air had on the rise in UK temperatures since the 1960s?
And why is the Met Office so reticent to mention it?
Climate Oscillations 3: Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Area
By Andy May, WUWT, June 24, 2025
There is no obvious explanation for the relationship between all these factors, but we only have 47 years of good NH [Northern Hemisphere] ice data, which is not nearly enough. The overall global climate cycle is 60-70-years as noted in post 1, and maybe when we have that much data the answer will become clear.
2025 Evidence of Nature’s Sunscreen
By Ron Clutz, His Blog, June 23, 2025
From A Perspective on Global Dimming and Brightening Worldwide and in China
By Martin Wild, et al., Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, April 2025
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/390801144_A_Perspective_on_Global_Dimming_and_Brightening_Worldwide_and_in_China
Heartland UK/Europe: More Progress! (DeSmog confirms again)
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, June 24, 2025
Defending the Orthodoxy
The Next Energy Revolution Is Coming. Is the DOE Ready?
By Drew Bond, Real Clear Energy, June 24, 2025
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/06/24/the_next_energy_revolution_is_coming_is_the_doe_ready_1118384.html
Now, we are on the cusp of another energy revolution, this time focused on the clean technologies of advanced nuclear, geothermal, natural hydrogen, and fusion. Fortunately, the United States is rich in these energy resources. The challenge with these technologies isn’t a lack of supply; it’s the speed and scale at which we can bring this energy online.
[SEPP Comment: No mention of costs.]
Questioning the Orthodoxy
Thank You, Mr. Smith; From Washington Energy Policy
By Robbie Diamond, Real Clear Energy, June 26, 2025
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/06/26/thank_you_mr_smith_from_washington_energy_policy_1118974.html
That old carbon river
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 25, 2025
Oh yeah. “The finding has taken scientists by surprise and suggests human activities are damaging the natural landscape far more than first thought.” QED. Or not, because as Charles Rotter writes on Watts Up With That, it actually deals a body blow to an idea he too had long accepted, “the long-standing assumption that carbon isotope ratios (δ¹³C and Δ¹⁴C) provide unambiguous proof that the rise in atmospheric CO2 is almost entirely anthropogenic.” Unfortunately, here New Scientist earns its name and not in a good way. Old scientist worked from hypothesis via evidence to acceptance or rejection. New Scientist works from politics via evidence back to politics.
It’s Summertime, Hottest Year Claims Ensue
By Ron Clutz, His Blog, June 21, 2025
From Junk Science Week: The hottest year ever?
Advocates and the media claim that 2024 was the hottest year ever. Archeological data suggests it wasn’t, while modern data suffer from biases
By Matthew Wielicki, Financial Post (Canada) June 19, 2025
https://financialpost.com/opinion/hottest-year-ever
Cambridge Rainfall Trends
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 24, 2025
[SEPP Comment: Addressing a UK Environment Agency press release claiming a 5-billion-liter public water shortage by 2055 with physical evidence.]
Britain Is Burning!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 21, 2025
Fire fighters regularly admit that the real issue has long been arson, deliberate or otherwise. People drive out to these moorlands in their millions on sunny days, something that was not possible a few decades ago. When there they often set fires going from portable BBQs and dropped cigarettes.
As with a lot of these silly stories, it is only in the last few years that we have had the satellite technology to accurately map these fires. EFFIS, for instance, was implemented in 2003, making a nonsense of Telegraph claims that there were some years in the past with no fires at all.
Decarbonization Myth Frays as Hydrocarbon Use Grows
By Vijay Jayaraj, WUWT, June 22, 2025
Energy & Environmental Review: June 23, 2025
By John Droz, Jr., Master Resource, June 23, 2025
After Paris!
Bonn chance
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 25, 2025
And you can’t have a conference of this sort without pre-conferences to achieve nothing and pave the way for further lack of accomplishment at the main event. Thus, it is that Climate Home News sends an email headed “Slow start to Bonn climate talks” teasing to a story headed “UN climate chief laments lack of urgency” and whining “Anyone would think there’s no climate emergency.” And they’d be right. Can we go home now?
Social Benefits of Carbon Dioxide
Effect of additional CO2 on Common Water Hyacinth
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 25, 2025
From the CO2Science archive:
Problems in the Orthodoxy
Global Banks retreat from trying to change the climate and pour $900 billion into fossil fuels
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, June 26, 2025
https://joannenova.com.au/2025/06/global-banks-retreat-from-climate-action-and-pour-billions-into-fossil-fuels
The world’s largest lenders committed $869.4 billion to companies conducting business in fossil fuels in 2024, according to the “Banking on Climate Chaos” report published on Tuesday.
Seeking a Common Ground
The End Of Alarmism
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 14, 2025
Video using views of Thomas Kuhn in discussing disagreements
Under-Reported “Old” Carbon is Not the Source of Increases in Atmospheric CO2
By Ferdinand Engelbeen, et al., CO2 Coalition, June 24, 2025
Link to paper: Old carbon routed from land to the atmosphere by global river systems
By Joshua F. Dean, et al., Nature, June 4, 2025
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09023-w
Protecting Communities From Wildfires Is Everyone’s Job
By Meghan Thacker, Real Clear Energy, June 26, 2025
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/06/26/protecting_communities_from_wildfires_is_everyones_job_1119168.html
When a state lacks a straightforward process for determining liability after a wildfire, expensive litigation sometimes proceeds even before authorities have had a chance to complete the investigation to determine the cause of the fire. This was the case in Oregon, where the state’s Department of Forestry ultimately determined that powerlines were not the cause of a major fire.
Science, Policy, and Evidence
Why Trump‘s ‘Gold Standard’ Executive Order is Essential to Restoring Truth in Science
By Tilak Doshi, Daily Sceptic, June 20, 2025
The path forward is clear: federal agencies must adopt rigorous, transparent and falsifiable standards to ensure that science serves truth, not power. Critics may decry the order as political overreach, but their protests defend a system that has already been politicised by entrenched interests. For the sake of the public, the economy and the integrity of science, Trump’s executive order is a necessary step toward restoring trust and accountability. Let us hope it marks the beginning of a new era where science is once again a beacon of truth, not a tool of propaganda.
Why Weather Intelligence Needs to be a Priority for the Golden Dome
By Tim Gallaudit, WUWT, June 22, 2025
The Golden Dome will encounter far greater challenges. Not only is the total land area of all U.S. states and territories 500 times larger than Israel’s, America experiences some of the most severe weather anywhere on Earth, from North Atlantic hurricanes and Western Pacific typhoons to Alaskan snowstorms and Central Plains tornado outbreaks. Factoring in the impacts of such hazards will give the U.S. a decisive advantage over enemy threats that do not.
Changing Weather
A Wavier Polar Jet Stream Contributed to the Mid-20th Century Winter Warming Hole in the United States
By J. I. Chalif, E. C. Osterberg, and T. F. Partridge, AGU, June 26, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024AV001399
#LookItUp: US tornado counts
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 25, 2025
Link to: Storm Prediction Center,
By Staff: NOAA’s National Weather Service, May 13, 2025
https://www.spc.noaa.gov/wcm
[SEPP Comment: The Average Annual Tornadoes per 10K Square Miles per State, 2005-2024 is interesting, Mississippi and Alabama are the most frequently hit states.]
https://www.spc.noaa.gov/wcm
It’s Hot Weather, But Not Man-Made
By Steve Goreham, Real Clear Energy, June 26, 2025
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/06/26/its_hot_weather_but_not_man-made_1119002.html
Below-Normal Wildfire Year so Far
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, June 25, 2025
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2025/06/below-normal-wildfire-year-so-far.html
To get a wildfire, you need ignition, sufficient fuels, dry fuels, and supportive meteorological conditions, with wind being the most important.
30C [86F] At Rothamsted
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 27, 2025
More on that “killer heatwave”:
[SEPP Comment: Homewood presents data showing that the all-time high at Rothamsted was above 38C, 100F.]
Changing Seas
Arctic Warming Will Lead To Arctic Cooling, Recent Study Suggests
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, June 25, 2025
Link to paper: Impacts of Atlantic meridional overturning circulation weakening on Arctic amplification
By Yu-Chi Lee, PNAS, Sep 16, 2024
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2402322121
From abstract: Here, we quantify the role of AMOC [meridional overturning circulation] changes in Arctic amplification throughout the twenty-first century by comparing two suites of climate model simulations under the same climate change scenario but with two different AMOC states: one with a weakened AMOC and another with a steady AMOC.
[SEPP Comment: Speculation using models that fail validation!]
Mollusk Deposits Affirm Arabian Sea Levels Were 2-3 Meters Higher 7000-6000 Years Ago
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, June 27, 2025
Link to paper: Development and factors controlling tropical carbonate barrier island systems—Bar Al Hikman; mid-late Holocene, Oman
By Thomas Teillet, et al., Sedimentology, May 26, 2025
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/sed.70017
Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice
It’s extremely cold in Antarctica
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 25, 2025
Link to paper: Extreme Antarctic Cold of Late Winter 2023
By Anastasia J. Tomanek, et al., Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, June 13, 2024
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00376-024-4139-1
From Robson: H/T NoTricksZone we learned of a recent study by an international team of polar researchers who show that July and August 2023 set all-time cold weather records in the South Polar region. Yes, the place climate alarmists say is warming so fast the ice is about to melt and cause sea levels to surge. Byrd station in West Antarctic, for instance, averaged -45.5C in August 2023, the coldest month on record and definitely below the freezing point of water. And at multiple stations temperatures in July and August 2023 were six to eight degrees below normal. In fact, it got so cold at some points that gasoline [Jet B fuel can go to -60C -76F)] began to solidify, making flights in and out impossible.
Episodic reef growth in the Last Interglacial driven by competing influence of polar ice sheets to sea level rise
By Karen Vyverberg, et al. Science Advances, June 13, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adu3701
Lowering Standards
And you did it to yourselves
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 25, 2025
The same is even more true of government agencies. As Wielicki complains:
“When NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) was established in 1961, it was dedicated to rigorous, unbiased research in planetary atmospheres and astrophysics. Its founder, Robert Jastrow, envisioned a scientific powerhouse, contributing objectively and reliably to America’s space and environmental exploration. Unfortunately, GISS today has become almost unrecognizable, increasingly resembling a politically motivated advocacy group rather than a bastion of objective science.”
What is the Point of the UK Met Office?
By Chris Morrison, The Daily Sceptic, June 27, 2025
Like the Met Office, NOAA is a world leader in driving climate alarm, so many of the cuts will be easy to make. In particular, the reductions, which will need to be passed by Congress, target the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, which could see its annual allowance for climate work cut from $485 million to $171 million.
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?
BBC Celebrates Sales Of Heat Pumps Rising From Near Zero To Near Zero!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 27, 2025
What is it about the BBC’s climate reporters? They seem to live in their own little bubble, oblivious to what is going on in the real world!
Blackouts are caused by heatwaves, you know! Blame climate change (not renewables!)
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, June 25, 2025
https://joannenova.com.au/2025/06/blackouts-are-caused-by-heatwaves-you-know-blame-climate-change-not-renewables
Heatwaves and Excess Deaths–The Facts
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 23, 2025
Further to the Guardian’s absurd claim that “last week’s heatwave killed 600 people”, it is worth going back to the ONS analysis carried out after the 2022 heatwaves:
Heatwave Hysteria Strikes Again
By Ben Pile, The Daily Sceptic, June 24, 2025
Moreover, UHI effects can travel very far distances indeed. A 2018 study of UHI published in in the journal of Climate and Atmospheric Science found “significant heating 100-200 m above the surface and 70 km downwind” of Chicago. A 2017 study in Britain, although concerned more with night-time temperatures, found that even a relatively small site of just 1 km square could influence temperatures half a kilometer away by 0.5°C.
Link to Chicago paper: Downwind footprint of an urban heat island on air and lake temperatures
By Ann Cosgrove and Max Berkelhammer, Climate and Atmospheric Science, Dec 1, 2018
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329665413_Downwind_footprint_of_an_urban_heat_island_on_air_and_lake_temperatures
Link to UK paper: The Effects of Heat Advection on UK Weather and Climate Observations in the Vicinity of Small Urbanized Areas
By Richard Bassett, et al., Boundary-Layer Meteorology, June 12, 2025
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10546-017-0263-0
Heat dome passes, but climate-fueled waves aren’t going anywhere
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, June 28, 2025
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5374333-heat-dome-climate-change-heat-waves-global-warming
Michael Mann, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s earth and environmental science department, said in an email that the heat domes being experienced by the U.S and Europe “show that this was part of a very large-scale pattern, associated with a very ‘wiggly’ jet stream where the ‘wiggles’ stay in place for days on end.”
“Earlier Than Usual”
By Tony Heller, His Blog, June 25, 2025
The New York Times says 99F in New York on June 24 is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. On May 20, 1962 it was 99F and on April 27 of that year it was 91F.
Scientific American: AI is Power Hungry, but it Could Cut Emissions
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, June 24, 2025
Mountains of Mourne Wildfires
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 21, 2025
It is worth taking a look at two EFFIS wildfire graphs for the UK, which that Telegraph article referred to.
Firstly, the cumulative fire area stats for this year have been skewed upwards by big fire day on 8th April, which accounted for 18000 ha, more than half the YTD of 35000 ha.
Most of that day’s fire total was accounted for by a series of gigantic fires in the Mountains of Mourne.
Wrong, Yahoo News/The Cool Down, Panamanian Island Residents Flee Poverty and Overcrowding, Not Climate Change
By H. Sterling Burnett, Climate Realism, June 27, 2025
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda
ABC News: Mitigate Climate Anxiety by Convincing Neighbors to Give UP Their Lawns
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, June 27, 2025
Liars and wordsmiths don’t demolish and rebuild wind farms they “repower” them
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, June 21, 2025
https://joannenova.com.au/2025/06/liars-and-wordsmiths-dont-demolish-and-rebuild-wind-farms-they-repower-them
You might agree to a little repowering without thinking about it. And that’s the point isn’t it? To sneak in a giant civil works operation and a set of 200-meter towers with blades bigger than the wingspan of a Jumbo Jet. Those new foundations will need 3,000 tons of concrete each. Just call it repowering!
Old industrial wind turbines are only 1MW or so, but the new ones are 6 to 8 MW. That’s six times more powerful, and nearly three times as tall. Obviously, none of the old bearings, gears, blades or footings will be reused in the new towers. Ironically, the only thing about repowering that doesn’t change is the power-cord.
Questioning European Green
Spain’s Govt Blames Everything But The Real Culprit For Blackouts
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 21, 2025
Link to: ‘Poor planning’ by grid operator REE blamed for April blackout in Spain and Portugal
By Tanya Weaver, Engineering and Technology, June 18, 2025
https://eandt.theiet.org/2025/06/18/spain-and-portugal-april-blackout-caused-poor-planning-spanish-grid-operator-ree
Homewood: Despite the BBC’s distortions, the facts are very, very simple. If Spain had been running their grid with considerably more gas power and considerably less solar power, those blackouts categorically would not have occurred.
What is noticeable is that since the blackout, Spain has kept much more gas power running. Just before the blackouts, only 2GW of gas power was being produced, 7% of the total load.
In the last day or two, gas power has not dropped below 5GW.
Coincidence? I think not!
What Is GB Energy For?!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 24, 2025
Video with Chris Morrison
[SEPP Comment: GB Energy got £8.3 billion in government grants, but only put solar panels on schools?]
Cut Electricity Bills, Says CCC
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 25, 2025
From new article:
“Ed Miliband has failed to make any progress on cutting household power bills, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) has warned.
The quango [a non-government public body to which government has delegated power] said in a damning new report that the Energy Secretary has not done enough to remove net zero levies from bills, which is making electricity too expensive.”
From Homewood: In any event, the idea that people would rush out and buy heat pumps if electricity prices were slightly lower is nonsense. If a bung of £7500 is not enough, I can’t see how a couple of hundred quid [pounds] a year will make the slightest difference.
Yet again, we find these eco-zealots in the CCC live in their own little dream world. They believe we all have ten grand plus to waste on heat pumps, and another ten grand for an EV.
It is time this bunch of crackpots was defunded. The law may demand we have the CCC, but there is no law that says we have to fund it.
Grid Balancing Costs Hit £2.6 Billion A Year
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 27, 2025
One of the hidden costs of the transition to renewables is the cost of balancing the grid.
Questioning Green Elsewhere
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry: This Bill Sets The Stage For An “Affordable, Reliable, and Clean” Energy Renaissance
By Tim Hains, Real Clear Politics, June 24, 2025
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2025/06/24/louisiana_gov_jeff_landry_this_bill_sets_the_stage_for_an_affordable_reliable_and_clean_energy_renaissance.html
Today, with the signing of this legislation, the severance tax on oil from new drills will fall from 12.5% to 6.5%.
[SEPP Comment: A severance tax on oil is a state-imposed excise tax on the production of oil, the opposite of a depletion allowance on income taxes.]
Reality Check for Gen Z: ‘Green’ Energy Requires Wealth
By Ethan Watson, Real Clear Wire, June 20, 2025 [H/t SJ Cvrk]
https://realclearwire.com/articles/2025/06/20/reality_check_for_gen_z_green_energy_requires_wealth_152935.html
Prescribed burns can help reduce fire intensity and smoke pollution: Study
By Sharon Udasin, The Hill, June 26, 2025
https://thehill.com/policy/equilibrium-sustainability/5370740-prescribed-burns-wildfire-intensity-smoke-pollution-study
Link to paper: Effect of Recent Prescribed Burning and Land Management on Wildfire Burn Severity and Smoke Emissions in the Western United States
By Makoto Kelp, et al., AGU Advances, June 26, 2025
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2025AV001682
[SEPP Comment: Rediscovering native American knowledge?]
Green Jobs
UK Wind Turbine Supplier To Close Due To High Energy Costs
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 22, 2025
Non-Green Jobs
Major Chemical Plant To Shut Due To High Energy Costs & Carbon Taxes
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 25, 2025
From news report:
“The move puts about 300 local jobs at risk and underscores the strain faced by Britain’s chemicals industry as a result of crippling energy prices and a tough global market….”
The Political Games Continue
Senate parliamentarian rejects offshore oil, gas drilling provisions in GOP megabill
By Alexander Bolton, The Hill, June 24, 2025
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5365699-senate-parliamentarian-offshore-drilling-gop-megabill
[Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth] MacDonough said these provisions do not comply with the Senate’s Byrd Rule and therefore are not eligible to pass the upper chamber with a simple-majority vote. Sections of the bill found to violate the Byrd Rule need 60 votes to overcome a point-of-order objection.
[SEPP Comment: The incumbent parliamentarian has held the office since 2012, appointed by then-Senate majority leader (D) Harry Reid. The Senate majority leader may also fire the parliamentarian, as occurred in 2001 during a dispute between parliamentarian Robert Dove and Majority Leader (R) Trent Lott.]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentarian_of_the_United_States_Senate
Litigation Issues
Climate Litigants Lackeys for China’s Agenda?
By Ron Clutz, His Blog, June 27, 2025
From: Climate Lawsuits Are Changing The U.S. Energy Industry And China’s Too
By Dan Eberhart, Forbes, June 22, 2025
https://www.forbes.com/sites/daneberhart/2025/06/22/climate-lawsuits-are-changing-the-us-energy-industry-and-chinas-too
Supreme Court Delivers Blow To California Climate Zealots
By Katelynn Richardson Daily Caller, June 20, 2025
https://dailycaller.com/2025/06/20/supreme-court-delivers-blow-to-california-climate-zealots
Oil Companies Sued Over Death of Woman during 2021 Pacific Northwest Heat Wave
A review of the marketing of “heat domes”, the history of American heat waves, and the real statistics behind temperature-related deaths.
By Leslie Eastman, Legal Insurrection, June 29, 2025
https://legalinsurrection.com/2025/06/oil-companies-sued-over-death-of-woman-during-2021-pacific-northwest-heat-wave
Biden-Appointed Judge Orders Trump To Keep Throwing Money At EV Chargers
By Ireland Owens, Daily Caller, June 25, 2025
https://dailycaller.com/2025/06/25/biden-judge-trump-electric-vehicle-chargers
U.S. District Judge Tana Lin partially granted a preliminary injunction that was intended to unlock funding for the EV charger buildout. The ruling comes after President Donald Trump’s Department of Transportation (DOT) in February announced that it was halting billions of dollars in funding for the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program, a $5 billion dollar program that was established by the Biden administration to install a network of EV chargers across the United States.
[SEPP Comment: The recent Supreme Court opinion by Justice Amy Coney Barrett limits the power of the district judge for the US District Cour, District of Washington [state].]
Multi-state lawsuit to stop wind-stopping executive order inches ahead
By David Wojick, CFACT, Jan 23, 2025
https://www.cfact.org/2025/06/23/multi-state-lawsuit-to-stop-wind-stopping-executive-order-inches-ahead
[SEPP Comment: A verbal semi-decision before a written opinion?]
Cap-and-Trade and Carbon Taxes
UK slashes Net Zero taxes on gas guzzling industries to stop the collapse of British Industry
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, June 24, 2025
https://joannenova.com.au/2025/06/uk-slashes-net-zero-taxes-on-gas-guzzling-industries-to-stop-the-collapse-of-british-industry
Only six months ago at COP29, the UK set a “Shining Example” of 2035 targets — committing to an 81% reduction in emissions by 2035. Back then, just days after Trump was elected, Net Zero was goal for “growth” and a race to “get ahead”:
“Our goal of 1.5°C is aligned with our goals for growth,” Starmer told the global climate conference.
“Because make no mistake, the race is on for the clean energy jobs of the future; the economy of tomorrow. And I don’t want to be in middle of the pack. I want to get ahead of the game.”
What game did he want to be ahead in? Winning at UN Bingo?
A generation from now, we must repeat all these emphatic slippery words in schools so that children grow up learning that politicians can speak 100% fantasies, right up until it all falls over, and even then, they won’t stop.
Subsidies and Mandates Forever
IRA Cronies: American Clean Power Association, et al.
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, June 25, 2025
To which IER president Thomas Pyle responded (not published in the WSJ):
It is ironic that Jason Grumet of the American Clean Power Association argues for continued taxpayer subsidies for wind power. In 1986, a predecessor organization to ACPA, the American Wind Energy Association, testified, “The U.S. wind industry has … demonstrated reliability and performance levels that make them very competitive.” False. Fourteen extensions of the “temporary” Production Tax Credit since 1992 reaffirm the inherent problems of an electricity generation alternative that is dilute, intermittent, and full of unique ecological drawbacks
Robbing Peter To Pay Paul
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 23, 2025
Link to: Miliband ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’
Press Release, Net Zero Watch, June 23, 2025
https://www.netzerowatch.com/all-news/miliband-industrial-strategy-critique
It is fantasy economics, something we have seen time and again in the last year.
Electricity prices are higher because of the £20+ billion paid out every year to subsidize renewable energy and deal with the extra costs it imposes.
Until this Government gets a grip with the real problem, nothing will change, no matter what smoke and mirror tactics they employ.
“Real Distress” Hits Solar Industry As Bankruptcy Tsunami Looms
By Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge, June 23, 2025
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/real-distress-hits-solar-industry-bankruptcy-tsunami-looms
EPA and other Regulators on the March
STEVE MILLOY: Trump Closes Notorious EPA Lab That Conducted Illegal Human Experiments
By Steve Milloy, Daily Caller, Via WUWT, June 23, 2025
Fortunately for EPA, it could also admit that no one had been harmed by PM2.5 in its experiments, which failed to elicit a cough or a wheeze among the hundreds of allegedly “vulnerable” human guinea pigs it tried to harm.
PM2.5 has been the most powerful regulatory weapon of the Clinton, Obama and Biden EPAs. The Obama-Biden and, later, the Biden-Harris war-on-coal air quality rules for greenhouse gases and mercury emissions all actually depend on the validity of its PM2.5 claims. Just this week, the Trump EPA announced it was going to roll back those two rules.
Energy Issues – Non-US
“BP Energy Review” – 2024
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 26, 2025
Full Report: Statistical Review of World Energy, 2025, 74 edition
By Staff, The Energy Institute, 2025
To obtain the links go to: https://www.energyinst.org/statistical-review/resources-and-data-downloads
Energy Investment Out of Balance… And It Could Cost Us All
By Lars Schernikau, WUWT, June 25, 2025
Today, global investment in wind and solar are about 7 times higher (per unit of energy generated) than investment in dispatchable power like coal, gas, nuclear, and hydro combined. That alone should make us pause and take a second look…more on this in my latest blog IEA 2025 World Energy Investment a Review.
[SEPP Comment: An example of how subsidies distort markets.]
Global Turmoil Proves Urgency of Energy Independence
By Vijay Jayaraj, CO2 Coalition, June 23, 2025
Energy Issues – Australia
Australia’s Net Zero Grid to Face Strict Government Price Controls
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, June 21, 2025
I wonder what happens next, when a government imposes more price fixing in the middle of a supply and affordability crisis?
A cold windless evening shakes $600m out of the Australian electricity grid
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, June 27, 2025
https://joannenova.com.au/2025/06/a-cold-windless-evening-shakes-600m-out-of-the-australian-electricity-grid
That was a hellfire price spike yesterday. It’s not so much the height, but the width of the spike is shocking. Prices lifted off [soared] in NSW at 4:45pm and didn’t come back down til 9pm. That’s a four-hour nightmare at around $10,000 per MWh. I rarely, if ever, have seen so much area under the red line — so many dollars flowing under the bridge.
Ironically, Paul McArdle of WattClarity notes that wind powered generation set a new record all time high on Monday this week, reaching 9,491 MW. It proves only that any money saved by wind power one day can be vaporized in an instant a few days later.
Renewable energy is doomed
By Alan Moran, Spectator – Australia, June 11, 2025
Australian coal (and perhaps gas) offers the means of providing the world’s cheapest energy. as an attraction for global energy-intensive industries (including AI which some say will comprise 20-30 per cent of future energy use).
Energy Issues — US
Three Big Projects Offer Hope That Our Energy Nightmare Is Ending
By Gary Abernathy, Real Clear Energy, June 25, 2025
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/06/25/three_big_projects_offer_hope_that_our_energy_nightmare_is_ending_1118968.html
Powering the AI Race: A Blueprint for American Leadership
By Tom Pyle, Real Clear Energy, June 23, 2025
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/06/23/powering_the_ai_race_a_blueprint_for_american_leadership_1118376.html
Washington’s Control of Energy
Natural Gas Projects Reboot After Officials Wake Up to Stark Realities
By Gary Abernathy, WUWT, June 21, 2025
Resolution Copper Is the Future of Domestic Mining
By Debra W. Struhsacker, Real Clear Energy, June 24, 2025
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/06/24/resolution_copper_is_the_future_of_domestic_mining_1118383.html
Resolution Copper, a major copper mine project in Arizona, is finally back on track thanks to the Trump administration moving forward with the re-publication of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to decline hearing a case challenging the mine on religious grounds. Taken together, this is a significant step forward for domestic mining, the economy and establishing a secure supply of domestically sourced minerals.
Return of King Coal?
America’s Power Needs Coal and Common Sense
By Emily Arthun, Real Clear Energy, June 23, 2025
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/06/23/americas_power_needs_coal_and_common_sense_1118374.html
Oil Spills, Gas Leaks & Consequences
Ecuador pipeline burst stops flow of crude
By AFP Staff Writers, Quito (AFP) June 17, 2025
https://www.oilgasdaily.com/reports/Ecuador_pipeline_burst_stops_flow_of_crude_999.html
Nuclear Energy and Fears
The Trump administration advocates for nuclear power
By Ronald Stein, Oliver Hemmers, and Steve Curtis, America OutLoud News, June 23, 2025
https://www.americaoutloud.news/the-trump-administration-advocates-for-nuclear-power
N.Y. Plans to Build Nuclear Power Plant
By Charlie McCarthy, Newsmax, June 23, 2025 [H/t Gordon Fulks]
https://www.newsmax.com/us/kathy-hochul-new-york-state/2025/06/23/id/1216111
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
Meta inks solar, wind power deals for data centers
By Miranda Nazzaro, The Hill, June 26, 2025
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5371824-meta-inks-solar-wind-power-deals-for-data-centers
[SEPP Comment: Since solar and wind are unreliable and increase the likelihood of blackouts with power disturbances, will these projects be kept off the grid? If they are kept off the grid, how will Meta get the reliable power data centers need?]
Feds ignore their research on windmills killing eagles
By David Wojick, CFACT, June 25, 2025
https://www.cfact.org/2025/06/25/feds-ignore-their-research-on-windmills-killing-eagles
The U.S. Energy Department (DOE) has an ongoing research program on detecting and deterring the killing of eagles and other flying critters by wind turbines. The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) issues eagle killing permits to wind facilities, which are supposed to incorporate technologies that minimize deaths.
It looks like FWS has never implemented, or even publicly evaluated, any of DOE’s research products. The permits are issued under the Eagle Protection Act, which clearly calls for mitigating eagle deaths, and the DOE products claim to do so. This is a glaring deficiency.
Wind Industry Now Destroying 1000-Year Old German Forest That Inspired Grimm Fairy Tales
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, June 22, 2025
[SEPP Comment: A grim result from climate fairy tales.]
Biden’s Offshore Wind Dreams Drowning As Trump Guts Industry
By Audrey Streb, Daily Caller, June 20, 2025
https://dailycaller.com/2025/06/20/bidens-offshore-wind-dreams-drowning-as-trump-guts-industry
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Other
Sustainable Aviation Fuel Is Key to America’s Energy Dominance Agenda
By Michael McAdams, Real Clar Energy, June 24, 2025
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/06/24/sustainable_aviation_fuel_is_key_to_americas_energy_dominance_agenda_1118386.html
Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) has moved from the margins of energy policy to the forefront of America’s energy future. Once viewed as a long-shot innovation, SAF is now a commercially viable, rapidly scaling solution to power our aviation sector while revitalizing rural economies and advancing our national goals for energy dominance. As SAF production accelerates, Congress and the Trump administration have an opportunity to cement America’s leadership in aviation fuel innovations by extending long-term tax credits that support domestic SAF production.
SAF’s explosive growth is a direct response to policy certainty and strategic investment—but we are only getting started. I recently spoke with Alison Graab, Executive Director of the SAF Coalition, about this issue. She rightly noted, “The biggest barrier we hear from our coalition members is the need for a longer-term market signal for SAF investment.” Without it, this American success story and the promise it offers to our country’s economy risks being outsourced.
[SEPP Comment: If it is well developed, why does it need subsidies?]
South Africa Embraces Green Hydrogen Exports as the Solution to their Economic Woes
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, June 24, 2025
Sad!
Greasing the palms
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 25, 2025
Aaack! Yes they would:
“We found widespread concern among collectors and traders that palm oil which is barely used or fresh – banned in Europe because of its links with rainforest destruction – is being passed off as [Used Cooking Oil] UCO, raising doubts about its climate benefits.”
Who saw that coming? Or that:
“we report on how the holy grail of e-SAF – not made from plants, but CO2 and green hydrogen – is still far from becoming the commercial success needed for truly guilt-free flying.”
How a Small Colorado University Became a National Leader on Geothermal Energy
By John Karakoulakis, Real Clear Energy, June 25, 2025
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/06/25/how_a_small_colorado_university_became_a_national_leader_on_geothermal_energy_1118965.html
Link to: Geothermal Heat Pump Case Study: Colorado Mesa University
By Staff, Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, October 2024
[SEPP Comment: Neither the article nor the DOE study gives the total cost of installing the system and its annual operating costs. Based on Google AI, the total costs came to $11.5 million but operating costs are not given.]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles
Gullible Europe has signed the death warrant for its own car industry
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 24, 2025
The electric Kool-aid
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 25, 2025
Confronted with this no-longer-slow-motion car-policy crash, our hapless new Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin babbled at Parliament that:
“We do have in place the regulations that set consistently increasing targets for electric vehicle sales going to 100 percent. There are also flexibilities built within that regulation that if we wanted to have a larger conversation about, we could speak about. The regulation remains in place. But we are certainly looking at monitoring.”
They’re very good at this kind of bloviating. Too good, in fact. For instance, to monitor means to look at. So she wrapped up her word salad with looking at looking at. Having previously said “if we wanted to have a conversation” in response to someone trying to have one, and ending “we could speak about” without an object. (And all in response to a Conservative MP asking over and over whether the 100% target was “mandatory or optional”.)
[Some] EVs Lose Two Thirds Of Value In A Year
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 27, 2025
Car Carrier Sinks in Pacific Ocean After Blaze Linked to Electric Vehicle Cargo
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 25, 2025
Carbon Schemes
UK Pulls Plug on £24 Billion Desert Power Fantasy
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, June 27, 2025
California Dreaming
The Grand Water Bargain
By Edward Ring, What’s Current, Accessed June 25, 2025
https://mailchi.mp/calpolicycenter/whats-current-issue-7860441?e=cd9fa89d1e
A grand bargain to create abundant water for everyone is a solution whose time has come. Bringing back the Hetch Hetchy Valley along with a host of other ecosystems that only need more water is a win for everyone. More jobs. More protected species and pristine places. Let’s do it.
California Dems Blame Wildfires On Trump After Their Party Created Tinderbox Of Regs
By Thomas English, Daily Caller, June 23, 2025
https://dailycaller.com/2025/06/23/california-democrats-wildfires-donald-trump-regulations
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE
Naomi Oreskes’ Tale of Meeting Dr S Fred Singer, Part 1
By Russell Cook, WUWT, June 22, 2025
[SEPP Comment: Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Climate Change by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway was published in 2010. The book attacked distinguished scientists Bill Nierenberg, Robert Jastrow, Fredrick Seitz, and Fred Singer who relied on the scientific method in their work. Under Bruce Alberts and Alan Leshner, Science Magazine supported by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) published a fawning review of the book. It refused to publish a short rebuttal by the late Fred Singer, at that time the only surviving member of the scientists AAAS Science slandered.]
Solihull Battery Would Have Stopped Spanish Blackouts!!!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 21, 2025
The idea that this tiny 100 MW storage plant would have avoided Spain’s blackouts is absurd. For a start, batteries cannot supply system inertia. Once the blackouts took hold, no amount of battery storage would have made any difference at all.
Furthermore, Burton Green will be of no use at all when the wind stops blowing for two weeks.
“Current heatwave ‘likely to kill almost 600 people in England and Wales”- Latest Guardian Fake News
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 22, 2025
Quite insultingly the Guardian quotes Dr Lorna Powell, an NHS urgent care doctor in east London, as saying “We must stop burning coal, oil and gas if we are to stabilize our climate and prevent scores of preventable health issues, hospital visits and deaths”
Maybe this silly woman might like to justify the deaths of tens of thousands in winter, when people will no longer be able to heat their homes with cheap gas.
Good Laugh For Today: New York State Says It Will Build A New Nuclear Power Plant
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, June 24, 2025
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2025-6-24-good-laugh-for-today-new-york-state-says-it-will-build-a-new-nuclear-power-plant
Tidbits
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 25, 2025
An alert viewer/reader reminds us that in the dark days when the Conservatives ruled Canada and ate the climate, Prime Minister and Dark Lord Stephen Harper… uh… gave $200 million to green projects in B.C. including the “hydrogen highway”. Oh, they have one of those? Well, no. Back in 2007 the idea was for seven fueling stations, a fleet of gleaming buses and a lot of talk. Now there are five stations, mostly gathering dust, nobody even knows
“With a joint investment of more than $28.6 million from the federal government, the Government of Yukon and First Kaska Utilities LP, the Sādę Solar Initiative project will significantly reduce diesel use for power generation in Watson Lake.” North of the 60th parallel. Which to be fair is some 6° south of the Arctic Circle where the sun literally does not rise for at least one winter day, on the Solstice. But still…
Link to another article: Canada invests in Indigenous-led 2.85 MW solar project
The Sādę Solar Initiative will connect a solar array and battery energy storage to an existing microgrid located within the asserted traditional territory of the Liard First Nation.
By Patrick Jowett, PV Magazine, June 23, 2025
[SEPP Comment: At least the solar panels will not melt in the blistering sun.]
ARTICLES
1. A Welcome Expansion at the EPA
The agency enlarges its team of experts who approve new chemicals.
By Jim Hagedorn and Steve Caldeira, WSJ, June 22, 2025
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/a-welcome-expansion-at-the-epa-scientists-review-jobs-0a84c00f?mod=business_trendingnow_opn_pos1
The CEOs of Scotts Miracle-Gro and the Household and Commercial Products Association begin with:
“Kudos to President Trump and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin. The EPA announced last month that it will reassign more than 130 agency scientists to clear the backlog of new chemicals and pesticides that need review before they can be sold. It’s a giant step to protect the environment and human health—and there’s more to do.
Even as the White House pushes to reduce the size of government, some agencies need additional workers to get vital jobs done. That’s certainly true at the EPA, which does more than try to keep air and water clean. It also evaluates chemicals in commercial and household products that prevent contamination in kitchens, infections in hospitals, public-health threats in pests and invasive species in nature.
This review process is the world’s gold standard. But the longer evaluations take, the longer useful products are kept off the shelves. A shortage of scientists has created a backlog of more than 500 new chemical cases and over 1,200 pesticide products, according to the EPA. That means lengthy delays and missed deadlines. Today, 56% of Pesticide Registration Improvement Act cases for ‘conventional chemicals’ are late, as are 72% of cases reviewing products intended for ‘antimicrobial uses.’ That’s unacceptable.
Mr. Zeldin’s move to assign more experts to these reviews—and his larger reorganization of the EPA—will get new products to market more quickly while maintaining rigorous standards. The reorganization also gives the agency new tools to advance a testing strategy for chemicals that pose unique challenges for regulators. Experts need new computational and bioinformatic tools—and eventually artificial intelligence—to streamline and improve review of new chemicals and pesticides.
Robust scientific assessments and timely stamps of approval are good for business, American manufacturing and American competitiveness in a world where other countries are racing to lead innovation. But as welcome as the internal transfer of experts is, it’s only a first step. Legislation is necessary to give the EPA the additional money it needs in the next several years to conduct thorough and timely reviews.”
The authors make additional requests for help from Congress, then conclude with:
“The administration’s actions are a huge help. But now Congress must pass a law to provide the long-term funding and authority so the EPA can fulfill its mission of protecting the environment and human health.”
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