The Week That Was: 2025-10-25 (October 25, 2025)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week: “But there is another reason for the high repute of mathematics: it is mathematics that offers the exact natural sciences a certain measure of security which, without mathematics, they could not attain.” — Albert Einstein (1922)
Number of the Week: Thirty to Sixty percent of Europe’s population
THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Scope: This TWTW begins with the view of Peter Baeten of CLINTEL on an interview of Richard Lindzen and William Happer then TWTW discusses a presentation to a committee of the Canadan House of Commons by Ross McKitrick. TWTW presents a new report by the UN Development Program and concludes with an interview of the CEO of the UK Met Office.
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Science Is a Methodology: Joe Rogan is a popular US podcaster and former comic who has diverse guests on his show. On October 21 he interviewed Richard Lindzen and William Happer on the state of climate science. The interview is over two hours long and TWTW is seeking a transcript before it presents its views on the interview. Writing for the Climate Intelligence Foundation (CLINTEL), Peter Baeten stated:
“Two leading climate sceptics, Richard Lindzen and William Happer recently joined Joe Rogan for an in-depth conversation about the state of climate science and the powerful financial forces driving today’s climate alarmism. Peter Baeten reflects on this remarkable exchange and its broader implications.
A joyful event for climate sceptics: on October 21st, two of the world’s most prominent climate sceptics were able to tell their story at length on perhaps the most famous podcast in the world: the Joe Rogan Experience. Host Joe Rogan usually attracts an audience of millions with his extensive conversations with all kinds of people, for example from politics or entertainment, and now with scientists William Happer (professor emeritus at Princeton) and Richard Lindzen (professor emeritus at MIT).
It is extremely important that as many people as possible hear Happer and Lindzen’s story. If only because, together with Rogan, they calmly reviewed the exaggerations and misconceptions in the official climate narrative (e.g. that extreme weather is not increasing, and that the climate is constantly changing). Rogan proved to be quite knowledgeable, for a layman, about the state of climate science and its many flaws. But the two-hour conversation became even more interesting when it turned to the (psychological) mechanisms behind climate alarmism. Lindzen and Happer, both in their eighties, pointed out that it is certainly not new for the scientific world to uncritically follow a fad, as was the case for example with racial theory in the 1930s.
Furthermore, experience teaches them that nothing human is alien to the individual scientist. Scientists are just as sensitive to money, jobs, power, status, and ideology as other people. According to Lindzen, the tendency to uncritically follow a hype is even stronger at universities than among ordinary people. But both sceptics ultimately see money as the most important factor in the ongoing climate madness. Stop funding alarmist climate research and the whole ideological house of cards will collapse on its own, they say. This is something Trump is currently trying to do in the United States.
Even for someone who is highly critical of the establishment, such as Rogan, the image that Lindzen and Happer paint of science and scientists is sobering and difficult to believe. He still sees scientists as a better category of people in terms of knowledge, wisdom, and moral standards. And you see that a lot, even among people who have not been involved in academia themselves. Hopefully, this podcast will open the eyes of millions of other (non-academically educated) people a little.
This does not mean we should reject science as a whole; it has brought us a lot of progress, but it has simply been put on too high a pedestal. Lindzen: Science is not an authority, it’s a methodology.” [Boldface in original except last phrase which was in italics.]
See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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Deliberate Impoverishment? Econometrician Ross McKitrick was the co-recipient of SEPP’s 2023 Fredrick Seitz for adherence to the scientific method. A Canadian and a participant in the July US Department of Energy report evaluating the impact of Greenhouse Gasses on U.S. climate, McKitrick was asked to testify to the Canadian House of Commons Environmental Committee on sustainable development and Canada’s 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan to meet climate action targets in line with its commitments to the Paris Agreement.
On his website, McKitrick wrote:
“Speaking at a government hearing, either in Canada or the US, is one of the biggest wastes of time an academic can engage in. You have to prepare written remarks well in advance on the hearing topic, then endure an hour or two of questions from legislators on topics that may have nothing to do with what you submitted. And everyone involved knows that it’s all just for show, and that all the important decisions are made elsewhere by others. Nonetheless when the call comes, I try to be helpful. On Oct 20, 2025, I did my patriotic duty albeit via video connection:
McKitrick, Ross R. (2025) Presentation to House of Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development regarding Canada’s 2030 Emission Reduction Plan.
My remarks made some very simple points about drivers of emissions (and why we won’t meet the Paris target) and the costs of different approaches to emission reductions. I was asked sensible questions by the Conservative members who are trying to understand the economic impacts on their constituents of the government’s climate plan. The Liberal and NDP members asked irrelevant idiotic questions. For example, they kept asking me to document where the Fraser Institute gets its funding. At one point the chair intervened to shut the line of questioning down.”
In his testimony, rather than go into complex climate models which it is likely that few people in politics in Canada or the US understand, McKitrick used a simplified version of the Kaya identity – a formula that breaks down total carbon dioxide emissions into four key factors: population; gross domestic product (GDP) per capita; energy intensity; and emissions intensity [defined as the amount of greenhouse gases emitted per unit of economic output]. The formula is used in the UN IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES, 2000)
“It shows that, to a close approximation, the annual % [percentage] change in CO2 emissions growth is the sum of the annual % [percentage] changes in emissions intensity, income, and population.
% 𝑔𝑟𝑜𝑤𝑡ℎ 𝑖𝑛 𝑒𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 = % 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑒𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑦
+% 𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑔𝑟𝑜𝑤𝑡ℎ
+% 𝑝𝑜𝑝𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑔𝑟𝑜𝑤𝑡ℎ”
[Boldface italics in original]
In 2024, McKitrick did this for the Fraser Institute and presented it with a graph which he updated for this 2025 testimony. He concluded his testimony with [Boldface added]:
“Canada’s CO2 emissions changed very little, falling by less than 3% over the past 25 years. On our current trajectory we are nowhere near meeting either the 2026 or the 2030 target.
Emissions intensity declined by about 40% since 2005, and for 20 years it has been falling by about two percent per year. It does not exhibit any apparent sensitivity to government policy, instead it is driven mainly by improvements in energy efficiency which depend on long term technological change. Real income per capita rose by about 19 percent over the past 25 years, a worrisome trend if our goal is to reduce GHG emissions, but fortunately government policy succeeded in stopping its growth after 2022 and there is little prospect that Canadians’ real income will rise again in the foreseeable future. Finally, population growth has accelerated to about three percent annually, three times its historical rate.
Remaining committed to the 2030 Paris target will require an emission cut of 36 percent from 2024 levels, so about 6 percent per year. If population growth goes back to one percent annually and emissions intensity continues to decline at two percent annually, all we require is for the government to ensure that real income per capita declines in Canada by about five percent annually for the rest of the decade. While I believe that outcome is within the capability of the present government, I would not recommend it.”
For the US to follow the Paris Agreement, it would probably require a decline in real income per capita greater than five percent annually – deliberate economic impoverishment. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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Fear of Warming: The UN Development Program (UNDP) issued a report titled “2025 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI): Overlapping Hardships: Poverty and Climate Hazards” which begins with:
“This 2025 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) report, for the first time, overlays data on climate hazards and multidimensional poverty to assess how exposed poor people are to environmental shocks. The report highlights that most people in poverty are exposed to at least one climate hazard; many confront several at the same time. By the end of this century, the countries projected to face the steepest temperature increases are those already burdened with higher levels of multidimensional poverty.
This year’s update of the global MPI database includes new data from 13 countries. It presents MPI data from 109 countries, along with subnational estimates covering 1,359 regions across 101 countries. The results show that 1.1 billion of 6.3 billion people live in acute multidimensional poverty, over half of them children. Common deprivations include a lack of clean cooking fuel, housing, sanitation, nutrition, and electricity.
The intertwining of climate and poverty risks is likely to intensify in the future, and the report makes a compelling case for addressing a double burden that may only worsen.”
On the website, the question was asked: what are climate hazards? The response was: 1) a speech at COP-21 claiming progress in the “global effort to tackle climate change”; 2) a 2008 report “Links between Natural Disasters, Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Risk Reduction”; and 3) itself, the “2025 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI): Overlapping Hardships: Poverty and Climate Hazards.” It appears the UN declares a climate hazard to be whatever it wants. Of course, all these reports ignore the real climate danger to humanity — global cooling. See links under Defending the Orthodoxy.
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Climate Change and Health: Three noted medical doctors wrote excellent comments for the CO2 Coalition to the EPA on the reconsideration of the 2009 Endangerment Finding. The CO2 Coalition has published the comments as a separate report: “Climate Change and health.” The report begins with [citations are omitted here]:
“INTRODUCTION:
Human health, morbidity, mortality, and longevity are significantly impacted by climate. This review examines the evidence for past, present and possible future human health impacts of climate change and its ramifications. It will also examine the health impacts of different energy sources and climate actions. It will not examine every link in the literature to a range of conditions where attribution is implausible or tenuous, or where association assumes causation.
WARMTH, WEALTH, AND HEALTH
For over 2 million years, Earth has been in the grip of an ice age interspersed every 100,000 years or so with interglacial warm periods. Our furless species evolved on the hottest continent, probably during the warm Purfleet interglacial, spread during the Eemian, also several degrees warmer than now, and populated the planet during the present Holocene, dating from 9700 BCE when South Greenland warmed by 7°C in just 50 years (Callaway 2017, Candy et al. 2010, Oppenheimer 2009, Lozhkin et al. 1995, Dansgaard et al. 1989). Agriculture began and civilizations arose during the Holocene Climatic Optimum, which was warmer than now for several millennia in Russia and up to 7°C warmer in the Arctic (Lamb 1988, Cuffey et al. 2000, McBean et al. 2005, Briner et al. 2006).
Humanity flourished and multiplied during the Minoan and Roman warm periods, after which rapid cooling ushered in the dreadful Dark Ages. The bubonic plague of Justinian (541–542 CE) killed 25 million people, 13% of the world’s population, and twice that number died from plague over the next two centuries (Rosen 2007). After flourishing again during the Medieval Warm Period, humanity endured a miserable Little Ice Age (LIA) with frequent widespread crop failures, mass starvation, disease, and depopulation (Lamb 1965, Patterson et al. 2010). Crop failures over successive summers from 1315 produced the Great Famine of Europe. The Black Death of 1346–1353 wiped out 30–60% of Europe’s population and up to 200 million people across Eurasia (Austin Alchon 2003).
Global rewarming since the 18th century—associated with increasing prosperity, better housing, sanitation, food, and water supplies—has greatly benefited human health and wealth. Deaths from typhoid and tuberculosis declined dramatically during pre-antibiotic 20th century warming (1910–1945) (Gordon 1976). Mortality from all causes fell as temperatures rose (Bull et al. 1975). From a billion people in 1800, the global population doubled by 1927, doubled again to 4 billion in 1974 and again to 8 billion in 2022. Despite this fourfold increase over the last century, the number of deaths from extreme weather events declined by over 90% (Goklany et al. 2011).
The report gives actual data, not climate model outputs, to show that cold kills more humans than warmth and notes that warmth does not spread diseases such as malaria. Certain infectious diseases are increasing in the US, such as tick-borne Lyme disease, but this may be the result of growing forests in the Northeast replacing pastures and farmland. After presenting considerable evidence, the report concludes with:
“Warmth is good for human health and prosperity. Fossil fuels have played a vital role in providing the wealth essential for health and environmental protection. They have also boosted atmospheric CO2 and added a little warmth, both being hitherto beneficial overall for plants and people. The ingenuity of Homo sapiens at adapting to climate has permitted people to populate almost the entire globe from the freezing Arctic to the steamy tropics. If we stick to doing what we do best—adaptation—we will continue to thrive. We must be prepared not only for global warming, but also for global cooling, which will surely occur as our present warm Holocene draws to its inevitable end.
Human health and that of the planet depends on balancing productivity and development with conservation and environmental protection. Only developed countries with people lifted out of poverty can afford to produce clean energy, protect the environment, put power lines underground, construct buildings with 5-star energy ratings, use efficient lighting/appliances to minimize energy and water use, and provide adequate safe water supplies and effective public health measures to control communicable diseases. It is vital that governments focus on real pollutants, not imagined ones, and avoid using climate change as a scapegoat for failure to implement sound public health policies and proven preventive measures. Misguided climate action can be worse than unmitigated climate change.
Urban design can be improved to reduce urban heat and to encourage health-promoting walking and cycling. Smoggy cities could also encourage a switch to electric vehicles, but not with generous taxpayer-funded subsidies. Energy costs need to be kept as low as possible, especially in cold climates, so that poor people can afford to keep warm in winter. Fossil fuels, including coal, will continue to have an important role to play in advancing civilization and human health over the 21st century. Our focus should be on conservation and health-promoting activities rather than on CO2 and climate change. Unmitigated warming this century is likely to be more beneficial than harmful for humanity and the planet.
The 2014 IPCC Summary for Policymakers nicely summed it up: ‘The most effective vulnerability reduction measures for health in the near term are programs that implement and improve basic public health measures such as provision of clean water and sanitation, secure essential health care including vaccination and child health services, increase capacity for disaster preparedness and response, and alleviate poverty (very high confidence).’” [Boldface replaced Italics]
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More Supercomputers Needed: Chris Morrison of The Daily Sceptic, Paul Homewood, and others have shown that many of the thermometers used by the UK Met Office for reporting temperatures do not exist at the locations claimed and others are poorly located, such as near runways of major airports. The blog Carbon Brief posted an interview with Penny Endersby the chief executive of the UK Met Office. The report begins with [CB is Climate Brief]:
“Prof Penny Endersby has been chief executive of the UK Met Office since December 2018.
She took the reins at the UK’s climate and weather service after more than two decades working in the science and technology department of the Ministry of Defence.
Endersby has led the Met Office during a critical period which has seen record-breaking heat in the UK, an intensification of extreme weather around the world and a resurgence in attacks on climate science.
At the same time, advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have started to transform climate modelling and the Met Office has switched on a cloud-based “supercomputer” dedicated to improving weather and climate science.”
The summary of the interview states in part:
“On the evolution of climate misinformation: ‘I think the climate data is now so stark, that anyone who looks at the data at all can see that we’re in unprecedented times. [But] what has happened, to my grief and distress, has been people now attacking the trusted sources of data. And in the UK – that’s us.’
On claims about the inaccuracy of Met Office temperature readings: ‘Just to be clear, the claims are baseless…Everything we do is to the required standards.’”
Some other questions and answers are:
“CB: Thinking a bit more globally, a new report from a research group based at [the University of] Exeter suggests that a climate tipping point for warm water corals has already been crossed. What does the prospects of these tipping points mean for the work of climate scientists?
PE: It presents us with lots of new challenges, I think.
If there was one thing that shocked me most, going back to the beginning of my time at the Met Office, it was just how long we have known about the fundamentals of climate science – like, 150 years. I had not realized that our understanding of the greenhouse effect and the rough idea of climate sensitivity went back so far. And we have been really well able to understand and project that, really for my whole lifetime. The good climate modelling goes back to about 1970.
But tipping points changed the whole equation for climate science. And, of course, we’re only just beginning to observe them. So, there, we don’t have the track record of projecting it and checking back against what’s happened in reality. So, they’re some of the hottest topics – I dare say you might come on to the AMOC [Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation]. But all of those areas are very, very active areas of research and areas where the science is not so settled.
CB: The 1.5C warming threshold of the Paris Agreement is looking more fragile than ever. 2024 was the first year-long breach of the limit. How likely is it, in your opinion, that [the rise in] temperatures are limited to 1.5C? And when do you think that could happen?
PE: Well, it is theoretically possible we stay within 1.5C, but it’s going to require action that’s never been seen and doesn’t look like it’s coming. So, we think the opportunity to stay within that first Paris threshold is vanishingly small now – and, if we continue at the current rate, we have only got a few years to go before we cross it long-term.
And, actually, the Met Office has done quite a bit of work looking at how you identify that threshold without waiting for 10 years of averages to go: “Yes, [the limit] was [breached] 10 years ago.”
So, then we are into, well, how far can we limit it? Because obviously it’s not a cliff edge. That’s where we think – and I still think – that’s where the more dangerous impacts of climate change kick in. But between 1.5C and 2C – there’s a huge difference. And at 2C, 3C [and] God forbid 4C, all of those impacts multiply. So, it’s how we stay as close [to 1.5C of warming] as we can.”
Concluding statement “PE: This is a big step up in [computing power] and it’s also… The Met Office, I think we’re on about our 14th supercomputer. The first one we blagged [sic?] some time on a Lyons tearoom computer back in the 50s. But then, numbers two to 13 we’ve owned, and they’ve been based in our headquarters – wherever we’ve been – and we’ve operated them ourselves.
This one is different. Microsoft owns and operates it for us. And that’s a step to the whole thing being fully in the cloud, fully in Azure Cloud. And it needs to be because the amazing, fantastic, wonderful data that we have – [and] on which all of these products and AI is built – is now so big you can’t move it. We have about half an exabyte of data. So, the data needs to be next to the computer to be processed.
And, so, this computer is really exciting. We’re about to implement the first, what we call a parallel suite, but the first big model upgrade. Using it will let us do finer-scale, better microphysics – particularly cloud microphysics – [and] better precipitation. Because we’re running the parallel suite – which isn’t live yet, that’s why it’s a parallel suite – we can see the improvement we’re getting just from that first step forward.
And then, we’ve got a whole series of scientific upgrades planned over the next few years to continue to improve our forecasting in weather and climate.”
In short, the CEO of the Met Office considers the IPCC as the gold standard in the field of climate prediction, the critics of the Met Office to be spreaders of misinformation, and all that is needed is more supercomputer power, not better data, or an understanding of the greenhouse effect. See link under Defending the Orthodoxy.
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Number of the Week: Thirty to Sixty percent of Europe’s population. As stated above in Climate Change and Health, the Little Ice Age followed the relatively prosperous Medieval Warm Period. Starting about 1300 the Little Ice Age was marked by death from famine and disease. The Black Death/bubonic plague alone reduced the population of Europe by 30 to 60%. Yet, the UN IPCC and its followers ignore events in claiming the dangers of global warming. A Pest in the Land: New World Epidemics in a Global Perspective by Suzanne Austin Alchon (2003)
Censorship
You will have faith in science or else
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 22, 2025
Link to offending paper: Carbon dioxide and a warming climate are not problems
By Andy May, Marcel Crok, American Journal of Economics and Sociology, May 29, 2024
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajes.12579
Robson: Climate cancel culture: In 2024 special editor Marty Rowland published a paper explaining the climate skeptic viewpoint in the American Journal of Economics and Sociology. Something of an oxymoron, but never mind. The usual suspects howled that such views must not even be aired, not because there were errors in the paper but because climate skepticism is double-plus-ungood. The journal did not retract the paper, because the critics could not point to any factual issues. But it did fire the editor.
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
Net Zero Averted Temperature Increase
By Richard Lindzen, William Happer, and William A. van Wijngaarden, CO2 Coalition, June 2024
Radiation Transport in Clouds
By W.A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer, Klimarealistene, Science of Climate Change, January 2025
Challenging the Orthodoxy
Joe Rogan’s Epic Interview with Physicists William Happer and Richard Lindzen
By Staff, CO2 Coalition, Accessed Oct 22, 2025
https://myemail.constantcontact.com/Joe-Rogan-Interviews-Drs–Happer—Lindzen.html?soid=1101509381788&aid=QlO886Tanrw
Lindzen and Happer on Joe Rogan: money is the most important factor in climate madness
By Peter Baeten, CLINTEL, Oct 23, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Testimony to House of Commons Environment Committee
By Ross R. McKitrick, His Blog, Oct 20, 2025
https://www.rossmckitrick.com/index.html
Presentation to: Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development
Canada House of Commons, Ottawa ON, Oct 20, 2025
Re: “on the effectiveness, potential improvements and capability of Canada’s 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan to meet climate action targets in line with its commitments to the Paris Agreement.”
Climate Change and Health
CO2 Coalition Comment on Reconsideration of 2009 Endangerment Finding and Greenhouse Gas Vehicle Standards
By MDs Allen, Breslow, and Nebert, CO2 Coalition, October 2025
[SEPP Comment: Lengthy report with extensive references.]
New Study Determines It Is ‘Impossible’ For CO2 To Be The Driving Mechanism In Global Warming
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Oct 24, 2025
Link to paper: Global Warming and the “impossible” Radiation Imbalance
By Ad Huijser, Science of Climate Change, 2025
From abstract: This analysis concludes that approximately two-thirds of the observed global warming must be attributed to natural factors that increase incoming solar radiation, with only one-third attributable to rising GHG-concentrations. Taken together, these findings imply a much lower climate sensitivity than suggested by IPCC-endorsed Global Circulation Models (GCMs).
Defending the Orthodoxy
The Carbon Brief Interview: UK Met Office chief executive Penny Endersby
By Cecilia Keating, Carbon Brief, Oct 23, 2025
‘Good riddance’: Fed clash over scrapping climate risk guidance; Nearly 1 billion people exposed to climate shocks: UN
By AFP Staff Writers, Washington Oct 17, 2025
https://www.energy-daily.com/reports/Good_riddance_Fed_clash_over_scrapping_climate_risk_guidance_999.html
No link but likely report: 2025 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI): Overlapping Hardships: Poverty and Climate Hazards
By Staff, UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). 2025
https://hdr.undp.org/content/2025-global-multidimensional-poverty-index-mpi#/indicies/MPI
Defending the Orthodoxy – Bandwagon Science
Earth destroyed, pictures at 11… 12… 13…
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 22, 2025
Link to: Global Tipping Points, 2025
By TimothyM. Lenton Global Systems Institute (GSI), et al., Bezos Earth Fund, et al., 2025
file:///C:/Users/Ken%20Haapala/Downloads/GTP_summary_report_2025-V7-161125-PAGES-LO-RES.pdf
Of course, one problem is that a “tipping point” means a sudden wipeout, not the alleged start of a long slow decline. You’re either plummeting one way or another, but if you find instead you’re on a leisurely stroll it’s not a “tipping point”. Those are when the sled goes off the top of Mt. Crumpet or doesn’t. Another is that it didn’t happen; instead, the story is about what might happen “Unless global heating is reduced to 1.2C ‘as fast as possible’”. See, “warm water coral reefs will not remain ‘at any meaningful scale’, a report by 160 scientists from 23 countries warns”.
“The Global Tipping Points report, led by the University of Exeter and financed by the fund of the Amazon owner, Jeff Bezos, includes contributions from 160 scientists from 87 institutions in 23 countries.”
[SEPP Comment: To these “experts” and their press, tipping points are like tides: when the tide is rising we are all going to drown, then the tide is falling the oceans will disappear.]
Climate Tipping Points “May Already Have Arrived” Claims New Report – Just in Time for COP30
By Chris Morrison, The Daily Sceptic, Oct 22, 2025
https://dailysceptic.org/2025/10/22/climate-tipping-points-may-already-have-arrived-claims-new-report-just-in-time-for-cop30
“We cannot exclude that an AMOC tipping point may already have been passed,” states the report. Many computer models are said to predict the AMOC declining to a weak state by 2050. The tipping brigade’s answer to imaginary global disaster is of course to shorten Net Zero timelines, “and the immediate investment in the developing and scaling of sustainable carbon removal technologies”.
[SEPP Comment: Is it high tide or low tide?]
Scientist debunks common misconception about major global trend: ‘Just show them this graph’
By Laurelle Stelle, The Cool Down (TCD), Oct 21, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/scientist-debunks-common-misconception-major-123000909.html
Indeed, dirty energy sources like coal and other fossil fuels are widely recognized as the driving force behind our planet’s overheating.
Weather and climate extremes in a changing Arctic
By Xiangdong Zhang, et al., Nature Reviews Earth & Climate, Oct 21, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshrie]
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-025-00724-4
Ongoing anthropogenic warming is expected to further increase the frequency and magnitude of extremes, such that simulated probabilities of 1.5 standard deviation events increase by 72.6% for atmospheric heat waves, 68.7% for Atlantic layer warm events and 93.3% for Greenland Ice Sheet melt rate between historic (1984–2014) and future (2069–2099) periods under a very high emission scenario.
[SEPP Comment: More claims of tipping points based on forecasts using falsified models.]
Questioning the Orthodoxy
U.S. Out of UN ‘Principles for Climate-Related Financial Risk Management’
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Oct 20, 2025
Link to: Agencies announce withdrawal of principles for climate-related financial risk management: Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; Federal Reserve Board; Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
Joint Press Release, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Oct 16, 2025
https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/bcreg20251016a.htm
The federal bank regulatory agencies today announced the withdrawal of interagency Principles for Climate-Related Financial Risk Management for Large Financial Institutions.
The agencies do not believe principles for managing climate-related financial risk are necessary because the agencies’ existing safety and soundness standards require all supervised institutions to have effective risk management commensurate with their size, complexity, and activities.
Trump, Meloni, Milei Say UN Climate Scam Must Go
By Duggan Flanakin, Cornwall Alliance, Oct 16, 2025
https://cornwallalliance.org/trump-meloni-milei-say-un-climate-scam-must-go
Tidbits
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 22, 2025
Findings suggest the federal government’s involvement in the development and funding of electric vehicle infrastructure is necessary to address market failures.” “Market failure” here meaning no one wants them. Unlike, say, gas stations which spread through good old consumer demand. But what mechanism is in place, we ask, to address government failures? More government failures?
But the government is far-sighted. Really it is. It says so itself.
Ted Nordhaus’s Epiphany
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Oct 23, 2025
Climate Out, Affordability In
By Robert Bradley Jr, Master Resource, Oct 23, 2025
Green Transition? Coal Use Hits Record High
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Oct 24, 2025
Social Benefits of Carbon Dioxide
The effect of additional CO2 on European Larch
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 22, 2025
From the CO2Science.org archive: This week we look at Larix decidua L. but there is only one experiment to report on, and it was performed not on seedlings but on 27-year-old trees in the Swiss Alps at the tree line. The researchers set up a system to fumigate the trees with CO2 and ran it for four years. The result of an extra 300 ppm CO2 was a 142% increase in growth compared to the untreated trees.
Problems in the Orthodoxy
Global Net Zero failure: “None of the 45 global climate indicators are on track for 2030”
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Oct 23, 2025
https://joannenova.com.au/2025/10/global-net-zero-failure-none-of-the-45-global-climate-indicators-are-on-track-for-2030
Link to: State of Climate Action 2025
Published under Systems Change Lab, this report is a joint effort of the Bezos Earth Fund, Climate Analytics, the Climate High-Level Champions, ClimateWorks Foundation and World Resources Institute, 2025
https://systemschangelab.org/state-climate-action-2025
From Nova: The State of Climate Action for 2025 is out, looking like a kindergarten report with red and orange stickers for all the areas the world is failing in, which is everything. Show this report to any MPs who tell you Australia is in danger of being left behind.
If anything, the report proves that the world has no chance of meeting its Net Zero target and that the government boondoggles, NGOs and tech giants (like Bezos Earth Fund) have far too much money to waste.
Sadiq Khan’s Ulez Expansion Had No Impact on Air Pollution, Study Finds
By Will Jones, The Daily Sceptic, Oct 22, 2025
https://dailysceptic.org/2025/10/22/sadiq-khans-ulez-expansion-had-no-impact-on-air-pollution-another-study-finds
[Mayor] Sadiq Khan controversially expanded London’s Ultra Low Emissions Zone (Ulez) two years ago, at an estimated cost of up to £155 million.
Now, a breakthrough study suggests that fervent opposition at the time was well-judged.
Introduced in April 2019, ULEZ allows authorities to charge diesel and petrol vehicles £12.50 per day for operating in London if they are not compliant with emissions standards.
[SEPP Comment: No link to paper and unable to locate it.]
Seeking a Common Ground
Flaws and Fraud in Peer Reviewed Science
Science is a human endeavor corrupted by human vice.
By Paul D. Thacker, The DisInformation Chronical, Oct 21, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
https://disinformationchronicle.substack.com/p/flaws-and-fraud-in-peer-reviewed
Scientific journals have been around since the 17th century as a venue for researchers to share their thoughts and findings with other experts. And for all the eminence and acclaim attached to “peer review” all this term means is that a paper was reviewed by an expert. Peer review does not mean the editors replicated the study, checked the lab notebooks, or even redid the paper’s calculations.
In reality, peer review is just glorified editing.
[SEPP Comment: The article discusses medical science but it applies to climate science as well.]
Government Science Is an Oxymoron
By Lipton Matthews, Mises Institute, Oct 20, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
https://mises.org/mises-wire/government-science-oxymoron?utm_source=MI+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=664b75ecfb-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_02_29_06_22_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-0aec14e5f3-230529592
Reality 101: What Students Must Learn About Energy
By Portia Roberts, Real Clear Energy, Oct 20, 2025
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/10/20/reality_101_what_students_must_learn_about_energy_1142103.html
Model Issues
Oh, the HORROR! Climate Change to Make More Rain in the Sahara Desert
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Oct 21, 2025
[SEPP Comment: Will hippopotami be walking underwater in the Libyan Desert again?]
Measurement Issues — Surface
Death to Death Valley record
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 22, 2025
This kind of deep dive into the story of a single temperature reading is not only interesting history, especially for those of us into that sort of thing. It’s also a useful reminder that a lot of our global temperature record comes from the Oscar Dentons of the world, writing down numbers on the front porch of remote outposts around the world, hardly the basis for modern claims about hottest years ever based on measurements in hundredths of a degree.
Changing Weather
Another Good Monsoon for India
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 20, 2025
India’s summer monsoon is without doubt the single major event of the year for the country. A wet summer leads to increased food production, in turn boosting rural incomes.
India’s economy is still heavily dependent on agriculture, which accounts for a fifth of GDP and nearly half of the workforce. A good harvest therefore increases spending power in the wider economy and lowers food prices. On top of that, rainfall fills up the dams, boosting hydro electricity generation. In short, it generates economic growth and boosts the stock market.
It is estimated that about 1500 people lost their lives in floods this summer in India. But it is a sad fact of life that this sort of death toll occurs most years there.
Of course, where climate change is concerned, facts don’t matter to the BBC. Wet, dry or something in between, it is all the fault of global warming!
STEVE MILLOY: The Hurricane Season That Still Isn’t
By Steve Milloy, Daily Caller, Oct 19, 2025
https://dailycaller.com/2025/10/19/opinion-the-hurricane-season-that-still-isnt-steve-milloy
Multiple Atmospheric Rivers and Substantial Precipitation
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Oct 21, 2025
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2025/10/multiple-atmospheric-rivers-and.html
Potential for Power Outages Saturday Night/Sunday Morning
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Oct 24, 2025
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2025/10/potential-for-power-outages-saturday.html
The first strong wind of the season, particularly in October, is always a problem. There has been substantial growth over the spring/summer that has yet to be tested by strong winds.
Many trees still have leaves, which catch the wind better than the leafless situation later in the winter.
Storm Ben
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 24, 2025
Winds were so unremarkable that the Met Office did not bother to post the highest speeds table on X, which they routinely do when storms hit.
Changing Climate
Ancient cherts reveal how the ocean floor cooled over billions of years
By Robert Schreiber, Berlin, Germany (SPX) Oct 21, 2025
https://www.terradaily.com/reports/Ancient_cherts_reveal_how_the_ocean_floor_cooled_over_billions_of_years_999.html
Link to paper: Oxygen isotopes in cherts record paleo−heat flow on Shatsky Rise (western Pacific Ocean) Open Access
By Oskar Schramm, et al., Geology, Sep 8, 2025
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article/doi/10.1130/G53296.1/661082/Oxygen-isotopes-in-cherts-record-paleo-heat-flow
Changing Seas
September 2025 Ocean SST Cooling
By Ron Clutz, His Blog, Oct 22, 2025
2 iconic coral species are now functionally extinct off Florida, study finds – we witnessed the reef’s bleaching and devastation
By Carly D. Kenel, et al., The Conversation, Oct 23, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
https://theconversation.com/2-iconic-coral-species-are-now-functionally-extinct-off-florida-study-finds-we-witnessed-the-reefs-bleaching-and-devastation-267958?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20October%2024%202025%20-%203560936307&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20October%2024%202025%20-%203560936307+CID_19d2f78130666f112dbe1c2de9f8f775&utm_source=campaign_monitor_us&utm_term=2%20iconic%20coral%20species%20are%20now%20functionally%20extinct%20off%20Florida%20study%20finds%20%20we%20witnessed%20the%20reefs%20bleaching%20and%20devastation
In early June 2023, the coral reefs in the lower Florida Keys and the Dry Tortugas were stunning. We were in diving gear, checking up on hundreds of corals we had transplanted as part of our experiments. The corals’ classic orange-brown colors showed they were thriving.
Just three weeks later, we got a call – a marine heat wave was building, and water temperatures on the reef were dangerously high. Our transplanted corals were bleaching under the heat stress, turning bone white. Some were already dead.
[SEPP Comment: Did the transplanting kill the corals?]
Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice
Antarctic Amundsen-Scott Station Sees Coldest October in 44 Years…Mainstream Media Silent!
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Oct 24, 2025
The data from stations like Amundsen-Scott, Vostok, and Dome C show that instead of a linear, CO₂-driven heating trend, the South Pole is dominated by naturally occurring, extreme temperature fluctuations, including pronounced cold snaps.
Lowering Standards
The Australian Academy of Nonsense
By Bill Johnston, Quadrant, Oct 20, 2025
Link to: The risks to Australia of a 3°C warmer world
By Expert Panel, Australian Academy of Science, March 2021
Entrusted under its Charter to promote and uphold rigorous scientific standards, the Australian Academy of Science seems to have forgotten the notion that knowledge is built on observation, experimentation, and evidence.
Since it was placed under the umbrella of CSIRO and universities in the early 2000s Australia’s natural resources research effort has deteriorated markedly.
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?
Climate disaster science gets huge coverage. When it’s found to be wrong… crickets
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 22, 2025
Mass media trickery and deception about protests they don’t like
By Jo Nova, Her Blog Oct 20, 2025
https://joannenova.com.au/2025/10/mass-media-trickery-and-deception-about-protests-they-dont-like
Pursuing Net Zero Makes the UK Vulnerable to Bad Weather, BBC, Not Climate Change
By Linnea Lueken, Climate Realism, Oct 21, 2025
Communicating Better to the Public – Exaggerate, or be Vague?
#HaveItBothWays: Rainfall in the Sahel
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 22, 2025
Usually, we find that if a study is published saying this or that region will get drier due to greenhouse gases, you have to wait a few years before another one appears saying it will get wetter. But not this time. The study saying the Sahel would get drier was published in December 2005, and only three months earlier one had been published saying it would get wetter.
Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.
Man slams new US government report as riddled with ‘more than 100 factual errors’: ‘Outright false’
“It makes a bunch of bold — false — claims and backs them up with sources that don’t even exist.”
By Mike Taylor, The Cool Down, (TCD), Oct 11, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
In July, the Trump administration said in a climate report that increased carbon dioxide pollution does not raise sea levels, intensify extreme weather events, or harm the environment.
[SEPP Comment: The DOE July report said that sea level rise is not increasing.]
Scientists discover concerning phenomenon that could lead to disastrous storms: ‘Exposed to threats’
“Cannot be dismissed.”
By Robert Crow, The Cool Down (TCD), Oct 13, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Link to paper: Intensification of extreme cold events in East Asia in response to global mean sea-level rise
By Caoyi Dong, et al., Nature Communications, Sep 30, 2025
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-63727-1
From the abstract: Here, we focus on East Asia and conduct climate model experiments to investigate the effects of GMSL [Global Mean Sea Level] rise on winter cold extremes. Our experiments demonstrate that GMSL rise promotes stronger and more frequent extreme cold events, and this influence is expected to strengthen significantly in the coming century.
[Comment from Gordon Fulks: In addition to “freezing from global warming,” the researchers call their exercise of climate models as “experiments.”
The absurdities get ever greater as they stretch science into science fiction.]
Aussie Professor: Trump is Forcing Allies to Reject Renewables and Buy Expensive US Gas
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Oct 21, 2025
Europe was buying heaps Russian gas before they inked the latest deals with the USA, and likely still is. Despite hundreds of billions of dollars of European investment, Europe’s renewable energy systems are incapable of supplying Europe’s energy needs.
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda
Billion Dollar Disaster Scandal Gets Worse
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 24, 2025
Link to: Another Climate “Science” Scandal?
THB Insider #26 – THB Turns 5
By Roger Pielke Jr., His Blog, Oct 24, 2025
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/another-climate-science-scandal?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=119454&post_id=177013834&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=8t843&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Like a zombie, the so-called “billion-dollar disasters” (BDD) tabulation is back. This week the advocacy group Climate Central announced that it was the new home of the effort, formerly housed at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). To much fanfare and media attention, Climate Central released its supposedly newly tabulated numbers for 2025 to date. [Boldface added]
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda on Children
Minecraft Creates a Green Peer Pressure Version of Popular Children’s Game
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Oct 21, 2025
“… After each round, you are sent back to a roundtable of NPCs (non-playing characters) who scrutinize your decisions before revealing a sustainability score …”
Minecraft is the best-selling kids game of all time, 350 million copies sold as of 2025. Very popular with primary school age kids. It is simple enough for four-year-olds to get into it, and keeps them engaged up to the age of 12.
Expanding the Orthodoxy
Big fight coming over UN global shipping tax
By David Wojick, CFACT, Oct 20, 2025
https://www.cfact.org/2025/10/20/big-fight-coming-over-un-shipping-tax
Link to: The IMO Net-Zero Framework – FAQs
By Staff, International Maritime Organization (IMO), Accessed Oct 23, 2025
https://www.imo.org/en/mediacentre/hottopics/pages/faqs-the-imo-net-zero-framework.aspx
From the IMO: Once operational, the payments will go into a dedicated international Net-Zero Fund managed by the IMO to reward low-emission ships, support clean-fuel projects and help developing countries transition – not to national treasuries.
In other words, the IMO Net Zero Framework is a market-based system built around performance targets and tiered compliance fees.
[SEPP Comment: Whether it is a fee, tax, or fine, there is nothing market-based about it. It is not voluntary to the actual payer. The UN is creating an artificial market for collecting fees, taxes, or fines.]
Questioning European Green
Europe’s Terminal Decline: The Philosopher Queens and Their Ruinous Rule
By Tilak Doshi, From Tilak’s Substack, Via WUWT, Oct 21, 2025
The economic cost of this virtue signaling is catastrophic. Europe’s electricity and gas prices remain among the highest in the world, crippling its manufacturing base. Automakers, fertilizer plants, aluminum smelters and chemical giants relocate to China, the Middle East and the United States where energy remains abundant and policy rational. Europe’s share of global industrial output shrinks yearly; its debt-laden welfare states consume ever more of the shrinking pie.
Behind the rhetoric of progress lies an ancient impulse — the search for moral purity through sacrifice. The Aztecs tore out human hearts to appease the sun; modern Europe sacrifices its industries, borders and freedoms to sustain the illusion of environmental virtue.
On Being Challenged
It’s what friends are for
By Mark Hodgson, Climate Scepticism, Oct 19, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
[SEPP Comment: Long read addressing UK wind, solar and bioenergy issues including minerals, land, and transmission needed, and the costs thereof.]
A Bright New Energy Dawn In The UK
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Oct 20, 2025
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2025-10-20-a-bright-new-energy-dawn-in-the-uk
[SEPP Comment: May be too optimistic.]
Non-Green Jobs
15% Drop In Emissions Caused By Industrial Decline
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 22, 2025
From the Telegraph: Britain’s declining carbon emissions have been fueled by the shutdown of more than 100 businesses and factories, it has emerged.
The Political Games Continue
Escape from Net Zero
Is it possible?
By Robin Guenier, Climate Scepticism, Oct 21, 2025
Escape from Net Zero II
A solution for embattled Labour?
By Robin Guenier, Climate Scepticism, Oct 23, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
But what could even turn out to be the most important outcome of a U-turn of this magnitude would be that it would attract massive media attention – initially no doubt much of it critical.
There is I believe a possible solution – one that, although it may at first sight seem utterly fanciful, is I believe not entirely unrealistic. It’s this: that the present Government, which has certainly got the necessary majority, decides to cancel Net Zero and reverse its energy policies. Why might that happen?
Former PM Tony Blair, afraid of losing elections, tells UK Labour Party to abandon Net Zero
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Oct 24, 2025
https://joannenova.com.au/2025/10/former-pm-tony-blair-afraid-of-losing-elections-tells-uk-labour-party-to-abandon-net-zero
NetZeroWatch says this is good news, but the TBI [Tony Blair Institute] still doesn’t get the physics of affordable high density energy:
Reactive Statement: Tony Blair Institute report on UK electricity strategy
Press Release, Net Zero Watch, Oct 23, 2025
https://www.netzerowatch.com/all-news/64ayttzdoycy10lrnip400pha8o50l
Link to: Cheaper Power 2030, Net Zero 2050: Resetting the UK’s Electricity Strategy for the Future
By Tone Langengen, et al., Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, Oct 23, 2025
https://institute.global/insights/climate-and-energy/cheaper-power-2030-net-zero-2050-resetting-UK-electricity-strategy
Tony Blair urges Ed Miliband to abandon green levies
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 23, 2025
Twenty years too late, Tony!
Even the US Democrats don’t want to be seen talking about “climate change”
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Oct 22, 2025
https://joannenova.com.au/2025/10/even-the-us-democrats-dont-want-to-be-seen-talking-too-much-about-climate-change
Why Democrats aren’t talking about climate change much anymore
Make way for the “cheap energy” agenda.
By Kate Yoder, Grist, Oct 21, 2025
https://grist.org/politics/democrats-arent-talking-about-climate-change-cheap-energy
Litigation Issues
Green groups sue over Trump’s Clean Air Act exemptions for polluters
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Oct 22, 2025
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5568032-trump-sued-clean-air-act-epa
Hogan Lovells advises Sámi reindeer herding community in landmark climate and indigenous rights complaint to United Nations
By Liam Pape, Hogan Lovells, June 24, 2025 [H/t Carbon Brief]
https://www.hoganlovells.com/en/news/hogan-lovells-advises-sami-reindeer-herding-community-in-landmark-climate-and-indigenous-rights-complaint-to-united-nations?utm_source=cbnewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2025-10-24&utm_campaign=DeBriefed+EU+2040+climate+goal+progress+Shipping+industry+carbon+price+delayed+Europe+s+indigenous+people+take+Finland+to+court
Energy Issues – Non-US
U.S. Energy Shift Offers Economic Hope to Global South
By Vijay Jayaraj, CO2 Coalition, Oct 20, 2025
Africans currently dependent on subsistence agriculture and raw material exports need manufacturing to create wealth and raise living standards. Industrialization requires electricity measured in megawatts and gigawatts, not the trickle of electrons that solar panels and wind turbines provide.
They need energy prices low enough to compete with manufacturers in China, Vietnam, and Bangladesh, all of which prioritize energy affordability over “green” purity.
China Threat Calls for Ideologically Free Energy Policy
By Vijay Jayaraj, CO2 Coalition, Oct 22, 2025
No Thanks, Mr Ed!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 23, 2025
Video asserting the UK’s clean power program has led to the highest electricity prices in the industrialized world.
Electrify everything?
Or: switch off at the mains?
By JIT, Climate Scepticism, Oct 18, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Is the decline in electricity use something to be celebrated? Or is it a symptom of a decadent system propped up by increasingly desperate support?
Green Levies To Blame, Say Energy Bosses [UK]
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 18, 2025
What Do Carbon Brief Suggest We Do When There Is Too Much Wind [UK]
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 18, 2025
Obviously there was no solar power as it was during the night. But if Miliband triples wind power as he aims, that 15738 MW would have been more than 47000 MW.
Demand was below 30000 MW throughout that period, meaning most of that 17000 surplus would have to be constrained.
Household electricity bills to change with the weather [UK]
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 22, 2025
It totally destroys the myth that electricity prices are high because of gas.
In real terms, gas bills are not high at all historically, and stand at similar levels to a decade ago, something I have been reporting on.
In stark contrast, electricity prices are up by about a third compared to a decade ago, with bills rising fast ever since 2017. It is no coincidence that this period coincides with the explosion in renewable subsidies.
Energy Issues – Australia
Aussie Climate Minister Slams Queensland’s Reliance on Intermittent Coal
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Oct 24, 2025
If you are wondering how anyone could ever describe coal as less reliable than renewables, Federal Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen has repeatedly demonstrated his rather shaky grasp of engineering. For example, he thinks you can store electricity like water.
Australia’s Energy Transition & De-industrialisation
By Richard Willoughby, WUWT, Oct 18, 2025
SA [South Australia] is a very good example of de-industrialization in the making. Manufacturing of Mitsubishi motor vehicles ended in SA in 2008. Manufacture of Holden motor vehicles ended in 2016. The Port Pirie lead smelter and Whyalla iron blast furnace are both on government welfare because the high cost of electricity makes them uneconomic.
Faced with high prices for grid sourced electricity, 50% of SA households and many businesses are now making their own. This means the remaining consumers bear the already high, yet increasing, cost of the grid and are also on government welfare to help with the burden.
[SEPP Comment: The low-cost battery system is still missing in action.]
Energy Issues — US
Rep. Balderson’s New ARC Energy Security Act Is Smart Legislation
By Larry Behrens, Real Clear Energy, Oct 24, 2025
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/10/22/rep_baldersons_new_arc_energy_security_act_is_smart_legislation_1142333.html
Link to report: The Looming American Electricity Affordability Crisis
How decades of energy decisions are hitting American families, and what must change now
By Staff, Power The Future, August 2025
From report: Data from more than 500,000 federal electricity records show a consistent pattern: as dispatchable fossil fuel generation is retired and replaced with intermittent wind and solar energy, electricity prices rise. This is not a short-term fluctuation. It is a long-term structural problem that has been building for decades.
Congress Takes a Page from Louisiana: The Case for an American Energy Renaissance
By Cameron Sholty, Real Clear Energy, Oct 21, 2025
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/10/21/congress_takes_a_page_from_louisiana_the_case_for_an_american_energy_renaissance_1142329.html
Louisiana became the first state in the nation to recognize natural gas and nuclear power as a clean, affordable, and reliable energy source – cementing its place as a model for states and now, for the nation.
The AI Revolution Runs Through America’s Heartland
By Matthew Kandrach, Real Clear Energy, Oct 23, 2025
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/10/23/the_ai_revolution_runs_through_americas_heartland_1142833.html
These liberal states now confront a troubling trifecta: the growing threat of rolling blackouts, soaring energy costs for families and businesses, and a grid increasingly unable to meet the demands of a modern economy.
Entergy Mississippi Adding Third Gas-Fired Power Plant to ‘Superpower’ Strategy
By Darrell Proctor, Power Mag, Oct 23, 2025
https://www.powermag.com/entergy-mississippi-adding-third-gas-fired-power-plant-to-superpower-strategy/?utm_source=omeda&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pwrnews+eletter&oly_enc_id=7809H6412578J0B
Washington’s Control of Energy
Trump approves contentious drilling, mining in Alaska
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Oct 23, 2025
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5570413-trump-alaska-drilling-anwr-ambler-izembek
The Interior Department said in a press release that it was issuing a final approval of a plan to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s (ANWR) 1.56 million acres of the Coastal Plain for oil and gas development.
The Biden administration had limited the lands available to the 400,000 acres required by law.
Trump Authorizes Strategic Reserve Refill as Oil Prices Dip
Reports indicate that supplies are exceeding demand, which is a good sign for those of us who appreciate inexpensive and efficient fuel sources.
By Leslie Eastman, Legal Insurrection, Oct 23, 2025
https://legalinsurrection.com/2025/10/trump-authorizes-strategic-reserve-refill-as-oil-prices-dip
Oil and Natural Gas – the Future or the Past?
“Every Last Drop” of Oil? Let’s Go!
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Oct 22, 2025
Bradley Comment: Don’t further tie your emotions and being to a futile, wasteful crusade against the gas of life–carbon dioxide (CO2). Fossil fuels are not the problem but part of the solution for human betterment in a free society. It is industrial wind and solar, from production to decommissioning, that are the problem: diluted, intermittent, fragile, and resource-intensive (including land and transmission).
Nuclear Energy and Fears
Why does the world insanely ignore nuclear power?
By Ronald Stein, Oliver Hemmers, and Steve Curtis, America Out Loud News, Oct 20, 2025
https://www.americaoutloud.news/why-does-the-world-insanely-ignore-nuclear-power
[SEPP Comment: It may be due to the extensive approvals necessary and the upfront costs.]
SMR Sector Continues Red-Hot Streak With 5 IPOs
Here’s the first edition of SMR Intelligence Update, with IPO news, additions to SMR Intelligence US, & the latest on China’s ACP100.
By Robert Bryce, His Blog, Oct 23, 2025
https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/smr-sector-continues-red-hot-streak?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=630873&post_id=176935996&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=f7h7&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
[SEPP Comment: Small modular nuclear reactors seem to be a current a current fad for financial firms. The important questions are about required approvals and costs.]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
The More Wind and Solar We Add, the Less They Deliver
By Isaac Orr , Mitch Rolling, Real Clear Energy, Oct 23,2025
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/10/23/the_more_wind_and_solar_we_add_the_less_they_deliver_1142829.html
Link to: Average and Marginal Capacity Credit Values of Renewable Energy and Battery Storage in the United States Power System
By An Pham, Wesley Cole, and Pieter Gagnon, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), November 2024
From report: There is no deployment of 8-hour battery before 2032 under all but one scenario, resulting in no average capacity credits for this technology during this time frame. 8-hour battery has lower penetration compared to 4-hour battery due to its higher costs, which result in 4-hour batteries being preferred as long as they retain high marginal capacity credits.
[SEPP Comment: With the removal of subsidies such as those under the ill-named Inflation Reduction Act, a new report is needed. The southwest US gets about 10 hours of daylight on December 21. So, assuming no clouds it would need about 16-hour batteries that can be recharged in about 8 hours. Solar power is foolish in the cloudy, cold Northeast.]
Wot? No Wind?
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 23, 2025
But plans to triple offshore wind capacity will make little difference when the wind does not blow. Three times nothing is still nothing!
As for covering the countryside with Chinese made solar panels, they will not be of much help in winter, when demand for electricity is highest. Thanks to short days and inclement weather, solar farms only produce at about 3% of their capacity in winter, and then only for a few hours a day.
Windless Week Leaves Britain Totally Dependent on Imported Electricity
By Paul Homewood, The Daily Scheptic, Oct 21, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
https://dailysceptic.org/2025/10/21/windless-week-leaves-britain-totally-dependent-on-imported-electricity
Climate Change Weekly # 560—Study: Net Zero Wind and Solar Buildout Needs Huge Amount of Land
By Staff, The Heartland Institute, Oct 24, 2025
It is more Machbarkeit
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 22, 2025
[SEPP Comment: Feasible solar geoengineering? See link immediately below.]
The Space Mirror Mirage: Physics, Economics, and the Glow of Investor Illusion
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Oct 23, 2025
Giant Transport Airplane to be Developed for Wind Turbine Components
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Oct 19, 2025
[SEPP Comment: Effective wind sites are often on ridges. Will each turbine site need a separate runway?]
The curious case of the windfarm and the seismic array
By Christopher Houston, Net Zero Watch, Oct 23, 2025
https://www.netzerowatch.com/all-news/windfarm-seismic-array
As we have discovered, there is virtually no chance of successfully opposing renewable energy developments. Section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989 requires the consent of Scottish Ministers for onshore developments larger than 50 megawatts – which nowadays means nearly all them – thereby taking away the decision-making powers of local authorities. All the renewable energy companies need is a willing landowner and a bit of time and their development will get the go ahead.
[SEPP Comment: Unless you have a strange loophole.]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Other
Japan tries out osmotic energy
By Duggan Flanakin, CFACT, Oct 18, 2025
https://www.cfact.org/2025/10/18/japan-tries-out-osmotic-energy
Professor Sandra Kentish, a chemical engineer at the University of Melbourne, says the chief obstacle to osmotic energy’s commercial viability is that a lot of energy is lost in pumping the two streams (saltwater and freshwater) into the power plant and from the frictional loss across the membranes. Incremental gains have been achieved — and the Fukuoka plant will provide a true test of whether constant osmotic power is ready to compete with intermittent wind and solar.
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Storage
Doubling Down on Stupid
By Alan Moran, Quadrant, Oct 21, 2025
The Grattan Institute is the mainstream media’s go-to outfit for supposedly erudite, green-left commentary on climate issues. Its recent modelling says substituting almost all coal and gas with wind and solar would halve the average Australian annual household energy bill — including petrol, electricity, and gas — by 2050. It argues the decarbonization could be taken further by introducing a carbon tax, thereby sacrificing a modest amount of this improved outlook.
While battery costs declined by 90 per cent 2010-23, this cannot be repeated. The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) projects 2035 costs at $A375,000 per MWh, (which is 1000 times the cost of storing energy in the form of gas). For Australia, the cost of this is $4.1 trillion for 20 days’ supply (almost twice Australia’s GDP) and the batteries would need to be replaced every 10-12 years.
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles
Indonesian Rainforests Turned Into Open-Cast Mining Pits to Improve Range of High-End Electric Vehicles
By Chris Morrison, The Daily Sceptic, Oct 20, 2025
https://dailysceptic.org/2025/10/20/indonesian-rainforests-turned-into-open-cast-mining-pits-to-improve-range-of-high-end-electric-vehicles
Over half the world’s supply of nickel is located in Indonesia and much of that is to be found just a few feet below unspoilt rainforests. Cue massive deforestation and extensive rollout of smelters and even EV battery factories.
Nickel is a relatively expensive metal and its use in cheaper EVs is limited. But nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) batteries offer higher energy density and help increase range. NMCs are currently the norm for premium EVs and they effectively prioritize performance over other available alternatives
[SEPP Comment: The batteries are still Lithium-ion based.]
The Green Mirage: The Hidden Costs Behind the Electric Car Hype
By Mark Keenan, American Thinker, Oct 23, 2025 [H/t S.J. Cvrk]
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/10/the_green_mirage_the_hidden_costs_behind_the_electric_car_hype.html
“Buy an [expensive] electric car to save the planet” is one of the great marketing lies of our time — a devastator, as I call it, a lie so large it bewilders the public.
EVs breaking hard
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 22, 2025
Michigan yanks incentives for controversial EV battery plant
By Rachel van Gilder, The Hill, Oct 23, 2025
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5569742-michigan-ev-battery-plant
A Michigan state panel says it considers a proposal to build an electric vehicle battery plant near Big Rapids “abandoned,” so it is clawing back some $175 million in incentives for the project.
Carbon Schemes
Google Commits to First U.S. Gas-Fired Power Plant with Integrated CCS for Data Centers
By Sonal Patel, Power Mag, Oct 23, 2025
https://www.powermag.com/google-backs-first-u-s-gas-fired-power-plant-with-integrated-ccs-for-data-centers/?utm_source=omeda&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pwrnews+eletter&oly_enc_id=7809H6412578J0B
Link to: Global Status of CCS 2025: Staying the Course
By Staff, Global CCS Institute (AU), 2025
[SEPP Comment: The slick report by the advocacy group does not discuss costs. Of the 77 projects in operation, the bulk are Natural Gas / LNG, CO2 transport/storage, and chemical. Heavy on strategies, light in practice. With over 25 projects in operation, 17 in operation for over ten years, the US is a leader in number of facilities in operation. Why not discuss costs?]
Carbon storage portfolios must mix nature and technology to achieve lasting climate stability
By Sophie Jenkins London, UK (SPX) Oct 16, 2025
https://www.energy-daily.com/reports/Carbon_storage_portfolios_must_mix_nature_and_technology_to_achieve_lasting_climate_stability_999.html
Link to paper: Carbon storage portfolios for the transition to net zero
By Conor Hickey,∙ Stuart Jenkins, and Myles Allen, Joule, Oct 15, 2025
https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(25)00345-9?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2542435125003459%3Fshowall%3Dtrue
[SEPP Comment: Will it stop a future Ice Age?]
Carbon Credits Failure: Sachs, Romm, Rockström
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Oct 21, 2025
Other News that May Be of Interest
Artificial ocean carbon recycling system turns seawater CO2 into bioplastic feedstock
By Riko Seibo, Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Oct 22, 2025
https://www.energy-daily.com/reports/Artificial_ocean_carbon_recycling_system_turns_seawater_CO2_into_bioplastic_feedstock_999.html
Link to paper: Efficient and scalable upcycling of oceanic carbon sources into bioplastic monomers
By Chengbo Li, et al., Nature Catolysis, Oct 6, 2025
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41929-025-01416-4
Scientists confirm first-ever mosquitoes in Iceland
By Molly Grace, Euro Weekly, Oct 21, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
https://euroweeklynews.com/2025/10/21/scientists-confirm-first-ever-mosquitoes-in-iceland
Link to good discussion of malaria: History and Ecology of Malaria in the Caucasus
By Katherine Hirschfeld, et al., From: New Wars and Old Plagues, 2023 [H/t Gordon Fulks]
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-31143-7_2
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE
Nyet zero
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 22, 2025
Dagens.com (slogan “The Actual News”) chuckles “Nature turns on Putin: Climate change threatens Russia’s Arctic ambitions”. And we chuckle: “Have you ever been to Siberia?” Whatever else one might say about Russia’s governments over the centuries, it is clearly the case that Russia has always been hampered economically and even culturally by being, in large measure, a barren frozen wasteland. Only a truly delusional person would think its interests could be harmed if it got warmer. Yet here they come.
Ice-Free Arctic By 2014
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Oct 23, 2025
Al Gore
Rising temperatures threaten UK trees
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 20, 2025
It is worth noting that Dr Eleanor Tew has no experience in actual forestry work.
Climate Orgies
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 20, 2025
In my day we did not need an excuse for orgies!
Green Flagship “Beyond Meat” Shares Plunge After Debt Restructure
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Oct 19, 2025
Council U-turn on fine for coffee poured in drain
By Frankie McCamley, BBC, Oct 22, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg435gg66gpo
ARTICLES
1. We Can’t Stop Climate Change, So We Need to Prepare for It
Adaptation doesn’t mean defeat but survival. It’s time to embrace a third way: clear-eyed realism.
By Alex Flint and Kalee Kreider, WSJ, Oct. 19, 2025
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/we-cant-stop-climate-change-so-we-need-to-prepare-for-it-4b6493e8?mod=opinion_lead_pos7
Link to “best scientific models”: https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=25.10.0
Increase by 2100 form 2000: 3.3 C, 5.9 F (Current Scenario) With renewables going from 38.99 Exajoules/year in 2024 to 253.21 in 2100
By MIT Climate Pathways Project
https://mitsloan.mit.edu/centers-initiatives/climate-policy-center/mit-climate-pathways-project/welcome
A collaborative effort of the MIT Climate Policy Center, MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative, and Climate Interactive, the MIT Climate Pathways Project is leveraging the C-ROADS and En-ROADS interactive simulations, as well as our research insights, to advance the adoption of evidence-based climate policy through leaders in the public and private sector.
John Sterman runs En-ROADS
Professor John Sterman runs the En-ROADS climate solutions simulation for leaders in government, business, and civil society.
TWTW Summary: Mr. Flint is executive director of the Alliance for Market Solutions and a former Republican staff director of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Ms. Kreider is a consultant and a former climate adviser to Al Gore. They state:
“But we now share an uncomfortable conclusion: Despite decades of dire projections about the climate, humanity has shown that it’s unwilling to impose the limits on economic activity that would be necessary to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, or even below 2 degrees. As global energy demand continues to grow, fossil-fuel use remains dominant, and political commitments fall short of the necessary transformation. It isn’t that society can’t change but that it won’t. Around the world, people are giving priority to higher living standards, economic security and access to affordable energy above a stable climate.”
“Mitigation—efforts to reduce or prevent climate change—won’t keep global warming within safe limits. The best scientific models suggest that the planet is on track to warm roughly 3 to 3.5 degrees Celsius by 2100 and then to warm more in the next century.
Compared with many other areas—population, life expectancy and economic growth over decades—climate is easy to forecast. The physics of greenhouse gases, the inertia of our energy systems and the pace of policy change all point to a relatively predictable climate trajectory.” [Boldface added.]
[TWTW Comment: Neither author seems to understand that Earth does not have a stable climate.]
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