The Week That Was: 2025-11-01 (November 1, 2025)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week: “As a scientist I do not have much faith in predictions. Science is organized unpredictability. The best scientists like to arrange things in an experiment to be as unpredictable as possible, and then they do the experiment to see what will happen. You might say that if something is predictable then it is not science. When I make predictions, I am not speaking as a scientist. I am speaking as a storyteller, and my predictions are science-fiction rather than science.” — Freeman Dyson (2007)
Number of the Week: 16.8% — 11.0% for Solar; 40.2% for Offshore Wind; 22.8% for Onshore Wind.
THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Scope: This TWTW begins with heretical thoughts by Freeman Dyson. TWTW continues with part of the transcript from an interview of Richard Lindzen and William Happer by Joe Rogan. Then TWTW discusses “The State of the Climate, 2024” by Ole Humlum. *********************
Heretical Thoughts: Writing in WUWT, Eric Worrall discusses the question: Is Public Criticism of Climate Claims a Criminal Offence in Today’s Britain and Europe? He brings up examples of other topics and that questioning the ‘established science’ has always been an endeavor for inquisitive scientists. Worrall gives some examples including an excerpt from Many Colored Glass: Reflections on the Place of Life in the Universe (2007) by the late theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson, at Princeton: ‘Heretical Thoughts About Science and Society.’ The section, ‘Climate and Land Management’ begins with [Boldface added]:
‘The main subject of this piece is the problem of climate change. This is a contentious subject, involving politics and economics as well as science. The science is inextricably mixed up with politics. Everyone agrees that the climate is changing, but there are violently diverging opinions about the causes of change, about the consequences of change, and about possible remedies. I am promoting a heretical opinion, the first of three heresies that I will discuss in this piece.
My first heresy says that all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated. Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models. Of course, they say, I have no degree in meteorology, and I am therefore not qualified to speak. But I have studied the climate models, and I know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields, farms, and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in. The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models, than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That is why the climate model experts end up believing their own models.’
Separating what global climate models can do well from what they cannot do well is a necessary step for improving our knowledge of the climate. But it will not be done until governments stop funding the false claim that all climate change is caused by man’s emissions of carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is a minor player in a complex world.
Dyson also discusses the Oceans and Ice-ages and that sea level rise may have accelerated since 1950. Dyson’s second heresy is the evidence of a wet Sahara which may have been like the Serengeti today supporting giraffes, hippopotamuses, and elephants as late as 6,000 years ago. At the same time deciduous forests grew in Northern Europe where only conifers grow now, indicating the climate was milder then.
Dyson’s third heresy is that the US has less than a century left of its turn as top nation. See links under Suppressing Scientific Inquiry.
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Comments by Lindzen and Happer: Last week, TWTW refrained from discussing the interview of physicists Richard Lindzen and William Happer by Joe Rogan until TWTW had reviewed a transcript. David Wojick of CFACT quickly provided one from Climate Depot. A few of the high points are presented below [lightly edited].
During his introduction Happer states:
‘So, when I came to America as a small child, my mother was working in Oak Ridge for the Manhattan Project. So, I remember the war days at Oak Ridge and that’s probably why I went into physics. I thought this looked like interesting way to make a living and if I can do it, I’ll do it. And I have, and I’ve done a number of things. Spent a lot of time at universities, at Columbia, at Princeton.
I also served for a couple years in Washington as Director of Energy Research under President Bush Sr. And I’ve learned a lot about climate from Dick, my colleague here. I first became suspicious when I was Director of Energy Research, I would invite people in to explain how they were spending the taxpayers’ money. And most people were delighted to come to Washington and have some bureaucrat be interested in what they were doing.
And there was one exception, that was the people working on climate. And they would always be very resentful. ‘We work for Senator Gore; we don’t work for you.’ And so, I would tell them, ‘Well, okay, let him pay for your next year’s research. I can find other people who will come and talk to me who’ll be glad to take my money.’’
After a discussion of when Gore became involved, in response to a question about people panicking Lindzen states:
‘I have no idea when people started panicking. But what happened was there was, I would say with the First Earth Day, 1970, there was a real change in the environmental movement. It began to focus much more strongly on the energy sector and much less on saving the whales. And there was a big difference, the energy sector involved trillions of dollars. The whales, not so much.
And at that time, it was cooling – this global mean temperature, which doesn’t change much, but you focus on one degree, a half degree, so it looks like something. And it was cooling from the 1930s. The 1930s were very warm and it was getting cooler until the 70s. And that’s why they were saying, ‘Well, this is going to lead to an ice age.’ And they focused on that for a while.
And then in the 70s, well, what do you say if you’re worried about an ice age? They said, ‘Well, it will be the sulfates emitted by coal burning because that reflects light, and the less light that we get, the colder we’ll get.’ But then the temperature stopped cooling in the 70s and started warming. And that’s when they said, ‘Well, you have to warm now. Scare people with warming, and you can’t use the sulfates anymore.’
But the scientist called Suki Manabe showed that even though CO2 doesn’t do much in the way of warming, doubling it will only give you a half degree or so. But if you assumed that relative humidity stayed constant so that every time you warmed a little, you added water vapor, which is a much more important greenhouse gas, you had doubled the impact of CO2, which now gives you a degree, which still isn’t a heck of a lot. But still it was saying you could increase it. And that’s when people started saying, ‘Well, now we better find CO2. It’s increased because of industrialization and so on.’ That began the demonization of CO2.’ [Boldface added]
SEPP Chairman Tom Sheahen has pointed out a critical error in the assumptions of climate modeling leads to a great deficiency in global climate modeling results. The critical error is using the wrong atmosphere. The modelers use the U.S. Standard atmosphere rather than Earth’s atmosphere. The U.S. Standard atmosphere has no water vapor. Earth’s atmosphere has water vapor ranging from about 0% by volume in the polar regions to about 4% in the tropics. The estimated average water vapor is about 0.4% by volume and about 1% by mass. In the lower atmosphere, water vapor may be about 1.5% by volume (90% of water vapor is below 5 km (16,500 ft)).
As van Wijngaarden and Happer have shown, even at 0.4% water vapor by volume, the radiative forcing of H2O is saturated, meaning that virtually all the infrared radiation that can be absorbed by water vapor is already being absorbed. Adding more water vapor to the general atmosphere does little to interfere with the transmission of infrared energy from Earth’s surface to space, cooling Earth. In the tropics, water vapor is highly saturated: adding more does little or nothing. That is why the climate in the tropics at low altitudes remains roughly stable – hot and humid, raining or not, day or night.
Reenforcing what Freeman Dyson stated above, global climate modelers refuse to measure what is happening ‘in the swamps and the clouds,’ and they believe their own models.
The interview discusses political power and money; the ‘settled science’ paradox; public skepticism v. elite opinion; and net zero policies. Under Political Overreach and Market Solutions Lindzen commented:
“But there’s a problem with politicians. I remember once being in D.C. and some Republican politicians came and said, ‘You know what we just did? We banned incandescent light bulbs. Wasn’t that a great thing?’ I said, ‘That’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard today. What’s the point?’ Because at the time, what was replacing it? Compact fluorescents, which were awful. All they had to do was wait and do nothing. And LEDs would come along, and people would say, ‘Okay, I prefer that. Instead, they feel they have to do something.’
In the section the Problem with “Trust the Science” Lindzen commented:
‘The success of science. In other words, this is a relatively new way to approach the world. a few hundred years. And the notion is, and I think it’s been stated many times that you test things and if they fail to predict correctly, they’re wrong. So, you find out what’s wrong with them. You don’t fudge them, you don’t change the rules. It’s led to immense improvements in life, development of all sorts of things. And so, it has a good reputation. Politicians have less of a reputation, so they wish to co-opt the reputation of science.’
In the section ‘Historical Climate Data and CO2 Levels’ Lindzen commented:
“I think we’ll speak to that. But I mean, essentially the increased amount of CO2 in the industrial era has added greatly to the arable land. And in fact, there’s a funny story. Do you know the name E.O. Wilson? Have you ever heard that name?
WILLIAM HAPPER: I do.
JOE ROGAN: I have heard it, but I don’t know where.
RICHARD LINDZEN: He was a biologist at Harvard. He wrote about sociobiology. His specialty were ants, bees, and things — social insects. And he was giving a talk, and it came up for reasons that were not obvious to me. He was talking about the population of humanoids. And he mentioned that you go back a few hundred thousand years, and you began the first humanoids, and they got to about a few million. But then during the last glacial maximum, the numbers went down to tens of thousands. There was a complete wipeout of humans. So, I asked him afterwards, I said, ‘Do you think this could have anything to do with the fact that CO2 is so low that there was no food?’ And his response was to turn around and walk away.
JOE ROGAN: That’s an inconvenient truth, sir. To me, it’s very strange to see an almost unanimous acceptance of. Of that we have settled this, the science is settled from so many people in both the left and in academia and even on the right. There’s a lot of people on the right that believe that.
RICHARD LINDZEN: I know. And it should be the first thing that makes you suspicious.”
The key part of the section ‘Temperature Changes and Historical Context was:
“JOE ROGAN: The weirdest thing is when you look at the charts of the overall temperature of Earth that have been from core samples over a long period of time. It’s this crazy wave and like no one was controlling it back then. We’re supposed to believe that we can control it now.
RICHARD LINDZEN: Something else about it which I find funny, and you might have some insight into it. People pay no attention to the actual numbers. I mean, we’re not talking about big changes. In other words, for the temperature of the globe as a whole between now and the last glacial maximum, the difference was 5 degrees. But that was because most of the Earth was not affected very much. But somebody says one degree, a half degree, what’s his name, Gutierrez at the UN says the next half degree and we’re done for. Doesn’t anyone ask a half degree? I deal with that between 9:00am and 10:00am it does seem crazy.
JOE ROGAN: It’s just that kind of fear of minute change that they try to put into people. And what I think people need to understand that are casual observers of this is what you discussed earlier, how much money is involved in getting people to buy into this narrative so you can pass some bill that’s called Save the world Climate, something crazy like that, where they call it.
RICHARD LINDZEN: They call it the Inflation Reduction Act.
JOE ROGAN: Even better, who doesn’t want to reduce inflation? And then next thing you know, there’s windmills killing whales and all kinds of nonsense. But the point being, it’s. It is a fascinating science. Like the science itself is fascinating.
RICHARD LINDZEN: Oh, yes.
JOE ROGAN: You get rid of the ideology, and you stop attaching this thing versus, you’re either pro science or anti science. Just look at the actual data of it. It’s absolutely fascinating. And these minute changes, the fact that the procession of the equinoxes or the Earth wobbles like the whole thing is nuts. The whole temperature. And it has to stay relatively stable in order to keep us alive in terms of like, can’t go too low, can’t go too high. We’re in this Goldilocks zone.
RICHARD LINDZEN: The interesting thing is during the Ice ages; we almost get wiped out.
JOE ROGAN: Got really close. Right.
RICHARD LINDZEN: And what’s interesting about that is as far as temperature goes, yes, the poles have gotten much colder. You have ice covering Illinois, 2 kilometers of ice, that’s uninhabitable. But you get south of 30 degrees latitude, not very different from today in terms of temperature. And so, you would think at 100,000 years, people would sort of migrate to an area where it was now pleasant. Trouble was, without CO2, which went down to about 180, there wasn’t enough food for the people.
JOE ROGAN: Oh, so there wasn’t enough plant life. Yes.
RICHARD LINDZEN: Get down to 160, 150. All life would die. There would not be enough food for anything.’
The above gives the flavor of the entire interview which was refreshingly blunt and frank. The discussion goes into the politicization of climate science including academic studies. See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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State of the Climate: The Global Warming Policy Foundation published “The State of the Climate 2024” by Danish professor emeritus of geosciences Ole Humlum who is professor at the University Center in Svalbard, one of the world’s northern most inhabited areas. The press release stated:
“The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) today [Oct 17] released The State of the Climate 2024, the latest annual review by Professor Ole Humlum, Emeritus Professor of Physical Geography at the University of Oslo. Based on observational data rather than climate models, the report provides an evidence-based overview of global climate trends.
Professor Humlum said:
‘The global climate represents a highly complex system. Many components and their interrelationships are still not fully understood or perhaps not even recognized and are therefore not included in climate models.
In fact, the global climate has remained in a stable condition within certain limits for millions of years, although with important variations playing out over periods ranging from years to centuries, or more, but it has never been in a fully stable state without change. Modern observations show that recent years are also characterized by this normal behavior.’”
The document is as solid a review the state of Earth’s climate based on physical evidence that exists. The Key Findings are [Boldface in original]:
- “2024 was the warmest year on record in all major temperature datasets and was significantly influenced by a strong El Niño event that persisted through much of the year.
- Recent warming remains uneven, with most temperature increases occurring in the Northern Hemisphere.
- The upper 1900 m of the global ocean have warmed by a modest 0.037°C since 2004, with most of this warming confined to the top 100 m near the equator.
- Northern oceans (55–65°N) have cooled significantly down to 1400 m depth since 2004, while southern oceans (55–65°S) have seen slight warming at most depths (down to 1900 m) but mainly near the surface.
- Sea-level rise continues at a rate of 1–2 mm per year according to tide-gauge records, well below satellite-based estimates of about 3.7 mm per year and shows substantial local variation.
- Global sea-ice extent, though below the long-term satellite average, has been stable or slightly increasing since 2018.
- Global snow cover remains essentially stable across the satellite era.
- Global precipitation shows no long-term trend toward wetter or drier conditions since 1901.
- Storm and hurricane activity continues to fluctuate naturally, without any long-term increase in strength or frequency.
- Overall observations confirm normal overall variability of average meteorological and oceanographic conditions, with no sign of an escalating climate emergency.”
Note that the record referenced in the first sentence is the instrument record – not the historic record that includes proxies such as ice core borings, marine sediments, etc. After considerable physical evidence demonstrating these and other findings, the report concludes with sections on specific areas of climate change. The Atmosphere section specifically discusses greenhouse gases. It states [figure not shown here but in text]:
“Water vapor (H₂O) is the most important greenhouse gas in the troposphere. The highest concentration is found within a latitudinal range from 50°N to 60°S. The two polar regions of the troposphere are comparatively dry. H₂O is a much more important greenhouse gas than CO₂, both because of its absorption spectrum and its higher concentration. The specific atmospheric humidity since 1948 has been stable or slightly increasing up to about 4–5 km altitude (Figure 17a). At higher levels in the troposphere (about 9 km), the specific humidity has been decreasing for the duration of the satellite record, but with shorter variations superimposed on the falling trend. In contrast, climate models assume specific humidity to increase at this height.
Carbon dioxide (CO₂) is an important greenhouse gas, although considerably less important than H₂O. Since 1958, there has been an increasing trend in its atmospheric concentration, with an annual cycle superimposed (Figure 18). At the end of 2023, the amount of atmospheric CO₂ was close to 422ppm. The annual change in atmospheric CO₂ (Figure 19) has been increasing from about +1ppm/year in the early part of the record, to about +2.5ppm/year towards the end of the record. There is no visible effect of the global COVID-19 lockdown 2020–2021 in the amount of atmospheric CO₂. The increasing amount of atmospheric CO₂ is enhancing photosynthesis and thereby global crop yields.”
After a discussion of the Oceans, Sea level, Sea ice, Snow cover, Storms and hurricanes, the report sums up [Boldface added]:
The global climate system represents a multifaceted system, involving sun, planets, atmosphere, oceans, land, geological processes, biological life, and the complex relationships between them. Many components and their interactions are still not fully understood, or perhaps not even recognized. Among all these influences, human CO₂ emissions have in all probability only contributed modestly to the current warming. In fact, believing that one minor constituent of the atmosphere (CO₂) controls nearly all aspects of climate is amazingly naïve and entirely unrealistic.
The global climate has remained in a stable condition within certain limits for millions of years, although with important variations playing out over periods ranging from years to centuries, or more, but the global climate has never been in a fully stable state without change. Modern observations show that this normal behavior is also characterizing recent years, including 2024, and there is no observational evidence for any global climate crisis. Our world should consider focusing on much more pressing problems.
See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy:
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Number of the Week: 16.8% — 11.0% for Solar; 40.2% for Offshore Wind; 22.8% for Onshore Wind. Former Dentist, Architect, and entrepreneur with a scientific interest, Ed Hoskins has taken an interest in Global Warming since retirement. Using data from Gridwatch UK and Eurobserver, he compared the 2024 total installed nameplate capacity of weather dependent renewables (wind and solar) with productivity for the UK and the EU 27 (not including Croatia). He found the capacity factor to be 16.8% with 11.0% for Solar; 40.2% for Offshore Wind; 22.8% for Onshore Wind. It is amazing the politicians in Germany, and the UK push solar power. As Hoskins states:
“The UK Government repeatedly asserts that these technologies are ‘nine times cheaper.’”
Part time electricity is cheaper than full time electricity? See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
Censorship
Guardian Ramps Up Efforts to Ban All Climate Dissent
By Chris Morrison, The Daily Sceptic, Oct 28, 2025
Suppressing Scientific Inquiry
Is Public Criticism of Climate Claims a Criminal Offence in Today’s Britain and Europe?
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Oct 25, 2025
Link to: Heretical Thoughts About Science and Society
By Freeman Dyson, Edge, July 8, 2007
https://www.edge.org/conversation/freeman_dyson-heretical-thoughts-about-science-and-society
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
Transcript: Richard Lindzen & William Happer on Joe Rogan Podcast #2397
By S. Pangambam, Climate Depot, Oct 23, 2025 [H/t David Wojick]
The State of the Climate 2024
By Ole Humlum, The Global Warming Policy Foundation, Oct 17, 2025
Full Report: https://thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2025/10/The-State-of-the-Climate-2024.pdf
Professor Humlum said:
Recent Global Warming Mostly Due To Natural Factors, New Study Finds
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Oct 26, 2025
Link to paper: Huijser: Global Warming and the “impossible” Radiation Imbalance
By Ad Huijser, Science of Climate Change, Aug 27, 2025
Refuting the idea that Weather-Dependent Renewables are much cheaper than Conventional power generation
By Ed Hoskins, His Blog, Accessed Oct 31, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
The Climate /Carbon Conundrum: Should Carbon Dioxide Emissions Be Reduced or Allowed to Rise Steadily?
By Madhav Khandekar and Ray Garnett, Earth & Environmental Science Research & Reviews (EESRR), Apr 24, 2025
https://www.opastpublishers.com/open-access-articles/the-climate-carbon-conundrum-should-carbon-dioxide-emissions-be-reduced-or-allowed-to-rise-steadily-9047.html
Geoengineering Fails On Every Level—Technical, Economic, And Political Say Columbia University Scientists
By Jon Fleetwood, Modernity, Oct 27, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Link to paper: Engineering and logistical concerns add practical limitations to stratospheric aerosol injection strategies
By Miranda Hack, et al., Nature Scientific Reports, Oct 21, 2025
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-20447-2
Geoengineering Company To Begin Blocking the Sun With Airborne Chemicals In April
By Jon Fleetwood, Modernity, Oct 27, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Israeli-U.S. geoengineering company Stardust Solutions has announced a $60 million fundraising round for its efforts to block the sun by spraying particles into the atmosphere.
[SEPP Comment: See links immediately above.]
Defending the Orthodoxy
“Change Course Now”: Guterres Urges the World to Give Him at Least One Climate Achievement
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Oct 30, 2025
Humanity has failed to limit global heating to 1.5C and must change course immediately, the secretary general of the UN has warned.
Guardian: Net Zero is Killing British Manufacturing
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Oct 25, 2025
Link to report: Power Shift: how the Labour government can bring down bills and bolster net zero by curtailing the power of gas
By Angharad Hopkinson for Greenpeace UK; Adam Bell and Leila Roberts for Stonehaven an international strategy firm “We work with clients who are committed to decarbonisation and use both our deep understanding of policy challenges facing governments and our proprietary research and data platform, helping us to understand the values and beliefs that are shaping public opinion in markets across the world.”, September 2025
Power Shift: How the Labour government can bring down bills and bolster net zero by curtailing the power of gas
The UK is facing an enduring energy affordability crisis that affects millions of households, undermines industrial competitiveness and slows progress on climate goals. Even though
renewables are now the cheapest form of electricity generation, UK consumers and businesses continue to pay inflated electricity prices that are pegged to the extremely high and volatile price of gas.
[SEPP Comment: How cheap is solar power at midnight and wind power when the wind is still?]
Defending the Orthodoxy – Bandwagon Science
Deep emission cuts before mid-century decisive to reduce long-term sea-level rise
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 25, 2025
Link to: Deep emission cuts before mid-century decisive to reduce long-term sea-level rise legacy
Press Release, Met Office, Oct 23, 2025
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/news-and-media/media-centre/weather-and-climate-news/2025/deep-emission-cuts-before-mid-century-decisive-to-reduce-long-term-sea-level-rise-legacy
Link to paper: Multi-century global and regional sea-level rise commitments from cumulative greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decades
By Alexander Nauels, et al., Nature Climate Change, Oct 24, 2025
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-025-02452-5
From abstract: Resulting regional commitments would be around 10% higher than the global signal for the vulnerable Pacific region, mainly due to higher relative Antarctic contributions.
From press release: Extending emissions on this trajectory until 2090 would lock in a global rise of about 0.8 meters, of which roughly 0.6 meters could still be avoided if the world started emissions reductions consistent with the Paris Agreement now.
Link to paper suggested by Homewood: A Global Perspective on Local Sea Level Changes
By Hessel G. Voortman and Rob De Vos, Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, Aug 27, 2025
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1312/13/9/1641
From Homewood: No acceleration found in 955 of the stations, and the other 5% are likely affected by local, non-climatic factors. IPCC projections grossly overstated!
Apparently that is news the Met Office don’t want you to know about. They would rather fill your head with unsubstantiated scare stories about what might happen in three centuries’ time, when they have difficulty forecasting tomorrow’s weather!
CLAIM: Deep emission cuts will push back sea level rise
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Oct 26, 2025
[SEPP Comment: See links immediately above.
Climate report: Earth on dangerous path but rapid action can avert the worst outcomes
By Steve Lundeberg for OSU News, Corvallis OR (SPX) Oct 30, 2025
https://www.terradaily.com/reports/Climate_report_Earth_on_dangerous_path_but_rapid_action_can_avert_the_worst_outcomes_999.html
Link to assertion: The 2025 state of the climate report: a planet on the brink
By William J Ripple, et al., BioScience, Oct 29, 2025
https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biaf149/8303627?login=false
Opening assertions: We are hurtling toward climate chaos. The planet’s vital signs are flashing red. The consequences of human-driven alterations of the climate are no longer future threats but are here now. This unfolding emergency stems from failed foresight, political inaction, unsustainable economic systems, and misinformation. Almost every corner of the biosphere is reeling from intensifying heat, storms, floods, droughts, or fires. The window to prevent the worst outcomes is rapidly closing. In early 2025, the World Meteorological Organization reported that 2024 was the hottest year on record (WMO 2025a). This was likely hotter than the peak of the last interglacial, roughly 125,000 years ago (Gulev et al. 2021, Kaufman and McKay 2022). Rising levels of greenhouse gases remain the driving force behind this escalation. These recent developments emphasize the extreme insufficiency of global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mark the beginning of a grim new chapter for life on Earth.
[SEPP Comment: Where is the physical evidence supporting these claims?]
Climate change made Hurricane Melissa four times more likely: study
By AFP Staff Writers, Washington (AFP) Oct 30, 2025
https://www.terradaily.com/reports/Climate_change_made_Hurricane_Melissa_four_times_more_likely_study_999.html
Warming caused mainly by burning fossil fuels increased both the likelihood and intensity of the devastating Category 5 hurricane, the study by scientists at Imperial College London found.
Using a peer-reviewed model that maps out millions of theoretical storm paths under different climate conditions, the team found that in a cooler world, a Melissa-type hurricane would make landfall in Jamaica around every 8,100 years, but that figure has now gone down to every 1,700 years.
[SEPP Comment: Sophisticated speculation in creating theorized probabilities.]
Questioning the Orthodoxy
Hiding the Endangerment Finding’s Systemic Biases – Politico’s Failed Attack on DOE’s Climate Science Report-Part 2
By Marlo Lewis, WUWT, Oct 29, 2025
Part 1. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/10/28/hiding-the-endangerment-findings-systemic-biases-politicos-failed-attack-on-does-climate-science-report/
The Politico reporters are refuted by their own behavior. For what, pray tell, are they doing if not propagating the falsehood that the DOE authors have no arguments worth debating? And how is disqualifying a contrarian report because of its authors’ “past views” not an attempt to silence their voices in the public square?
Is the IEA Now Telling Us That We Need More Oil for Longer?
By Neil Atkinson, Real Clear Energy, Oct 30, 2025
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/10/30/is_the_iea_now_telling_us_that_we_need_more_oil_for_longer_1144357.html
Notoriously, in its landmark 2021 report “Net Zero by 2050 – A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector” the Agency suggested there would be no need for investments in new upstream oil and gas projects. The Agency was widely criticized, including by the National Center for Energy Analytics, for abandoning its Current Policies Scenario which most closely reflected today’s reality versus the aspirations of policy makers.
In practice, ‘Net Zero’ Was Exactly How Much Such Pledges Were Worth
By Gary Abernathy, Real Clear Energy, Oct 31, 2025
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/10/31/in_practice_net_zero_was_exactly_how_much_such_pledges_were_worth_1144482.html
The public “net zero” pledges by countless corporate and political entities in recent years were always baffling. How could the United States or much of the industrialized world reach “net zero” emissions without destroying modern living?
Energy, emissions and the Land of Make-Believe
By Ivor Williams, The Conservative Woman, Oct 26, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Therefore, while the UK power proportion reduced by 48Mt in four years, the world added 4,244Mt. All those wind turbines over land and sea, all those solar panels planted across our land instead of wheat or potatoes, just to make an imperceptible reduction, totally invalidated by what was going on in the real world.
Surprised By Leftwing Radical Rhetoric? Look Closer at the Climate Movement
By Chris Johnson, WUWT, Oct 26, 2025
While Sadiq Khan Frolics on Billionaire Pal’s Gas-Guzzling Superyacht, Ulez is Exposed as a Money-Making Scheme at the Expense of Hardworking Londoners
By Tilak Doshi, WUWT, Oct 28, 2025
[London Mayor] Khan, Co-Chair of C40 Cities, preaches ‘climate justice’ for the Global South while squeezing London’s working and middle classes.
[SEPP Comment: Ulez is Khan’s Ultra-Low-Emission Zone in London.]
OpenAI Urges US Government to Fund 100GW of New Energy Per Year to Beat China
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Oct 28, 2025
As Facebook’s recent commissioning of a new 2GW gas plant demonstrates, access to affordable energy is now more important to big tech than climate virtue.
Energy & Environmental Review: October 27, 2025
By John Droz, Jr., Master Resource, Oct 27, 2025
After Paris!
Will The 30th U.N. Climate Conference Be The Last?
By I & I Editorial Board, Oct 29, 2025
The global warming machine has for more than three decades successfully waged a propaganda campaign. But after predicting so much that has never come to pass, it has lost credibility that it never should have had in the first place. Now it simply needs to go away. We’d all be the better for it.
Trump won’t send ‘high level’ representatives to COP30 climate summit
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Oct 31, 2025
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5583954-trump-cop30-brazil-united-nations-climate-summit
[SEPP Comment: Why not send Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and have him cite the special report by five independent scientists?]
Is Subdued COP 30 a Trump effect?
By David Wojick, WUWT, Oct 27, 2025
On the financial side, he has terminated the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which was throwing billions of dollars a year around the world in climate money. Many other US agencies have also terminated climate spending.
Thus, it is perfectly clear that no climate change “financial flows” will be coming from America for at least the next few years. The other developed countries, some of which are still rabid on climate, are in no position to make up for the loss of America.
If a COP falls in the forest…
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 29, 2025
The Allies, for instance, only invaded Normandy once. Had they tried 28 times someone might have commented that it wasn’t working and they needed to rethink their whole approach.
Green delusionists attending COP30 are clueless of their renewable idealism
By Ronald Stein and Yoshihiro Muronaka, America Out Loud News, Oct 27, 2025
https://www.americaoutloud.news/green-delusionists-attending-cop30-are-clueless-of-their-renewable-idealism
Social Benefits of Carbon Dioxide
Buckwheat and extra CO2
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 29, 2025
From the CO2Science archive
Models v. Observations
Tiny plankton overlooked in climate forecasting may shape carbon cycles
By Hugo Ritmico, Barcelona, Spain (SPX) Oct 24, 2025
https://www.terradaily.com/reports/Tiny_plankton_overlooked_in_climate_forecasting_may_shape_carbon_cycles_999.html
Link to paper: Calcifying plankton: From biomineralization to global change
By Patrizia Ziveri, AAAS Science, Oct 23, 2025
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adq8520
From article: A newly published review in Science warns that tiny calcifying plankton-coccolithophores, foraminifers, and pteropods-play a greater role in Earth’s carbon regulation than climate models currently account for.
[SEPP Comment: Calcifying plankton create Calcium carbonate (CaCO3). When they fall to marine depths they form chalk, limestone, etc.]
Changing Weather
Hurricane Melissa
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 30, 2025
It seems we get a storm or flood of the century nearly every year!
Let me be clear. I am not in any way trying to minimize how powerful and damaging Melissa was. It was a terrible storm and a historic one.
But it is a sad fact of life that hurricanes like Melissa have always brought death and destruction to the Caribbean, Gulf and Atlantic coasts of America, and they always will.
Hooray! A devastating storm!
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 29, 2025
Changing Climate
Six-million-year-old Antarctic ice reveals deep history of Earth’s climate
By Clarence Oxford, Los Angeles CA (SPX) Oct 29, 2025
https://www.terradaily.com/reports/Six_million_year_old_Antarctic_ice_reveals_deep_history_of_Earths_climate_999.html
Link to paper: Miocene and Pliocene ice and air from the Allan Hills blue ice area, East Antarctica
By S. Shackleton, et al., PNAS, Oct 28, 2025
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2502681122
Significance
Antarctic ice cores provide the most direct archive of Earth’s atmosphere and its largest ice sheets. We report the discovery of ice, dated by its deficit in 40Ar compared to the modern atmosphere, that is up to 6 million years old. Isotopic temperatures from this ice indicate progressive cooling over the Pliocene; enigmatic basal ice from the Miocene [ended about 5.3 million years ago] is characterized by even warmer temperatures and may reflect a relic from the adolescent days of the Antarctic ice sheet. This archive opens up the possibility of reconstructing Earth’s climate and its largest ice sheet during periods when Earth’s climate was warmer and sea-level was higher. [Boldface added]
[SEPP Comment: Hottest ever recorded depends on the type of record.]
Changing Seas
New Study: Great Barrier Reef Coral Cover ‘At Its Highest Since Monitoring Began In 1985’
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Oct 28, 2025
Link to one paper: Evaluating 38 years of coral coverage trends on the Great Barrier Reef: insights into resilience and temperature correlation
By Alberto Boretti, International Journal of Global Warming, July 24, 2025
https://www.inderscience.com/offers.php?id=147639
From abstract: Contrary to claims of widespread decline due to warming-induced bleaching, long-term data from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) reveal that coral cover is at its highest since monitoring began in 1985. Using satellite air temperature data as a robust proxy for ocean warming, the analysis identifies no consistent correlation between rising temperatures and reduced coral cover. Coral bleaching is reframed as an adaptive response, with most corals demonstrating rapid recovery.
[SEPP Comment: Coral Cover reached an all-time high in 2023 since systematic surveys began in 1985, then dropped between August 2024 and May 2025.]
Coral blimey!
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 29, 2025
As Lomborg writes, “The latest data show that coral cover has dropped across 10 of 11 sectors, with two experiencing their largest one-year drop.” But, he notes, “large year-to-year variations are typical; this year’s declines came off the record highs of 2024; one sector is at its highest-ever coral cover; and cover across the entire reef is ‘only’ the fourth highest ever recorded since systematic monitoring began.” Cancel the funeral, again.
Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice
The Antarctic Peninsula Has Cooled By Over 2°C Since 2003
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Oct 31, 2025
Link to paper: Air Temperature Trends and Extreme Warming Events Across Regions of Antarctica for the Period 2003–2021
By Eva Bendix Nielsen, et al., JGR Atmospheres, Accepted Apr 10, 2025
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1029/2024JD043042
From Richard: Of the 12 regions of Antarctica analyzed for temperature trends from 2003-2021, 6 cooled and 6 warmed.
CLAIM: Increasing heat is super-charging Arctic climate and weather extremes
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Oct 26, 2025
Link to paper: Weather and climate extremes in a changing Arctic
By Xiangdong Zhang, et al., Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, Oct 21, 2025
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-025-00724-4
Unsurprising Arctic sea ice surprise Part II
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 29, 2025
Lowering Standards
Nature Has “Abandoned Science for Social Justice” Says Richard Dawkins
By Will Jones, The Daily Sceptic, Oct 28, 2025
Reposting Krylov’s letter on X, Dawkins said: “Nature used to be the world’s most prestigious science journals” but claimed it was now among many who placed emphasis on the background of authors rather than only on “the excellence… of their science”.
Met Office Admit Climate Records Are Junk!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 25, 2025
Link to: Met Office weather stations: How we measure the weather
Press release, Met Office, Oct 22, 2025
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/blog/2025/what-do-weather-stations-do
From Homewood: They end up shooting themselves in the foot though, when they state that these junk sites are the backbone of the UK’s climate records:
When Edison Electric Institute Went Woke (Jim Rogers flipped the script)
By Robert Bradley Jr, Master Resource, Oct 28, 2025
Ed. Note: How did a major energy trade association/ lobbying group come to support climate alarm and forced energy transformation, reversing its prior position? The story gets back to an ex-Enron executive who imported Enron’s political capitalism model to the electricity industry, to flip the script.
18 mph Light Winds
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 28, 2025
As you can see, they [Met Office] are calling 18 mph average wind speeds “Light Winds”.
The mind boggles!
[SEPP Comment: The US National Weather Service uses the Beaufort Wind Scale [from British Admiral Sir Francis Beauford (1774-1857) for general wind conditions: 13-18 mph, Moderate Breeze; 19-24 mph, Fresh Breeze; and so on.]
https://www.weather.gov/mfl/beaufort
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?
BBC Lie About Hurricane Melissa
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 29, 2025
The AP Gets Hurricanes Wrong, Again, Melissa’s Intensity Is Not Proof of Climate Change
By Anthony Watts, Climate Realism, Oct 30, 2025
Tell the Truth, The Guardian and NBC, High Weather Disaster Costs Aren’t Due to Climate Change
By H. Sterling Burnett, Climate Realism, Oct 27, 2025
We are not mad, but…
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 29, 2025
And yes, the United Nations says a lot of strange stuff. But surely as reporters you checked about this fabled increase in natural disasters. Because if not, we’re going to be skeptical about the part where weather is making people crazier too.
No, Washington Post, Climate Change Isn’t Killing Washington, DC’s Trees—Urban Stress Is
By Anthony Watts, Climate Realism, Oct 23, 2025
The Washington Post’s story may make for poetic reading, but it’s science fiction masquerading as environmental journalism. The real issue is not a mildly warming world—it is a city that’s paved, polluted, and hostile to trees.
Communicating Better to the Public – Exaggerate, or be Vague?
Scientists stunned by discovery inside 200-year-old coral structure: ‘An unexpected … signal’
By Megan Lewis, The Cool Down (TCD), Oct 26, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/scientists-stunned-discovery-inside-200-180000476.html
Link to press release: Corals might be adapting to climate change
By Yaivne Ye, University of Colorado Boulder, Today, Sep 30, 2025
https://www.colorado.edu/today/2025/09/30/corals-might-be-adapting-climate-change
Link to paper: Multidecadal decoupling between coral calcifying fluid and seawater saturation states
By Jessica C. Hankins, et al., AAAS Science Advances, Aug 27, 2025
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adr0264
From press release: Hankins studied two pieces of coral skeleton, one nearly 200 years old and one 115 years old, from the Great Barrier Reef and the Coral Sea located off the northeastern coast of Australia. Using Raman spectroscopy, she found that both corals were able to regulate their internal fluid chemistry to maintain growth of their skeleton, despite an ongoing increase in ocean acidity due to ocean acidification. The corals appeared to be able to sustain the production of calcium carbonate even as the chemistry of the surrounding seawater grew less hospitable.
While it remains unclear how the corals adapted to the changing environment, Hankins said the secret might lie in their calcifying fluid. [Boldface added]
[SEPP Comment: AAAS Science has published dozens of papers claiming high carbon dioxide levels caused warming and ocean acidification. Yet modern reef building corals evolved during the Triassic Period, about 240 million years ago. Papers published by AAAS Science claim that over the past 66 million years Earth experienced Hothouse, Warmhouse, Coolhouse, and the current Icehouse period since – all falsely caused by changing CO2 with some episodes of CO2 concentrations many times that of today. Now, it is “surprising” that corals can adapt to changing temperatures and CO2?]
Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.
Don’t Believe Your Lying Eyes!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 28, 2025
Link to highly questionable paper: Modelling the long-term financial benefits of UK investment in wind energy generation
By Colm O’Shea, Piers Home, and Mark Maslin of (University College London (UCL), UK; The United Nations University, Institute for Water, Environment and Health, Canada), Preprint
https://journals.uclpress.co.uk/ucloe/plugins/isolinear/article/3584/version/1
From Homewood: The report is clearly an attempt to justify a predetermined conclusion.
As such it is worthless junk.
Communicating Better to the Public – Go Personal.
Climate Skeptic Naomi Seibt Petitions President Trump for Political Asylum
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Oct 31, 2025
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda
Catastrophic events in an uncertain future: A pending $41 trillion bill for businesses and governments to resolve
By Viola Lutz, Head of Physical and Transition Risk Center of Excellence, Moody’s, et al., Moody’s, Sep 23, 2025
https://www.moodys.com/web/en/us/insights/physical-transition-risk/catastrophic-events-in-an-uncertain-future-a-pending-41-trillion-bill-for-businesses-and-governments-to-resolve.html?mod=djemclimate
The US faces economic losses of 9.5% of GDP by 2050, or $6 trillion. … Moody’s estimates a 2.0 percentage-point reduction of operating margins, which is equivalent to total damages of $1.5 trillion.
[SEPP Comment: Buy our services to reduce your risk, maybe we are wrong, but we will have your money.]
Pioneering journalist explains which energy source is dominating global energy grids: ‘We will soon live in a very different world’
It’s been a long time coming.
By Kristen Lawrence, The Cool Down, TCD, Oct 20, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
The environmentalist, activist, and pioneering journalist Bill McKibben explained in an article for the New Yorker that the green revolution has been quietly taking place since the 1950s, but in just the last two years, solar has experienced explosive growth.
[SEPP Comment: Remove the subsidies and what would be the growth?]
Climate change kills… South Korean fishermen?
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 29, 2025
Research funding is necessary; knowledge is not necessary.
Iceland, Mosquitoes, Climate Change, and Media Unibrows
Stupidity, ignorance, or a reckless disregard for the facts in the name of promoting alarm?
By JIT, Climate Scepticism, Oct 25, 2025
Buzzed Logic: Media Spins Three Icelandic Mosquitoes Into a Climate Story
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Oct 25, 2025
So, when the next headline declares that “climate change has come to Iceland — and it’s biting,” it might be worth remembering: sometimes a mosquito is just a mosquito, and sometimes, the story got there by cargo plane.
Questioning European Green
World Getting Fed Up With Europe’s Unsustainable Climate Sustainability Act
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Oct 29, 2025
Link to: EU Sustainability Legislation: A guide to obligations, implementation and interoperability for businesses
By Frank Bold, Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action and European Climate Initiative, May 2025
The EU’s two largest Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) suppliers, the United States and Qatar, have issued a strong warning, threatening to halt critical gas deliveries over the bloc’s proposed Sustainability Act.
Cost of Net Zero understated by “hundreds of billions”
Press release, Net Zero Watch, Oct 29, 2025
https://www.netzerowatch.com/all-news/w1jj0vm1zdobaj5tydr9mr9lc7qesd
Net Zero Watch director Andrew Montford said:
“DESNZ’s belated admission that it has been using fictional output figures for windfarm output is welcome, but they still have a long way to go. Even their revised figures are far too high, and their implausible cost figures have long since been refuted by hard data.”
Mr Montford points out that all official estimates of the cost of delivering Net Zero are therefore grossly understated.
British industry is now in terminal decline, killed by expensive energy
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 28, 2025
Questioning Green Elsewhere
The Alt-Energy Rumble Down Under
The IPA’s [Institute of Public Affairs] new database shows 150 instances of community opposition to alt-energy projects in Australia. Plus, global solar rejections hit a record, and yes, wind turbines kill birds, lots of them.
By Robert Bryce, His Blog, Oct 30, 2025
https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/the-alt-energy-rumble-down-under?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=630873&post_id=177599062&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=f7h7&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Bill Gates Walks It Back: Disaster Isn’t Imminent
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Oct 28, 2025
Greenwashing Our Future: Benefit for Whom?
By Lars Schernikau, His Blog, Oct 18, 2025 [H/t WUWT]
[SEPP Comment: Long post on the pretensions of ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) by private corporations.]
Green Jobs
Where Did Those 400,000 Green Jobs Go?
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 27, 2025
As the article noted, Gordon Brown’s promise of 400,000 green jobs was always a mirage. [in 2014]
Funny how the idiot [Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero] Miliband comes up with same number now!
Funding Issues
Funds for climate adaptation ‘lifeline’ far off track: UN
By Kelly MacNamamara, Paris (AFP) Oct 29, 2025
https://www.terradaily.com/reports/Funds_for_climate_adaptation_lifeline_far_off_track_UN_999.html
Windmills Spin, Returns Vanish, Taxpayers Foot The Bill
By Willis Eschenbach, WUWT, Oct 30, 2025
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System—CalPERS, the genius shop that manages pensions for the state’s lifers—took $468 million of other people’s money and, with the zeal of a true believer, plowed it into “clean energy and technology.”
The bottom line: they lost 71% of it.
Future of nation’s energy grid hurt by Trump’s funding cuts
Roshanak (Roshi) Nateghi, Associate Professor of Sustainability, Georgetown University, The Conversation, Oct 28, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
https://theconversation.com/future-of-nations-energy-grid-hurt-by-trumps-funding-cuts-267504?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Politics%20Weekly%20%20October%2030%202025%20-%203566536377&utm_content=Politics%20Weekly%20%20October%2030%202025%20-%203566536377+CID_8a90d25eba2c9cad3774107cee26caf0&utm_source=campaign_monitor_us&utm_term=Cuts%20to%20clean%20energy%20programs%20weaken%20power%20grid
I am an associate professor studying sustainability, with over 15 years of experience in energy systems reliability and resilience.
[SEPP Comment: What is sustainable about unreliable wind and solar?]
The Political Games Continue
Lee Zeldin Says It’s ‘Very Telling’ China Wants To Keep ‘Biden EPA Rule In Place’
By Audrey Streb, Daily Caller, Oct 28, 2025
https://dailycaller.com/2025/10/28/lee-zeldin-china-keep-biden-epa-rule
China is purportedly seeking to shape American energy policy by submitting public comments advocating for harsher Obama and Biden-era rules on power plants in a move that has several energy sector experts concerned, the Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported.
Litigation Issues
TotalEnergies declines to appeal ruling on ‘misleading’ climate claims
By AFP Staff Writers. Paris (AFP) Oct 24, 2025
https://www.energy-daily.com/reports/TotalEnergies_declines_to_appeal_ruling_on_misleading_climate_claims_999.html
The Paris court ruled TotalEnergies made claims on its French consumer website that “misled” consumers into believing it could achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 while increasing oil and gas production.
Zillow, First Street, and the Price of Panic: Can Climate Data Be Sued?
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Oct 25, 2025
The broader lesson is that “climate transparency” is meaningless without accuracy. In their rush to align with environmental virtue, corporations like Zillow may have opened themselves to a new form of liability: not for ignoring climate change, but for overstating it. Fear, it turns out, is not a harmless marketing tool. It’s a quantifiable liability when it devalues assets, distorts markets, and undermines public trust.
Cap-and-Trade and Carbon Taxes
Did Punitive British Net Zero Taxes Just Bankrupt an Oil [Services] Company?
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Oct 28, 2025
Energy Issues – Non-US
China Steps Up Control Of World’s Minerals Supply
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 31, 2025
China is now increasingly in control of the world’s refined copper output, as demand is set to rocket.
What could possibly go wrong?
Net Zero Watch launches campaign to scrap renewables expansion and cut energy bills
Press release, Net Zero Watch, Oct 30, 2025
https://www.netzerowatch.com/all-news/x6oind8l6wqfpenzqmra9c8e3hx7sj
Ed Miliband: Wind Power is Worse Than We Thought So We Need to Subsidise Even More of It
By Chris Morrison, The Daily Sceptic, Oct 30, 2025
Professor Allison was doing the sums a couple of years ago and they are the same today since they were based on physics and freely available information. “Whichever way you look at it, wind power is inadequate. It is intermittent and unreliable; it is exposed and vulnerable; it is weak with a short lifespan,” he concludes.
Muddled Messages From Tony Blair Institute
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 25, 2025
If Blair and his cronies really want cheaper power, they must call for Net Zero to be dropped entirely.
Tidbits
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 29, 2025
And if you just admitted you had no idea what to do when you blithely promised to fix it, and haven’t had one since, why should we think you’d know what to do with one if it did come along?
Energy Issues – Australia
Aussie Climate Council Tries to Explain Why Abandoning Net Zero is a Problem
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Oct 30, 2025
If this is the worst set of consequences the climate council can think of, to abandoning the waste of hundreds of billions of dollars on Net Zero, our descendants are going to wonder how we could ever be so foolish as to fall for the climate scam.
Wartsila Supporting Major Australian Energy Storage System
By Darrell Proctor, Power Mag, Oct 27, 2025
https://www.powermag.com/wartsila-supporting-major-australian-energy-storage-system/?utm_source=omeda&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pwrnews+eletter&oly_enc_id=7809H6412578J0B
Energy analysts have told POWER that DC-coupled projects represent a shift in the future of renewable energy integration. Engineers have said that by directly coupling solar generation with battery storage through a DC/DC converter, the architecture minimizes energy losses to capture solar power that would otherwise be curtailed. The hybrid set-up significantly improves project economics, system efficiency, and overall stability of the power grid.
[SEPP Comment: What powers the system when days are dark, and nights are long?]
Energy Issues — US
Electric heat to cost more this winter, federal agency projects
By Michael Ramsey, The Hill, Oct 25, 2025
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5572753-electric-heaters-more-costly-winter-agency-estimates
Link to: Winter Fuels Outlook 2025–26
By Staff, EIA, Oct 15, 2025
https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/perspectives/2025/10-winterfuels/article.php#tab2
Rep. Troy Balderson Is Right: Coal and Gas Drive Affordable, Reliable, and Clean
By Jude Clemente, Real Clear Energy, Oct 30, 2025
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/10/30/rep_troy_balderson_is_right_coal_and_gas_drive_affordable_reliable_and_clean_1143594.html
Baseload power plants serve on an around-the-clock basis, producing electricity at a consistent rate and thereby maximizing efficiency and minimizing costs. Coal and natural gas are classic baseload fuels characterized by abundance, availability, accessibility and established production, distribution and utilization systems.
DOE Grid Policy & Data Centers: New Thinking Ahead?
By Kennedy Maize, Master Resource, Oct 29, 2025
In a cover letter, Energy Secretary Chris Wright linked his plan for FERC to make the interconnections to the Trump administration’s ambitions for artificial intelligence.
[Former FERC chairman Mark] Christie, who now heads the new Center for Energy Law and Policy at the William and Mary Law School, commenting that “the evil is always in the details,” raised three “core questions” about the Wright proposal:
“1. Will reliable power service be threatened by FERC-mandated interconnection of large load customers without sufficient generation capacity available to the grid operator?”
“2. Will residential and other customers be forced to bear the costs of FERC-mandated large-load interconnections?”
“3. Does this proposal represent an unprecedented expansion of federal control and intrusion on the states’ historic retail regulatory authority?”
Uniting States to Save the Mid-Atlantic From an Impending Energy Crisis
By Kristin Marcell, Real Clear Energy, Oct 29, 2025
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/10/29/uniting_states_to_save_the_mid-atlantic_from_an_impending_energy_crisis_1143896.html
America’s Energy Grid Needs to Be Ready to Power U.S. Innovation
By Paul Lekas , Bethany Abbate, Real Clear Energy, Oct 30, 2025
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/10/30/americas_energy_grid_needs_to_be_ready_to_power_us_innovation_1144360.html
Paul Lekas is the head of public policy and Bethany is the director of AI policy for the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), an organization that represents the tech companies that drive the global economy. [Boldface added]
[SEPP Comment: Tech companies drive the global economy? Puffery]
Washington’s Control of Energy
Senate votes to overturn Biden move to restrict Arctic drilling
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Oct 30, 2025
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5581280-senate-overturns-biden-alaska-drilling-restrictions
The National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska was set aside in 1923 by former President Harding as an emergency oil reserve for the Navy. It is now managed by the Bureau of Land Management.
Trump fossil fuel approvals keep coming despite government shutdown
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Oct 30, 2025
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5580034-trump-fossil-fuel-permits-government-shutdown
Oil and Natural Gas – the Future or the Past?
Liquified Petroleum Gas: A Bridge to a Sustainable Energy Future
By Ruya Bayegan, Real Clear Energy, Oct 27, 2025
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/10/27/liquified_petroleum_gas_a_bridge_to_a_sustainable_energy_future_1143157.html
At BGN, we believe the path to sustainability requires a number of solutions. We are the largest offtaker of U.S. LPG but are not limited to that fuel. We trade in a range of sustainability solutions, including LNG, ammonia and biofuels. We are also invested in critical minerals, which play a key role in the energy transition, and are used in wind, solar, hydrogen and nuclear energy.
Return of King Coal?
Don’t Unplug Campbell: The True Cost of Shutting Down a Coal Plant
By Emily Arthun, Real Clear Energy, Oct 27, 2025
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/10/27/dont_unplug_campbell_the_true_cost_of_shutting_down_a_coal_plant_1143590.html
Emily Arthun is President & CEO of the American Coal Council (ACC), representing the U.S. coal value chain from mining to transportation to generation. The ACC advocates for policies that ensure energy reliability, affordability, and economic resilience.
Nuclear Energy and Fears
In Germany we have the highest electricity prices in Europe, and we just blew up our largest-capacity nuclear plant on live television.
By Eugyppius, Blog, Oct 26, 2025
https://www.eugyppius.com/p/in-germany-we-have-the-highest-electricity
If it sounds good they’ll build it [solar, batteries, etc.] in Gundremmingen, but nothing they build there will ever prove remotely capable of producing the 20 TWh that the Unit B and Unit C reactors churned out at their peak.
[SEPP Comment: The net capacity of Units B and C was 2,572 MW. With a capacity factor of about 90%, the units provided about 20 TWh annually. To get the much energy from renewables with a capacity factor of about 25% would require their net capacity to be about 10,000 MW. It would not be reliable.]
Westinghouse Enters Partnership for $80 Billion of New Nuclear Reactors
By Darrell Proctor, Power Mag, Oct 29, 2025
https://www.powermag.com/westinghouse-enters-partnership-for-80-billion-of-new-nuclear-reactors/?utm_source=omeda&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pwrnews+eletter&oly_enc_id=7809H6412578J0B
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
A Cautionary Solar Tale: Billions Wasted Thanks to a Rush to Market
By Gary Abernathy, WUWT, Oct 31, 2025
Labour will chop down forests to make way for solar panels
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 27, 2025
Shock New Report Lays Out the Full Scale of Environmental Damage Caused by Onshore Wind Turbines
By Chris Morrison, The Daily Sceptic, Oct 27, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Link to paper: Impacts of onshore wind energy production on biodiversity
By Todd E. Katzner, et al., Nature Reviews Biodiversity, Sep 8, 2025
https://www.nature.com/articles/s44358-025-00078-1
Record copper prices spark turmoil for green energy projects
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 31, 2025
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Other
US company develops unprecedented tech to tap into limitless underground energy source: ‘The first drilling innovation in 100 years’
By Rick Kazmer, The Cool Down, TCD, Oct 26, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
https://tech.yahoo.com/science/articles/us-company-develops-unprecedented-tech-054500930.html
The impressive setup was recently demonstrated at a granite quarry in Marble Falls, Texas. Quaise drilled 387 feet into rock, vaporizing it with “high-frequency electromagnetic waves” with no drill bit in sight.
It’s the deepest depth ever reached with this method. It works by using a high-tech gyrotron to create millimeter waves that penetrate the ground. The goal is to unlock superhot geothermal energy as a replacement for dirty fuels, according to IE.
[SEPP Comment: No mention of costs.]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles
Just Hope Your Doors Open
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 26, 2025
This is truly scary. This Chinese EV catches fire while moving:
Carbon Schemes
Half a Trillion For Carbon Capture
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 29, 2025
Of that £50 billion, £22 billion has already been allocated to a CCGT gas power station fitted with carbon capture (CCGT/CCS) on Teeside, a transfer and storage facility in the North Sea and another in Liverpool Bay.
However, these initial projects will only capture an estimated 2 million tonnes a year of CO2, out of the UK’s total emissions of about 300 million tonnes.
The simple fact is that carbon capture schemes intrinsically make the processes they are attached to inefficient and costly. A gas power station, for instance, will waste a fifth of its electricity generation on powering the CCS unit. On what planet is it sensible to waste a valuable resource such as natural gas in this way?
Mangrove research reveals major blue carbon and economic gain potential for the Philippines
By Riko Seibo, Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Oct 24, 2025
https://www.terradaily.com/reports/Mangrove_research_reveals_major_blue_carbon_and_economic_gain_potential_for_the_Philippines_999.html
Link to paper: Understanding blue carbon management strategies: quantitative assessment of blue carbon stock among three mangrove stands in Eastern Visayas, Philippines, W. Pacific Border
By Hannah Alexis Melquiades Asilo & Leni G. Yap-Dejeto, Carbon Research, Sep 5, 2025
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s44246-025-00216-6
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s44246-025-00216-6
[SEPP Comment: “Blue carbon” is CO2 captured and stored in coastal and marine ecosystems.]
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
California Dreaming
Large Scale Desalination Could Transform California
By Edward Ring, His Blog, Accessed Oct 29, 2025
https://mailchi.mp/calpolicycenter/whats-current-issue-7860923?e=cd9fa89d1e
Why is it axiomatic among California’s water agencies and policymakers that large scale desalination is inconceivable in California? That certainly isn’t the case in other arid locales. In 2024, an estimated 30-million-acre feet of fresh water was produced by desalination plants worldwide.
On the coast of the Red Sea, about 60 miles south of the port city Jeddah, and only slightly further from the inland city of Mecca, the Shoaiba Desalination Complex produces nearly 900,000-acre feet of fresh water per year. Situated on approximately 1,200 acres, this one installation could, if it were located in California, supply more than 12 percent of ALL California’s urban water consumption. That’s not very much land, for an awful lot of water.
Health, Energy, and Climate
Real Public Health Threats vs. Climate Hysteria
By Gregory Wrightstone, CO2 Coalition, Oct 27, 2025
Link to report: Climate Change and Health
By Medical Doctors Allen, Breslow, and Nebert, CO2 Coalition, Oct 20, 2025
The 2025 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change
By Marina Romanello, et al., The Lancet, Oct 28, 2025
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)01919-1/abstract?dgcid=raven_jbs_etoc_feature_lancetclimate25
Driven by human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, climate change is increasingly claiming lives and harming people’s health worldwide. Mean annual temperatures exceeded 1·5°C above those of pre-industrial times for the first time in 2024. Despite ever more urgent calls to tackle climate change, greenhouse gas emissions rose to record levels that same year. Climate change is increasingly destabilizing the planetary systems and environmental conditions on which human life depends.
[SEPP Comment: With 366 references, many political, none addressing how increasing CO2 increases the greenhouse effect.]
Other Scientific News
Evidence suggests ancient Australians valued fossils rather than causing megafauna extinction
By Simon Mansfield, Sydney, Australia (SPX) Oct 23, 2025
https://www.terradaily.com/reports/Evidence_suggests_ancient_Australians_valued_fossils_rather_than_causing_megafauna_extinction_999.html
Link to paper: Australia’s First Peoples: hunters of extinct megafauna or Australia’s first fossil collectors
By Michael Archer, et al., The Royal Society Open Science, Oct 22, 2025
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.250078
Hydrothermal vents may have triggered early molecular chemistry on ancient Earth
By Staff Writers for ACS News.Washington DC (SPX) Oct 23, 2025
https://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Hydrothermal_vents_may_have_triggered_early_molecular_chemistry_on_ancient_Earth_999.html
Link to paper: Carbon Reduction Powered by Natural Electrochemical Gradients under Submarine Hydrothermal Vent Conditions
By T Altair, et al., Journal of the American Chemical Society, July 29, 2025
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.5c01948
Other News that May Be of Interest
200 Years Ago, the Erie Canal Opened and America Was Never the Same
By Rick Moran, PJ Media, Oct 26, 2025
https://pjmedia.com/rick-moran/2025/10/26/200-years-ago-the-erie-canal-opened-and-america-was-never-the-same-n4945269?utm_source=pjmedia&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&bcid=a63f4d375873050165d4525794f52bb00731c8f210776b36a700116ade0f6939&lctg=4143601
[SEPP Comment: After being denied funding from the US government and elsewhere, New York State issued bonds to fund it. The Erie Canal was wildly successful prompting many states to fund canal projects with bonds. Many of the canal projects went bankrupt. Eventually, railroads replaced successful canals.]
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE
#HaveItBothWays: Sea level acceleration
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 29, 2025
But if they squinted just so, they claimed, they could find a brief increase in the annual sea level rate late in the sample of 0.013 mm per year over the previous level. Yes, that’s right, the rate of increase is supposedly itself going up by just over one one-hundredth of a millimeter every year. [Boldface added]
Greta Thunberg Announces Plan to Copyright “How DARE You!”
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Oct 31, 2025
Possible interference to space communications found as atmospheric CO2 rises
By Riko Seibo, Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Oct 28, 2025
https://www.terradaily.com/reports/Possible_interference_to_space_communications_found_as_atmospheric_CO2_rises_999.html
Link to paper: How Does Increasing CO2 Concentration Affect the Ionospheric Sporadic-E Formation?
By Farhan Naufal Rifqi, et al, Geophysical Research Letters, Oct 23, 2025
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2025GL117911
[SEPP Comment: The Ionosphere is the ionized part of the upper atmosphere beginning about 30 miles (48km) above sea level. It is not distinctly defined and includes the lower part of the Exosphere.]
Undercutting Clean Energy Means Undercutting Veterans
By Greg Giunta, Real Clear Energy, Oct 31, 2025
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/10/31/undercutting_clean_energy_means_undercutting_veterans_1144371.html
[SEPP Comment: Special pleading for unreliable solar power.]
ARTICLES
1. Exxon Mobil Sues California Over Looming Climate Disclosure Rules
Oil giant says the Golden State’s requirements rely on a framework that unduly blames big companies such as itself for climate change
By Clara Hudson, WSJ, Oct 27, 2025
https://www.wsj.com/articles/exxon-mobil-sues-california-over-looming-climate-disclosure-rules-048929f0?mod=business_lead_pos5
TWTW Summary: The article begins with:
“Exxon Mobil says rules requiring it to disclose climate risks infringe on the company’s right to free speech.
The oil-and-gas giant made the argument in a suit filed Friday against the state of California, which is rolling out requirements for businesses to report their climate risks as well as greenhouse gas emissions. The climate risk reporting rule will come into effect in a matter of weeks.
Exxon Mobil asked the court to halt the rules, arguing that they would violate free speech protections by forcing the business to use frameworks that put ‘disproportionate blame on large companies’ such as the energy producer itself.
The rules would require Exxon Mobil ‘to serve as a mouthpiece for ideas with which it disagrees,’ the company said in the complaint, which was submitted to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California.
‘The statutes compel Exxon Mobil to trumpet California’s preferred message even though Exxon Mobil believes the speech is misleading and misguided.’
The oil giant said it has already been voluntarily reporting climate risks and greenhouse gas emissions on its own terms.
‘Exxon Mobil understands the very real risks associated with climate change and supports continued efforts to address those risks,’ the suit said.
A spokesperson for the California Department of Justice said the reporting rules ‘are about transparency.’”
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2. Bill Gates Apologizes for Earth’s Survival
The science never said humanity was doomed. Now, apparently, you’re not obliged to believe it is.
By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., WSJ, Oct. 31, 2025
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/bill-gates-apologizes-for-earths-survival-b0d9c39d?mod=hp_opin_pos_6
TWTW Summary: The journalist begins with:
“Bill Gates jumps off a bandwagon that existed in the first place only as a complete and utter canard.
Climate change doesn’t point to ‘humanity’s demise,’ the Microsoft philanthropist says in a splashy memo addressed to a forthcoming climate jamboree in Brazil. ‘People will be able to live and thrive in most places on Earth for the foreseeable future.’
But this only comports with the science as we’ve known it for decades. Has Mr. Gates experienced an epiphany, a falling away of scales? Not possible in this case since he already knew the truth. A reputational gravy train is simply coming to an end. Our elites have been getting off for a while.
In fact, Mr. Gates may rank 247th in bravery, behind David Wallace-Wells, author of 2019’s ‘The Uninhabitable Earth,’ who later that same year was already moderating his rhetoric ‘in a less alarmist direction’ (as he put it, without offering refunds).
Or the New York Times’s Ezra Klein, that harbinger of the obvious becoming sayable to liberals. He admitted three years ago that mainstream climate models meant ‘your kids are not doomed to a grim life.’
Laughably, Mr. Gates links his conversion to a ‘victory’ for environmentalism, in the form of new, less dire emissions forecasts.
The victory he cites, as documented even by the austere Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2021, was only over a bad, propagandistic forecast that was never rooted in the science in the first place.”
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