The Week That Was: 2025-11-15 (November 15, 2025)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” — Thomas Edison
Number of the Week: Daily Variation of 80 to 100 degrees C (144 to 180 degrees F)
THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Scope: This TWTW begins with a discussion of false precision by Ivor Williams. Then TWTW presents an essay by Meteorologist Anthony Sadar on how ignorance is used to spread fear of climate change. TWTW offers further thoughts on why some people change their thinking about climate change, what is meant by tipping points, and issues regarding COP-30. This TWTW concludes with Bjorn Lomborg’s view of the “green transition” in China.
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False Precision: The 2008 publication of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) “Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate” raised an important issue that remains today: The global temperature record is unreliable. There was no standardization of instruments, time of recording, duration of the reading, and assurance of adequate coverage. At the time, an instrument in every one of the 2,592 grid boxes of the globe, each covering 5-degree latitude and longitude was ideal. At no time has even 50% of the globe been covered, and coverage peaked in the 1970s with 46% coverage. From there it went down to about 23% in the 1990s. There was no adjustment for the urban heat island effect and other local effects.
Yet organizations such as the Met Office (UK) and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) continue to use surface-air temperatures dating back to 1850 as if they are reliable. In 1900 about 300 grid boxes were covered, less than 12%. These were mostly in the US and Western Europe and major cities in colonized parts of the world. There was little coverage elsewhere, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere.
Writing in WUWT, Ivor Williams (no bio given) brought up the issue in his essay “The Curious Case of the Missing Data.” Williams begins his essay with [links omitted here but are embedded in the post. Boldface added.]:
“I shall end with two unanswered questions. The reason for that lies in a story with eight decimal places of recondite mystery and scarcely believable deductions. One last glimpse of reality: the mean temperature of the world at the moment (early November) is hovering around 14 deg C, which is never used because it does not convey a sufficient element of danger in the global warming message. Fourteen degrees Celsius or fifty-seven Fahrenheit are not messages of imminent doom. Either one is the annual mean temperature of Bordeaux, San Francisco, or Canberra.
Therefore, the Wise Ones have decided that any global temperature given to the masses must always be shown as a difference from the mean of the half-century 1850-1900, which, they say, is representative of our world in smoke-free pre-industrial times. That period also happens to be towards the end of the Little Ice Age, which, the Met Office says, had ‘particularly cold intervals beginning in about 1650, 1770 and 1850.’ Cold spell beginning in 1850? Interesting.
Thus it was that on 10 January this year the Met Office told us that ‘The global average temperature for 2024 was 1.53±0.08°C above the 1850-1900 global average,’ This is an extraordinarily accurate figure but the World Meteorological Organization has much the same: ‘The global average surface temperature [in 2024] was 1.55 °C … ± 0.13 °C … above the 1850-1900 average, according to WMO’s consolidated analysis.’ Ignore the scarcely believable accuracy of those second decimal places, there’s worse to come.
The obvious question is: Why were those fifty years chosen as the fundamental reference period? The answer is easily found: ‘Global-scale observations from the instrumental era began in the mid-19th century for temperature,’ says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in their Fifth Assessment Report (Section B, page 4.) An associated IPCC Special Report (FAQ1.2 para 4) explains that ‘The reference period 1850–1900 … is the earliest period with near-global observations and is … used as an approximation of pre-industrial temperature.’ Note the categoric statements that sufficient data is available in that nineteenth century fifty-year period to calculate the global mean temperatures.
In 1850, may I remind you, Dickens was writing David Copperfield, California was admitted to the Union as the 31st state and vast areas of the earth were still unexplored. 1900 brought the Boxer Rebellion (China), the Boer War (South Africa) and the Galveston hurricane (USA). There were still quite large areas awaiting intrepid explorers.
I was curious about how in olden times those global temperatures were actually measured, but after a painstaking search of websites and yet again proving that AI-derived information can be both wrong and misleading, I turned in despair to the Met Office enquiry desk. Their reply was long and very detailed. No actual data, but several clues as to where to search. Very interesting clues.
The IPCC report above claiming ‘global-scale observations’ is obviously true, because the World Meteorological Organization has a comprehensive graph showing six different global mean temperature measurements of the difference from the 1850-1900 period. But a link ‘Get the data’ on the same page leads to the following curious table of the Met Office anomalies:
1850: -0.1797
1851: -0.0592
then every year to
1899: -0.0128
1900: 0.1218
then every year to
2023: 1.4539
2024: 1.5361
There is even more accurate Met Office data from the past, this time anomalies relative to the 1961-1990 period but this time totally unbelievable, all from HadCRUT5.1.0.0, Summary Series, Global, CSV file, Annual.
1850: -0.42648312
1851: -0.2635183
then every year to
1899: -0.34430692
1900: -0.2301605
then every year to
2024: 1.1690052”
TWTW comment: It is highly questionable whether we can accurately calculate the average global surface-air temperature to one degree today, yet the Met Office can calculate a deviation from it to 8 decimal places in 1899? Williams goes through estimates of the world coverage in the past and concludes with [Boldface added]:
Those graphs show that even by 1900 only about 15% of the earth had recording stations. And the 1850 data is apparently extracted from only around 4%.
How can world temperatures be measured that accurately with such an impossibly small amount of data – almost nothing from the oceans and most of the rest from North America and Western Europe?
It wouldn’t really matter except for someone having decided that current global mean temperatures should always be shown to the worried world as anomalies compared with the 1850-1900 data, which is itself possibly a cooler climatic period. The intention must be to demonstrate clearly that there is no doubt that we are indeed warming up dangerously, and if we don’t do something about it soon it will be too late and don’t say we didn’t warn you.
But, and this is one huge ‘but’, how can the 1850 mean global temperature be recorded, for instance, as -0.1797 deg C less than the mean of 1850-1900, when it seems that reporting stations covered only about 4% of the earth at that time? And why to a totally unrealistic ten-thousandth-of-a-degree?
I did warn you this would end with two unanswered questions, and here they are, both about that fifty-year 1850-1900 period:
Where can we consult the actual original global data?
How were those incredibly accurate anomaly figures calculated?”
The post promoted an interesting discussion including that 1850 was about the time of the end of the Little Ice Age, perhaps Earth’s coldest period in the last 10,000 years. See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy – NIPCC for the NIPCC report and link under Challenging the Orthodoxy for “The Curious Case of the Missing Data.”
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Using Ignorance to Spread Fear: Meteorologist Anthony Sadar has long used atmospheric modeling. In “Frightening Climate Story Lacks Depth of Climate Knowledge” to be published by the Journal “Science of Climate Change,” Sadar describes the differences between what he does and global climate modeling. He writes [Boldface added, citations are not included here but are in the text]:
“Atmospheric modeling is typically of the mathematical kind. Such modeling involves sophisticated equations which necessitate assumptions and limitations and contain measured and approximated input quantities.
Most of my forty years of professional practice encompassed mathematical modeling of the dispersion of air pollutants. The air pollution models combined sources of contaminants (industrial smokestacks) with adverse weather conditions (stagnant air) and critical receptors (vulnerable communities) to produce a reasonable estimate of worst-case air pollution impacts.
This sort of modeling focused on predicting harmful effects over relatively short time frames (hours to one year) and on tight space scales (dozens of square meters to several square kilometers).
Compare this example of small-scale weather simulation to its large-scale global climate analog.
Both modeling methods attempt to faithfully replicate reality. And as understanding of the atmosphere increased and computer capacity expanded, both methods yielded dramatically improved outcomes. Both rely on careful, unbiased observations and interpretations of adequate scientific data. And both produce useful results to guide decisions involving public health and safety. These are some of the positive portions of modeling.
There are some negative parts.
Models typically lack adequate spatial resolution to capture small but potentially critical aspects of the atmosphere. Spatial inadequacy includes not just horizontal stretches across the earth’s surface but its vertical expanse as well. And, within this three-dimensional space, constant changes are occurring with temperature, moisture, wind, pressure, and energy.
Lack of complete information and knowledge of the chemistry and physics of the air leads to serious uncertainties of future conditions. This is true for small-scale air-pollution modeling and even more so for global climate modeling. The atmosphere is inherently complex as is its modeling and the increase in time and distance affects forecast accuracy.
Yet, although changes that occur in the atmosphere occur in three dimensions, so much thinking on climate change happens on a two-dimensional level.
Certainly, academic and government studies delve into the dimensional complexity of the airy environment, but the study results seem to be delivered and interpreted in a simplistic way. Take climate conclusions derived from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. The IPCC report is the bible of climate change collective wisdom, and its latest edition is the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6).
The synthesis of the full lengthy report to AR6 was released March 2023. And even though there are thousands of pages of mainly technical material including peer-reviewed references in the full multi-year state-of-the-science AR6, the relatively brief synthesis is typically heavily influenced by politics, highlighting the governmental portion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
From the skewed IPCC synthesis reports and similar politically biased narratives, many in the public, politicians, and news media conclude:
The Earth’s air temperature is rising to dangerous levels; this rise is mainly due to increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; the release of carbon dioxide by burning fossil fuels must end, as soon as possible; without cessation of fossil fuel use, much of life on Earth will die.
Some form of this ‘settled science’ diatribe has been repeated almost ad nauseum for decades. Schooling from K-16 and into graduate education has been saturated with this mantra. Nevertheless, the reality of atmospheric science is far from this ‘two-dimensional’ thinking. What is actually known is not so simple nor settled.
Like the air itself, a third dimension must be added to common climate-change thinking that includes the depth of the atmosphere.
This expanded, three-dimensional perspective derives from atmospheric modeling which is used to explore the dynamics of the global air and to forecast its future conditions. But even sophisticated mathematical climate modeling still lacks sufficient equations to match actual climate conditions.
The mismatch between model output and reality is recognized in A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate, a July 2025 US Department of Energy report authored by five accomplished professionals in the fields of atmospheric science, physics, and economics. Although this document is facing challenges, its section on the ‘Vertical temperature profile mismatch’ alerts the reader not only to the dramatic mismatch between model results and actual measurements, but also the fact that the atmosphere is three-dimensional and more complex than most people realize. Thus:
‘[t]he atmosphere’s temperature profile is a case where [climate] models are not merely uncertain but also show a common warming bias relative to observations. This suggests that they misrepresent certain fundamental feedback processes’ (US DOE, 2025).
My own peer-reviewed research which included 30-years (1991 – 2020) of low-level temperature conditions derived from southwest Pennsylvania twice-daily balloon-launch data confirms that changes in the lowest layer of the Earth’s air defy incontrovertible conclusions. My study investigated atmospheric changes that impact the dispersal of air pollutants near the ground (Sadar, 2022, with additional discussion in Sadar, 2024).
These changes also relate directly to climate change mechanics because changes to the trends in near-surface temperature along with moisture content have a profound effect on the Earth’s hydrologic (water) cycle.
Notably, perhaps the most uncertain of the feedback processes mentioned in the Critical Review is related to the water cycle.
Water, in all its forms — as solid ice and snow, as liquid cloud droplets, precipitation, and fog, and as invisible vapor — continuously cycles its modes and in the process absorbs or releases energy. Water vapor and clouds account for most of the greenhouse effect.
In the recent book Climate and Energy: The Case for Realism, one of the US DOE Critical Review authors, climatologist Roy Spencer, noted that precipitation processes that restrict the accumulation of water vapor in the atmosphere: [Boldface was italics in original.]
‘are not known in enough detail to predict how the weak direct-warming effect of [carbon dioxide] will be either amplified or reduced by precipitation limits on water vapor. Climate models only crudely represent the conversion from water vapor to precipitation…. The actual physics that will determine how precipitation will change with warming are not even understood, let alone represented in climate models’ (Beisner et al., 2024).
Clearly there is still a lot to be investigated about the workings of the atmosphere. And nuanced science must continue to be disseminated and understood regardless of politicized storylines that imply [apply?] two-dimensional simplicity to the three-dimensional complexity of the climate.
Regardless, models as sophisticated tools in the scientist’s toolbox are enormously beneficial. Air dispersion models have helped us to understand and reduce air contaminant concentrations. Climate models have greatly improved awareness of atmospheric dynamics and potential long-term changes.
This critique does not denigrate atmospheric modeling in any way or at any level, small or large. Rather it is more of a cautionary tale to reduce bombastic certitude and to add much-needed humility to the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the atmosphere. In the real world of heat and humidity, wind and pressure, land and sea, mountain, and valley, no one knows with sufficient clarity the end of the climate story or even its subsequent chapters in the decades ahead.
As the saying goes, ‘there are two sides to every story.’ For the longest time, the scary side with a cacophony of climate calamity had been the one pandered to students and the general public. But now it appears that, to the betterment of science and the serenity of society, the other side — a less frightening, more realistic side — of the complicated climate story is being given a fair public hearing.”
Sadar reinforces what others have stated: that as presented to the public, atmospheric modeling is too simplistic to make long-term forecasts or to be used for policy purposes. It does not even get the water cycle correct. In terms of keeping Earth warm enough for plant growth, water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas. Add to this the problems of understanding cloudiness, turbulence, and chaos theory; that the initial conditions of the model must be exactly right, if not, small errors will grow exponentially. These practical limits to climate modeling are far too often ignored in press releases and public claims by climate modelers.
See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy and link under Models v. Observations a link on clouds.
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Change in Thinking: As stated in last week’s TWTW, Bill Gates cut back his extreme view of climate change and stated that there are other serious problems for humanity. Significant speculation arose regarding what this meant. In discussing a change (in commentary by Ted Nordhaus of the Breakthrough Institute) John Robson may have stated such conversions the best in “It wasn’t a plot.” Robson writes:
“But he’s [Ted Nordhaus] back at it, and it’s a powerful illustration not only of how people might move from confusion to clarity, but also of the fact that climate alarmism was never a hoax for the vast majority of advocates and followers, but a sincere error.
So, here’s one of his reasons:
‘what determines the cost of a climate-related disaster is not just how extreme the weather is. It is also how many people and how much wealth is affected by the extreme weather event, and how vulnerable they are to that event. Over the same period that the climate has warmed by 1.5 degrees, the global population has more than quadrupled, per-capita income has increased by a factor of 10, and the scale of infrastructure, social services, and technology that protects people and wealth from climate extremes has expanded massively. These latter factors overwhelm the climate signal.’”
See link under Questioning the Orthodoxy.
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Tipping Points: Those promoting fear of climate change often use the term “tipping point” without clearly defining it. A video by Germany’s EIKE Institute posted by P Gosselin defined its meaning well. The translator said:
“Climate researchers define tipping points as stages of a negative development beyond which the development can no longer be stopped because the process is constantly intensifying in a self-perpetuating manner.”
When Earth emerged out of the last Ice Age did it cross a tipping point? When Earth enters the next Ice Age will it cross a tipping point? See link under Questioning the Orthodoxy.
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COP-30: Recognizing that what goes into UN conferences and reports often has little bearing on what comes out, TWTW will wait until the final document before presenting its views of the Thirtieth Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – COP-30. In RealClearEnergy.org Steve Goreham expressed some skepticism when he wrote:
“What have thirty UN climate conferences accomplished since 1995? The answer is ‘no measurable climate benefit.’ Since 2000, the world has spent about $10 trillion on renewable energy, but hydrocarbons ─coal, natural gas, and oil─ still provided 87% of world energy in 2024 according to the Energy Institute.”
See links under Questioning the Orthodoxy and After Paris! for other commentaries.
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Four Hundred Years: Much is made of China and green energy, but little is mentioned that its green energy transition is powered by coal. The president of the Copenhagen Consensus Bjorn Lomborg discusses this “revolution.”
“Renewables’ share was 40% in 1971 when the country was poor but plummeted to 7.5% by 2011. From then to 2023—the last year for which the IEA has data on China—the portion of renewables rose slowly to 10%. On this trajectory, a full transition would take 400 years. IEA data show China in 2023 added more than five times as much coal energy as solar and wind energy.”
See Article # 1.
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Number of the Week: Daily Variation of 80 to 100 degrees C (144 to 180 degrees F) According to Grok.com, the daily range in temperature change at the equator on Mars varies 80 to 100 degrees C (144 to 180 degrees F). The day-night temperature range depends on its distance from the Sun. The orbit of Mars takes 687 days; the orbit of Earth takes 365.25 days. But the daily rotations of both are approximately the same. One solar day of Mars is about 24.6 hours, about 40 minutes longer than a solar day on Earth.
By contrast, the mean daily maximum of Manaus, Brazil is around 31.4°C (88.6°F) with 1 or 2 degrees C variation through the year. The mean daily minimum is 23.5°C (74.3°F), with little variation throughout the year. Manaus is located on the Negro River in northwestern Brazil with an elevation about 92m (302 feet). It is close to Earth’s equator with a latitude of 3.1° S. It is deep in the Amazon about 900 air miles from the Atlantic Ocean with no interfering mountain range.
The atmosphere of Mars is about 95 to 96% carbon dioxide, and it has tiny amounts of water vapor and methane. Earth’s atmosphere is about 100 times thicker than Mars. Greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere, primarily water vapor and secondarily carbon dioxide, slow the nighttime cooling.
Comparing the wild swings in daily temperature at the equator on Mars with the minimal swings in daily temperature near the equator on Earth, one can assert, with physical evidence, that the greenhouse effect stabilizes Earth’s temperatures rather than disrupts it. The claim that adding CO2 to Earth’s atmosphere will disrupt climate has no physical evidence.
Commentary: Is the Sun Rising?
Are we ready for a repeat of the 1859 Carrington-Hodgson Solar Superstorm Event?
May 2024 Solar Superstorm Confirmed as Strongest Flare Event in 87-Year Record
New Hemispheric Solar Flare Index Provides Critical Space Weather Data for Protecting Modern Infrastructure
By CERES – Science Team, Video and Text, Nov 13, 2025
https://www.ceres-science.com/post/are-we-ready-for-a-repeat-of-the-1859-carrington-hodgson-solar-superstorm-event
This week, the world saw yet another display of spectacular aurorae (November 11-12, 2025) at latitudes as low as El Salvador and Mexico. This was a year after similar unusually low-latitude aurorae events that captivated millions worldwide in May 2024.
Potential for a Major Aurora Tonight
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog,, Nov 11, 2025
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2025/11/potential-for-major-aurora-tonight.html
There has been a significant solar storm, and particles have reached the Earth’s orbit.
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
The Curious Case of the Missing Data
By Ivor Williams, WUWT, Nov 10, 2025
Frightening Climate Story Lacks Depth of Climate Knowledge
By Anthony J. Sadar, Science of Climate Change, Accepted Nov 9, 2025
Markets, Government, and the Common Good — Energy
Video, Free Market Forum 2025, Hillsdale College, Oct 16-17, 2025
https://freedomlibrary.hillsdale.edu/programs/free-market-forum-2025/energy
Link to Slides from Dr. Willie Soon: CO2 is plant food, not a pollutant
By Willie Soon, Hillsdale College, Oct 17th, 2025
https://www.ceres-science.com/post/dr-willie-soon-co2-is-plant-food-not-a-pollutant-hillsdale-college-oct-17th-2025
Chill Out: AC Refrigerants Cause Negligible Warming
By Frits Byron Soepyan, CO2 Coalition, Nov 12, 2025
German Energy Professor: COP 30 Is A Failure…”Only Europe Remains Committed”
By Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt, Via P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Nov 12, 2025
No head of state from the four largest CO2-emitting nations—China (33%), the USA (12%), India (8%), and Russia (5%)—is showing up in Belém.
Junk science and government
By S. Stanley Young and Warren Kindzierski, American Thinker, Nov 10, 2025
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/11/junk_science_and_government.html
The National Association of Scholars (NAS) spent the past few years examining the methods of four different fields of science that lead to irreproducible (false) evidence used by governments. Flawed methods are big part of what leads to false evidence and junk science. Guess where most of this junk originates? Government-funded academia.
Defending the Orthodoxy
China emissions flat in third quarter as solar surges: study
By AFP Staff Writers, Paris (AFP) Nov 11, 2025
https://www.energy-daily.com/reports/China_emissions_flat_in_third_quarter_as_solar_surges_study_999.html
Link to report: Analysis: China’s CO2 emissions have now been flat or falling for 18 months
By Lauri Myllyvirta, Carbon Brief, Nov 11, 2025
From report: China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions were unchanged from a year earlier in the third quarter of 2025, extending a flat or falling trend that started in March 2024.
[SEPP Comment: Links to data published in 2024 and 2025 did not work. The data used came from China and TWTW could not confirm if the statements are correct.]
Want to make America healthy again? Stop fueling climate change
By Jonathan Levy, et al., The Conversation, Nov 12, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshie]
https://theconversation.com/want-to-make-america-healthy-again-stop-fueling-climate-change-269269?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Newsletter%20%20November%2012%202025%20-%203579736529&utm_content=Daily%20Newsletter%20%20November%2012%202025%20-%203579736529+CID_684fb86e8d6bca213ee86832a177b80e&utm_source=campaign_monitor_us&utm_term=Want%20to%20make%20America%20healthy%20again%20Stop%20fueling%20climate%20change
Climate change can threaten health in numerous other ways. Longer pollen seasons can increase allergen exposures. Lower crop yields can reduce access to nutritious foods.
[SEPP Comment: Another group of university professors with fake facts. Increasing CO2 is increasing crop yields not reducing them.]
Defending the Orthodoxy – Bandwagon Science
Can Clean Energy Fix the Climate Crisis?
Invitation to Register, Foreign Policy, Nov 20, 2025
As world leaders gather in Belém, Brazil, for COP30,…
[SEPP Comment: The biggest emitters of CO2 are China, USA, and India. Their political leaders are not attending.]
Questioning the Orthodoxy
It wasn’t a plot
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Nov 12, 2025
Germany’s EIKE Institute Calls “Global Tipping Points Report” Overly Fixated On CO2
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Nov 9, 2025
An actual tipping point
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Nov 12, 2025
And of course, the hat is out, with another expert opining that:
“Although global solutions for the climate change crisis are not yet broadly available, multidisciplinary research into Climate Change and its potential solutions will continue to generate value across multiple sectors of science, industry and society.”
Send more grants. To help us adapt to the collapse of alarmism.
Ten Years After the Paris Climate Agreement, Climatism Is Crumbling
By Steve Goreham, Real Clear Energy, Nov 13, 2025
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/11/13/ten_years_after_the_paris_climate_agreement_climatism_is_crumbling_1147153.html
Link to press release: Renewables soar, but fossil fuels continue to rise as global electricity demand hits record levels
By Staff, Energy Institute, June 26, 2025
https://www.energyinst.org/exploring-energy/resources/news-centre/media-releases/renewables-soar,-but-fossil-fuels-continue-to-rise-as-global-electricity-demand-hits-record-levels
Climate Apocalypse is Science Fiction
By Craig Walton, Briefings for Britian, July 11, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
A key example of rhetoric versus reality is extreme weather. Claims of increasing frequency and danger of extreme weather events broadly lack strong scientific backing. In a warmer world, we can expect some locations with more intense evaporation, but also overall more precipitation, leading to a wetter world.
New Study Suggests CO2 Levels Were Necessarily As High As Today 10,000 Years Ago
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Nov 13, 2025
Link to paper: Historical CO₂ levels in periods of global greening
By Frans J. Schrijver, Science of Climate Change, 2025
From the abstract: The increased atmospheric CO₂ level is widely recognized as a primary driver of global greening (a 30% increase in [terrestrial Gross Primary Production] GPP since 1900). It raises the question whether such an increased CO₂ level is also a necessary condition for a large GPP. This paper evaluates whether CO₂ levels during historical periods of similar or more greenness as today, are consistent with the widely held view that CO₂ levels remained below 300 ppm over the past 800,000 years, as indicated by Antarctic ice core records. Employing Mitscherlich’s Law, the research models the global GPP response to increasing CO₂, based on the mean value of eight different long-term GPP datasets. It illustrates a diminishing return of vegetation associated with rising CO₂, as additional factors such as nutrient and water availability impose constraints on the fertilization effect. Due to this diminishing return the average residence time of CO₂ in the atmosphere increases significantly with higher GPP values. High CO₂ levels, similar to today’s, were therefore necessary for comparable GPP during green periods like 10,000 years ago. A CO₂ concentration of 280 ppm would only be possible if nature’s response to CO₂ were fundamentally different from what we observe today, with other constraining factors exceptionally more favorable.
[SEPP Comment: Question the use of Mitscherlich’s Law of Diminishing Returns in this instance. Most plants are C-3 and benefit greatly from additional CO2. Need physical evidence backing up this use of Mitscherlich’s Law that CO2 is the limiting factor.]
Artificial Intelligence vs genuine foolishness
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Nov 12, 2025
Link to: A huge Grok beatdown of climate hysteria
By Joe Bastardi, CFACT, Nov 2, 2025
https://www.cfact.org/2025/11/02/a-huge-grok-beatdown-of-climate-hysteria
From Grok: The claim that “climate is worse than ever” persists not because of data, but because it is a highly profitable, politically useful, and socially rewarding narrative.
- For some, it’s billions in subsidies.
- For others, it’s global governance.
- For many, it’s identity and virtue.
Consensus, likelihood, and confidence
By Jules de Waart, Via WUWT, Nov 9, 2025
1. A consensus of 97% or more?
On May 16, 2013, U.S. President Obama tweeted, “97% of scientists agree. Climate change is real, man-made and dangerous.”
[SEPP Comment: The author shows that President Obama’s tweet is fiction not supported even by the UN IPCC.]
Conference travel emissions exceed research energy use
By Robert Schreiber, Berlin, Germany (SPX) Nov 11, 2025
https://www.energy-daily.com/reports/Conference_travel_emissions_exceed_research_energy_use_999.html
Link to paper: Quantifying the carbon footprint of conference travel: the case of NMR meetings
By Lucky N. Kapoor, et al, Magnetic Resonance, Nov 10, 2025
https://mr.copernicus.org/articles/6/243/2025/mr-6-243-2025-discussion.html
Scientists at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria evaluated the carbon footprint of travel to global nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) conferences, revealing that a single transcontinental trip by a European attendee generates four to five tons of CO2 emissions. This amount surpasses the combined footprint from six months of conducting experiments, preparing samples, and performing scientific computing in NMR at the institute.
[SEPP Comment: How about those attending COP 30?]
Energy & Environmental Review: November 10, 2025
By John Droz, Jr., Master Resource, Nov 10, 2025
After Paris!
UN Official Orders Brazil To Get It Together Over Absolute Climate Fest Dumpster Fire
By Audrey Streb, Daily Caller, Nov 13, 2025
https://dailycaller.com/2025/11/13/un-reportedly-orders-brazil-get-it-together-over-climate-fest-dumpster-fire
A top United Nations official reportedly directed Brazilian authorities to immediately address concerns like leaky light fixtures, unbearable heat, and inadequate security personnel at the COP30 climate conference in Belém, according to Bloomberg News.
Alarmists play long game at COP30
By David Wojick, CFACT, Nov 10, 2025
https://www.cfact.org/2025/11/10/alarmists-play-long-game-at-cop-30
Climate alarmism has been seriously stalled by a combination of President Trump and unfavorable economic conditions. So, the diplomats laboring at COP30 are working on long-term issues, hoping for better “weather,” as it were. They are still very busy negotiating the future.
Major policy initiatives often take a decade or more, so while subdued, the work has not slowed down. Rumors of the death of alarmism are greatly exaggerated. The greens are just biding their time.
COP30 – Psyops in Action
The UN’s push for control is boundless
By Robert Malone, His Blog, Nov 12, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
https://www.malone.news/p/cop30-psyops-in-action?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=583200&post_id=178603885&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=172n5r&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Climate Cult Fantasy and Duplicity Precede COP30
By Paul Driessen, Cornwall Alliance, Nov 12, 2025
https://cornwallalliance.org/climate-cult-fantasy-and-duplicity-precede-cop30
Shock COP Dirty Secret: At Least Half the Balsa Wood in Wind Turbine Blades is Illegally Logged in Amazonian Rainforests
By Chris Morrison, The Daily Sceptic, Nov 10, 2025
Link to report: Ill Wind: From Amazon Forest Crimes in Ecuador to Wind Turbines in the U.S. and China
By Staff, Environmental Investigation Agency, October 2024
From Morrison: To this day, balsa wood has numerous advantages as a core wind blade material over possible plastic foam substitutes. It has superior strength and stiffness compared to foam materials, and this allows for thinner core layers in high load areas like a blade’s root. This helps overall weight to be reduced without any reduction in overall engineering integrity. Prices of balsa wood are generally considered competitive, not least it would seem because production of plantation timber is massively boosted by the illegal logging.
At UN climate talks in Brazil, the only sign of the United States is an empty chair
By Seth Borenstein, et al., AP, Via The Hill, Nov 10, 2025
https://thehill.com/homenews/ap/ap-international/climate-united-nations-cop30
Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, whose nation is hosting these talks, urged negotiators not to forget that “the climate emergency is an increase of inequality.”
“A Chaotic Start!” Keir Starmer Vows To ‘Double Down’ On Net Zero at Cop30
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Nov 9, 2025
15-minute Talk TV Video — Some of the plumbing is not complete. No high-level politicians from China, India, or USA. Chris Morrison: It is a political issue, not a scientific one. Corals actually grow quicker near the equator.
Prepare the escape pod — Keir Starmer says: “The consensus is gone”
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Nov 8, 2025
https://joannenova.com.au/2025/11/prepare-the-escape-pods-kier-starmer-says-the-consensus-is-gone-oecd-admits-its-losing-momentum
COP30: President Lula Calls for an End to Climate Denialism
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Nov 11, 2025
Claim: COP30 “Vibe Shift” Wrecking Climate Progress
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Nov 13, 2025
Ed Miliband flies to Brazil climate conference twice [UK Energy Secretary]
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 12, 2025
Social Benefits of Carbon Dioxide
Water Fern and extra CO2
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Nov 12, 2025
From the CO2Science.org archive:
Problems in the Orthodoxy
Pennsylvania abandons Northeast climate pact
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Nov 13, 2025
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5605079-pennsylvania-rggi-northeast-climate-pact-shapiro
Sweden’s pension disaster rings alarm bells for Reeves
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 13, 2025
From the Telegraph:
Retirement funds face huge losses after being exposed to high-risk green projects
The challenges in Sweden serve as a stark warning to Rachel Reeves, the UK’s Chancellor, who is considering forcing large pension funds to invest in national assets in a bid to boost Britain’s struggling economy.
Seeking a Common Ground
A Scientist’s Stand Against Ideological Capture – Review of “Why I Cut Ties with Science’s Top Publisher”
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Nov 14, 2025
Growing up in the Soviet Union, she [Anna Krylov] understands what “optional” ideological statements become once an institution signals that ideology as a core value. She notes that Nature’s “optional” diversity statements resemble the mandatory political pledges that characterized Soviet scientific life. This isn’t hyperbole. Anyone who has watched the trends in Western academic journals—particularly the climate journals—over the last decade can recognize the pattern: what begins as a nudge becomes a norm, then a requirement. Suddenly, failure to echo political language becomes evidence of professional defect.
[SEPP Comment: According to her web bio at USC, she is USC Associates Chair in Natural Sciences and Professor of Chemistry.] https://dornsife.usc.edu/profile/anna-krylov/
The Journal Science Of Climate Change Is 5 Years Old and Is Now Experiencing Explosive Growth
By Guest Blogger, WUWT, Nov 8, 2025
Science, Policy, and Evidence
Ed Miliband’s net zero quest has become a national security threat
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 11, 2025
From the Telegraph:
Except rather than just some silly film script, it is the sort of terrifying scenario that could one day occur in this country after so-called “kill switches” were found on Chinese buses flooding Europe – including the UK.
From Homewood: Personally, I believe that almost total reliance on China for solar panels, batteries, rare earths and increasingly electric cars is a much bigger security threat than kill switches on buses.
Models v. Observations
Investigating Characteristic Droplet Size Distributions in Large Eddy Simulations of Stratocumulus Clouds
By Nithin Allwayin, et al., Geophysical Research Letters, Oct 16, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2025GL116021
Plain Language Summary
The sizes of cloud droplets determine the amount of light scattered from clouds and the rate of formation of precipitation in clouds. How to represent droplet size distributions in numerical weather and climate models remains one of the largest sources of uncertainty in model predictions. Recent holographic measurements of droplet sizes within stratocumulus clouds suggest that the cloud droplet populations are not uniform across the cloud; rather, clouds contain regions of similar-looking droplet size distributions, each having distinct distribution shapes. Here we examine high-resolution simulations of these cloud systems using the same analytical approach and identify the existence of similar-looking droplet populations. We find that in the current output of these simulations, we do not observe the same variability in droplet sizes as seen for real clouds. However, the results point out that the characteristic shapes might be a good indicator of the physics in the individual convective cells.
Another “Model-Based” Methane Scare Story: Why It Doesn’t Hold Up to Scrutiny
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Nov 13, 2025
Link to paper: Future methane emissions from lakes and reservoirs
By David Bastviken & Matthew S. Johnson, Nature, Water, Nov 4, 2025
https://www.nature.com/articles/s44221-025-00532-6
[SEPP Comment: Another highly speculative positive feedback from “global warming.” As van Wijngaarden and Happer have shown, the frequencies in which methane can readily absorb infrared radiation are already largely taken by water vapor. Increasing methane has negligible effect on Earth’s temperatures.]
Model Issues
#HaveItBothWays: The Antarctic Peninsula
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Nov 12, 2025
Or you could pick a specific location like the South Pole and ask whether it’s warming or not. The five different reanalysis models generate five different answers.
Sometimes you not only get to #HaveItBothWays, but you also get to have it five ways.
Changing Weather
A Near “Bomb” Cyclone Approaches the West Coast
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Nov 12, 2025
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2025/11/a-near-bomb-cyclone-approaches-west.html
When I took a look at the situation, I realized the uncertainty of these forecasts was very, very large: the ensembles of many forecasts have a huge spread in solutions, and the forecasts changed radically run to run.
That is why I did not blog about it.
Super Inversion and Record Heat
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Nov 9, 2025
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2025-11-11T20:06:00-08:00&max-results=2
The temperature inversion today over Seattle is one of the strongest I have ever seen.
As a reminder, an inversion is when temperature increases with height, in contrast to the normal decrease with height.
2025 Hurricane Forecast Was Overly Alarmist (Again)…Atlantic Season Ending Near Normal
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Nov 8, 2025
Changing Earth
Earth’s ancient tectonic shifts drove rise of complex life
By Simon Mansfield, Sydney, Australia (SPX) Oct 28, 2025
https://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Earths_ancient_tectonic_shifts_drove_rise_of_complex_life_999.html
Link to paper: Mid-Proterozoic expansion of passive margins and reduction in volcanic outgassing supported marine oxygenation and eukaryogenesis
By R. Dietmar Müller, et al., Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Dec 15, 2025
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X25004819?via%3Dihub
Climate’s influence reshapes East African rift dynamics
By Clarence Oxford, Los Angeles CA (SPX) Nov 11, 2025
https://www.terradaily.com/reports/Climates_influence_reshapes_East_African_rift_dynamics_999.html
The formation of Lake Turkana involved volcanic activity and climate-driven water level changes, which at times rose by more than 350 feet. High water levels during wetter intervals reduced tectonic and magmatic activity, while drier phases triggered increased fault slip rates and magma production.
Muirhead stated, “Climate change, whether human-induced or not, will likely impact the probability of future volcanic and tectonic activity in East Africa. However, these changes occur over geological rather than human timescales, so their effects would be subtle and largely imperceptible within a single lifetime or even across generations.”
Agriculture Issues & Fear of Famine
Farmers claim net zero feed is killing their cows
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 12, 2025
From the Telegraph
Dozens of farmers using a food additive called Bovaer have reported issues with their cows including fever, stomach cramps, lower milk production and even death.
Lowering Standards
SPACE.com Swallows Lies that Climate Change Is Making Wildfires Worse, It Isn’t
By H. Sterling Burnett, Climate Realism, Nov 11, 2025
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?
BBC to Review Bias in Climate Change Coverage
By Richard Eldred, The Daily Sceptic, Nov 9, 2025
The Telegraph has more.
Now the broadcaster will face fresh scrutiny on its climate coverage, with its Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee deciding to carry out a “thematic review” of its coverage of “energy policy in the UK and climate change”.
Decades of Crying ‘Fire!’ in the Climate Theatre Have Left the BBC with Net Zero Credibility
By Chris Morrison, The Daily Sceptic, Nov 12, 2025
Over the last two decades, climate science reporting at the BBC has been reduced to cherry-picking the worst ‘scientists say’ clickbait remarks to promote the hard-Left Net Zero fantasy. Debate has been abolished, the scientific inquiry process trashed and the intelligence of the British public insulted on a daily basis.
For the last 25 years, the reporting of climate science at the BBC has been a joke. This is particularly unfortunate for those who own a television receiver. They might have no wish to consume the BBC’s skewed output on climate and many other issues, but they are often forced to pay a regressive annual tax of £174.50 to the state corporation.
BBC Fail To Challenge Chris Packham’s False Claims
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 14, 2025
In a discussion about supposed misinformation put out by the fossil fuel lobby, he said (39.30 mins in):
“We’re up against the misinformation machine, because ultimately investment in renewables provides us with cheaper energy”
BBC Wishful Thinking
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 14, 2025
Moreover, global electricity consumption keeps on rising; last year it increased by 1292 TWh. As the above chart indicates, all that the “boom” in renewables is doing is meet the growth in demand.
Whether emissions peak soon is irrelevant. There is no prospect at all that they will substantially fall in the foreseeable future.
Communicating Better to the Public – Exaggerate, or be Vague?
Did Bill Gates Really Drop a Bomb on Climate Catastrophism?
By E. Calvin Beisner, WUWT, Nov 11, 2025
Uh, sorry, not so fast. Despite widespread celebrations among climate realists and laments among climate activists, two things suggest Gates’s pronouncement may not be such a bombshell after all: the past, and the present.
But they shouldn’t, because: “To be clear: Climate change is a very important problem. It needs to be solved …. Every tenth of a degree of heating that we prevent is hugely beneficial because a stable climate makes it easier to improve people’s lives” (boldface original).
Consultant Class Belatedly Recognizes Energy Realities
By Vijay Jayaraj, WUWT, Nov 112, 2025
Link to: Global Energy Perspective 2025
By Staff, McKinsey & Company, October 2025
Geopolitical uncertainty, shifting policies, and increasing demand for power are reshaping the energy landscape. This year’s report presents our updated view on what’s to come in the energy system.
[SEPP Comment: Even though the McKinsey report recognizes that “goals” of the Paris agreement probably will not be achieved, it uses the same assumptions about CO2 emissions and temperature change that are based on speculative models that have not been validated.]
Communicating Better to the Public – Do a Poll?
Public Support Net Zer0–But Don’t Want To Pay For It!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 14, 2025
From Homewood: As I have often commented, Net Zero has long been sold on the basis of easy, painless solutions – nice, clean renewable energy, planting trees and so on.
Attention is being diverted away from costs already being incurred by, for instance, blaming high electricity prices on “sky high gas prices”.
The truth has been deliberately kept from the public. If they knew the harsh reality, most would not support Net Zero at all.
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda
EV Turning Point?
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 12, 2025
It won’t come as any surprise that T&E, who wrote this study, are a lobby group for renewables and electric transport:
It is funded by the usual members of the Green Blob, such as ClimateWorks, ECF, Rockefeller and the Hewlett Foundation.
Significantly they also take money from the EU.
Guardian: Aussie Climate Believers are Self Eliminating from the Gene Pool
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Nov 10, 2025
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda on Children
EU To Make Climate Education Mandatory
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 13, 2025
Questioning European Green
NHS Wasting Billions on Net Zero
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 8, 2025
From Homewood: I am also sure that £1.4 billion is just the tip of the iceberg.
Questioning Green Elsewhere
Retreating on all fronts
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Nov 12, 2025
There is no logical connection between the seriousness of a problem and the plausibility of various solutions. You can easily imagine things that aren’t serious and are easy to solve (morning coffee not yet made), things that aren’t serious and are hard to solve (instant coffee tastes terrible), things that are serious and are easy to solve (set stove on fire making coffee) and things that are serious and are hard to solve (set planet on fire making coffee). Likewise, to change one’s mind on whether a problem is serious doesn’t require changing one’s mind on whether it is easy to solve. But there seems to be a simultaneous retreat underway on both, with people now admitting climate change is not a serious problem while recognizing it’s not easy to solve.
Thankfully, Momentum Has Shifted to Affordable, Reliable Energy
By Gary Abernathy, Real Clear Energy, Nov 12, 2025
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/11/12/thankfully_momentum_has_shifted_to_affordable_reliable_energy_1146986.html
Link to conference: When Prices Turn Negative Financing Renewables in a Volatile Market
By Staff, BloombergNEF [New Energy Finance], London, Oct 14 & 15, 2025
Non-Green Jobs
“Existential Crisis”: German Chancellor Demands Tariff Protection for Industry Hit by High Energy Prices
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Nov 9, 2025
The Political Games Continue
Australian opposition finally abandons Net Zero Targets. The Government calls them names.
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Nov 14, 2025
https://joannenova.com.au/2025/11/australian-opposition-finally-abandons-net-zero-targets-government-calls-them-names
The Liberals need to start translating the true meaning of the cheating word games the carbon fans use:
Translating Teal-speak:
The teal independents, who won a swag of Liberal seats at the 2022 election due largely to climate politics, piled on.
“The country needs certainty on energy, but the Libs haven’t just abandoned net zero, they’ve abandoned evidence-based policy thinking,” said Allegra Spender.
“Certainty on energy” really means “certainty on subsidies”. This is what parasites do — demand a free meal. Teals talk about ‘certainty’, but in practice they mean locking in subsidies, so their billionaire backers don’t lose money.
And “evidence-based policy thinking” apparently means doing whatever the UN bureaucrats and foreign bankers tell them to do. The Teals can’t name evidence that shows carbon dioxide causes a catastrophe, they can only name climate simulations. But they don’t realize that they don’t know what evidence-based policy thinking even is.
Aussie Mainstream Opposition Formally Abandons Net Zero
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Nov 13, 2025
But still wants to stay in the Paris Agreement?
The unwashed masses know it’s a scam, but will the Liberals finally escape Net Zero?
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Nov 11, 2025
https://joannenova.com.au/2025/11/the-unwashed-masses-know-its-a-scam-but-will-the-liberals-finally-escape-net-zero
The Latest Political Scam — “Affordability” — Is Really Taking Off [US]
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Nov 12, 2025
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2025-11-12-the-latest-scam-affordability-is-really-taking-off
Litigation Issues
Louisiana’s Oil and Gas Lawsuits Undermine Wartime Readiness
By Ethan Shapiro, Real Clear Energy, Nov 11, 2025
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/11/11/louisianas_oil_and_gas_lawsuits_undermine_wartime_readiness_1146486.html
Although not clear it appears one of the lawsuits was described in: Free Enterprise and National Security Under Attack From Louisiana Governor and For-Profit Trial Lawyers
By Steven Bucci, The Daily Signal, Apr 25, 2025
Opening paragraph in Daily Signal article: “On April 4, a Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, jury delivered a remarkable verdict: Chevron was ordered to pay $744 million in damages for purported coastal degradation associated with oil production dating back to World War II.”
Latter paragraph: “Led by lead plaintiff Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, the case, Plaquemines Parish v. Chevron USA Inc., was the first of over 40 similar lawsuits filed by Louisiana parishes targeting oil and gas producers for activities conducted decades ago, all of which were legally executed under federally permitted wartime directives.”
Federal Judge Clears Trump Administration to Revoke MA Offshore Wind Project Approval
Meanwhile, Rhode Island bureaucrats give a big thumbs-up to SouthCoast Wind transmission line plan.
By Leslie Eastman, Legal Insurrection, Nov 7, 2025
https://legalinsurrection.com/2025/11/federal-judge-clears-trump-administration-to-revoke-ma-offshore-wind-project-approval
Cap-and-Trade and Carbon Taxes
The Climate Cult Fails Europe
By Thomas Kolbe, American Thinker, Nov 8, 2025
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/11/the_climate_cult_fails_europe.html
The annual volume of CO2 trading is set to nearly triple to around €100 billion in the coming years, plus CO2 taxes and other climate levies that also hit consumers.
We are witnessing increasing centralization of political power in Brussels — justified by the moral imperative of carbon dioxide — a civilizational bow to the climate cult.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s chemical giant declares war on Brussels over Chinese dumping
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 11, 2025
From the Telegraph:
Billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos has stepped up its fight against cheap Chinese imports by launching 10 anti-dumping cases at the European Commission.
The chemicals giant is asking Brussels to slap hefty tariffs on cut-price competition from China, where rival manufacturers enjoy much cheaper energy bills and lower carbon costs.
It has also called for similar measures on imports from the US, the Middle East and elsewhere in Asia.
“Sites are closing, carbon-heavy imports are surging, and politicians are still asleep at the wheel,” said Tom Crotty, Ineos group director.
Trump vs. Global CO2 Tax: Shock-and-Awe Victory
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Nov 11, 2025
“It was like a bunch of gangsters coming into the neighborhood and smashing windows and threatening shop owners … a shock-and-awe thuggery approach.” – Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D, Rhode Island)
Subsidies and Mandates Forever
Nice Work if You Can Get It
Especially if you don’t have to do the work to get paid
By Mark Hodgson, His Blog, Nov 13, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
My cynicism may be unjustified, but as with all major infrastructure projects, my money is on the final bill higher than “up to £77bn”. Even if I’m wrong, however, that’s still an enormous amount of money, which wouldn’t need to be spent, were it not for the building of vast numbers of renewable energy projects in far-flung locations. It’s also something over £3,000 per UK household. And that’s before we talk about the environmental cost …
Energy Issues – Non-US
World Energy Outlook 2025
By Staff, International Energy Agency, Nov 12, 2025
https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2025
[SEPP Comment: In a year, the IEA appears to have shifted from peak oil next year to peak oil in about 25 years.]
Daily Express: Starmer’s [UK] Climate Policies are Making you Poorer
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Nov 11, 2025
UK Regulator Proposes Energy Companies Use RCP8.5 for Stress Testing Climate Impacts
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Nov 9, 2025
Link to: ED3 Sector Specific Methodology Consultation – Climate resilience stress testing methodological framework Annex
By Chris Bishop, Alex Holder, Climate Resilience Team, OFGEM.gov.UK, Oct 8, 2025
ED3 Sector Specific Methodology Consultation – Climate resilience stress testing methodological framework Annex
From Worrall: RCP8.5, by any reasonable measure, is junk science. But until the IPCC or UK MET or other official body comes clean and issues official guidance about the implausibility of RCP8.5, bureaucrats have to defer to the officially sanctioned worst case scenario for any stress testing guidance.
[SEPP Comment: Ofgem (Office of Gas and Electricity Markets) is the independent energy regulator for Great Britain, responsible for protecting consumers, ensuring energy supply security, and promoting sustainability.]
Net zero goals mean Britain risks missing out on gas price crash
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 13, 2025
Miliband talks about rollercoasters. But his 20-year contracts for expensive wind power will lock us all into high prices at the top of the rollercoaster.
Tidbits
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Nov 12, 2025
But the first DER [Distributed Energy Resources] is… aaaack!… an “Emergency back-up generator” because um uh “Although most generators use fossil fuels, they still fall under the DER umbrella.” Yeah. And nothing says climate action like a diesel generator, does it?
Energy Issues — US
Frugal AI’s Energy Reckoning: Why Efficiency Isn’t Enough
By Jeff Willert, Power Mag, Nov 4, 2025
https://www.powermag.com/blog/frugal-ais-energy-reckoning-why-efficiency-isnt-enough/?utm_source=omeda&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pwrnews+eletter&oly_enc_id=7809H6412578J0B
Greater efficiency is only part of the story. On its own, it cannot resolve the conflict between AI’s promise and its growing energy appetite. With demand surging, the responsibility now falls on companies, regulators, and technology leaders to work in concert so that the tools transforming our world don’t end up straining the very infrastructure that support.
North Dakota Gets an A+ in Energy Economics
By Ricky Feir, Real Clear Energy, Nov 12, 2025
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/11/12/north_dakota_gets_an_a_in_energy_economics_1146752.html
New York approves controversial gas pipeline
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Nov 10, 2025
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5598649-new-york-natural-gas-pipeline-hochul
Link to report: Short-Term Assessment of Reliability: 2025 Quarter 3 A Report by the New York Independent System Operator
By Staff, NYISO, Oct 13, 2025
From The Hill: This vessel [pipeline] would bring gas from Pennsylvania to Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island.
The decision comes after New York’s grid operator recently warned that the state could soon face reliability challenges.
Data Centers Are Turning to Gas Generators for Prime Power to Eliminate Long Lead Times for Grid Connections
By Drew Robb, Power Mag, Oct 28, 2025
https://www.powermag.com/data-centers-are-turning-to-gas-generators-for-prime-power-to-eliminate-long-lead-times-for-grid-connections/?utm_source=omeda&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pwrnews+eletter&oly_enc_id=7809H6412578J0B
Washington’s Control of Energy
ARC-ES Energy Legislation: An All-American Bill for All Americans
By Gary Abernathy, Real Clear Energy, Nov 10, 2025
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/11/10/arc-es_energy_legislation_an_all-american_bill_for_all_americans_1146483.html
Link to press release: Balderson Introduces Bill to Unleash American Energy, Guarantee U.S. Energy Security
By Rep. Balderson’s Office, Washington, October 20, 2025
https://balderson.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=2895
Upon enactment, the legislation would require relevant federal agencies—such as the Department of Energy, Department of the Interior, and the Environmental Protection Agency—to review any actions relating to affordable, reliable, or clean energy within 90 days and submit a report to Congress. The bill guarantees that our most affordable and reliable energy sources, including nuclear and natural gas, remain part of the energy mix – a crucial requirement to guarantee affordable and reliable energy for American households and businesses.
Return of King Coal?
America’s First Line of Defense: Why Our Coal Fleet Is as Vital as Our Military
By T.L. Headley, Real Clear Energy, Nov 11, 2025
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/11/11/americas_first_line_of_defense_why_our_coal_fleet_is_as_vital_as_our_military_1146755.html
America’s enemies don’t have to launch a missile to cripple us. They only have to take down the power grid. When the lights go out, everything stops—our defense plants, our military bases, our hospitals, our data networks, even the satellites guided by ground-based control stations. Power is the foundation of national defense, and coal is the foundation of that power.
Oil Spills, Gas Leaks & Consequences
‘Clean Gulf: Beyond Oil Spills’ Conference: The Clean, Green Hydrocarbon Era
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Nov 14, 2025
Link to: Clean Gulf: Prepare, Respond & Recover: Real-World Solutions for Evolving Environmental Emergencies
Conference Promotion, Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, New Orleans, LA, Nov 18-20, 2025
In the words of the late Peter Huber:
“The greenest fuels are the ones that contain the most energy per pound of material than must be mined, trucked, pumped, piped, and burnt. [In contrast], extracting comparable amounts of energy from the surface would entail truly monstrous environmental disruption…. The greenest possible strategy is to mine and to bury, to fly and to tunnel, to search high and low, where the life mostly isn’t, and so to leave the edge, the space in the middle, living and green.”
Nuclear Energy and Fears
Rolls-Royce upbeat on profits, to pioneer small UK nuclear reactors
By AFP Staff Writers, London (AFP) Nov 13, 2025
https://www.energy-daily.com/reports/Rolls-Royce_upbeat_on_profits_to_pioneer_small_UK_nuclear_reactors_999.html
The SMR project is backed by £ 2.5 billion ($3.3-billion) investment from Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government.
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
Green Dreams Turn To Rust
By Willis Eschenbach, WUWT, Nov 14, 2025
How did it fail? Let’s count the ways.
- The 25- to 30-year “lifespan” was always a myth, an industry fairy tale pulled out of thin air and sold to unprepared bureaucrats.
- Central inverters—then the industry standard—didn’t have the staying power, leading to cascading technical failures and “planned obsolescence” on the scale of a college football field.
- Maintenance became a patchwork, as installer, module supplier, inverter company, and maintenance contractor all vanished into the bankruptcy fog one by one.
- Regulatory goalposts kept moving: by the time Napa tried to salvage the project, new grid export rules and skyrocketing fuel-cell competition made solar more trouble (and less savings) than ever.
RFK Jr. probes health dangers of offshore wind turbines
By Bonner Cohen, CFACT, Nov 12, 2025
https://www.cfact.org/2025/11/12/rfk-jr-probes-health-dangers-of-offshore-wind-turbines
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Storage
“Catastrophic” double failure of Waratah Battery transformers cruelly delays Net Zero miracle yet again
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Nov 12, 2025
https://joannenova.com.au/2025/11/catastrophic-double-failure-of-waratah-battery-transformers-cruelly-delays-net-zero-miracle-yet-again
The one-billion-dollar Waratah Super Battery is rated at 850 MW (1680 MWh) — in other words, it can deliver 850 megawatts of power for about two hours before it’s a flat battery.
Waste of the Day: Michigan’s Chinese Battery Plant Falls Through
By Jeremy Portnoy, WUWT, Nov 8, 2025
Topline: Michigan’s plan to rely on a Chinese company to create American jobs is dead in the water. The state pulled out of an agreement to give Gotion, Inc., $715 million in subsidies for an electric vehicle battery plant, but there’s no guarantee Michigan will recoup the $23.6 million that was already paid.
Key facts: Michigan agreed in 2022 to give Gotion up to $175 million in grants and $540 million in tax breaks to help fund the $2.4 billion plant. It was projected to create 2,350 jobs.
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles
EVs to be taxed for driving in France!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 9, 2025
Motorists face being taxed for driving electric cars in France under [UK Chancellor of the Exchequer] Rachel Reeves’s pay-per-mile plan.
Carbon Schemes
Heriot-Watt unveils carbon dioxide removal course
By Sophie Jenkins, London, UK (SPX) Oct 29, 2025
https://www.terradaily.com/reports/Heriot_Watt_unveils_carbon_dioxide_removal_course_999.html
The rise in atmospheric CO2 results mainly from the burning of fossil fuels and large-scale land-use changes. Excess CO2 intensifies the greenhouse effect, causing significant climate disruption. [Boldface added]
California Dreaming
California Data Centers Lie Dormant As American Power Supply Shot To Hell
By Audrey Streb, Daily Caller, Nov 10, 2025
https://dailycaller.com/2025/11/10/data-centers-empty-american-power-supply-shot-hell
Although developers in Santa Clara, California, have completed shells of data center projects, the facilities remain empty and unpowered because the city-owned utility Silicon Valley Power (SVP) cannot supply enough electricity to meet their energy demands, Bloomberg reported. California imports the second-largest amount of electricity of any state, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), and has been phasing out reliable power sources like coal [and nuclear] as it pursues a rapid green energy transition.
Who Needs the Constitution When We’ve Got a Planet to Save?
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Nov 10, 2025
Governor Gavin “Sunshine Messiah” Newsom is leading a massive delegation of eco-warriors to the U.N. climate summit in Belém, because apparently, somebody has to represent “the real America.”
Health, Energy, and Climate
Plastophobia Sweeps the US
By Susan Goldhaber, ACSH, Nov 10, 2025
https://www.acsh.org/news/2025/11/10/plastophobia-sweeps-us-49811
Link to: Literature review on micro- and nanoplastic release from food contact materials during their use
European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), Eric Barthélémy, et al., Oct 21, 2025
https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.2903/sp.efsa.2025.EN-9733
[SEPP Comment: See links immediately below.]
Plastic-eating bacteria have already evolved to eat our PET bottles and spread through global oceans
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Nov 7, 2025
https://joannenova.com.au/2025/11/plastic-eating-bacteria-have-already-evolved-to-eat-our-pet-bottles-and-spread-through-global-oceans
Link to paper: Widespread distribution of bacteria containing PETases with a functional motif across global oceans
By Intikhab Alam, et al, The ISME Journal: Multidisciplinary Journal of Microbial Ecology, January 2025
https://academic.oup.com/ismej/article/19/1/wraf121/8159680?login=false
From Nova: Life on Earth was never going to leave a free meal sitting around.
The Hidden Labor Behind “Healthy” Diets
By Chuck Dinerstein, MD, ACSH, Nov 7, 2025
https://www.acsh.org/news/2025/11/07/hidden-labor-behind-healthy-diets-49805
Other News that May Be of Interest
President Trump Needs Better Rare Earths Negotiating Tools
By Debra Struhsacker , Sarah Montalbano, Real Clear Energy, Nov 11, 2025
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/11/11/president_trump_needs_better_rare_earths_negotiating_tools_1146747.html
With the Pentagon manufacturing weapons systems using over 80,000 parts subject to Chinese critical minerals export controls, the U.S. can no longer treat critical minerals as commodities that can be managed like consumer products.
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE
We did it
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Nov 12, 2025
Not really a downward curve as the dictionary defines that term. But again, it’s about changing the models and calling it a policy triumph.
Also it’s disgusting
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Nov 12, 2025
A strange item from the Financial Times blames slumping oat milk sales on… climate change. Which is taking “there’s nothing it cannot do” a bit far, surely.
COP30 Dispute Erupts over the Legal Definition of a Woman
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Nov 13, 2025
Report: “Queering a Human Rights-Based Approach to Climate Change”
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Nov 8, 2025
ARTICLES
1. China’s Green Energy ‘Revolution’ Is Powered by Coal
The only bright spot for the environment is the rapid expansion of state-of-the-art nuclear power.
By Bjorn Lomborg, WSJ, Nov. 10, 2025
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/chinas-green-energy-revolution-is-powered-by-coal-8af17c4a?mod=opinion_lead_pos7
TWTW Summary: The president of the Copenhagen Consensus begins with [Boldface added]:
Many in the West gaze in awe at China’s apparent dominance in green energy—churning out enough solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles and batteries to flood global markets. It’s true that Beijing has pulled off a tremendous feat that should have the West scrambling to alter its energy policy, but the image of China as a renewable superpower is mostly propaganda. In reality, the country has dramatically scaled up energy use across the board—buoying ‘green’ manufacturing with coal expansion—and grown rich in the process.
Headline numbers on green energy can be deceptive. China supplied 39% of the $2 trillion that the world invested in green energy last year. The U.S. and European Union combined supplied 34%. But raw spending doesn’t indicate investment quality.
The eco side of Chinese industry resembles the next iteration of its recent property boom and bust, in which Beijing funneled too much capital into construction until the current crisis began around 2021. Since then, Chinese money has been flowing into solar panels, creating overproduction and overcapacity. Chinese annual solar production capacity is now more than twice the actual global solar-panel sales in 2024. Of the firms the International Energy Agency studied, every segment of the Chinese solar supply chain suffered profit losses in every quarter last year, with margins reaching almost as low as minus 60%. Between the start of 2024 and July 2025, more than 40 companies delisted, went bankrupt or were sold. The industry cut a third of its workforce in 2024.
Even running at a loss, this production depends on massive coal use: Every Chinese silicon smelter, an essential solar-panel material, requires its own coal-fired power station.
Investment is also pouring into electric cars. Automaking has become an economic pillar for local governments once reliant on the ample land sales and real-estate taxes of the previous property bubble. The auto industry and related services now account for one-tenth of China’s gross domestic product. Overcapacity is staggering: The consultancy AlixPartners estimates that of the 129 current Chinese EV and hybrid brands only 15 will be financially viable by 2030.
Another seemingly eco-friendly figure is that Chinese consumers buy nearly two-thirds of all EVs sold globally—pushed by government limits on traditional car purchases and lured by rock-bottom prices from surplus production. Yet this does little for the climate. Beijing’s insistence on EVs is better explained by the government’s desire to avoid dependence on foreign oil. EV battery packs are made using coal energy and charged on a coal-dominated grid. A 2023 estimate published in iScience shows that over its lifetime a Chinese EV emits 85% to 90% of the carbon of a gasoline car, in large part because of the heavy carbon debt incurred by the coal-produced battery. And this may be too optimistic, as many new buyers would otherwise have bought no car or a less-polluting hybrid. Moreover, Chinese EVs are driven much less than conventional cars, resulting in higher emissions per mile.
Electric cars also increase Chinese air pollution. A 2024 study in Nature shows that while EVs reduced nitrogen-oxide emissions—a precursor to smog—by 1% since 2020, they have increased far deadlier sulfur-dioxide and particulate-matter pollution by 10% and 20%, respectively. China’s EV boom will increase these emissions into the future, and without a fast green transition even CO2 emissions could increase, according to a 2025 report in the journal Energy.
While China added unprecedented solar and wind capacity last year, it also hit a 10-year high of new coal plant construction. China remains the world’s top coal consumer, with fossils supplying over 87% of its primary energy. Renewables’ share was 40% in 1971 when the country was poor but plummeted to 7.5% by 2011. From then to 2023—the last year for which the IEA has data on China—the portion of renewables rose slowly to 10%. On this trajectory, a full transition would take 400 years. IEA data show China in 2023 added more than five times as much coal energy as solar and wind energy.
Though China isn’t the green giant Western climate campaigners think, there are important lessons to learn from it. China’s across-the-board energy expansion has been a huge boon to growth. The West—especially Europe—should abandon its self-imposed energy restrictions and follow suit. As part of its energy surge, China has pushed rapid investment into the only technology that currently can decarbonize the planet at scale: nuclear fission and fusion.
In the West, traditional nuclear has grown prohibitively expensive, with U.S. construction costs tripling since the mid-1980s. America has brought only three new plants online this century, at enormous cost and with timelines of at least 11 years. Contrast this to China, where reactors are completed in five to six years and costs have declined by half since the 1990s—now matching U.S. mid-1970s prices. China has expanded from three reactors in 2000 to 58, with 33 more under construction, 43 planned and 147 proposed. Globally, there are 438 nuclear plants.
Fourth-generation reactors—often small and modular—are designed for efficiency, affordability, minimal long-lived radioactive waste and inherent accident safety. A report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation estimates China leads the U.S. by 10 to 15 years in the ability to deploy fourth-generation reactors at scale. The first such reactor in the world began operations in China over a year ago. China is working on running all six types of fourth-generation reactors, not just one. On fusion, China dominates patents and has allocated more resources to research than any other country.
This isn’t renewables redux; it’s a race for abundant energy. If the West doesn’t start running, it risks awakening to a world powered by Beijing’s reactors, not its own ingenuity. Green China is mostly a sham—but it is time for the West to emulate its real playbook: ramp up energy use and nuclear R&D.
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