Climate Politics | Science Matters

SCOTUS to Hear Colorado Climate Case, What’s at Stake

An excellent overview is an article at Energy in Depth (EID) by Kyle Kohli A Turning Point for Litigation Campaign: SCOTUS Takes Up Boulder Climate Lawsuit. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

On February 23, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in the City and County of Boulder’s climate lawsuit against two major energy companies. This offers the first real opportunity to rein in the nationally-coordinated climate litigation campaign that has sought to force policy outcomes through the courts that elected officials and voters have repeatedly rejected.

What is the Boulder climate lawsuit?

In 2018, the City and County of Boulder and San Miguel County filed a public nuisance climate lawsuit against Exxon Mobil and Suncor, seeking financial damages to pay for the costs of climate change. From the outset, the case raised serious questions about whether local governments should be allowed to use state tort law to extract damages for global phenomena driven by worldwide greenhouse gas emissions that have occurred across decades, across borders, and with the full knowledge and legal sanction of federal and state governments.

Woman on a ducking stool. Historical punishment for ‘common scold’ – woman considered a public nuisance. (Welsh/English heritage)

After San Miguel’s case was separated from Boulder’s in 2021, Boulder spent five years fighting jurisdictional battles – all the way to SCOTUS and back – before finally getting a May 2025 Colorado Supreme Court ruling allowing the case to proceed towards discovery and trial.

The companies appealed, and in February 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take up the case.

What questions will the Supreme Court consider and what do they mean?

The Court will hear arguments on two separate questions –
one that goes to the heart of the entire campaign,
and one that could let the justices sidestep it.

The big one: can state law be used to sue energy companies for the effects of international greenhouse gas emissions on global climate change? This is what the climate litigation campaign has always really been about: using tort law as a backdoor emissions regulator, extracting damages that function as a de facto carbon tax that Congress never voted for and voters never approved.

The companies argue that federal law forecloses exactly this kind of state-law end-run, and that issues of greenhouse gas emissions, interstate commerce, national energy policy, and foreign affairs belong at the federal level — not in a patchwork of state courtrooms where judges can impose wildly inconsistent liability on American energy producers.

The second question – added by the Court at Boulder’s urging – asks whether SCOTUS even has jurisdiction to hear the case right now. If the justices rule narrowly on procedure, the broader preemption question stays unresolved and Boulder’s case will continue in state court.

When will the court hear arguments?

Arguments are expected during the October 2026 term, with a decision anticipated in winter 2026 or spring 2027.

What is the likely impact?

This case has nearly three dozen copycats waiting in the wings. Defendants in similar lawsuits across the country are already moving to pause proceedings – several cases, including a homeowner class action in Washington, have been stayed pending SCOTUS’s decision. Others, in Chicago and Washington state have filed similar motions.

If the Court rules broadly for the energy companies — holding that state law cannot be used to impose liability for global and interstate emissions — it would deal a major blow to the entire national climate litigation campaign, as plaintiffs across the country have sought to use state tort law and to have their cases heard in state court.

That would be an appropriate outcome. Allowing dozens of state and municipal governments to impose state-court liability for inherently global phenomena would fragment national energy policy, chill domestic energy production, and circumvent the democratic process by substituting courtroom judgments for legislative ones.

If the justices punt using the jurisdictional question, Boulder’s case would return to state court, but the underlying legal vulnerabilities of the case would remain.

Where do Colorado leaders stand on the case?

The response to the filing of the [Boulder] lawsuit was met immediately with strong opposition from Colorado state leaders, including the Denver Post editorial board and former Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton, who also served as Colorado’s Attorney General.

Then-governor John Hickenlooper and one his top administration officials warned that litigation was not the best way to pursue an environmental agenda. Hickenlooper’s predecessor, current Governor Jared Polis, also didn’t support the case and remained silent on the issue throughout his entire time in office.

Conservation Colorado, a leading environmental group in the state, also declined to publicly support the lawsuit and The Denver Post editorial board delivered a sharp rebuke to the lawsuit, writing:

“Without fossil fuels, transportation would stagger to a halt, agricultural productivity would plummet, millions would suffer from cold, heat and hunger, and untold legions would suffer premature death. That’s why any comparison between fossil fuel companies and the tobacco industry, whose product is a health disaster with no redeeming economic value, is so wide of the mark…”

Who did Boulder hire as outside counsel?

Boulder’s attorneys have admitted that their true goals for the litigation aren’t financial damages, but rather achieving preferred public policy outcomes.

A lead attorney for EarthRights International, a nonprofit representing Boulder, said that a key goal of the lawsuit is “to raise the price of the products” like oil and gas to shift the behaviors of companies and consumers. Another attorney long involved with the case, David Bookbinder, was even more direct last year, calling the lawsuit an “indirect carbon tax.”

Officials with the Boulder City Council also undercut their own legal arguments by publicly stating their true goal was achieving political and public policy objectives. In 2021, a memo prepared for a study session outlined the goal of “systems-level change”:

“Boulder has also been a national leader in exploring the use of the legal system in pushing for larger systems-level change. Both through its active participation in multi-jurisdiction efforts — like the Clean Power Plan Plaintiffs group — or its climate liability lawsuit with Boulder and San Miguel Counties against ExxonMobil and Suncor, Boulder has demonstrated that there are a range of different levers cities can take hold of to drive more fundamental systems change.” (emphasis added)

Why did the Supreme Court agree to hear the case this time?

Earlier petitions in similar cases, including Honolulu, never made it past the cert stage. This time, several things changed:

The biggest: the Department of Justice proactively weighed in to explain why the Court should take the case – a reversal from the Honolulu petition, whether the Solicitor General argued against review.

Beyond that, the legal landscape has shifted. Since the Honolulu petition was rejected, ten other cases have been thrown out or withdrawn, while two cases have been allowed to proceed – widening the split among state courts that warrants Supreme Court resolution.

Add in the fact that the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling constitutes a final decision, the companies argue, giving the Supreme Court jurisdictional footing to review it.

Does the EPA’s ruling on the Endangerment Finding impact climate lawsuits?

The EPA has maintained the Clean Air Act will continue to preempt state common law claims and statues that try to regulate out-of-state emissions.

As West Virginia’s Solicitor General, Michael Williams, explained:

“Before the Clean Air Act was a twinkle in Nixon’s eye, there was this whole existing body of federal common law that said interstate emissions issues really are issues for the federal government…Ultimately, I think that if you pull the Clean Air Act back, you’re still left with that original preexisting body of federal common law. It’s going to have the same preemptive force that it did before the Clean Air Act ever came to be.”

Some legal observers have noted that revoking the Endangerment Finding could actually help companies in these climate lawsuits. In the case of Boulder, the Colorado Supreme Court rejected defendants’ argument in part because of the Clean Air Act, there’s no federal common law and no preemptions. Without the endangerment finding, there’s a possibility that federal common law could be used in the defendants’ preemption argument.

However, the Endangerment Finding will not go into effect until April 20, 2026 and could change pending legal challenges.

Energy Realists Saved the US Grid (Alex Epstein)

Posted on 1 Day Ago by Ron Clutz

Alex Epstein explains how legacy media is mixing up the good guys and bad guys in a recent message Politicians Who Cut Solar and Wind Subsidies Saved Our Grid. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Last year, America was already in a serious electricity reliability crisis. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation—the body charged with assessing grid reliability—found that over half the country is facing the risk of power shortfalls over the next decade.¹

That crisis is far from over. But now, for the first time in years, the economics of building reliable power plants are turning around. And we owe this to a handful of politicians who led the charge to cut solar and wind subsidies in the “Big Beautiful Bill.”

Solar and wind subsidies were defunding reliable power plants

To understand what these politicians accomplished by cutting solar and wind subsidies, you have to understand the condition of the grid as of last year.

For decades, the federal government paid massive subsidies—the “Investment Tax Credit” and “Production Tax Credit”—to solar and wind projects. These subsidies didn’t just take hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars. They systematically destroyed the economics of the reliable power plants that keep our grid running.

When subsidized solar and wind flood the grid with cheap electricity every time the sun shines or the wind blows, they take away operating time and therefore revenue from reliable power plants.

Thanks to subsidies many reliable plants had no choice but to shut down prematurely, while investors were deterred from investing in building new reliable plants whose revenue under subsidies and unfair market rules would be taken by unreliable generation.

Subsidies were a big reason why as electricity demand increased over the past decade, America saw a decline in reliable capacity.

The IRA accelerated the catastrophic effects of solar and wind subsidies

Then came the “Inflation Reduction Act” of 2022. The IRA increased solar/wind subsidies, and it also extended them for over a decade. These subsidies were projected to cost taxpayers over $1 trillion over that decade.²

But the damage to the grid would have been incomparably greater than the tax bill. The biggest cost by far was the defunding and disincentivizing of reliable power plants.

By 2024, solar and wind “capacity,” which as we saw during a recent winter storm can’t be relied on at all³, represented 70% of all new electricity additions in the US.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright was not exaggerating when he said solar and wind subsidies are “a big mistake,” which “result in higher costs and less reliable electricity.”⁴

A handful of energy freedom fighters cut solar/wind subsidies in the “Big Beautiful Bill”

When the “Big Beautiful Bill” budget negotiations began early last year, the solar/wind subsidy lobby descended on Washington in full force. The expected outcome was that Republicans, despite running on a promise to dismantle the IRA, would keep most of the solar and wind subsidies.

That’s not what happened. Instead, a handful of energy freedom advocates
fought relentlessly to cut the IRA’s solar and wind subsidies—and won.

The initial draft of the budget bill produced by the House Ways and Means Committee included a long “phase-out” of the subsidies that would have allowed new solar and wind projects to continue receiving 10-year subsidies well into the 2030s and even 2040s.⁵

When this bill came to the House Budget Committee for review, Representatives Chip Roy, Ralph Norman, Josh Brecheen, and Andrew Clyde withheld their support (voting “no” or “present”). Because the Republican majority on the committee is very slim, their votes were crucial. This stalled the bill, and they were able to work through the weekend to significantly limit subsidy eligibility to projects that were “placed in service,” i.e., operational, by 2028.

Solar and wind lobbyists threw a fit, claiming that cutting subsidies would raise electricity prices and destroy the grid. But Roy, Norman, Brecheen, and Clyde didn’t back down. And in later stages of the process, they were joined by more energy freedom politicians, including Rep. Scott Perry on the House side, and Senators Mike Lee, Rick Scott, and Ron Johnson on the Senate side.

Unfortunately, a last-second change by the Senate (sneaked in by the solar/wind lobby) weakened the House’s solar and wind subsidy cuts by allowing projects to collect subsidies if they are technically “in construction” (an easy threshold to meet) by July 4, 2026, at which point they have 4 years to be “placed in service.”⁶

Nevertheless, the final “Big Beautiful Bill,” significantly cuts solar and wind subsidies for projects. The upshot: Starting July 5, 2026, virtually no new subsidy-collecting solar/wind projects can be initiated. (They can only collect subsidies if they are actually “placed in service” by the end of 2027, a standard most new subsidy-seeking projects won’t be able to meet.)

Politicians who cut subsidies are wrongly being blamed for rising electricity prices

As soon as the “Big Beautiful Bill” was passed, the solar-and-wind lobby began blaming the politicians who cut solar/wind subsidies for depriving our grid of power and causing electricity prices to rise.

Not only is the timeframe of this claim absurd—the subsidy cuts would not even go into effect for another year—it gets the relationship between subsidies and price increases exactly backwards.

Solar and wind subsidies have contributed to the electricity price increases we’ve seen so far—by forcing the premature shutdown of the reliable power plants our grid needs to function. (And we’re also paying for the subsidies through taxes and inflation.) Cutting these subsidies was necessary to stop price increases going forward.

The energy freedom fighters who cut solar/wind subsidies did not deprive the grid of power; they did more than anyone to ensure that the grid had electricity when it needed it most. They set up a market where new reliable plants can be profitable. And they did not increase electricity prices, they created the necessary conditions for electricity prices to decrease.

In fact, that’s exactly what we’re seeing already.

The solar/wind subsidy cuts in the “Big Beautiful Bill” are already saving our grid

After the passage of the Big Beautiful Bill, investors looked at the electricity market and saw that building reliable power would soon become much more profitable than if the solar/wind subsidies had continued. At the same time, they became more and more aware that they need ultra-reliable power to power AI data centers.

The US nearly tripled its gas-fired capacity in development in 2025, reaching 252 GW—more than any other country⁷. Developers plan to add 18.7 GW of combined-cycle natural gas capacity by 2028⁸. Major utilities are announcing record capital plans to build reliable generation.

This is what happens when you stop paying people to build an inferior product. Capital flows to what actually works: power plants that can run when you need them, in the quantity you need them, regardless of the weather.

The AI data center boom makes the timing of the solar/wind subsidy cuts even more crucial. Data centers need power that is available 24/7, 365 days a year. The subsidy cuts arrived just in time to help redirect investment toward the reliable generation that America’s growing digital economy urgently needs.

The lesson: Energy freedom works

Any energy source that is genuinely cost-effective will thrive without subsidies. The path to affordable, reliable electricity isn’t subsidies for some politicians’ and lobbyists’ preferred energy sources—it’s the freedom to produce and invest in the energy sources that actually work.

A year ago, NERC was warning that more than half the country faced electricity shortfalls. Today, the market is responding to restored price signals by building reliable power at a pace we haven’t seen in decades.

The politicians who cut solar and wind subsidies didn’t just save taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. They saved our grid.

CO2 Facts Net Zero Zealots are Hiding from You

Posted on 3 Days Ago by Ron Clutz

After a recent squabble with a pack of Net Zero zealots, I realized that interested people should have access to a number of CO2 science facts that are hidden from public view, and certainly won’t appear in the AI bots programmed to repeat IPCC slogans. Below is a compendiums of important contemporary findings everyone needs to know, not to be duped by the climatists. The titles are links to published research papers along with brief highlights of their importance and some pertinent graphics. There are many more skeptical findings, but these show the different analyses revealing numerous holes in IPCC swiss cheese “consensus science.”

World Atmospheric CO2, Its ¹⁴C Specific Activity, Non-fossil Component, Anthropogenic Fossil Component, and Emissions (1750–2018)

World Atmospheric CO2, Its 14C Specific Activity, Non-fossil Component, Anthropogenic Fossil Component, and Emissions (1750–2018)— Health Physics, 2022; Skrable et al.

We determined that in 2018, atmospheric anthropogenic fossil CO2 represented 23% of the total emissions since 1750 with the remaining 77% in the exchange reservoirs. Our results show that the percentage of the total CO2 due to the use of fossil fuels from 1750 to 2018 increased from 0% in 1750 to 12% in 2018, much too low to be the cause of global warming. [My snyopsis: On CO2 Sources and Isotopes]

The graph above is produced from Skrable et al. dataset Table 2. World atmospheric CO2, its C‐14 specific activity, anthropogenic‐fossil component, non fossil component, and emissions (1750 ‐ 2018). The purple line shows reported annual concentrations of atmospheric CO2 from Energy Information Administration (EIA) The starting value in 1750 is 276 ppm and the final value in this study is 406 ppm in 2018, a gain of 130 ppm.

The red line is based on EIA estimates of human fossil fuel CO2 emissions starting from zero in 1750 and the sum slowly accumulating over the first 200 years. The estimate of annual CO2 emitted from FF increases from 0.75 ppm in 1950 up to 4.69 ppm in 2018. The sum of all these annual emissions rises from 29.3 ppm in 1950 (from the previous 200 years) up to 204.9 ppm (from 268 years). These are estimates of historical FF CO2 emitted into the atmosphere, not the amount of FF CO2 found in the air.

Atmospheric CO2 is constantly in two-way fluxes between multiple natural sinks/sources, principally the ocean, soil and biosphere. The annual dilution of carbon 14 proportion is used to calculate the fractions of atmospheric FF CO2 and Natural CO2 remaining in a given year. The blue line shows the FF CO2 fraction rising from 4.03 ppm in 1950 to 46.84 ppm in 2018. The cyan line shows Natural CO2 fraction rising from 307.51 in 1950 to 358.56 in 2018.

Residence Time vs. Adjustment Time of Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere

Residence Time vs. Adjustment Time of Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere — Entropy, 2023; Peter Stallinga

We study the concepts of residence time vs. adjustment time time for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The system is analyzed with a two-box first-order model. Using this model, we reach three important conclusions: (1) The adjustment time is never larger than the residence time and can, thus, not be longer than about 5 years. (2) The idea of the atmosphere being stable at 280 ppm in pre-industrial times is untenable. (3) Nearly 90% of all anthropogenic carbon dioxide has already been removed from the atmosphere. [My synopsis: CO2 Fluxes Not What IPCC Telling You]

Figure 3. (a) Yearly global CO 2 emissions from fossil fuels. (b) Cumulative emissions (integral of left plot). The yellow curve is the remainder of the anthropogenic CO 2 in the atmosphere if we assume a residence time in the sink much longer than the 5-year residence time in the atmosphere; in this case τs=50τa was used. (Source of data: Our World In Data [8]).

In these years, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has risen from 280 ppm (2268 Gt) to 420 ppm (3403 Gt), an increment of 1135 Gt. Of these, 202.3 Gt (17.8%) would be attributable to humans and the rest, 932.7 Gt (82.2%), must be from natural sources.

In view of this, curbing carbon emissions seems rather fruitless; even if we destroy the fossil-fuel-based economy (and human wealth with it), we would only delay the inevitable natural scenario by a couple of years.

The Scientific Case Against Net Zero: Falsifying the Greenhouse Gas Hypothesis

The scientific case against net zero: falsifying the greenhouse gas hypothesis — Journal of Sustainable Development, 2024; Michael Simpson

There is a suggestion (IPCC) that the residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere is different for anthropogenic CO2 and naturally occurring CO2. This breaks a fundamental scientific principle, the Principle of Equivalence. That is: if there is equivalence between two things, they have the same use, function, size, or value (Collins English Dictionary, online). Thus, CO2 is CO2 no matter where it comes from, and each molecule will behave physically and react chemically in the same way.

The results imply that the effect of man-made CO2 emissions does not appear to be sufficiently strong to cause systematic changes in the pattern of the temperature fluctuations. In other words, our analysis indicates that with the current level of knowledge, it seems impossible to determine how much of the temperature increase is due to emissions of CO2. Dagsvik et al. 2024

It is well-known that the residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere is approximately 5 years (Boehmer-Christiansen, 2007: 1124; 1137; Kikuchi, 2010). Skrable et al., (2022), show that accumulated human CO2 is 11% of CO2 in air or ~46.84ppmv based on modelling studies. Berry (2020, 2021) uses the Principle of Equivalence (which the IPCC violates by assuming different timescales for the uptake of natural and human CO2) and agrees with Harde (2017a) that human CO2 adds about 18ppmv to the concentration in air. These are physically extremely small concentrations of CO2 which suggest most CO2 arises from natural sources. It can be concluded that the IPCC models are wrong and human CO2 will have little effect on the temperature. [My synopsis: Straight Talk on Climate Science and Net Zero]

Better calculations of the human contribution to atmospheric CO2 concentrations are available and it is small ~18ppmv (Skrable et al., 2022; Berry, 2020; Harde 2017a & 2017b; Harde, 2019; Harde 2014). The phase relation between temperature and CO2 concentration changes are now clearly understood; temperature increases are followed by increases in CO2 likely from outgassing from the ocean and increased biological activity (Davis , 2017; Hodzic and Kennedy, 2019; Humlum, 2013; Salby, 2012; Koutsoyiannis et al, 2023 & 2024).

Decoupling CO2 from Climate Change

Decoupling CO2 from Climate Change— International Journal of Geosciences, 2024; Nelson & Nelson

Historical data were reviewed from three different time periods spanning 500 million years. It showed that the curves and trends were too dissimilar to establish a connection. Observations from CO2/temp ratios showed that the CO2 and the temperature moved in opposite directions 42% of the time. Many ratios displayed zero or near zero values, reflecting a lack of response. As much as 87% of the ratios revealed negative or near zero values, which strongly negate a correlation.

The fact that the curves were wildly divergent suggests there were major factors in play that were not considered. Excluding water vapor from the analysis may be one reason, as explained in sections 4 and 5. The list of other contributing factors is extensive. For example, changes in the orbital paths of the sun and planets, as suggested by the Milankovitch Cycles, may have had an effect. Changes in the sun’s radiation intensity may play a role. The Earth’s volcanism, nuclear fission at its core, radioactive decay, or changes in the magnetic fields may have an effect over millions of years. These are only a few possibilities not considered in the hypothesis.

Figure 10. This graph is the cloud fraction and is set forth on the left vertical axis. The temperature is on the right vertical axis and the horizontal axis represents the observation year. The information was extrapolated from figures prepared by Hans-Rolf Dubal and Fritz Vahrenholt [37].

Studies have reported that the rise in the CO2 concentration lagged behind temperature increases by 400 to 1000 years [6]. In 2007 the IPCC stated at page 105 [7] “However, it now appears that the initial climatic change preceded the change in CO2 but was enhanced by it (Section 6.4)” But there was no proof provided in section 6.4 supporting the enhancement theory. They stated on page 442 “it may be the result of increased ocean heat transports due to either an enhanced thermohaline circulation” (citations) “or increased flow of surface ocean currents.” A lagging CO2 concentration after the temperature changes contradicts the Greenhouse-CO2 hypothesis, i.e. a rise in CO2 concentration results in warming.

The Relationship between Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration and Global Temperature for the Last 425 Million Years

The Relationship between Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration and Global Temperature for the Last 425 Million Years — Climate, 2017; Davis

“Assessing human impacts on climate and biodiversity requires an understanding of the relationship between the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Earth’s atmosphere and global temperature (T). Here I explore this relationship empirically using comprehensive, recently-compiled databases of stable-isotope proxies from the Phanerozoic Eon (~540 to 0 years before the present) and through complementary modeling using the atmospheric absorption/transmittance code MODTRAN. Atmospheric CO2 concentration is correlated weakly but negatively with linearly-detrended T proxies over the last 425 million years. … This study demonstrates that changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration did not cause temperature change in the ancient climate.”

Figure 5. Temperature (T) and atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration proxies during the Phanerozoic Eon. Davis (2017)

Reconstruction of Atmospheric CO2 Background Levels since 1826 from Direct Measurements near Ground

Reconstruction of Atmospheric CO2 Background Levels since 1826 from Direct Measurements near Ground Ernst-Georg Beck—Science of Climate Change Ernst-Georg Beck (2022)

The data also suggest higher levels in the first half of the 19th century than reconstructed from commonly used ice cores. Using modern MLO CO2 data, we can calculate a centennial average for the 20th century 1901–2000 of 331.38 ppm and of a MBL [Marine Boundary Level samples]in the 19th century (1826–1900) of 322.67. This is a growth rate of +2.6 % in contrast to about 30 % as derived from ice cores and therefore within measurement variability. Analysing the new series of directly measured CO2 MBL levels from 1926 to 2010 suggests a possible cyclic behaviour. The CO2 MBL levels since 1826 to 2008 show a good correlation to the global SST (Kaplan, KNMI; see Figure 26) with a CO2 lag of 1 year after SST from cross correlation (Figure 26a). Kuo et al. (1990) had derived 5 months lag from MLO data alone.

Stomata data confirm the CO2 MBL reconstruction as well as the raw data showing high CO2-levels in the 1930s and 40s at higher temperatures. This is the pre-condition for the inverse stomata/CO2 relation.

About Historical CO2-Data since 1826: Explanation of the Peak around 1940 Hermann Harde

About Historical CO2-Data since 1826: Explanation of the Peak around 1940–Science of Climate Change Hermann Harde, 2023

An extensive compilation of almost 100.000 historical data about CO2 concentration measurements between 1826 and 1960 has been published as post mortem memorial edition of the late Ernst-Georg Beck (Beck 2022). Different to the widely used interpretation of proxy data, Beck’s compilation contains direct measurements of chemically analysed air samples with much higher accuracy and time resolution than available from ice core or tree ring data.

Beck already found a high correlation of the CO2 level data to the global Sea Surface Temperature (SST) series of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (Kaplan, KNMI). Supported by different observations of CO2 enriched air at the coast (North Sea, Barents Sea, Northern Atlantic) he suggested that warmer ocean currents over the Northern Atlantic are the sources of the enhanced CO2-levels.

Figure 26. Annual atmospheric CO2 background level 1856–2008 compared to SST (Kaplan, KNMI); red ine: CO2 MBL reconstruction 1826–1959 (Beck), 1960–2008 (MLO); blue line: Annual SST (Kaplan) 1856 –2003; a) cross correlation of SST and CO2 MBL showing correlation of r=0.668 and a lag of 1 year for CO2 after global SST. Beck 2010

In this contribution we compare the temperature sensitivity of oceanic and land emissions and their expected contributions to the atmospheric CO2 mixing ratio. Our simulations with a land-air temperature series (Soon et al. 2015) alone, or in combination with sea surface data (HadSST4, Kennedy et al. 2019) can well reproduce the increased mixing ratio over the 30s to 40s, the consecutive decline over the 50s and the additional rise up to 2010. This stronger variation cannot be explained only by fossil fuel emissions, which show a monotonic increase over the Industrial Era.

Atmospheric CO2: Exploring the Role of Sea Surface Temperatures and the Influence of Anthropogenic CO2 Bernard Robbins

Atmospheric CO2: Exploring the Role of Sea Surface Temperatures and the Influence of Anthropogenic CO2 — Science of Climate Change, 2025; Robbins

“ Using SST and Mauna Loa datasets, three methods of analysis are presented that seek to identify and estimate the anthropogenic and, by default, natural components of recent increases in atmospheric CO2, an assumption being that changes in SSTs coincide with changes in nature’s influence, as a whole, on atmospheric CO2 levels.

Figure 16: Atmospheric CO2 measurements, shown in Blue (chemical measurements to 1960 and Mauna Loa measurements from 1960) and global SSTs (shown in Violet). The error margins and confidence intervals are as supplied with the chemical CO2 and SST datasets.

The findings of the analyses suggest that an anthropogenic component is likely to be around 20 %, or less, of the total increase since the start of the industrial revolution. The inference is that around 80 % or more of those increases are of natural origin, and indeed the findings suggest that nature is continually working to maintain an atmospheric/surface CO2 balance, which is itself dependent on temperature.”

Multivariate Analysis Rejects the Theory of Human-caused Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Increase: The Sea Surface Temperature Rules

Multivariate Analysis Rejects the Theory of Human-caused Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Increase: The Sea Surface Temperature Rules–Science of Climate Change Dai Ato 2024

“The main factor governing the annual increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration is the SST [sea surface temperature] rather than human emissions.” – Ato, 2024

Another day, another new scientific paper has been published reporting efforts to curb anthropogenic CO2 emissions are “meaningless.” In this study multiple linear regression analysis was performed comparing SST versus anthropogenic CO2 emissions as explanatory factors and the annual changes in atmospheric CO2 as the objective variable over the period 1959-2022.

The model using the SSTs (NASA, NOAA, UAH) best explained the annual CO2 change (regression coefficient B = 2.406, P = <0.0002), whereas human emissions were not shown to be an explanatory factor at all in annual CO2 changes (regression coefficient B = 0.0027, P = 0.863). Most impressively, the predicted atmospheric CO2 concentration using the regression equation derived from 1960-2022 SSTs had an extremely high correlation coefficient of r = 0.9995.

Thus, not only is the paradigm that says humans drive atmospheric CO2 changes wrong, but “the theory that global warming and climate change are caused by human-emitted CO2 is also wrong.”

“SST has been the determinant of the annual changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations and […] anthropogenic emissions have been irrelevant in this process, by head-to-head comparison.”

Revisiting the greenhouse effect – a hydrological perspective

Revisiting the greenhouse effect—a hydrological perspective — Hydrological Sciences Journal, 2023; Koutsoyiannis & Vournas

“As the formulae used for the greenhouse effect quantification were introduced 50-90 years ago, we examine whether these are still representative or not, based on eight sets of observations, distributed in time across a century. We conclude that the observed increase of the atmospheric CO2 concentration has not altered, in a discernible manner, the greenhouse effect, which remains dominated by the quantity of water vapour in the atmosphere, and that the original formulae used in hydrological practice remain valid. Hence, there is no need for adaptation due to increased CO2 concentration.”

Net Isotopic Signature of Atmospheric CO2 Sources and Sinks: No Change since the Little Ice Age

Net Isotopic Signature of Atmospheric CO2 Sources and Sinks: No Change since the Little Ice Age — Sci, 2024; Demetris Koutsoyiannis

This is a follow-on to the paper above, which received more than 1,000 comments on Judith Curry’s blog. He revisits the calculations and claims that the CO2 in the atmosphere today, and the rise during the last 100 years or so, is natural and there is no “signature” from humans.

Figure 1. Typical ranges of isotopic signatures δ13C for each of the pools interacting with atmospheric CO2, and related exchange processes.

The results of the analyses in this paper provide negative answers to the research questions posed in the Introduction. Specifically:

♦ From modern instrumental carbon isotopic data of the last 40 years, no signs of human (fossil fuel) CO2 emissions can be discerned;
♦ Proxy data since the Little Ice Age suggest that the modern period of instrumental data does not differ, in terms of the net isotopic signature of atmospheric CO2 sources and sinks, from earlier centuries.

Comment and Declaration on the SEC’s Proposed Rule “The Enhancement and Standardization of Climate-Related Disclosures for Investors”

Comment and Declaration on the SEC’s Proposed Rule— Happer and LIndzen,

The Logarithmic Forcing from CO2 Means that Its Contributions to Global Warming is Heavily Saturated, Instantaneously Doubling CO2 Concentrations from 400 ppm to 800 ppm, a 100% Increase, Would Only Diminish the Thermal Radiation to Space by About 1.1%, and therefore tiny changes of Earth’s surface temperature, on the order of 1° C (about 2° F). Thus Confirming There is No Reliable Scientific Evidence Supporting the Proposed Rule.

This means that from now on our emissions from burning fossil fuels could have little impact on global warming. There is no climate emergency. No threat at all. We could emit as much CO2 as we like, with little warming effect.

Saturation also explains why temperatures were not catastrophically high over the hundreds of millions of years when CO2 levels were 10-20 times higher than they are today.

Further, saturation also provides another reason why reducing the use of fossil fuels to“net zero” by 2050 would have a trivial impact on climate, contradicting the theory there is a climate related risk from fossil fuel and CO2 emissions.

Laws of Physics Define the Insignificant Warming of Earth by CO2

Laws of Physics Define the Insignificant Warming of Earth — Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, 2023; Lightfoot and Ratzer

The authors use real-world data (not models or simulations) to determine that at the tropics, water vapor does virtually all the work of the greenhouse effect, and at the poles, where it is very dry, carbon dioxide plays no measurable role. They show that almost three-quarters of the atmosphere’s water molecules are in the Tropics, which is where the greenhouse effect takes place. They don’t say this, but the CO2 at the poles can’t cause any heating simply because there is no greenhouse effect at the poles. In fact, CO2 at the poles causes cooling.

Calculating the increase in the heat content of the atmosphere caused by increased CO2 is the method for determining the rise in Earth’s temperature. An increase from 311 ppm to 418 ppm causes a maximum rise of 0.006oC from McMurdo to Taoudenni, Mali, in the Sahara Desert. This value indicates the temperature increase is too small to measure, i.e., negligible [15].

This study is a significant step forward in the science of the Earth’s atmosphere. It provides robust quantitative evidence that the overall warming by CO2 is insignificant, and water vapor is the most significant greenhouse gas.

Footnote: Clashing CO2 Paradigms

For insight into the two conflicting viewpoints regarding CO2 and temperatures, see:

CO2 Fluxes Are Not Like Cash Flows

States Claiming Climate Crisis Can’t Prove It

Posted on 26 Days Ago by Ron Clutz

Andrew Weiss explains the cascading effects upon climate obsessed politicians in his Real Clear Energy article After the Endangerment Finding, States Must Prove CO2 Harms. Wisconsin Can’t.. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

The EPA’s revocation of the 2009 endangerment finding shifts the burden of proof from federal agencies to state capitals. Governors who declared climate emergencies must now demonstrate with regional data that rising carbon dioxide (CO2) endangers their residents. Wisconsin cannot meet that burden.

In 2019, Wisconsin declared climate change a crisis requiring the state’s electricity to be carbon-free by 2050, citing worsening extreme weather as justification. Since then, the state has spent $6 billion on renewable infrastructure while residents pay 15% more for electricity than the Midwest average.

A new report by the Weiss Energy Policy Institute analyzed 130 years of Wisconsin climate data and found that as atmospheric CO2 rose 45%, Wisconsin experienced 63% fewer days over 90°F, heatwaves 71% shorter in duration, powerful tornadoes down 70%, and significant drought decline since 1894.

This isn’t just absence of evidence, it’s negative correlation.
As CO2increased, climate extremes decreased.

In addition to the improving climate, the report also notably found that rural Wisconsin’s average temperature has not changed since 1894. Urban areas, on the other hand, have warmed about 2.2°F since the late nineteenth century. The report finds that this urban warming is nearly entirely due to the Urban Heat Island effect from concrete and development, not CO2. In many measurable ways, Wisconsin’s climate has become more conducive to human flourishing over the past century.

Even if CO2 were causing harm, Wisconsin’s ability to adapt
to climate change far surpasses its ability to influence it.

The Badger State’s 2023 carbon emissions were 22% below its peak of 110 million metric tons in 2005. Despite its reduction, annual global emissions have increased by over 100 times Wisconsin’s entire annual emissions over the same period. In fact, in 2023, Wisconsin’s carbon emissions made up less than 0.25% of the global total.

While CO2 has not endangered residents of Wisconsin,
the climate-based policies have.

Residential electricity prices continue climbing even as household consumption falls. In fact, Xcel Energy and Alliant Energy have requested cumulative rate hikes approaching 19% over the next two years. Some in Waukesha County are already facing “dramatically higher” energy bills, double from just months earlier. Under Wisconsin’s current policies, this is sure to continue. In fact, Wisconsin is hurtling toward an energy crisis. The latest long term reliability assessment projects the state will enter “high-risk” territory for blackouts by 2028.

This economic burden stems from poor energy policies. Current leadership has forced coal plants into early retirement, blocked critical natural gas infrastructure, mandated carbon targets over grid reliability, vetoed consumer protections against appliance bans, and weaponized the permitting process to strangle traditional energy development.

For example, the state’s climate policies prevented a gas-fired plant that would have brought $1 million in annual tax revenue and 350 construction jobs to northern Wisconsin last year. Its initial permits expired while waiting for more permits.

In the face of unprecedented new energy demand, Wisconsin’s grid might have been able to absorb the new data centers and industrial growth if it weren’t already stressed by climate policy. But solar cannot replace coal megawatt-for-megawatt. In order to replace reliable coal with solar, while maintaining the same reliability, nearly twenty times the capacity must be installed. That means ratepayers pay to build and maintain thousands of acres of solar panels and pay to keep backup plants on standby for when those panels underperform.

Even overturning the carbon mandate won’t be enough to save the grid, because the current regulatory system was not built to accommodate surging industrial demand without punishing ratepayers. Wisconsin lawmakers need to save residents from footing the bill for data center infrastructure by utilizing free markets and private capital rather than heavy-handed subsidies.

This market-oriented solution for Wisconsin is called Consumer-Regulated Electricity (CRE). It allows privately financed utilities to generate and sell power directly to large customers through voluntary contracts, operating independent of the regulated grid. This creates a parallel pathway for new industrial demand, protecting residential ratepayers while giving Wisconsin a competitive advantage over other Midwest states. It attracts industrial capital without subsidies or forcing costs onto families.

The revoked endangerment finding forces a reckoning: will Wisconsin continue its expensive and dangerous energy transition, or will it examine the actual data? New evidence suggests the state should:

♦ rescind its zero-carbon mandate,
♦ restore reliable baseload power to the legacy grid, and
♦ pass Consumer-Regulated Electricity legislation to let private capital serve new industrial demand without burdening ratepayers.

Combined with removing carbon mandates from the legacy grid,
these reforms position Wisconsin a bright energy future.

In the 21st century, affordable and reliable power separates flourishing societies from struggling ones. Wisconsin cannot prove CO2 harms, but its climate policies are already bringing on an energy crisis. Other states that built climate mandates on the endangerment finding should audit their climate data. The burden of proof has shifted to state capitals, and the evidence may not support the mandates.

See also:

No Climate Crisis in Texas

World of Hurt from Climate Policies-Part 1

Germany Impaled by Climate Virtue

Posted on February 17 by Ron Clutz

“Imagine an argument so airtight about science so settled
over technology so reliable that you have to use censorship
to make sure nobody gives a dissenting opinion.” @ProctorZ

Thomas Kolbe diagnoses what ails Germany in his article Germany’s Climate Policy Has Moved From Politics To The Courts… And The Economy Is Paying The Price. H/T Tyler Durden

Germany is the political engine of the Green Deal, yet it continues to fall short of its own CO₂ reduction targets. Now Germany’s Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig has ordered the federal government to tighten its climate targets by the end of March. The ruling follows a lawsuit filed by the German Environmental Aid (Deutsche Umwelthilfe), aimed explicitly at increasing political pressure. Germany is tightening the screws on its own catastrophe.

Germany in 2026: the economy has entered its eighth consecutive year of industrial decline. Companies are shutting down, and hundreds of thousands of jobs have already been lost in the core sectors of the country’s former prosperity—chemicals, mechanical engineering, and above all the automotive industry.

Climate change has struck—or rather, the ideologically skewed and
socially unprecedented self-destructive frenzy of German politics has begun
to shred any remaining hope of a return to normal economic conditions.

The attempt to free the country from conventional energy sources such as oil, gas, and coal through a rapid transition to CO₂-free energy—politically and psychologically inflated into a moral crusade to “save the planet”—has failed.

Given the devastating competitive position of the German economy, which now pays energy prices roughly three times higher than competitors in reference locations such as France or the United States, any rational observer would urgently recommend consigning the entire transformation agenda to the dustbin of failed political hubris and collective delusion.

What remains is damage control:

♦ a rapid return to a market-based energy system,
♦ an end to destructive environmental and social experiments, and
♦ an unavoidable restructuring of the welfare state to reflect new economic realities.

Germany is getting poorer, productivity is falling, and GDP per capita
is declining—realities that even the federal government’s massive
debt-financed spending programs can no longer conceal.

Yet Germany in 2026 is no ordinary country. Its political elite, supported by an affirming media ecosystem, has entrenched itself in a self-referential system of emissions-centered economic control—a system now reinforced by judicial authority.

In its ruling, the court mandated that the government sharpen its environmental targets. Under current conditions, a gap of at least 200 million tons of CO₂ would remain by 2045, which must now be eliminated across Germany’s entire economic structure.

Judges who effectively substitute political objectives for democratic
deliberation are now setting the framework for Germany’s continued decline.

The lawsuit was brought by the German Environmental Aid—an organization already known for launching the first serious legal assault on Germany’s automotive industry during earlier battles over particulate emissions in city centers. The pressure on Germany is now coming from within: from a taxpayer-funded NGO complex that appears determined to politically delegitimize key industries, with the state apparatus firmly on its side.

According to Deutschlandfunk, a leaked draft from the SPD-led Environment Ministry outlines a new climate program aimed at achieving climate neutrality by 2045. Spanning more than 330 pages, it appears the government anticipated judicial escalation and preemptively prepared the groundwork for a revised climate law. Political conflict has been outsourced to the courts, to the relief of Berlin’s climate hardliners amid worsening economic conditions.

Among the core measures is the intensified “heat transition” in the building sector. The ministry proposes increasing subsidies for low-income households—up to 40 percent of costs—for heating replacements and heat pump installations. A generous solution for the climate-policy establishment, conveniently rolled out during an election season.

The leaked strategy signals a general increase in transformation pressure. No fundamentally new instruments are introduced; instead, property owners are placed under tighter time constraints to replace heating systems.

Climate policy and financial affordability are colliding ever more sharply. Amid a prolonged recession, the government is deliberately provoking social conflict while attempting to pacify it through ever-expanding subsidies.

Germany’s public debt, at roughly 65 percent of GDP, still appears moderate by European standards. In Berlin, this is interpreted as ample room to finance the transformation through rising debt while simultaneously increasing pressure on the private sector.

Environment Minister Carsten Schneider speaks optimistically of new “climate jobs.” The overall picture, however, increasingly resembles political farce. A state that secures public consent for its transformation agenda through debt, subsidies, and higher taxes acts obscenely and invites long-term economic damage.

Plans even include methane measurement programs for livestock, modeled after New Zealand—yet another blow to farmers. German emissions policy is entering a manic phase, blurring the line between real policy and political satire.

The subsidy machine continues to spin. The government plans to support 800,000 electric vehicles in the coming years. Credit resources remain abundant after Chancellor Friedrich Merz effectively neutralized the constitutional debt brake with the previous parliament. By 2040, electric vehicles are supposed to account for 70 percent of Germany’s car fleet—despite the absence of any credible plan for supplying the required electricity.

Artificial, technocratic necessity has replaced political debate. From the outset, it was clear that the supposed softening of the combustion-engine ban was mere political theater—a sedative for citizens gradually awakening to the scale of the green ideological disaster.

The energy sector faces further tightening. Dozens of reserve gas power plants are to be added, while existing plants are to be converted to hydrogen capability. Offshore wind projects abroad are being accelerated. These measures amount to desperate rescue attempts for a failed energy transition—an assessment implicitly acknowledged even by the Environment Ministry itself. Model-driven hope has replaced rational judgment.

Technocrats Deliver Catastrophes

Germany’s climate policy, entangled in a feedback loop with Brussels, has ossified into an auto-referential system marked by a narrow temporal vision and growing argumentative poverty. Looming over it all is the threat of further litigation by the German Environmental Aid should the final legislation fail to meet its standards.

Germany now finds itself in the grip of green ideologues who have subordinated all parties behind an ideological firewall. The environmental lobby’s greatest success came when it elevated the Net Zero target to constitutional status.

How much greater must the economic pressure become before a majority forms
—even in front of this firewall—to dismantle this manifest political folly?

Why Rescinding the Endangerment Finding May Survive Lawfare

Posted on February 12 by Ron Clutz

Some thoughts from my browser AI. My Question: What are the legal matters, such as major questions requiring congressional action, that favor ending EPA CO2 Endangerment Finding?

Search Assistant Reply:

The legal matters surrounding the repeal of the EPA’s CO2 Endangerment Finding involve the major questions doctrine, which suggests that significant regulatory authority should not be assumed by agencies without clear congressional authorization. This doctrine has been reinforced by recent Supreme Court rulings, indicating that the EPA may need explicit legislative backing to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, thus favoring the argument for ending the Endangerment Finding.

Legal Matters Surrounding the EPA CO2 Endangerment Finding

Major Questions Doctrine

The major questions doctrine is a legal principle that limits the authority of executive agencies, like the EPA, to make significant regulatory decisions without clear congressional authorization. This doctrine has been increasingly applied by the Supreme Court to ensure that major political or economic issues are addressed by Congress rather than delegated to agencies.

Definition: The doctrine asserts that agencies must have explicit congressional authorization to regulate matters of significant economic or political importance.
Recent Cases: The Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA (2022) emphasized that agencies must point to clear congressional authorization for their regulatory actions, particularly when those actions have broad implications.

Implications for the Endangerment Finding

The repeal of the EPA’s CO2 Endangerment Finding could be supported by arguments based on the major questions doctrine:

Lack of Clear Authorization: Opponents of the Endangerment Finding may argue that the Clean Air Act does not provide the EPA with the authority to regulate greenhouse gases based on global climate change concerns, as these gases are not traditional air pollutants.
Historical Context: The Endangerment Finding was established following the Massachusetts v. EPA (2007) ruling, which recognized greenhouse gases as pollutants. However, the current administration may argue that the regulatory framework established under this finding lacks explicit congressional backing for such extensive regulatory power. [Note: AI got this wrong. Mass v. EPA only ruled EPA could itself decide GHGs are pollutants subject to its regulation. That judgment by EPA regarding auto emissions in 2009 is now rescinded by EPA in 2026.]

Potential Legal Challenges

Court Challenges: Environmental groups are likely to challenge the repeal in court, arguing that the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases is well-supported by the Clean Air Act and previous Supreme Court rulings.
Future Regulations: If the Endangerment Finding is repealed, it could undermine existing regulations on vehicle emissions and other sources of greenhouse gases, leading to further legal disputes over the EPA’s regulatory scope.

The intersection of the major questions doctrine and the Endangerment Finding highlights the ongoing legal debates regarding the EPA’s authority and the role of Congress in environmental regulation.

From SCOTUS Blog June 30, 2022

The Supreme Court on Thursday truncated the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate greenhouse gases. The ruling may hamper President Joe Biden’s plan to fight climate change and could limit the authority of federal agencies across the executive branch.

By a vote of 6-3, the court agreed with Republican-led states and coal companies that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit was wrong when it interpreted the Clean Air Act to give the EPA expansive power over carbon emissions. The decision, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, was handed down on the final opinion day of the 2021-22 term.

Turning to the merits of the case, Roberts wrote that the EPA’s effort to regulate greenhouse gases by making industry-wide changes violated the “major-questions” doctrine – the idea that if Congress wants to give an administrative agency the power to make “decisions of vast economic and political significance,” it must say so clearly.

Section 7411 of the Clean Air Act, Roberts reasoned, had been “designed as a gap filler and had rarely been used in the preceding decades.” But with the CPP, Roberts observed, the EPA sought to rely on Section 7411 to exercise “unprecedented power over American industry.” “There is little reason to think Congress assigned such decisions to” the EPA, Roberts concluded, especially when Congress had previously rejected efforts to enact the kind of program that the EPA wanted to implement with the CPP.

“Capping carbon dioxide emissions at a level that will force a nationwide transition away from the use of coal to generate electricity may be a sensible ‘solution to the crisis of the day,’” Roberts wrote. But only Congress, or an agency with express authority from Congress, can adopt a “decision of such magnitude and consequence.”

Roberts’ full-throated embrace of the major-questions doctrine – a judicially created approach to statutory interpretation in challenges to agency authority – likely will have ripple effects far beyond the EPA. His reasoning applies to any major policymaking effort by federal agencies.

In a concurring opinion that was joined by Justice Samuel Alito, Justice Neil Gorsuch emphasized that the dispute before the court involved “basic questions about self-government, equality, fair notice, federalism, and the separation of powers.” The major-questions doctrine, Gorsuch wrote, “seeks to protect against ‘unintentional, oblique, or otherwise unlikely’ intrusions on these interests” by requiring federal agencies to have “clear congressional authorization” when they address important issues. Whether coal- and gas-fired power plants “should be allowed to operate is a question on which people today may disagree, but it is a question everyone can agree is vitally important.”

Davos Ditches Climate, Focuses on Economy

Posted on January 25 by Ron Clutz

Ward Clark reports the course correction in his RedState article Davos Ditches Climate: Elites Now Eyeing Economy Instead. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Turns out that concern for mankind’s effect on the global climate isn’t much of a concern at Davos this year. It is, after all, the meeting of the World Economic Forum, not the World Climate Forum – the United Nations already has a forum for climate change, and it drew a lot of ignoring this year, too. This year in Davos, Switzerland, though interest in all things climate seemed to be nearing an all-time low.

A recent article at Climate Change News discussing this week’s 2026 World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Switzerland worries that climate change is no longer a high priority for the attending global elites, while also attempting to reassure readers that the topic hasn’t disappeared entirely. It is true that climate change is dropping on the list of elites’ concerns, but it is not a bad thing. The attendees’ concerns are still wildly out of step with the concerns of average people who are impacted the most by the policies discussed and pushed at Davos.

The article, titled “Ahead of Davos, climate drops down global elite’s list of pressing concerns,” was written before the Davos event kicked off Monday, January 19, and focuses on a survey conducted by the WEF’s Global Risks Perception Survey of “experts” and leaders in advance of the meeting. This year, the survey found that for the first time in years, “climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss have dropped down an international ranking of short-term concerns for high-profile business leaders, academics, and politicians,” as priorities shifted towards more concern over “economic risks like geoeconomic confrontation, economic downturn, inflation, and asset bubbles bursting.” (See the graph, below, from the WEF).

That’s a novel notion. An economic forum worried about economics.

Oh, the climate can have an effect on economics; there’s little doubt about that. A real humdinger of a climate crisis, like a major volcanic eruption, can have dramatic effects on everything from agriculture to fisheries, and if people can’t eat, they have little time to worry about anything other than keeping their belly buttons from rubbing a hole in their backbones.

As far as possible reasons for the shift, a polling form often used by the WEF found that this year the general run of citizens – you know, the people who elect a lot of the “elites” at Davos – are a lot more worried about the price of eggs than their carbon footprints.

Personally, I’d prefer to think that people are just figuring it out. Unless a government is willing to go full Great Britain and tell the subjects – the Brits, we remind you, are not citizens, not as we think of the word – and say, “You’ll have your electric cars and heat pumps, and you’ll bloody well like it or else,” then people just aren’t seeing the point. Giving up the gas stove, the SUV, and the comfortable, gas-heated home, just to keep the Earth’s mean temperature from rising by a degree and a half over the next century? Plenty of regular folks aren’t buying the hype. They just don’t see what the big worry is, and the people at Davos must be wetting their fingers and holding them aloft, because it sure seems like they know which way the wind is blowing.

That’s a good thing.

UN Climatists Organized Assault Upon Dissenters

Posted on January 20 by Ron Clutz

Susan Quinn reports in her American Thinker article Climate change advocates at the UN launch new organized assault against free speech and information. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

For years, climate change “deniers” have been attacked and ridiculed because we don’t believe in the “science” of the left. Yet, invented “science” isn’t science, and too many scientists have cowed to it, incentivized by money or fear of being cancelled, and have climbed on the bandwagon.

More and more people, however, are realizing the scam
that’s been perpetrated and are speaking out.

And now, those who defend climate change caused by humans are furious and alarmed. To discourage dissenters to the progressive narrative, the UN stepped up to stop the “disinformation”, intending to ramp up the war against climate change “deniers”:

At the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30), held in Brazil in November 2025, several states endorsed the UN’s ‘Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change, an initiative recognizing and trying to combat the rise in climate disinformation in media and politics.’

The UN Declaration is professedly a pledge to ‘fight false information’ about climate change.

At first glance, the Declaration seems fairly innocuous. But if you read it carefully, it clearly condemns those who don’t agree with the UN agenda, demanding censorship of the opposition, largely through the media. Here is one of the listed commitments:

Promote and support the sustainability of a diverse and resilient media ecosystem through adequate policies to enable and ensure accurate and reliable coverage, specially, within this context, on climate and environmental issues, as well as policies on advertising transparency and accountability….

It is not the place of the UN to determine a limitation on discussion of climate change, or create a media network to censor opposing viewpoints or findings. And yet they persist in pursuing this agenda and insist that everyone fall in line. Desiree Fixler, an expert in sustainable finance and investment banking and a former member of the WEF’s Global Future Council on Responsible Investing turned whistleblower, identified the climate change crisis as a hoax:

Fixler, a whistleblower, used to work as a sustainability officer for Deutsche Bank, until she exposed their ‘greenwashing’ and was fired for it. Since then, she has been exposing the climate change narrative and the ‘net zero’ agenda as a scam. In a recent podcast, she explained how the UN and WEF agendas of net zero emissions and ‘stakeholder capitalism’ – a WEF concept – are means to gain control and implement socialism. ‘They’re lying to the public,’ Fixler recently said on the Winston Marshall podcast.

‘They’ve manufactured a climate crisis. There is climate change, but there is no climate crisis… asset managers, consultants, and governments… they’re all in on it because they all profit from it.’

Last year, Stanford University reported on a “rise” in new organizations pushing back against the left’s “climate change crisis” claims:

New Stanford-led research in PLOS One reveals a growing constellation of think tanks, research institutes, trade associations, foundations, and other groups actively working to oppose climate science and policy. The number of countries with at least one such ‘counter climate change organization’ has more than doubled over the past 35 years.

The researchers, in a roundabout way, recognize the aggressiveness of the left’s climate change policies in action to be a major factor for the pushback:

According to the Jan. 22 study, the two factors most closely linked to the formation of at least one counter climate change organization are the strength of a country’s commitment to protecting the natural environment and the level of formal organization in its social sector.

(As it turns out, people are less concerned with some unobservable boogeyman than they are with their utility bills and whether or not they can afford a car.)

An especially frustrating part of this story is that climate change adherents mischaracterize the position of the “deniers” who don’t deny that the climate is changing, but that there is inadequate scientific evidence to suggest that human beings are the source of those changes. This is a critical issue:

How can we consider stopping climate change when
we don’t have scientific data about what causes it?

All the warming since 1940s followed oceanic cyclical events.

Well-known scientists are finally speaking out against the UN censorship initiative:

Prominent voices, including Bjorn Lomborg, have criticized the UN’s stance, insisting that taxpayer-funded climate policies warrant thorough scrutiny, not censorship.

Lomborg contends that the UN’s agenda is not only misguided but runs the risk of economically damaging the very countries it claims to help, as evidenced by countries like Germany facing high energy costs amid aggressive climate goals.

We must take seriously the efforts of the UN to censor scientific debate, because the consequences could be dire:

The implications of this censorship extend far beyond the realm of energy policy, as it threatens foundational principles of democracy and free expression, calling into question the very nature of scientific and academic inquiry.

The controversy and debate must continue!

Canada Climate Policy Built on Corrupt Data

Posted on January 17 by Ron Clutz

Tom Harris and Todd Royal explain why “official” temperature history from Canada government is distorted to invent warming where very little has actually ocurred. Their article: Is Canada basing its climate policies on ‘decision-based evidence-making?’ Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Politicians want us to believe that they base their decisions on solid, verifiable evidence. “Evidence-based decision-making,” they call it. But what if the decision is made first and then the data is selected, or left uncorrected, in order to support the now politically correct decision? That would then be “decision-based evidence-making.” In other words, a complete corruption of honest decision-making.

It seems that Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) is doing exactly that with the country’s temperature data in order to support the government’s mantra that Canada is “warming twice as fast as the global average.” For, if the one-degree anomalous spike in Canada’s “mean temperature” in 1998 is removed from the data, as even ECCC researchers themselves advocated previously should be done to preserve data integrity in cases like this, then Canada is not warming at all and much of the $200 billion spent on the climate file by the federal Liberal government since 2015 is a complete waste.

In 2021, Dr. Joseph Hickey, a data scientist with a PhD in Physics, specializing in complexity science, then an employee of the Bank of Canada, alerted ECCC to this one-degree jump in temperature data across much of Canada, and asked for an explanation. The below graphs of mean, maximum and minimum temperatures constructed with data from three Canadian cities—Moncton (on which Hickey illustrates the step change with red lines), Ottawa and Montreal—are samples of those created by Hickey using ECCC data downloaded on November 11, 2025, data that is the same as that he sent to ECCC researchers as an attachment to his email of June 24, 2021.

Ignoring their previous position about the need to remove such sudden discontinuities from the data, ECCC staff had little to say and left the anomaly in the record, asserting that it was “probably” a real sudden change in temperature.

Making matters worse, another Bank of Canada employee, economist Julien McDonald-Guimond, had already alerted ECCC by email on December 7, 2020, that he had found more than 10,000 instances of days for which the daily minimum temperature was greater than the daily maximum temperature. Again, ECCC staff had no reasonable justification.

With the Canadian government no longer his employer, so Hickey is now free to tell us all what has been going on behind the scenes. This Hickey did on December 23, 2025, when he published the blockbuster report “Artificial stepwise increases in homogenized surface air temperature data invalidate published climate warming claims for Canada.”

Dr. Hickey shows that, if you apply ECCC’s trend analysis method to their data, you find an increase of 1.74° C (which is statistically significant) from 1948 to 2018. And then, he tells us, if you correct for the one-degree step increase in 1998, you find only a 0.29°C rise. That small change “is indistinguishable from zero,” explains Hickey. “There is no evidence of warming.”

Figure 7: Map showing Sr calculated using Tmean, for the break year 1998 with two five-year windows (1993-1997 and 1998-2002) for the 302 3rd generation AHCCD stations with sufficient data. Circle radius is proportional to the absolute value of Sr. Circle colour indicates Sr ranges as follows: blue: Sr < 0; black: 0 ≤ Sr ≤ 1; red: Sr > 1. Moncton, NB (Sr = 2.74) is indicated with a green circle, for reference.

In Figure 7, AHCCD stations with Sr < 0 are coloured blue, while black indicates 0 ≤ Sr ≤ 1, and red indicates Sr > 1. The AHCCD records with the largest stepwise increases at 1998 are located in Eastern and Central Canada (including the stations listed in Table A), and there are many records with discernible steps at 1998 in the Prairies (provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta) and the north of the country. British Columbia remains the main outlier, with most ofits AHCCD stations having no discernible steps at 1998.

Figure 8: Map of trend in Tmean over the period 1998-2018, for the 3rd generation AHCCD stations with sufficient data, calculated using linear least-squares fitting. Circle radius is proportional to the absolute value of the trend. Blue circles correspond to negative trends (trend < 0) and red circles to positive trends (trend > 0).

In Figure 8, the trend for a particular Tmean record is equal to the slope (°C/year) from a linear least-squares fit to its data for 1998-2018, times 21 years. An AHCCD station was considered to have sufficient data if its record had at least 350 days of non-missing daily data per year for every year from 1998 2018. Approximately two thirds of the AHCCD records with sufficient data have negative trends for 1998-2018 using linear least-squares fitting.

Summation

This report demonstrates Environment Canada’s dismissive response to being alerted to a large, apparently non-climatic artifact in its flagship temperature time-series product, an artifact which could, on its own, be responsible for essentially all of the calculated warming for many Canadian locations over the past six or seven decades.

The said apparent artifact, referred to as the “1998 step-increase feature” in this report, is a stepwise increase of approximately 1°C in magnitude occurring at 1998 in the annual mean time-series of daily maximum, minimum, and mean temperatures for many stations across Canada in Environment Canada’s Adjusted and Homogenized Canadian Climate Data (AHCCD).

Day of Liberation from UN Climate Entities (among others)

Posted on January 8 by Ron Clutz

CNN explains the Presidential actions taken yesterday in article Trump moves to pull US out of bedrock global climate treaty, becoming first country to do so. Excerpts in italics with my bolds

The agreement in question is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, which the US joined and Congress ratified in 1992, when George H.W. Bush was in the White House. The agreement does not require the US to cut fossil fuels or pollution, but rather sets a goal of stabilizing the amount of climate pollution in the atmosphere at a level that would “prevent dangerous anthropogenic (human-caused) interference with the climate system.”

It also set up a process for negotiations between countries that have come to be known as the annual UN climate summits. It was under the UNFCCC’s auspices that the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in 1995, and the Paris Agreement in 2015 — two monumental moments of global cooperation and progress toward limiting harmful climate pollution.

In addition, the agreement requires the submission of an annual national climate pollution inventory, which the Trump administration notably skipped this year.

President Trump withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement for a second time on his first day in office. With Wednesday’s move, the US will now become the first country to withdraw from the climate treaty, since virtually every country is a member, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.

Because the Senate ratified the UNFCCC in 1992, it is a legal gray area as to whether President Donald Trump can unilaterally pull the country out of it. However, if Congress plays a role, the Republican majority would presumably back the move.

If successful, the withdrawal would prevent the US from officially participating in subsequent annual climate summits and could call into question the country’s commitment to other longstanding agreements to which it is a party. It may also prompt other nations to reevaluate their commitments to the UNFCCC and UN climate talks, risking not just US climate progress but that of others.

A US withdrawal could make it difficult for a future president to rejoin the Paris Agreement, since that agreement was struck under the auspices of the UNFCCC.

Trump also moved to withdraw the US from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC — a Nobel Prize-winning group that publishes reports on global warming. While the president likely can’t bar US scientists from participating in IPCC reports, the move could have ramifications for federal scientists who would otherwise contribute. A White House fact sheet stated:

“Many of these bodies promote radical climate policies, global governance, and
ideological programs that conflict with U.S. sovereignty and economic strength.”

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