“Wake-Up Call” For Europe… German Professor, Fritz Vahrenholt, On U.S. Climate Report

From the NoTrickZone

By P Gosselin

A recent report from the U.S. Department of Energy, commissioned by the Trump administration and authored by five scientists, is making waves.

German energy expert Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt has weighed in, suggesting its findings could be a crucial “wake-up call” for Europe, especially Germany, to rethink its current climate policies.

The report, titled “A Critical Review on Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the US Climate” challenges a core assumption of mainstream climate science. It argues that the negative impacts of CO2 have been exaggerated, while its benefits are often overlooked.

According to Vahrenholt, the report highlights that CO2 isn’t just a pollutant; it’s essential for life and photosynthesis. It’s a key ingredient for a “greener earth” and has contributed to a reported 15% increase in global crop yields for staples like rice and wheat. This perspective directly contradicts the idea of CO2 as solely a harmful substance.

Models running too hot

Another major point raised by Vahrenholt is the report’s finding that climate models “run too hot.”

The report suggests these models primarily focus on CO2 as the sole driver of warming, neglecting other significant natural factors. Vahrenholt points to measurements that show a substantial portion of recent warming can be attributed to cloud thinning and increased solar radiation, a topic he and Nobel laureate John Clauser have researched.

This brings a fresh perspective to the climate discussion by emphasizing the complexity of the Earth’s climate system beyond just human emissions.

No statistical increase in extreme events

The report also takes aim at a common narrative: the increasing frequency of weather extremes. It concludes that there has been no statistical increase in events like droughts, hurricanes, or heavy rain. This finding, Vahrenholt notes, directly contradicts what is often claimed in mainstream media and could undermine the legal basis for current U.S. climate policy, which designates CO2 as a dangerous pollutant.

Vahrenholt argues that this could trigger a re-industrialization of the U.S., as cheaper energy becomes available without the constraints of costly climate policies.

“Wake-up call” for Europe and Germany

For Vahrenholt, the implications for Europe are clear. He sees the continent’s expensive climate policies as leading to de-industrialization and job losses. He is particularly critical of Germany’s decisions to exit nuclear energy and phase out internal combustion engines, labeling them as major policy blunders. He views the U.S. report as a catalyst for Europe to reconsider its path.

Media’s political bias

Finally, Vahrenholt criticizes major media outlets for their failure to report on the U.S. energy report, suggesting a political bias that prevents them from providing balanced information. He hopes the report’s findings will eventually reach the public, forcing a political shift as people begin to feel the economic consequences of current policies.

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Tusten02
August 23, 2025 2:16 am

This has been clear to me since around 2015 when I reacted a claim by the climate hystericals that science is settled – CO2 is the climate controlling knob. Having spåent most of my career at a research organization, it is a fundamental value that science is never settled.
Detta har stått klart för mig sedan ca 2015 då jag noterade klimathysterikernas påstående att vetenskapen är avgjord: CO2 är kontrollspaken för klimatet. Vetenskapen tillämpar en oupphörlig process av hypoteser och falsifiering av dessa.

johnn635
Reply to  Tusten02
August 23, 2025 2:54 am

Germany has been the main driver of the Green movement. It was apparent with acid rain in the 70s and its effect on forests that it was a pure political self interest. At the time it was envisaged a new ice age was upon us. Abandoning nuclear was an equally political decision, since everywhere else was at least considering they were an essential future energy source.

Reply to  johnn635
August 24, 2025 3:03 am

The Green Movement and Party were funded by the KGB to undermine Western democracies and Capitalism. It is the greatest intelligence operation in history and is still bearing its poisonous fruit decades after the USSR collapsed.

Ron Long
Reply to  Tusten02
August 23, 2025 5:07 am

Story tip: For you guys looking for a cheap thrill, look up “Kilauea live cam A” and see an unusually strong lava fountaining eruption at the Big Island.

Ron Long
Reply to  Ron Long
August 23, 2025 6:53 am

The fountaining eruption has now stopped, but the glow from the lava rivers is impressive.

Reply to  Tusten02
August 23, 2025 10:41 am

🇸🇪👍

August 23, 2025 2:58 am

Been posting this for some time now:

     1. More rain is not a problem.
     2. Warmer weather is not a problem.
     3. More arable land is not a problem.
     4. Longer growing seasons is not a problem.
     5. CO2 greening of the earth is not a problem.
     6. There isn’t any Climate Crisis.

Rod Evans
Reply to  Steve Case
August 23, 2025 3:36 am

The climate alarmism movement over the past thirty years is unfortunately a living proof of Mark Twain’s observation.
“It is easier to con someone than to convince them they have been conned”

Reply to  Rod Evans
August 23, 2025 5:23 am

I’m now reading a new biography of Twain by Ron Chernow. I strongly recommend it.

Reply to  Rod Evans
August 23, 2025 7:11 am

“Past thirty years?” More like forty plus years.
Besides that, 1970 -79 it was “Global Cooling.

Reply to  Rod Evans
August 24, 2025 3:04 am

And even harder for them to admit they were conned.

Reply to  Steve Case
August 23, 2025 8:05 am

And you should repost it every once in a while. It’s worth the reminder.

Reply to  DMacKenzie
August 23, 2025 6:33 pm

Just food for thought. Maybe other commenters should copy it and everybody repost it once in a while, especially in response to any comment by AlanJ.

Dave Fair
Reply to  Steve Case
August 23, 2025 10:26 am

Change existing 6. to 7. Add new “6. IPCC: There is no increase in weather extremes.”

August 23, 2025 2:58 am

It’s too late for Europe now to admit that they’ve been duped, that they’ve spent umpteen billions trying to fend off a phantom problem that will never arise, that their efforts wouldn’t make a dent in anyway because China and the rest of the developing world will overwhelm it…oh, and at the same time, they still need Russian energy.

strativarius
Reply to  johnesm
August 23, 2025 3:09 am

There’s space for sceptical populists to go sensible on energy, like AfD

Reply to  johnesm
August 23, 2025 6:37 pm

Just keep in mind that Marx and Marxism were born in Germany. The whole idea of Marxim is to destroy the family and the state. If they have to destroy economies and science along the way, just collateral damage.

strativarius
August 23, 2025 3:02 am

Media’s political bias

The Guardian hasn’t got the memo

Solar panels in space could cut Europe’s terrestrial renewable energy needs by 80% by 2050, a study has found.
Using a detailed computer model…

a system of space-based panels designed by Nasa could reduce the cost of the whole European power system by as much as 15%. 
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/21/solar-panels-in-space-could-provide-80-of-europes-renewable-energy-by-2050

But then…

Scientists Urge Action on Air Pollution from Space Launches
A growing body of scientists is raising alarms about the pollution caused by space launches.
https://green.org/2025/08/22/scientists-urge-action-on-air-pollution-from-space-launches/

roger
Reply to  strativarius
August 23, 2025 6:27 am

Spaced based solar panels – how do you get the energy back down to earth? World’s longest extension cord? The usual answer is a microwave beam.

OK – so what happens if the beam steering computer breaks or is hacked? Now imagine a gigawatt beam wandering across the countryside. The usual answer is that the beam would be very wide so that the power density would be low. But so wide a beam would require a HUGE receiver. The cost of the ground station would also be huge. The laws of thermodynamics are not kind to dilute energy.

Another issue – could the dilute beam be focused to a narrow high density beam? A space based weapon? Politicians can assure me till they’re blue in the face, I won’t believe them.

strativarius
Reply to  roger
August 23, 2025 6:47 am

Perhaps NASA has an answer? I certainly don’t.

George Thompson
Reply to  strativarius
August 23, 2025 11:44 am

I would bet on the darker angels-so to speak-of human nature…of course it would be weaponized. Phasers ready and locked, Captain.

Reply to  roger
August 23, 2025 9:50 am

The proposed designs are self focusing. The transmitters needs to see the small refletance of the reciever in order to focus. If it wanders off, it defocuses. See this https://gizmodo.com/scientists-beam-space-based-solar-power-earth-first-tim-1850500731

Reply to  mcsandberg007
August 23, 2025 6:41 pm

If it wanders off, it defocuses.

Theoretically…

Reply to  roger
August 23, 2025 9:54 am

Popcorn anyone?
https://youtu.be/r3uMeF4Wfy4?t=64 😎

MarkW
Reply to  roger
August 23, 2025 10:04 am

That giga-watt beam is many miles across. It works out to only a few milli-watts per square centimeter.

Dave Fair
Reply to  roger
August 23, 2025 10:30 am

A buddy of mine was on the Coast Guard’s Columbia River Lightship. He told me of flaming birds hitting the deck when they transmitted via microwave communications up and down the Pacific Coast of the U.S.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  roger
August 25, 2025 8:04 am

Originally proposed in the 70s and 80s, the massive solar voltaic arrays would microwave the energy to earth. Someone realized that created a very real hazard and the idea was nixed.

MarkW
Reply to  strativarius
August 23, 2025 10:03 am

Given the number of sq. miles of panel will be needed, and given the low efficiency of sending energy from space to earth. Just how much of the Earth’s sunlight will be blocked by these space based panels?

Bruce Cobb
August 23, 2025 3:08 am

The Climate Emperor wears no clothes.

Reply to  Bruce Cobb
August 23, 2025 7:15 am

Here ya go (-:

comment image

twofeathersuk
August 23, 2025 3:17 am

In 2012 Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt authored a book: “The Cold Sun: Why the Climate Crisis Isn’t Happening), a book asserting that climate change is driven by variations in solar activity. They predict the Earth is entering a cooling phase due to periodic solar cycles, and will cool by 0.2 to 0.3 degrees C by 2035″

How’s that going?

Reply to  twofeathersuk
August 23, 2025 3:29 am

Right now increases in Arctic- and Antarctic ice are being observed, and the beginning of a “La Nina” (cooling) cycle is expected soon. So a decrease in temperatures is likely (if measurements are not manipulated that is …).

Rod Evans
Reply to  twofeathersuk
August 23, 2025 3:50 am

The towns and cities are getting warmer while the surrounding open country is getting cooler.
The general view is cold is less desirable than warm, so let us hope we remain in this very pleasant climate regime we have today. Maybe add a little more CO2 in order to help maintain good harvest conditions.
We live in a very benign climate with occasional dramatic weather events as we have always had.
The difference between today and past weather dramas is we have the mechanisation and mobile energy available to handle what nature throws at us, (most of the time).

Reply to  twofeathersuk
August 23, 2025 3:56 am

Australia has had its largest snow in some 40 yeras. .

Looks like heading back to the 1979 new ice age scare, hey. That really suks.

Btw, the ONLY warming in the last 45 years has come from El Nino events..

… there is no evidence of any human caused atmospheric warming.

strativarius
Reply to  twofeathersuk
August 23, 2025 3:57 am

You should be aware that global warming, despite all the desperate hyperbole, has passed England by yet again.

Unless of course, you put any credence in what the Met Office has to say…

Reply to  twofeathersuk
August 23, 2025 4:33 am

“They predict the Earth is entering a cooling phase due to periodic solar cycles, and will cool by 0.2 to 0.3 degrees C by 2035″How’s that going?”

Well, it has cooled about 0.6C since 2024. We are ahead of schedule.

comment image

Scissor
Reply to  Tom Abbott
August 23, 2025 6:25 am

Those were some nasty cold winters in the late 70’s.

Reply to  Scissor
August 23, 2025 8:54 am

I built a house near Masonville in 1977. In March of ’78, with 3′ of snow already on the ground, I carried my 6 week old son a mile in near waist-deep snow. I had a friend from in town try to get to us with his jeep, but could only get within a mile. My wife, daughter and son went into town. I went back to the house to keep the fire going. I saw the most unusual phenomenon that night as the clouds sunk to ground level and were lit up with electrical discharges. No lightening per se, just a glowing cloud for a second or two. This went on for hours.

Reply to  Steve Keohane
August 23, 2025 6:02 pm

That sounds like the snow storm that hit Oklahoma in 1978. Very deep snow everywhere.

Reply to  Steve Keohane
August 23, 2025 6:54 pm

I just finished a book by Dean Koontz called Winter Moon. Had something to do with a family that was snowed in miles from their nearest neighbor or town and being chased by aliens…they saw weird lights too.

George Thompson
Reply to  Scissor
August 23, 2025 11:53 am

And mid to late 60’s; all in all a couple of decades actually, at least here in Central US-very, very cold-engine block freezing cold if one wasn’t paying attention…pre-mixed anti-freeze was not common and people would miscalculate mixtures very often.

Reply to  Scissor
August 23, 2025 6:01 pm

I remember one snow storm in 1978. I couldn’t dig my car out of the snow for a couple of days.

Orson Olson
Reply to  Scissor
August 25, 2025 1:25 pm

…Really? Late ‘70s…? I recall the early and mid-70s being the worst in the upper mid-west. Not later. For example, excessive snows on plain states region led to historic flooding along the upper Mississippi River.

Dave Fair
Reply to  Tom Abbott
August 23, 2025 10:40 am

And the 46-year (almost half-a-century) UAH6 trend is a paltry 0.16 C/decade. And this is over the period of a cyclic upswing in global temperatures from the coldest part of the 20th Century.

Reply to  Dave Fair
August 23, 2025 2:24 pm

And all that warming comes from 3 major El Nino events.

Not human CO2

JTraynor
Reply to  twofeathersuk
August 23, 2025 5:23 am

Ask your question in 2035.

Sweet Old Bob
Reply to  JTraynor
August 23, 2025 8:20 am

Maybe twofeather suk ?

😉

Reply to  twofeathersuk
August 23, 2025 6:11 am

He could be onto something. By 2037, the Sun will move south of Earth’s orbital plane. It has been trending northward since early 1980s and peaked in 2024.

SunzUAH
Reply to  RickWill
August 23, 2025 8:11 am

Still looking for your definition of orbital plane so we can figure out why we’re not on it.

Reply to  DMacKenzie
August 23, 2025 3:15 pm

Not my definition – ICRF

We’re not out of it. The Sun moves north and south of Earth’s ecliptic plane. The Sun has a Z-axia motion relative to the ecliptic as well as its X-Y (in plane) orbit of the barycentre.

twofeathersuk
Reply to  RickWill
August 23, 2025 3:52 pm

Wait – what units are they supposed to be on the right of that graph? Is that -0.0003 degrees to +0.0003 degrees? And that changes Earth temperature how? Never mind the change being very small (e.g. compared to inclination of the sun from winter to summer) I would have thought any movement from North to South just changes distribution of where on Earth solar radiation is incident.
What’s the R value for the correlation of those two graphs? Over 0.6? Looks like the El Ninos of 1982 and 2016 blew it out of the water. Only reason that there is any correlation whatsoever is that the two peaks sync with the 1998 and 2023 El Ninos.

Reply to  twofeathersuk
August 23, 2025 5:26 pm

 I would have thought any movement from North to South just changes distribution of where on Earth solar radiation is incident.

Your thinking is correct about the incident radiation. However the NH temperature response to solar EMR is 3.3 times the response of the SH based on GHCN temperature data. Hence north going excursions of the Sun will increase the average global temperature while south going excursion lower the global average.

The changing declination has a larger impact across each hemisphere in terms of driving advection. It is the main reason that the high latitude northern land masses have experienced increases in winter temperature. And probably why Earth has been less reflective during the CERES era.

2024 was a northern peak. The Sun is back in plane in 2037 then travels south. Next norther peak is 2060, which I am unlikely to see.

Reply to  RickWill
August 23, 2025 6:15 pm

Think positive, Rick.

I saw a news item about a new Artificial Intelligence Bot named “Doctronic”. It is an AI focused on diagnosing medical issues.

One woman went to Doctronic and entered in her symptoms, which she has had for 43 years and could never get a proper disagnosis of her medical problem from the dozens of doctors she had seen.

It turns out she had a very rare form of cancer and the Doctronic AI found it in just one session with this woman. The AI even suggested the name of a doctor she should go see for treatment.

The owner of Doctronic said that many doctors are using it now, along with their patients, to diagnose diseases.

The AI is free to use, so if anyone has an ailment they can’t diagnose, they should try out Doctronic.

Maybe ole Doctronic can get you to 2060. 🙂

Scissor
Reply to  twofeathersuk
August 23, 2025 6:23 am

15 C here this morning. I have to wait for it to warm up a bit to take a bike ride.

Reply to  twofeathersuk
August 23, 2025 10:44 am

Well I don’t mind neither the cold nor the heat, so who cares beside you?

1saveenergy
Reply to  varg
August 24, 2025 12:29 am

“so who cares beside you?”

Goldilocks !!

Orson Olson
Reply to  twofeathersuk
August 25, 2025 1:20 pm

Variations in OHC, ie, rising levels, might countermand his theory. Only the IPCC convinced themselves that only CO2 variations control the climate, others, not so much,

August 23, 2025 3:25 am

Another point being missed: most of the “measured warming” is urban heat island effect due to
poorly sited measuring stations. When one takes only urban stations, there’s almost no warming
(a few tenths of a degree). Of course, when the Met Office “invents” stations on top, anything can happen.

strativarius
Reply to  Eric Vieira
August 23, 2025 3:38 am

Don’t they call it “projection”?

strativarius
August 23, 2025 4:05 am

comment image
‘Or “debate” as it used to be called.’

heme212
August 23, 2025 4:53 am

the powers that be wanted these end results in the first place. There is NO chance they will change their policies based on any new information.
who abandons functioning nuclear power plants if they are concerned about CO2?

George Thompson
Reply to  heme212
August 23, 2025 11:56 am

Looney toon types…

Reply to  George Thompson
August 23, 2025 6:22 pm

Exactly.

August 23, 2025 4:57 am

There was a post here on WUWT several months ago that alerted us to an organization called Covering Climate Now. CCN claims to have over 500 news organizations around the world including many but not all the usual suspects. From their website:

“Co-founded in 2019 by Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation magazine in association with the Guardian and WNYC, CCNow invites journalists everywhere to transform how our profession covers the defining story of our time. Unless news outlets around the world dramatically improve and expand their climate coverage, there simply will not be the public awareness and political will needed to tackle the crisis”.

“With hundreds of partner news outlets from over 60 countries reaching billions of people, CCNow helps journalists produce more informative and appealing coverage of the climate crisis and its potential solutions”.

So, yes, the media is biased and even if the NY Times, WaPo, LA Times and a few others may not belong to this organization, the certainly parrot the message.

Reply to  Barnes Moore
August 23, 2025 6:25 pm

Yeah, the Climate Change Crisis Media controls most news outlets and has lots of leftwing billionaires funding them, but even with all that, they still can’t sway public opinion in their direction.

The majority of the public just isn’t buying what they are selling.

AlanJ
August 23, 2025 5:42 am

I wonder if any of the authors of the DOE hack job ever thought their greatest contribution to mankind would be writing anti-science propaganda to be used to halt human progress and harm people’s live for the sake of making some O&G companies a bunch of money.

Reply to  AlanJ
August 23, 2025 7:09 am

I wonder if any of the authors of the DOE IPCC hack job ever thought their greatest contribution to mankind would be writing anti-science propaganda to be used to halt human progress and harm people’s live[s] for the sake of making some Enviro companies a bunch of money.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Redge
August 23, 2025 7:16 am

lol, we must have been typing at the same time.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  AlanJ
August 23, 2025 7:11 am

I wonder if any of the globalist whack jobs ever thought their greatest contribution to mankind would be pushing anti-science, net zero propaganda to be used to halt human progress and harm people’s live[s] for the sake of making some Third World Kleptocrats a bunch of money.

There, now it comports with reality.

Reply to  AlanJ
August 23, 2025 7:38 am

Chuckle. Alan and Mikey Mann would make good rubber roommates. The cheese done slipped of the cracker!

MarkW
Reply to  AlanJ
August 23, 2025 10:20 am

That’s a mirror you are looking at AJ.

Wind and solar are the past not the future. There’s a reason why they were abandoned as soon as something better came along.
It is those who are proclaiming that CO2 is going to kill us who are anti-science and have nothing but propaganda.

I’ve yet to see you actually give an argument in support of your position. In response to any argument the best you have ever been able to do is just proclaim that the people you believe to be scientists all agree with you, and anyone who disagrees isn’t a scientist.

Why do you hate humanity so much?

Reply to  AlanJ
August 23, 2025 11:22 am

I wonder if any of the disciples of the IPCC have ever figured out that averaging world temperatures is as meaningless as averaging world phone numbers.

I wonder if any of the disciples of the IPCC have ever thought why plants have already evolved to use 4X the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere and the world did not end.

I wonder if any of the disciples of the IPCC have ever thought why the tropospheric tropical hot spot predicted by positive water vapor feedback has never been found or measured.

I wonder if any of the disciples of the IPCC have ever thought why all predictions of doom so far have not come to pass by the due date.

August 23, 2025 5:49 am

“especially Germany, to rethink its current climate policies.”

That’s an oxymoron…

Reply to  Krishna Gans
August 23, 2025 10:47 am

Indeed…I doubt we’ll see that happen the next 4 years

Jeff Alberts
August 23, 2025 6:36 am

According to Vahrenholt, the report highlights that CO2 isn’t just a pollutant;”

I suspect this is maybe a translation problem?

mleskovarsocalrrcom
August 23, 2025 8:15 am

It’s Trump’s fault again. If it weren’t for the #1 economy in the world denouncing Climate Change it would have been business as usual for the alarmists. Now that he made it clear that the king is naked common sense is falling into line. They can see their economies crashing while countries that only give lip service to the narrative are thriving and they know why. Can’t hide it anymore.

1saveenergy
August 23, 2025 9:20 am

“the report highlights that CO2 isn’t just a pollutant;”

Wrong !!!
It isn’t even a pollutant !!

pollutant
noun

  Something that pollutes, especially a waste material that contaminates air, soil, or water.
A foreign substance that makes something dirty, or impure, especially waste from human activities. Waste matter that contaminates the water or air or soil. 

Pollutants with strong empirical evidence for public health concern include particulate matter (PM), carbon monoxide (CO), ozone (O3), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and sulphur dioxide (SO2).

Here’s a list of 188 Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs)
https://dep.wv.gov/daq/Air%20Toxics/Pages/HazardousAirPollutants(HAPs)List.aspx

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  1saveenergy
August 23, 2025 9:23 pm

That’s why I said just above that it was maybe a translation problem.

Dick Burk
August 23, 2025 9:29 am

Now we watch as Vahrenholt gets canceled.

Richard M
August 23, 2025 10:23 am

Vahrenholt points to measurements that show a substantial portion of recent warming can be attributed to cloud thinning and increased solar radiation, a topic he and Nobel laureate John Clauser have researched.

This is still not getting enough emphasis. Using the calculations done by Willis on NASA CERES data show it is more than a “substantial portion”. It is ALL the recent warming.

The only hope for alarmists is the CERES data is wrong. One might consider that a possibility except for the fact Miskolczi 2010 got exactly the same result using NOAA radiosonde data over a 60 year period.

What are the odds the NOAA data is also wrong and in the exact same way the NASA data is wrong? Somewhere darn close to zero.

Reply to  Richard M
August 23, 2025 1:14 pm

Absorbed solar radiation, causing a couple of strong El Ninos.

The only atmospheric warming in the UAH data.

Absorbed-solar-radiation-increases-due-to-downward-trends-in-cloud-cover-drive-2000-to-2022-warming-Loeb-2024
Bruce Cobb
August 23, 2025 10:38 am

“…the negative impacts of CO2 have been exaggerated…” I think they meant that the negative impacts have been totally fabricated out of thin air. Maybe they were just afraid to say it.

Reply to  Bruce Cobb
August 23, 2025 10:48 am

There aren’t any negative impacts of CO2, except maybe more weeds growing in your garden lol

Reply to  varg
August 23, 2025 1:16 pm

Need to use the lawnmower more often… and I have a large yard!. 🙁

Reply to  bnice2000
August 23, 2025 6:32 pm

Me, too!

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Tom Abbott
August 23, 2025 9:25 pm

Same. The Blackberry is outrageous.

stevethatdoesntalreadyexist
August 23, 2025 12:49 pm

I will credit the “Trump effect.” With cover fire provided by Trump, people feel safe enough to express these views.

ResourceGuy
August 23, 2025 3:07 pm

How about a wake up call on Europe funding the Russian invasion of Europe.

Bob
August 23, 2025 5:40 pm

Very nice.