The Week That Was: 2025-12-20 (December 20, 2025)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week: “Experiment is the only means of knowledge at our disposal. Everything else is poetry, imagination.”— Max Planck
Number of the Week: — 46 Years?
*********************
THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Scope: This TWTW presents different views on the possible closing or reconfiguration of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). TWTW discusses a different view by David Legates of the retraction by the authors of a paper published in the journal Nature. TWTW presents new activities by the UN Environment Program (UNEP) and closes with a NOAA announcement of new weather models.
*********************
NSF NCAR: According to its website, the NSF [National Science Foundation] National Center for Atmospheric Research does “World-class research in Earth system science.” It is
“A global leader in Earth system science, NSF NCAR advances scientific breakthroughs by providing the research community with leading-edge modeling, observational tools, and computing resources. The impact? Delivering critical insights that protect lives, support the economy, and strengthen national security.”
NSF NCAR was established by the U.S. National Science Foundation in 1960 to provide the university community with world-class facilities and services that were beyond the reach of any individual institution.
More than a half-century later, we are still delivering on that mission. NSF NCAR provides the atmospheric and related Earth system science community with state-of-the-art resources, including supercomputers, research aircraft, sophisticated computer models, and extensive data sets.
NSF NCAR’s in-house staff of preeminent researchers and engineers works with community collaborators to ensure that these resources and facilities are capable of meeting the demands of today’s greatest scientific challenges. Our scientists also delve into fundamental research questions, producing a wealth of scientific publications that help lead the way for the broader Earth system science community.
NSF NCAR also provides rich education and outreach opportunities, from fellowships for early career scientists to free public lectures to scientific workshops.
Since our inception as NSF’s first federally funded research and development center, we have been managed by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, a nonprofit consortium of more than 120 colleges and universities. Our headquarters are in Boulder, Colorado, with additional facilities in Wyoming and Hawaii.”
Further the website states:
“The NSF NCAR Vision:
A world-class research center leading, promoting and facilitating innovation in the atmospheric and related Earth and Sun systems sciences
The NSF NCAR Mission:
To understand the behavior of the atmosphere and related Earth and geospace systems
To support, enhance, and extend the capabilities of the university community and the broader scientific community, nationally and internationally
To foster the transfer of knowledge and technology for the betterment of life on Earth.”
Further, under the page “Where we focus: Studying the Earth system” the website states:
“NSF NCAR studies the atmosphere, of course. But that’s just the start.
The hundreds of scientists who work here research all things atmospheric — which includes everything from the microphysics of cloud formation and the chemistry of air pollution to large-scale planetary waves and the impact of increased greenhouse gases on our climate. Since the atmosphere interacts with everything it touches, it’s crucial to investigate those interactions, too.
We are illuminating the complicated relationships between our atmosphere and the rest of the Earth system, including the oceans, the land surface, and even the Sun. Better understanding of these relationships, which we meticulously model and observe, allows us to better serve society by providing the predictive capabilities and applications needed by a range of stakeholders, from farmers to retailers, resource managers, and the military, to plan for the future.
We believe this work is more important than ever. As society struggles to deal with rapidly changing environmental conditions, the need for relevant information and services continues to grow. The hazards of long-term atmospheric and climate changes, air pollution episodes, extreme weather, geomagnetic storms, and related impacts such as drought, storm surges, and wildfires take a significant toll in terms of human life and economic loss.”
What is stunning is that this center for atmospheric research, atmospheric change, and climate change ignores the atmospheric temperature trends compiled by the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). These data are independently verified by other organizations such as Remote Sensing Systems. NCAR has ignored satellite data for decades.
Also stunning is that NCAR’s global climate model (Community Earth System Model, CESM-WACCM) grossly overestimates atmospheric warming and the influence of carbon dioxide on temperatures. As shown in the Department of Energy report prepared by independent scientists of 37 climate models from the UN IPCC CMIP6 ensemble the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS), the temperature rise due to a doubling of CO2 concentration, is 4.75°C. That is, a doubling of CO2 will increase global temperatures by 4.75°C (8.55°F). The second NCAR model (CESM2) had an ECS of 5.16°C (9.29°F).
Page 27
The estimates for all 37 climate models vary from 1.83 to 5.67°C. However, as stated in last week’s TWTW there is no physical evidence supporting an estimate above 0.75°C (1.35°F). It should be incumbent on NCAR to produce the physical evidence supporting its high estimate or even give physical evidence supporting a positive feedback which is common to all the global climate models. NCAR has failed to do so after decades of research.
(Note in the CMIP6, the two NASA GISS models had ECS of 2.72. TWTW was unable to find the NOAA/Princeton model, the Cooperative Institute for Modeling the Earth System (CIMES), on the list.)
Given this background on climate modeling, one can better assess responses to news reports that the administration is changing NCAR. According to the Hill:
“The National Science Foundation will ‘break up’ a climate and weather research lab in Colorado, according to White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought.
The Foundation, an independent agency, will break up the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Vought said in a post on the social platform X, calling it a source of ‘climate alarmism.’”
Roger Pielke Jr. responded. calling it a vindictive act. But Pielke’s post demonstrated his integrity. It stated:
“Before proceeding — full disclosure — I am not a neutral observer. I have NCAR to thank for my entire career.
I worked at NCAR as a FORTRAN programmer in the late 1980s while an undergraduate in mathematics at the University of Colorado, just down the hill. NCAR is where I first became interested in science policy, as I worked for and alongside some of the world’s leading atmospheric chemists who were studying ozone depletion. I also got to interact with and get to know some of the giants of climatology — Walter Orr Roberts, Warren Washington, Will Kellogg, Steve Schnieder, and Mickey Glantz among them.
I returned to NCAR in the early 1990s when I was working on my PhD, which was focused on how to organize climate research to best meet the needs of policy makers. NCAR made my thesis possible. That stint turned into a post-doc in NCAR’s social science group (terminated about 15 years ago, unwisely, but that’s a story for another day), working on floods, hurricanes, and the use of predictions. The post-doc turned into a position as a staff scientist, a role I held until 2001 and my move to CU Boulder.
Last year, when I cleared out my office at the university, NCAR graciously offered to take many hundreds of books and reports I had collected over the years related to the atmospheric sciences and created the Roger Pielke Jr. collection. They even arranged to come to my office to collect the voluminous material. I’m grateful.”
Cliff Mass posted:
“U.S. weather prediction capabilities do need to be greatly improved.
Doing so requires a strengthening of NCAR and building a joint effort with NOAA that would create the best weather simulation and forecasting capabilities in the world.”
Anthony Watts wrote “Don’t Throw Out the Supercomputer with the Climate Models.” He posted:
“Reform NCAR? Absolutely.
Audit its programs? Long overdue.
Throttle back the model-driven hysteria? Please do.
But before anyone pulls the plug entirely, it might be wise to remember that weather is real, models are fallible, and supercomputers don’t vote.
If the goal is better science — not louder narratives — then precision, not demolition, should be the order of the day.”
And Paul Homewood wrote:
“NCAR is the US equivalent of the alarmist UK Met Office. It is time were broken up and focus instead on their day jobs of forecasting the weather.
The decision will need Congress approval.”
Who knows what will occur? Weather modeling is different than climate modeling. Within a few days one knows if weather forecasts were correct or not. One may not know the accuracy of climate forecasts in a lifetime. As an organization, NCAR has abandoned the scientific method. It has ignored the need to test its climate modeling against all physical evidence and ignores that its models greatly overestimate the warming of the atmosphere. Reorganization and eliminating climate forecasting may be the only solution. See links under Seeking a Common Ground and for the DOE report see links under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
*********************
A Trick? In American Spectator David Legates writes that a paper published in September asserted that much of the summer meltwater of the Greenland Ice sheet never makes it to the ocean, it refreezes. This is not surprising because for the most part Greenland is a large bowl with a ring of mountains making the sides. There is no place for the meltwater to quickly drain into the oceans.
Then, Legates discusses the retraction of the paper in the journal Nature from Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research that claimed dire results to the world’s gross domestic product if the globe does not reduce CO2 emissions. In answering what happened Legates writes [Boldface added]:
“Well, as it turns out, the retraction was requested by the authors and not by the journal. Nature notes that the authors have retracted this paper and acknowledged that changes needed are too substantial for a simple correction, leading to the retraction. We are assured that a revised version is being prepared for peer-reviewed submission to Nature and will be published in due course should the revised manuscript be found acceptable for publication.
This sounds odd. Usually, retraction is levied upon articles by the journal itself and not by an admission of the authors that they goofed up either the data, the methodology, or the conclusion. So, what possibly could have gone so horribly wrong?
The culprit appears to be the country of Uzbekistan, a land-locked, Muslim nation in central Asia and a former Soviet republic. It lies in the heart of the ‘Stan’ region, as it neighbors are Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan. According to the World Bank, Uzbekistan is a lower-middle-income country experiencing rapid economic growth and significant poverty reduction, moving towards becoming an industrialized upper-middle income nation. Nevertheless, it still faces challenges with job creation and disparities, balancing solid development with average incomes below high-income countries. In 2024, its gross domestic product was $115 million. By contrast, the GDP for the U.S. was about $29.2 trillion while the global GDP was about $111.3 trillion.
This raises the question: ‘Why did the small country of Uzbekistan bring down this apparently important paper?’ According to the paper’s authors, the results of the paper ‘were found to be sensitive to the removal of one country, Uzbekistan, where inaccuracies were noted in the underlying economic data for the period 1995–1999.’
Let’s parse this. Uzbekistan’s data — just one country — were corrupted over a five-year period even though the paper argues that ‘we use recent empirical findings from more than sixteen-hundred regions worldwide over the past forty years to project sub-national damages.’ So, the data for just one nation of these 1,600 regions was corrupted for just one-eighth of the time period under study. Moreover, Uzbekistan’s GDP is only one millionth of the global GDP — $115 million for Uzbekistan as compared to $111 trillion dollars for the globe.
This is akin to saying that we tested the weights of 1,600 white mice and, to our surprise, one of them later turned out to be an Asian Elephant. Wouldn’t such an egregious error in the data for the Uzbek economy have been obvious to the authors from a simple inspection of the data since the resulting conclusions required, not just a simple correction, but a complete retraction of the entire article?
Looking into this more deeply, things only get curiouser and curiouser. The narrative regarding the retraction provided by Nature indicates that the authors ‘corrected the data from Uzbekistan for 1995 to 1999 and controlled for data source transitions and higher-order trends as present in the Uzbekistan data. They also accounted for spatial autocorrelation. These changes led to discrepancies in the estimates for climate damages by mid-century, with an increased uncertainty range (from the original 11 to 20 percent to the new 6 to 31 percent) and a lower probability of damages diverging across emission scenarios by 2050.’ The Nature comment then notes, ‘The authors acknowledge that these changes are too substantial for a correction, leading to the retraction of the paper,’ followed by a statement that a revised manuscript is planned for submission and evaluation by the journal.
I think I smell a rat. Apparently, correcting the error in the five-year data for Uzbekistan now results in a higher upper bound of 31 percent over the 20 percent found in the original data. It also results in a tighter probability of damages across emission scenarios by 2050. So, not only does the correction allow the authors to suggest a higher upper limit to the deleterious effect of climate change on the global economy in 2050, but it also allows for the paper to provide a more accurate assessment of damages.
What just happened? The retraction has the effect of making the upper-bound of the impact greater and reducing the uncertainty in damage across emission scenarios. Moreover — and I think this may be the real takeaway message of this retraction — the paper now has more attention than it did originally. That it will be revised and resubmitted guarantees that more scientists and news outlets will see the revision and cite it and, given that the revision has gone through an apparently extensive correction and evaluation process, it will be considered more bulletproof than the original. ‘Look, we had a problem with this important paper and we fixed it. Now, things are worse than we thought the first time. So, go to press on this revision and tell readers that things are worse than we originally had suggested.’
A closing question: Who are the authors of this paper who made the egregious error in the first place? Are they relative idiots or newbies who are prone to scientific errors or are they world-class scientists that you would assume were well above reproach?
It turns out that all three of the original authors are employed by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. In mid-November, the Potsdam Institute announced that its researchers had ranked among the top one percent of the world’s most cited scientists for the eighth time in a row. These aren’t lightweights in climate alarmist circles; these are the stars of the show. How could such a simple error have gone unnoticed by scientists with these credentials?
I have said it many times: the science isn’t settled, and it never is. Many cite the retraction of this apparently important study and again conclude that science wins because shoddy work has been exposed.
I disagree. I see this as a new tactic in the alarmist’s arsenal. You see, their view is that the science is settled, the only thing that isn’t settled is how bad things currently are and how bad they will become if we don’t take their immediate and draconian actions.
By drawing attention to this paper through the thin veil of an author-led retraction, the revised manuscript will double the attention and increase the predicted impact of climate change. It will be a win-win for the alarmist community and a big win for the authors and the Potsdam Institute.
You and I are the ultimate losers, however, as we simply get inundated with more propaganda.”
Was the purpose of the paper alarmist propaganda followed by somewhat less extreme propaganda? See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
*********************
Doubling Efforts: The UN ran thirtieth annual meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP-30) ended without a significant resolution except to reaffirm previous resolutions. The UN is already pushing hard for additional resolutions. Anthony Watts gives a lead to some of these programs. On December 12, the UN Environmental Program released a report “Global Environment Outlook 7: A future we choose – Why investing in Earth now can lead to a trillion-dollar benefit for all.” It states [Boldface added]:
“The Global Environment Outlook, Seventh Edition: A Future We Choose, the product of 287 multi-disciplinary scientists from 82 countries, is the most comprehensive scientific assessment of the global environment ever carried out. The report calls on all actors to acknowledge the urgency of the global environmental crises, build on progress made in recent decades, and collaborate in the co-design and implementation of integrated policies, strategies and actions to deliver a better future for all.”
We can expect more of these dire reports. See links under Defending the Orthodoxy.
*********************
New Weather Models: NOAA issued a press release “NOAA deploys new generation of AI-driven global weather models.” Part of the text states:
“The new suite of AI weather models includes three distinct applications.
- AIGFS (Artificial Intelligence Global Forecast System): A weather forecast model that implements AI to deliver improved weather forecasts more quickly and efficiently (using up to 99.7% less computing resources) than its traditional counterpart.
- AIGEFS (Artificial Intelligence Global Ensemble Forecast System): An AI-based ensemble system that provides a range of probable forecast outcomes to meteorologists and decision-makers. Early results show improved performance over the traditional GEFS, extending forecast skill by an additional 18 to 24 hours.
- HGEFS (Hybrid-GEFS): A pioneering, hybrid “grand ensemble” that combines the new AI-based AIGEFS (above) with NOAA’s flagship ensemble model, the Global Ensemble Forecast System. Initial testing shows that this model, a first-of-its kind approach for an operational weather center, consistently outperforms both the AI-only and physics-only ensemble systems.
Efficiency: AIGFS’s most transformative feature. A single 16-day forecast uses only 0.3% of the computing resources of the operational GFS and finishes in approximately 40 minutes. This reduced latency means forecasters get critical data more quickly than they do from the traditional GFS.”
It will be very interesting to see how good the AIGFS 16-day forecasts are. If the model can reliably forecast 16 days in advance, it will be a significant step forward. See link under Model Issues.
*********************
Annual Review: For the weekend of December 27, TWTW will primarily review the significant developments and papers in 2025 regarding the Environment and Energy, particularly the use of, or the lack of, the scientific method.
*********************
Number of the Week: — 46 Years? In 1979 the National Academy of Science published the highly influential “Report of an Ad Hoc Study Group on Carbon Dioxide and Climate” to the Climate Research Board, Assembly of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, National Research Council.” In the Summary and Conclusions, the report states [Boldface added]:
“When it is assumed that the CO2 content of the atmosphere is doubled and statistical thermal equilibrium is achieved, the more realistic of the modeling efforts predict a global surface warming of between 2°C and 3.5°C, with greater increases at high latitudes. This range reflects both uncertainties in physical understanding and inaccuracies arising from the need to reduce the mathematical problem to one that can be handled by even the fastest available electronic computers. It is significant, however, that none of the model calculations predicts negligible warming.
The primary effect of an increase of CO2 is to cause more absorption of the thermal radiation from the earth’s surface and thus to increase the air temperature in the troposphere. A strong positive feedback mechanism is the accompanying increase of moisture, which is an even more powerful absorber of terrestrial radiation. We have examined with care all known negative feedback mechanisms, such as increase in low or middle cloud amount, and have concluded that the oversimplifications and inaccuracies in the models are not likely to have vitiated the principal conclusion that there will be appreciable warming. The known negative feedback mechanisms can reduce the warming, but they do not appear to be so strong as the positive moisture feedback. We estimate the most probable global warming for a doubling of CO2 to be near 3°C with a probable error of ± 1.5°C. Our estimate is based primarily on our review of a series of calculations with three-dimensional models of global atmospheric circulation, which is summarized in Chapter 4. [Not discussed here.] We have also reviewed simpler models that appear to contain the main physical factors. These give qualitatively similar results.”
In 46 years, the results of the global climate models have increased from a range of 1.5°C to 4.5°C to a range, as shown in the DOE report, of 1.89°C to 5.67°C. Yet, the modelers have failed to give any physical evidence that the strong positive feedback mechanism of an accompanying increase of moisture (water vapor) even exists. Further, the modelers have ignored the atmosphere temperature trends that demonstrate that the models significantly overestimate the warming of the atmosphere from increased CO2. The global climate models have not been validated by physical evidence. How many hundreds of billions of dollars have been wasted due to false fears of dangerous global warming arising from global models that cannot be validated? Such failures are sufficient reasons to question the modeling work at NCAR. See The Charney Report https://www.nationalacademies.org/read/12181/chapter/2
NEWS YOU CAN USE:
Commentary: Is the Sun Rising?
Earth would have 3 days to avoid satellite catastrophe from solar storm
By Steph Whiteside, The Hill, Dec 17, 2025
Link to article: “Orbital House Of Cards”: One Solar Storm And 2.8 Days Could End In Disaster For Earth And Its Satellites
“A single collision could have catastrophic long-term consequences,” the authors explain, and we would not have long to avoid it.
By James Felton, IFLScience, Dec 16, 2025
From cited article: Simply put, the Kessler effect, or Kessler-Cour-Pallais syndrome (KCPS), is where a single event (such as the explosion of a satellite) in low-Earth orbit creates a chain reaction, as debris destroys other satellites in orbit. Should this happen, the debris could keep colliding with other satellites or other debris, potentially causing communication problems and leaving areas of space inaccessible to spacecraft.
[SEPP Comment: No link to a published or peer reviewed scientific paper]
Challenging the Orthodoxy — NIPCC
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science
Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2013
Summary: https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/CCR/CCR-II/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts
Idso, Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2014
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/climate-change-reconsidered-ii-biological-impacts/
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels
By Multiple Authors, Bezdek, Idso, Legates, and Singer eds., Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, April 2019
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/climate-change-reconsidered-ii-fossil-fuels/
Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming
The NIPCC Report on the Scientific Consensus
By Craig D. Idso, Robert M. Carter, and S. Fred Singer, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), Nov 23, 2015
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/why-scientists-disagree-about-global-warming/
Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate
S. Fred Singer, Editor, NIPCC, 2008
http://www.sepp.org/publications/nipcc_final.pdf
Challenging the Orthodoxy – Radiation Transfer
The Role of Greenhouse Gases in Energy Transfer in the Earth’s Atmosphere
By W.A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer, Preprint, Mar 3, 2023
Dependence of Earth’s Thermal Radiation on Five Most Abundant Greenhouse Gases
By W.A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer, Preprint, December 22, 2020
Net Zero Averted Temperature Increase
By Richard Lindzen, William Happer, and William A. van Wijngaarden, CO2 Coalition, June 2024
Radiation Transport in Clouds
By W.A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer, Klimarealistene, Science of Climate Change, January 2025
Challenging the Orthodoxy
Two Retractions Raise the Question: Is Climate Science Really Settled?
The retractions mean we will just be inundated with more propaganda.
By David R. Legates, The American Spectator, Dec 17, 2025
#DOEDeepDive: Ch. 3.3 Urbanization influences on temperatures
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Dec 17, 2025
https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2025-07/DOE_Critical_Review_of_Impacts_of_GHG_Emissions_on_the_US_Climate_July_2025.pdfhttps://climatediscussionnexus.com/2025/12/17/doedeepdive-ch-3-3-urbanization-influences-on-temperatures/
Link to: A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate
By Climate Working Group (Christy, Curry, Koonin, McKitrick, and Spencer) DOE, 2025
From Robson: As the DOE team states, in a tone more diplomatic than we would use, “The IPCC acknowledges that raw temperature data are contaminated with UHI effects but claims to have data cleaning procedures that remove them. It is an open question whether those procedures are sufficient.” They then proceed to unravel the IPCC claim and close the question.
Short Summary of Observations Until November 2025
By Ole Humlum, Climate4you, Accessed Dec 19, 2025
3: Tide gauges along coasts indicate a typical global sea level increase of about 1-2 mm per year. Coastal sea level change rate last 100 year has essentially been stable, but with periodic variations. If change rate remains stable, global sea level at coasts will typically increase 8-16 cm by year 2100, although many locations in regions affected by glaciation 20,000 ago, will experience a relative sea level drop.
Wrong, Phys.org, Faulty Thermometers Aren’t Evidence of a ‘Climate Roller Coaster’
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Dec 15, 2025
Link to press release: Global warming amplifies extreme day-to-day temperature swings, study shows
By Li Yali, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Phys.org, Dec 10, 2025
Link to paper: Global warming intensifies extreme day-to-day temperature changes in mid–low latitudes
By Qi Liu, et al., Nature Climate Change, Nov 21, 2025
From Watts: This the study’s central flaw: Urban Heat Island (UHI) contamination artificially raises nighttime minimum temperatures, causing next-day temperatures to begin from an already elevated baseline. Artificial surfaces—pavement, buildings, vehicles, heat-retaining infrastructure—release stored heat overnight, pushing lows upward and exaggerating the apparent magnitude of day-to-day variations.
Dialing Back The Panic: German Physics Prof Sees No Evidence Of Climate Tipping Points!
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Dec 14, 2025
Climate ‘Armageddon narrative’ starting to unravel–Steve Koonin
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Dec 19, 2025
25-minute Video interview.
New Study Reopens Questions About Our Ability To Meaningfully Assess Global Mean Temperature
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Dec 15, 2025
Link to paper: The Father of Lies Hijacking Climate Science: Global Mean Surface Temperature Does Not Exist
By Jonathan Cohler, Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Winter 2025
Link to paper not discussed by TWTW: Meridional Distributions of Historical Zonal Averages and Their Use to Quantify the Global and Spheroidal Mean Near-Surface Temperature of the Terrestrial Atmosphere
By Gerhard Kramm, et al., Natural Science, March 11, 2025
[SEPP Comment: The Cohler paper and its underlying Essex, et al. (2007) paper were discussed in last week’s TWTW. The Kramm et al. (2020) paper has not been discussed.]
Defending the Orthodoxy
Wrong Again PBS, UN Is Pushing Another False Climate Crisis Report
By Anthony Watts, Climate Realism, Dec 15, 2025
Link to press release: Seventh UN Environment Assembly commits to multilateral solutions for a more resilient planet
By Staff, UN Environment Programme, Dec 12, 2025
The seventh session of the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-7) concluded today with Member States delivering 11 resolutions, three decisions and a Ministerial Declaration aiming to advance solutions for a more resilient planet.
Link to: Draft ministerial declaration of the United Nations: Environment Assembly at its seventh session
By Staff, UN Environment Programme, Dec 12, 2025
Link to: Global Environment Outlook 7: A future we choose – Why investing in Earth now can lead to a trillion-dollar benefit for all
By Staff, UN Environment Programme, December 2025
[SEPP Comment: How could life on Earth survive without a UN Environment Program?]
2025’s extreme weather had the jet stream’s fingerprints all over it, from flash floods to hurricanes
By Shuang-Ye Wu, The Conversation, Dec 15, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshie]
As the global climate continues to warm, extreme weather events driven by erratic behavior of jet streams are expected to become more common. Combined with additional moisture that warmer oceans and air masses supply, these events will intensify, producing storms that are more frequent and more destructive to societies and ecosystems.
[SEPP Comment: The Arctic is warming, reducing the temperature differential between the Arctic and the Tropics. It is the temperature difference that drives severe storms, not average temperature.]
Rate of US coastal sea level rise doubled in the past century, study finds
By Christopher G. Piecuch, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Phys.org, Dec 17, 2025 [H//t Bernie Kepshie]
Link to paper: The Rate of U.S. Coastal Sea-Level Rise Doubled in the Past Century
By Christopher G. Piecuch, AGU Advances, Dec 17, 2025
From abstract: Here I analyze all long active tide-gauge RSL data records on the contiguous U.S. (CONUS) coast to make a comprehensive estimate of spatially averaged RSL changes over the CONUS (CONUS RSL) during the past 125 years
[SEPP Comment: Appears to be a deceitful rebuttal to the DOE report. The issue is records from geologically stable tidal gauges, not all tidal gauges. Many coastal areas in the US are subsiding, primarily from groundwater pumping. These areas include major cities from New York south through the Gulf Coast plus California.]
Environmental Groups Urge Congress to Ban Data Centers
By Steve Goreham, Master Resource, Dec 17, 2025
Link to letter: National Data Center Moratorium Now!
By 230 environmental organizations including Friends of the Earth US, Greenpeace USA, and the US Climate Action Network, Dec 8, 2025
From letter: The harms of data center growth are increasingly well-established, and they are massive.
Defending the Orthodoxy – Bandwagon Science
Climate Study: “Storms reduce the summer ocean heat gain by limiting solar radiation reaching the surface”
By Eric Worrrall, WUWT, Dec 17, 2025
Link to paper: Southern Ocean summer warming is regulated by storm-driven mixing
By Marcel D. du Plessis, et al., Nature Geoscience, Dec 3, 2025
Opening sentences of the abstract: The Southern Ocean absorbs most of the excess heat resulting from climate change. However, climate projections show a persistent warm summer bias in its sea surface temperatures, indicating a limited understanding of the air–sea heat exchange mechanisms governing this region.
From Worrall: Interesting they forgot to mention the part about storms limiting solar radiation reaching the surface in the press release.
Another part they left out is how much this underestimated deep mixing is likely to retard global warming, thanks to the enormous thermal capacity of the oceans. Even if the model interpretation that most global warming is being absorbed by the ocean is correct, it would likely take thousands of years to nudge deep ocean temperature by a single degree. The ocean depths are just above freezing, 12,000 years of Holocene interglacial global warming has barely nudged the dial.
[SEPP Comment: Infrared energy emitted by greenhouse gases penetrates less than an inch of the ocean surface. Solar energy and cloudiness are the issues, not greenhouse gases.]
Questioning the Orthodoxy
Wrong shmong
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Dec 17, 2025
And a big problem in government, not only in Canada, is precisely that politicians are so isolated from bad news by an elaborate PR system that portrays everything, however trivial or unsuccessful, as a historical achievement, that they have very little idea that they have lapsed into obvious absurdity.
Why Waste Money on a Climate Health Forecasting Tool, Yale, When Climate Related Health Issues Are Declining?
By Linnea Lueken, Climate Realism, Dec 16, 2025
Link to: Climate change is boosting health care costs
An online tool helps businesses figure out how much climate change could increase what they pay for their employees’ health care.
By YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, Dec 5, 2025
The Critical Flaw in Single-Event Hurricane Climate Attribution
By Robert Vislocky, WUWT, Dec 19, 2025
Less than a month has passed since the official end of the 2025 hurricane season for the Northern Hemisphere. Interestingly, 2025 statistics show that Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) in the northern hemisphere was roughly 20% below the 1991-2020 mean while the number of major hurricanes and major hurricane days were down about 27% and 36%, respectively, compared to their 30-year averages…
The Sixth Mass Extinction is over before it began…
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Dec 13, 2025
Link to paper: Unpacking the extinction crisis: rates, patterns and causes of recent extinctions in plants and animals
By Kristen E. Saban; John J. Wiens, The Royal Society B, Proceedings in Biological Science, Oct 15, 2025
From Nova: If manmade CO2 emissions have any effect at all on extinctions — it stops them happening
Time and tide
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Dec 17, 2025
As the late Andrew Breitbart often and wisely said, politics is downstream of culture. Those who have tried to change climate policy without first changing public thinking have found their efforts remarkably frustrating. But once public thinking changes, it’s a whole different story.
Fact Checking NASA
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Dec 14, 2025
7-minute video
Fact Checking Grok
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Dec 14, 2025
Traditional AI like Grok relies on propaganda it finds on the Internet. At Visitech we use actual data.
12-minute video
Tidbits
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Dec 17, 2025
After Paris!
Oil & Gas Turning Poor Countries Into Economic Miracles
By Vijay Jayaraj, Cornwall Alliance, Dec 3, 2015
Reprint from CO2 Coalition April 1, 2025
[SEPP Comment: Among the countries identified as prospering because they are not shackled by the Paris Agreement are Guyana, South America; Niger, West Africa; Senegal, West Africa; and Côte D’Ivoire, West Africa.]
UCS: “Tackling climate change requires .. scaling up clean tech… AND … phasing out fossil fuels”
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Dec 13, 2025
On the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement, The Union of Concerned Scientists are concerned that fossil fuel use is not falling.
Social Benefits of Carbon Dioxide
Flat-topped bogmoss and extra CO2
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Dec 17, 2025
From the CO2Science archive.
Seeking a Common Ground
The Story behind my Paper on the ITCZ and the Hadley Circulation
By Andy May, WUWT, Dec 19, 2025
Vought says National Science Foundation to break up federal climate, weather research center
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Dec 17, 2025
Shutting Down NCAR Is Vindictive Governance
Damaging the nation to own the libs is dumb policy
By Roger Pielke, Jr., His Blog, Dec 17, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Must be Saved
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Dec 19, 2025
Don’t Throw Out the Supercomputer with the Climate Models
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Dec 17, 2025
Trump To Dismantle NCAR
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Dec 19, 2025
Link to article: Trump team plans to break up ‘global mothership’ of climate science
Much of the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s non-climate portfolio will be dispersed, the White House says.
By Alexandra Witze, Nature, Dec 17, 2025
Polysilicon: An Opportunity to Demonstrate ‘America First’
By Emma Bishop, WUWT, Dec 18, 2025
Importantly, the U.S. currently faces a decision: to rely on imported polysilicon from China to unlock the electronic economy, or to protect and expand existing capacity across the U.S. and allied nations to feed the growing demand for chips, and therefore for polysilicon. The ongoing Section 232 investigation into imported polysilicon is at the heart of this opportunity, as it allows the U.S. to confront China’s stranglehold on a key advanced material head-on.
Embracing Innovation to Fight Plastic Waste
By Stuart Malec, Real Clear Energy, Dec 12, 2025
By using heat and chemistry rather than mechanical shredding, the advanced recycling process breaks plastic waste back down into molecules that can be reused to make new plastics, waxes, or chemical feedstocks. This improved process allows for the recycling of all sorts of complex and mixed plastic products that the traditional process cannot handle, such as car bumpers, clothing, plastic bottle caps, foam cups, trays, packing peanuts, and films.
While traditional recycling has been widespread for decades, advanced recycling facilities are just beginning to emerge across the country. Several facilities are already making significant progress, such as the Alterra facility in Akron, Ohio
Science, Policy, and Evidence
America’s New Security Doctrine and the Reordering of Global Energy Geopolitics
By Tilak Doshi, His Substack, Dec 14, 2025
Link to: National Security Strategy of the United States of America
Signed by Donald Trump, Washington, DC, November 2025
From Doshi: Washington’s newly released National Security Strategy (NSS) has struck Europe with the force of a long-suppressed truth bluntly delivered. For the first time since the end of the Second World War, the United States has published an official doctrine that no longer idealizes the post-war transatlantic compact. Instead, it describes an uncomfortable divergence: the United States, still attached to the rough-and-tumble of its First Amendment, democratic accountability and national interest, now sees a Europe that has lost confidence in its own civilization, abandoning its classical liberal inheritance of free speech and intellectual inquiry. Instead, it chose to pursue utopian projects such as Net Zero, mass immigration and an ever-expanding regulatory state that corrodes its own industrial base.
Model Issues
A Spherical Cow Climate Model That Actually Works
By Willis Eschenbach, WUWT, Dec 18, 2025
The Constructal Law says that flow systems far from equilibrium evolve to maximize access to flow. Rivers don’t meander randomly—they organize to maximize water transport. Animal circulatory systems don’t just happen—they evolve to maximize nutrient flow. And according to Adrian Bejan, the climate should organize itself to maximize heat flow from the hot tropics to the cold poles.
NOAA deploys new generation of AI-driven global weather models
Press Release, NOAA, Dec 17, 2025
Measurement Issues — Surface
The Record Hot UK Summer of 2025: Validation of the UKMO Methodology, but the Record Was Only in Tmin
By Roy Spencer, His Blog, Dec 19, 2025
The record hot summer of 2025 in the UK was in the nightly minimum temperatures, not in the daytime maximum temperatures. This is true in both my analysis and that of the UKMO.
Finally, neither my nor the UKMO method accounts for possible changes in stations over time, such as an increasing urban heat island (UHI) effect at some stations. Based upon our work on this in recent years I suspect this effect since 1960 would be small, but I don’t know that for sure.
[SEPP Comment: It would be interesting to know whether nighttime humidity was up in 2025.]
Canadian summertime warming trends
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Dec 17, 2025
Link to Spencer’s post: Canada Summer Temperature Trends, 1900-2023: Part Deux
By Roy Spencer, His Blog, Dec 9, 2025
From Spencer: But when I implemented a method that removes inter-station biases, I discovered that it did make some difference (as expected).
So, I implemented the merging procedure that John and I have used for many years with our UAH satellite temperature dataset, which is to remove relative station (or satellite) biases during overlap periods of time. This takes out any inter-station differences due to geographic location, altitude, urban heat island effects, poor siting of thermometers, equipment differences, etc. What isn’t accounted for is any spurious station temperature trend effects, say due to increasing urbanization, a sensor location or equipment change at that station, etc.
From Robeson: This kind of study, by comparison, is not rocket science, lots of people could have done it. in fact, we have an entire federal bureaucracy devoted to studying climate change including collecting data and yelling about trends, but somehow they never got around to showing us the data or checking their rhetoric against it.
New data raises questions about how much the Earth has warmed
By Chris Mooney, CNN, Dec 15, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Link to paper: An observational record of global gridded near-surface air temperature change over land and ocean from 1781
By Colin P. Morice, et al., Earth System Science Data, Dec 15, 2025
From Mooney: The new dataset, published in Earth System Science Data by 16 scientists, shows a significantly cooler Earth from the late 1700s through 1849 compared with 1850-1900 — the latter being what scientists have defined as the “preindustrial” baseline period used to assess the planet’s temperature change.
The Hohenpeissenberg [Bavarian Alps] temperature record shows nearly 3 degrees of regional warming when the last 10 years are compared with temperatures between 1781 and 1849.
[SEPP Comment: The uncovered sporadic land records combined with records from whaling and trading ships show Earth was colder during the Little Ice Age. The IPCC ignores the Little Ice Age.]
Changing Weather
Sunniest Year On Record
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Dec 17, 2025
Much of the warming in the UK, maybe all, since 1980 could be the result of sunnier weather, quite possibly caused by less air pollution.
The Other Weather Disaster Last Week: A Downslope Windstorm
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Dec 13, 2025
Some of the winds exceeded 100 mph from the west.
Where Did Global Warming Go? US East Sees Snowiest Start In Nearly Two Decades
By Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge, Dec 17, 2025
A Guaranteed White Christmas (In the Mountains) [Washington State]
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Dec 18, 2025
A big snow dump in the mountains, with over 3 feet of snow at some locations.
Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice
New Study: 8000 Years Ago Relative Sea Level Was 30 Meters Higher Than Today Across East Antarctica
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Dec 19, 2025
Link to latest paper: Rapid relative sea-level fall, 8–6 ka, in the Windmill Islands, East Antarctica
By David Small, Berg, and White, Quaternary Science Reviews, Oct 1, 2025
Link to second paper: A new Holocene relative sea level curve for the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica
By E.P. Watcham, et al., Quaternary Science Reviews, October 2011
From the abstract: The curve shows a mid-Holocene RSL highstand on Fildes Peninsula at 15.5 m above mean sea level between 8000 and 7000 cal a BP. Subsequently RSL gradually fell as a consequence of isostatic uplift in response to regional deglaciation. We propose that isostatic uplift occurred at a non-steady rate, with a temporary pause in ice retreat ca. 7200 cal a BP, leading to a short-lived RSL rise of ∼1 m and forming a second peak to the mid-Holocene highstand.
Link to third paper: Holocene relative sea level changes in the Västervik-Gamlebyviken region on the southeast coast of Sweden, southern Baltic Sea
By Christos Katrantsiotis, et al., BOREAS, An international journal of Quaternary research, Oct 5, 2022
[SEPP Comment: The second and third papers are clear that the fall in relative sea level was due to geological uplift of the studied areas. Most likely, the geological uplift is from deglaciation.]
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?
The energy transition – yes or no?
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Dec 17, 2025
A tendency to see everything as about politics not economics is, we realize, rather baked into certain kinds of worldviews, and hence they believe things like “when many clean power companies are under attack from the White House” when what’s really happening is that they’re not popular with consumers unless propped up by “the White House”.
Time Magazine: Climate Change will Bring More AND Less Christmas Snow?
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Dec 15, 2025
Soo let’s see if I got this right. You probably won’t see snow this Christmas, because of global warming. But if you do see snow, that will be because of global warming.
Communicating Better to the Public – Exaggerate, or be Vague?
Panic-Stricken Climate Alarmists Resort to Bolder Lies
By Vijay Jayaraj, WUWT, Dec 14, 2025
Held this year in Belém, Brazil, with the Amazon providing a lush backdrop, the smell of desperation was in the air. And speaking of public services, so was the occasional stench of cranky indoor plumbing.
Al Gore, the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stood before cameras warning of imminent catastrophe, never acknowledging that previous predictions had failed to materialize.
Better get some error insurance
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Dec 17, 2025
And while we are not under the impression that a great many journalists studied economics before plunging into activism, if insurance companies are making record profits then they are not facing a crisis.
Drought Exaggeration
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Dec 16,, 2025
Washington State receives far more precipitation than it needs. Thus, a modest dry period (such as last spring and summer) had relatively little impact on the economy or essential water resources. You really should not use the term drought when impacts were not evident.
Communicating Better to the Public – Do a Poll?
Only 19% of Drivers Want to Buy EVs
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Dec 16, 2025
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda on Children
AEP Performs Somersaults
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Dec 19, 2025
Link to editorial: The marvelous prospect of cheap energy again
Europe and Britain are going to make a cyclical recovery, while Trump’s America is going to lose
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Telegraph, Dec 19, 2025 [Paywalled]
From Homewood: As real energy experts have been predicting for years, gas and oil prices are already returning historical lows, following the Ukraine war price spikes. It is an economic process that has always taken place in energy and raw material markets – demand exceeds supply, and prices rise – this incentivizes new investment, increasing supply and lowering prices – this leads to a glut, pushing producers out of the market and starting the cycle over again.
Lower gas prices mean, of course, that renewable energy becomes relatively dearer and Net Zero more expensive.
Expanding the Orthodoxy
Save Okefenokee Swamp from UNESCO Control
Video (10-min) posted by Charles Rotter, WUWT, Dec 13, 2025
In Episode 21 of Conservation Country, host @GabriellaHoffman investigates a Biden-era policy to designate Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site.
[SEPP Comment: An abundance of land and aquatic life that exists in these acidic waters needs UN protection?]
Questioning European Green
Europe’s ‘Green’ Emperor Is Naked and Cold
By Vijay Jayaraj, WUWT, Dec 17, 2025
Europe: Paying the Price for Closing Coal (Part 1)
By Frank Clemente, Fred Palmer, Real Clear Energy, Dec 15, 2025
Miliband Wants To Introduce Soviet Style Heating
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Dec 16, 2025
The Telegraph goes on to list numerous examples of Soviet failures in their local heat systems. But most worrying of all is the imposition of state control of people’s home heating systems.
Questioning Green Elsewhere
Are the zero-emissions ideologues energy blind?
By Ronald Stein and Tom Kirkman, America Outloud News, Dec 15, 2025
Net Zero on Those Energy Promises
By John Mikkelsen, Quadrant, Dec 18, 2025
At the time of writing, there are still a couple of weeks for [Australian] PM Anthony Albanese to see out his pledge, repeated about 100 times before the 2022 election, that power prices would fall by $275 in 2025. Instead, Santa’s sack contains a message from the Grinch, Treasurer Jim Chalmers, ending federal rebates. The reality is average household power prices in some states have increased by about $1200, and much more for businesses struggling to stay afloat.
Timor-Leste Rejects Climate Hysteria, Embraces Development
By Vijay Jayaraj, WUWT, Dec 13, 2025
For years, alarmists have singled out low-lying island nations as poster children for the looming disaster of being swallowed by a warming globe’s rising seas. The “solution” – presented as a moral imperative – was to abandon the use of fossil fuels, whose emissions of carbon dioxide supposedly were to blame for melting glaciers and drowning coastlines.
Funding Issues
Banks under fire for using flawed net zero study
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Dec 15, 2025
No clear link to the study, most likely study: The 2024 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: facing record-breaking threats from delayed action
By Marina Romanello, et al., The Lancet, Nov 9, 2024
From Homewood: Banks should not be making any decisions on the basis of “aligning with Net Zero”, regardless of which fraudulent climate studies they are using.
They have a duty to put the interests of their depositors first and foremost.
The Political Games Continue
Tories Wake Up to Net Zero Disaster
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Dec 12, 2025
Ten years too late, but better than never!
3 ½ minute video
Tories to Ditch ZEV Mandate
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Dec 17, 2025
From Homewood: The problem we all face now, however, is that none of this can happen until the next election, maybe in three years’ time. By then much of the damage to the UK motor industry will have been done.
Litigation Issues
Shell Oil Sued Over “Causing Typhoon” in Philippines in Major Test Case
By Chris Morrison, The Daily Sceptic, Dec 17, 2025
The Shell litigation is an important test case. Activists have spent years seeking financial support and recognition for their pseudoscientific claims that they can measure a chaotic and non-linear atmosphere. Such is the level of refinement and expertise that they claim, many people believe they are able to pin the blame for individual weather events on humans.
America’s Energy Independence Threatened By “Dark Money” Lawfare
By Scott Walter, WUWT, Dec 13, 2025
Climate warrior Mann co-authors work funded in part by attorney with interest in key climate suit
An Oregon court criticized an attorney representing Multnomah County in its $51 billion climate lawsuit for not disclosing his involvement in research used to support the plaintiff’s claims. The attorney also helped fund a paper co-authored by Mann, arguing that the “climate crisis” is “a major driver of global instability.”
By Kevin Killough, Just the News, Dec 15, 2025
Link to paper: The 2025 state of the climate report: a planet on the brink
By William J Ripple, et al., BioScience, December 2025
Opening lines of the paper: We are hurtling toward climate chaos. The planet’s vital signs are flashing red. The consequences of human-driven alterations of the climate are no longer future threats but are here now. This unfolding emergency stems from failed foresight, political inaction, unsustainable economic systems, and misinformation. Almost every corner of the biosphere is reeling from intensifying heat, storms, floods, droughts, or fires. The window to prevent the worst outcomes is rapidly closing.
Our Final Objection To Our Local Utility’s Rate Increase
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Dec 19, 2025
A rate proceeding is the mechanism by which a utility goes before a regulatory body, in our case the New York Public Service Commission, seeking to increase the rates charged to consumers. Our purpose in the proceeding has been to object to and disrupt having the ratepayers charged for the building of infrastructure in pursuit of the futile and infeasible “climate” goals of our deluded politicians.
Cap-and-Trade and Carbon Taxes
EU rules out UK exemption from carbon border levy
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Dec 18, 2025
Going down the drain together:
EPA and other Regulators on the March
As MAHA rages at EPA chemical policies, Zeldin seeks to reconcile
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Dec 17, 2025
In the EPA’s crosshairs are regulations on emissions of carcinogenic ethylene oxide, which is used by the sterilizer industry, as well as those that seek to limit toxic coal plant pollution and to cut down on deadly soot pollution
[SEPP Comment; Coal ash contains naturally occurring mercury and arsenic. What may make them toxic is the dose. Soot pollution is PM 2.5 which has never been shown to be harmful in moderate doses.]
Ireland Turns Back on Data Centres
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Dec 18, 2025
From Homewood: It is not a coincidence that Ireland went from being a net exporter of electricity to a consistent importer in the last three years, as their reliance on wind power has grown:
In short, data centers must build enough dispatchable capacity to power them for 100% of their needs.
In addition, they must also source 80% of their electricity from ADDITIONAL renewable generation.
Energy Issues – Australia
Bombshell: Uber-Green CSIRO admits 100% renewables is “not possible”
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Dec 17, 2025
The most interesting point, which they don’t have the honesty to say, is what really shook them into the realization that 100% “renewables” wouldn’t work? Was it the utter failure of the hydrogen gas plants; the pathetic progress of Snowy 2; the deaths of two transformers at the Waratah super battery, or the collapse in investor interest in building wind farms, or the organized resistance of farmers to stop the high voltage transmission lines, or all of the above, plus the Spanish blackout?
Or was it the shocking price rises of the last two years which proved that everything they said about renewables being cheaper wasn’t true?
[SEPP Comment: CSIRO is the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization.]
Wind investment fell off a cliff: The industry gets excited, because the *first* wind project just got approved for 2025? (!)
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Dec 18, 2025
“The investment drought is breaking,” says CEO hails first Australia wind project to reach financial close in 2025
Energy Issues — US
12 Facts Of Energy Affordability
Editorial, Afternoon TEA, Dec 15, 2025 [Bernie Kepshire]
Today’s IQ Test: Which Is Cheaper To Produce Electricity, Wind/Solar Or Fossil Fuels?
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Dec 13, 2025
Link to report: Blue States, High Rates
Electricity Prices: Elections Have Consequences
By Alexander Stevents, et al., Always On Energy Research and the Institute for Energy Research, December 2025
To be fair, the IER Report does not cover some states with relatively high penetration of renewables on the grid that nevertheless have below average electricity costs. Prominent examples are Texas and Iowa. Both of those also have full fossil fuel backup capacity, meaning that their electricity costs could be lowered further by eliminating the wind turbines and just paying for one generation system. And, in my view, both Texas and Iowa have reached a practical maximum of wind generation on a grid.
Meanwhile, despite the evidence now available, Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey just won the governorship with a campaign substantially focused on providing more “affordable” electricity through mostly wind and solar generation. Her chances of success are about zero.
Energy secretary predicts that electricity prices will stop rising ‘very soon’
By Max Rego, The Hill, Dec 14, 2025
The increase in electricity prices peaked at 15.8 percent in August 2022 amid global energy shortages stemming from the Russian invasion of Ukraine earlier that year. Increases in electricity demand, particularly during extreme weather events, also drive up utility bills nationwide.
[SEPP Comment: Spot natural gas prices at the Henry Hub spiked in 2022 but they are now below for all years since 2000, except a brief drop in 2020.]
Making Energy Security Federal Law Insulates Local Officials From Political Pressure
By Gary Abernathy, Real Clear Energy, Dec 15, 2025
As the New York Times recently reported, “A decade ago, when environmental protesters banded together and convinced (Oakland) to renege on a contract allowing coal shipments from an Oakland terminal, it set off a chain of events that undermined a Kentucky coal company and left the city potentially liable for hundreds of millions of dollars.
Trump’s AI “Manhattan Project”? (U.S. Department of Energy mission creep)
By Kennedy Maize, Master Resource, Dec 16, 2025
Dakota Access Pipeline: Common Sense Energy Vindicated
By Patrice Douglas, Real Clear Energy, Dec 18, 2025
Nearly a decade after the protests that captured the world’s attention, the Dakota Access Pipeline has done what it was designed to do and more. It fuels our economy, strengthens our communities, and makes America more secure. In the end, its legacy is not one of controversy, but of quiet, steady progress, the kind that keeps lights on, taxes low, and our nation secure.
[SEPP Comment: A North Dakota jury ruling found Greenpeace liable for over $660 million in damages, reduced to $345 million, to the developer, Energy Transfer. Greenpeace has appealed to a Dutch court arguing that the litigation is a “Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation” violating an EU directive. If Greenpeace does not pay, and does not have the ruling overturned in a US court, should it be permitted to continue operating in the US, including soliciting donations? According to its IRS 990, GreenpeaceUSA is based in Washington, DC, and raised $40 million in 2023. The form stated: “Greenpeace is an independent campaigning organization that uses peaceful, creative confrontation to expose global environmental problems, and to force solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future.” Boldface added]
Democrats press tech giants on data center energy use, rising electricity bills
By Julia Shapero, The Hill, Dec 16, 2025
Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) pressed Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and several other tech firms about their data center build-outs and agreements with utility providers.
“Utility companies have spent billions of dollars updating the electrical grid to accommodate the unprecedented energy demands of AI data centers and appear to recoup the costs by raising residential utility bills,” they wrote in a series of letters.
[SEPP Comment: What about the billions of dollars needed to transmit electricity from unreliable, highly dispersed sources such as wind and solar?]
Heating costs expected to jump 9.2 percent this winter
By Max Rego, The Hill, Dec 17, 2025
Link to report: Winter Heating Costs Expected to Jump 9.2%, Putting Millions of Families at Risk
By Staff, National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association (NEADA), Dec 16, 2025
[SEPP Comment: Is the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association an unbiased source?]
Permitting Reform Is the Key to Energy Affordability
By Karen Harbert, Real Clear Energy, Dec 17, 2025
In regions of our country where government policies have prevented investment in new pipeline infrastructure, families are paying higher utility rates compared to their neighbors. Much of New England relies on natural gas imports rather than available gas from as little as 100 miles away and at a price that can be between two and five times what other Americans face. That defies common sense and practicality.
Could the AI Dash for Gas Energy Boom Actually Be an Underestimate?
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Dec 19, 2025
Washington’s Control of Energy
Trump administration backs continued Dakota Access pipeline operations
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Dec 19, 2025
In the final report issued Friday, the administration said it would allow the pipeline to continue running — though it would add some additional stipulations.
In particular, Dakota Access will have to develop a plan for alternative drinking water supplies for nearby communities in the case of an oil spill. It will also have to install better leak detection systems as new technology becomes available and conduct water sampling twice per year.
Oil and Natural Gas – the Future or the Past?
Norway Avoids ‘Green’ Energy Quicksand
By Vijay Jayaraj, WUWT, Dec 15, 2025
The gleaming EVs filling the streets of Oslo are subsidized by the government’s oil revenue.
The Norwegian sovereign wealth fund – known as the Government Pension Fund Global – is the largest of its kind in the world. As of November, its assets were valued at over $2 trillion. On paper, that is $340,000 for every Norwegian.
It is a delicious irony that the climate activists’ favorite “model” nation is funded by the very substance they despise. Every time Norwegians plug in an EV, they are effectively accepting a handout from drillers at Johan Castberg. The “green” lifestyle is a luxury purchased with petrodollars.
Norway is not without its problems. The country’s substantial electricity exports to the EU become toxic, as the continent uses Norway as a crutch to compensate for the failure of its own wind and solar investments.
[SEPP Comment: The Johan Castberg oil field is north of the Arctic Circle. “The reservoirs contain oil with gas caps in three separate sandstone deposits of Late Triassic to Middle Jurassic age in the Tubåen, Nordmela and Stø Formations. They are at depths of 1250-1900 metres. Reservoir properties in the Tubåen and Stø Formations are generally good; the Nordmela Formation is more heterogeneous with several lateral barriers.”]
Nuclear Energy and Fears
Green California to Keep Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant Open 5 More Years
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Dec 14, 2025
Time to build reactors fueled by nuclear waste
By Duggan Flanakin, CFACT, Dec 14, 2025
While lauding the White House’s goal of jumpstarting a nuclear renaissance, nuclear power advocate Steven Curtis says that putting new wine into the old NRC wineskin is a recipe for failure. So is throwing federal dollars at nuclear startups rather than merely removing the regulatory barriers and letting the market decide winners and losers.
If the U.S. adopted true nuclear fuel recycling, says Curtis, the cost of nuclear-generated electricity could fall dramatically. First, from being able to use nearly all the uranium fuel to generate electricity; second, from significant reductions in the amount — and half-life — of the remaining “nuclear waste,” and maybe even ending the quest for deep underground burial.
Asia Is Going Nuclear and the United States Should Help
By David Santoro, WUWT, Dec 15, 2025
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
Solar Belongs in the City
By Iulia Lupse, Real Clear Energy, Dec 15, 2025
Urban areas that preach sustainability should lead by example.
The Wind Energy Paradox: “Why More Wind Turbines Don’t Always Mean More Power”
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Dec 17, 2025
[SEPP Comment Good discussion of the problems of wind power in Germany.]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Storage
Feed the Rich! $7 billion for a home battery scheme where a wealthy few get $18,000 rebates
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Dec 16, 2025
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles
The Electric Vehicle Collapse: Wow, That Was Quick!
By Franics Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Dec 17, 2025
Our “climate leader” states, California and New York, had then adopted regulations in August and September 2022, respectively, mandating a phase-out of sales of combustion vehicles, to culminate in 2035, after which only EVs would be allowed. In a post in January 2023, I linked to the websites of Ford and GM, where they both touted their grand plans for rapid conversion of their companies to the manufacture of mostly or entirely EVs. At that time, Ford was claiming that it would “lead America’s shift to EVs,” and would achieve 50% of its sales in that category by 2030. GM bragged about its “path to an all-electric future” by 2035.
The $19.5 billion is in addition to some $13 billion of operating losses that Ford has incurred over the past 3 years trying to compete in the EV business, even with the huge government subsidies:
Ford . . . has lost $13 billion on its EV business since 2023. . . .
The Forced EV Revolution — the Big-government Boom that Busted and Ford alone blew $20b US
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Dec 19, 2025
The lesson, yet again, is that in trying to artificially make EV’s cheaper, Big Government has made all cars more expensive. Ford and everyone else will have to make up those losses somehow. And in trying to reduce emissions, the bureaucrats have almost certainly increased them.
The Death of the Hybrid
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Dec 15, 2025
One in ten cars sold this year in the UK is PHEV, but it appears most of these are company cars, thanks to their generous benefit-in-kind tax rates.
In reality, hybrids are really dead end technology. Under current plans, new PHEVs will be banned after 2035. Between 2030 and 2035, they will be subject to the same stringent ZEV mandates that petrol cars now are.
Miliband Isolated as EU Prepares to Reverse Petrol Car Ban
By Will Jones, The Daily Sceptic, Dec 13, 2025
Ed Miliband has been left isolated over his Net Zero policies after the European Union dropped “indefinitely” a flagship pledge to ban sales of new petrol cars. The Telegraph has more.
Brussels was said to be preparing for a major climbdown on vehicle emissions rules amid a revolt by member states including Germany and Italy.
VW ID3 Review
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Dec 16, 2025
California Dreaming
Scammers Are Gonna Scam, Regardless
By Willis Eschenbach, WUWT, Dec 16, 2025
WOW! Over a hundred million tonnes of CO2, that must be a lot, right? So, how much difference has that made in the real world?
For that, we need a few facts. First, current CO2 levels are about 420 ppmv (parts per million by volume).
Next, for each 17,355 million metric tonnes of CO2 emitted, the atmospheric CO2 goes up by 1 ppmv (part per million by volume). This means that for the $33 billion dollars taken out of my and other California taxpayers’ wallets, the atmospheric CO2 level is lower by 110/17,400 = 0.006 ppmv … six thousandths of one part per million of CO2.
Be still, my beating heart …
And IF the IPCC is correct (which is a very big if), that would have reduced the current temperature by log2(420.006 / 420) * 3 = 0.00006°C …
Seriously. Californians have spent $33 billion dollars to reduce the temperature by not a tenth of a degree, not by a hundredth or a thousandth of a degree, not even by a ten-thousandth of a degree, but by less than a ten-thousandth of a degree.
Will the Delta Pumps Operate at Capacity this Winter?
By Edward Ring, California Policy Center, Dec 17, 2025
Only 5.0 percent of the product of this winter deluge [February 2025] was deemed acceptable to allocate for food and people.
Environmental Industry
Climate Fundraising Update: Hope amid Doom
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Dec 19, 2025
Stale ‘Big Oil’ Attacks: Fundraising at ‘Inside Climate News’
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Dec 15, 2025
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE
A climate carol
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Dec 17, 2025
With Christmas upon us we take you to the abode of climate activist professor Ebenezer Kluge, sitting comfortably in his well-heated and brightly lit home contemplating how much happier the poor must be without all those nasty fossil fuels, home appliances and other burdens of modern life. But suddenly an ominous clanking is heard and a specter bursts into his living room, the ghost of his recently deceased colleague Jacob Modeler, shaking a massive spectral chain of fudged data sets, retracted papers and angry hyperbole beseeching him to change his ways while there is still time.
ARTICLES
1. California’s Stranded Solar Assets
Regulators force PG&E to keep open the money-losing Ivanpah plant.
By The Editorial Board, WSJ, Dec. 17, 2025
TWTW Summary: The editorial begins with:
“Remember when the climate lobby claimed that fossil fuels would become stranded assets, so oil and gas companies should start winding down their business? These days that better describes some green energy investments. Ford Motor this week wrote down some $19.5 billion in electric-vehicle investment. Now Pacific Gas and Electric Co. is fighting California regulators to pull the plug on a costly solar plant.
We wrote about the Ivanpah solar project in the Mojave Desert when it began operating in 2014. The $2.2 billion plant received investments from Google, NRG Energy and BrightSource Energy, as well as a $1.6 billion loan guarantee from the Obama Administration. Don’t forget a 30% federal tax credit and a $535 million Treasury grant.
The Ivanpah plant used embryonic solar thermal technology that generated power from hundreds of thousands of mirrors focusing sunlight onto giant towers. But it produced far less power than expected, and at more than four times the cost of new solar photovoltaic projects. It was also the world’s biggest bird fryer, incinerating thousands of birds a year.
PG&E earlier this year announced plans to terminate its power purchase agreement with the plant to save customers money. The utility said it didn’t need Ivanpah’s electricity to meet the state’s 60% renewable mandate or ensure grid reliability since solar photovoltaic projects combined with batteries could provide electricity at lower cost.
Energy analyst Robert Bryce calculates that nixing Ivanpah could save ratepayers about $100 million a year. No matter, say the energy regulators who work for Gov. Gavin Newsom. The state Public Utilities Commission rejected PG&E’s plan this month because it ‘risks stranding sunk infrastructure costs,’ namely in transmission systems.
Rate-payers spent hundreds of millions of dollars to connect the plant to the grid. Now the state plans to force them to keep subsidizing the project, which wasn’t economic even with a tower of government handouts. Ford took a write-down on EVs to cut its losses. California regulators want to make ratepayers pour good money after bad.”
The editorial concludes stating that such regulations are the primary reason California has the second highest electricity rates in the country, following Hawaii.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Compliments of the Season to all contributors to WUWT, from a grateful reader..!
President Eisenhower warned against precisely the sort of overreach of government science of the sort being produced by the NSF and NCAR. They should be scrapped. No ifs, ands, or buts.
He warned about the “scientific and technological elite”.
Miliband Wants To Introduce Soviet Style Heating
Miliband Isolated as EU Prepares to Reverse Petrol Car Ban
Miliband has appointed the former director of the “Bristol Energy disaster” as a clean power adviser.
https://order-order.com/2025/12/16/miliband-appoints-director-of-bristol-energy-disaster-as-new-clean-power-adviser/
Miliband handed brutal takedown amid bid to ‘replace’ Rachel Reeves as Chancellor
https://www.gbnews.com/politics/ed-miliband-bid-replace-rachel-reeves-brutal-takedown
And here’s a story tip –
UK Drivers were told (by New Labour) buy diesel cars – lower CO2 emissions etc. And then they demonised diesel vehicles. Drivers are now told to buy electric vehicles – zero emissions and all that. So why is the government making it that much harder to park them? Where will the residents put them? The plan is in the end they won’t have a car.
Labour has been accused of waging an “intensifying war” on motorists as Sir Keir Starmer looks to limit the number of parking spaces on new housing developments. The plans, published by the Government, are reportedly part of net-zero efforts to encourage more people to opt for greener methods of transportation, such as public transport, cycling, or walking.
https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/2148895/keir-starmers-war-motorists-drivers-parking-spaces
You will own nothing and be happy
Send Mad Ed a copy of my comment below.
That’s funny. As if he even reads any of the stuff his constituents send him. Have you heard of the anti-Labour pub campaign?
Pubs etc are banning Labour MPs on account of the nasty tax hikes on the hospitality trades. A usual suspect on BBC R4 said: “that was appalling, they can talk to their MP”.
I can tell you from personal experience that it is a complete waste of time with a Labour MP. Unless it suits them…
After Administrator Lee Zeldin of the EP rescinds the Endangerment Finding of 2009 for CO2, will Mad repent and abandon the goal of
Net Zero by 2050? How can he ignore that the UK has cold winters and needs lots of fossil fuels for space heating? Heat pumps don’t work if it gets too cold.
will Mad repent
Never
Harold The Organic Chemists Says:
“CO2 Does Not Cause Warming Of Air”
Shown in the chart (See below) are plots of the average seasonal temperatures and a plot of the average annual temperature at the Furnace Creek weather station in Death Valley from 1922 to 2001. In 1922, the concentration of CO2 was ca 305 ppmv
(0.60 g CO2/cu. m. of air), and by 2001, it had increased to 371 ppmv
(0.73 g CO2/cu. m. of air), but there was no increase in air temperature at this remote desert. The reason there was no increase in air at this arid desert is that there is too little CO2 in the IR to absorbed out-going long wavelength IR emanating from the desert surface to cause warming of the air. Since CO2 cause no warming of air, equilibrium chemical sensitivity is zero. The average Tavg in 2001 was 25.1° C.
To obtain more recent temperature in Death Valley, I went to: thttps://www.extremeweatherwatch.com/cities/death-valley/average-temperature-by-year. The Tmax and Tmin data from 1962 to 2025 are displayed in a table. In 2025 the Tavg was 26.1° C. In 2025 at the MLO, the concentration of CO2is 425 ppmv
(0.83 g CO2/cu. m. of air), a 14% increase since 2001. This increase had little effect on the temperature in Death Valley. The empirical data and calculations falsifies the claims that CO2 causes global warming and is the control knob of climate change.
As mentioned above, there is just too little CO2 in the air to have any effect on weather and climate.
NB: The chart was obtained from the late John L. Daly’s website:
“Still Waiting For Greenhouse” available at: http://www.john-daly.com. From home page, go to end and click on the selection: “Station Temperature Data”. On the “World Map”, click on “NA, page down and click on “U.S.A.-Pacific. Finally, scroll down and click on “Death Valley”. John Daly found over 200 weather stations that had no warming up to 2002.
If you click on the chart, it will expand and become clear. Click on the “X” in circle to contract the chart and return to Comments.
Here is the late John L. Daly’s website home page.
NB: If click on the image, it will expand and become clear. Click on the “X” in the circle to contract the image and return to comments.
The GDP of Uzbekistan is about $115 billion, not $115 million. Your comparisons with the world are off by a factor of 1,000.
That appears to be true. However, the world’s GDP in 2024 was around $111.1 trillion, so Uzbekistan’s GDP of $115 billion still represents only about 1,000th of the world’s GDP.
Therefore, the question, “Why did the small country of Uzbekistan bring down this apparently important paper?”, is still valid.
That question immediately occurred to me, when I first read the news that the article had been retracted.
“ As an organization, NCAR has abandoned the scientific method. It has ignored the need to test its climate modeling against all physical evidence and ignores that its models greatly overestimate the warming of the atmosphere.”
A key aspect of the Scientific Method is that any information that fails to support a conjecture (don’t call it a theory) MUST be included along with the information that supports it. This is a key failure of the CAGW cult. They almost never include non-supporting information. This alone indicates that the culture cannot be changed without wholesale elimination of all who have failed the Scientific Method.
Does the fact that it’s already warmed by around +1.3°C relative to the 1850-1900 average count?
For what????
As evidence that 0.75°C is a ludicrously low figure for climate sensitivity to CO2.
Er, not at all
Scroll up and read my comment posted at 4:29 AM, where I show that
equilibrium climate sensitivity is zero.
How is a statistical construct sensitive?
No. Next question.
Bruce, well done. Succinct, and to the point.
Based on thermometers that were at best +/- 0.5C and changes that account for roughly +/- 0.9C we do not have a good measurement of how much or how little the global average temperature has changed since 1850.
As to CO2 sensitivity? Consider CO2 measurements in the early 19th century are comparable to today.
Max Planck, Heat Radiation lecture notes 1920.
LWIR waves are too long to act at CO2 molecular level, e.g. infrared heaters pass through air to heat surface.
I know I’m dense, but this continued Uzbekistan kerfuffle continues to confound me. First, the idea that one single small country like Uzbekistan can warp the results so badly makes no sense; it is indeed like claiming to have discovered that one of the thousand white mice turned out to be an elephant. That has never made any sense, so I know I am dense, also a poet who knows it.
But the idea that climate alarmists purposely submitted a purposely fraudulent report with the elephant present just so they could retract it and substitute a kangaroo or blue whale for the elephant makes no sense either. That assumes the reviewer and Nature itself are all in on this shell game, and I am not that paranoid.
I have no idea what will happen with NCAR, I have no idea how NCAR operates. NCAR has clearly swallowed the CAGW tripe otherwise their models wouldn’t be so far out of wack with observations. That is pitiful work no matter who is looking at it or which organization you are looking at. I have no sympathy for those who worked there or studied there and want to preserve it. If the people at NCAR want to continue to spread CAGW nonsense they can do it on their own dime and facilities. I don’t want my resources and money pissed away on that kind of crap.
The non climate functions of NCAR will continue, but with different administrative oversight.
It is good they are not throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Surprise, surprise!
There is no experiment which demonstrates that adding CO2 to air makes thermometers hotter. The GHE is not even poetry – just imagination.
No. Not imagination. Fantasy.