The Week That Was: 2026-01-24 (January 24, 2026)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week: “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” — Mark Twain
Number of the Week: Reduced 2.4%
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THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Scope: This TWTW discusses the process of measuring Earth’s Radiation Budget by the CERES project. TWTW discusses some shifts in thinking that were brought out at the World Economic Forum as well as shifts in thinking by the administration on matters such as the Linear No Threshold model and radiation. TWTW briefly discusses the poor market design argument often used by those who want the market to reflect their wishes; as well as major criticism of a paper claiming microplastics are accumulating in human brains.
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Measuring Earth’s Radiation Budget (ERB): As AMO physicist Howard Hayden explained in his series “”Basic Climate Physics”, assuming no significant volcanic activity such as that that formed the Siberian Traps, Earth’s Energy Balance is explained by three variables: changes in solar radiation to Earth; changes in Earth’s albedo changing solar radiation absorbed by Earth’s surface; and changes in greenhouse gases concentrations changing outgoing long wave radiation from Earth to Space. Changes in Earth’s albedo (reflectivity) include changes in cloudiness, snow and ice, leaf coverage, dust, etc.
Earth’s primary greenhouse gases, water vapor and carbon dioxide, are highly saturated. They already absorb and emit all the outgoing radiation from Earth’s surface in the frequencies (wavelengths) which the specific gases can readily absorb infrared radiation. Thus, a major increase in greenhouse gases is required to cause any meaningful increase in Earth’s temperatures.
Since 1997 NASA has used satellites to monitor Earth’s energy balance in a project known as CERES, Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System. Located at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, its website states:
“Climate is controlled by the amount of sunlight absorbed by Earth and the amount of infrared energy emitted to space. These quantities–together with their difference–define Earth’s radiation budget (ERB). The Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) project provides satellite-based observations of ERB and clouds. It uses measurements from CERES instruments flying on several satellites along with data from many other instruments to produce a comprehensive set of ERB data products for climate, weather, and applied science research. [Boldface added]
The goals of the CERES project are to:
- Produce a long-term, integrated global climate data record for detecting decadal changes in the Earth’s radiation budget from the surface to the top-of-atmosphere.
- Enable improved understanding of how Earth’s radiation budget varies in time and space and the role that clouds and other atmospheric properties play.
- Support climate model evaluation and improvement through model-observation intercomparisons.
The CERES team has been collecting ERB data since 1997, when the first CERES instrument was launched aboard the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite. Since then, CERES instruments have launched aboard the Terra, Aqua, Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP), and NOAA-20 satellites. The CERES instruments provide direct measurements of reflected solar radiation and emission of thermal infrared radiation to space across all wavelengths between the ultraviolet and far-infrared.
CERES measurements, together with measurements from higher-resolution imagers on polar orbiting and geostationary satellites, are used along with other input data sources to produce data products that describe the ERB at the top-of-atmosphere, within the atmosphere and at the surface. The CERES data products capture variations in ERB at hourly, daily, and monthly timescales and at spatial scales ranging from 20 km to global.
The CERES data are used by the climate, weather, and applied science research communities to address a range of research topics that involve the exchange of energy between the Earth and space and between the major components of the Earth system.
CERES is the only project worldwide whose prime objective is to produce global climate data records of ERB from instruments designed to observe the ERB.”
The presentations at the CERES Science Team Meetings are posted on the website. From reviewing them it is very clear that clouds are a big problem. Clouds can both cool Earth by blocking sunlight and warm Earth by acting as a greenhouse effect. The formation and dissipation of clouds have not been worked out. As Nobel Laureate John Clauser has asserted the global climate models cannot be relied on for prediction as long as the uncertainty of clouds remains an important issue.
At the May 7-9, 2023, CERES Science Team Meeting researcher Norman Loeb gave a presentation titled “Observational Assessment of Changes in Earth’s Energy Imbalance Since 2000.” Loeb split the Absorbed Solar Radiation (ASR) data and the Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR) data into two groups: 1) from March 2000 to February 2010; and 2) from March 2013 to February 2023. Both the Absorbed Solar Radiation (ASR) of Earth and the Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR) from Earth increased, and the net effect is a doubling of Earth’s Energy Imbalance (EEI) from the 2000 to 2010 period to the 2013 to 2023 period.
In the slide “Trends in Daytime SW [Short Wave (sunlight)] flux, –OLR Flux and Cloud Fraction by Cloud Type (07/2002-12/2022)” Loeb asserts:
- “For the entire period, the large positive ASR trend is primarily driven by reductions in low and middle clouds.
- The increase in OLR (decrease in -OLR) is primarily due to increased emission from cloud-free regions.
- Low clouds exhibit far more variability across the different periods than any other cloud type.”
Loeb’s conclusions are:
- “CERES observations show a doubling in Earth’s Energy Imbalance (EEI) during the CERES period.
- The EEI trend is primarily associated with an increase in absorbed solar radiation (ASR) partially offset by an increase in OLR.
- ASR and SST global and regional trends track one another.
Large ASR trend primarily driven by reductions in low and middle clouds.
Ocean mixed layer heating (and SST) variations primarily associated with ocean heat fluxes as opposed to surface heat fluxes.
- Despite substantial variations in ASR and OLR trends for “hiatus,” “transition to El Niño,” and “post-El Niño” periods, NET trends are nearly identical in all 3 periods (within 0.1 Wm-2 dec-1).
Implies rate of increase in planetary heat uptake is relatively insensitive to internal climate variability during CERES.”
From this physical evidence we can assert that the warming from 2000 to 2023 was not caused by changes in the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) or the increase in greenhouse gases. The major cause was a decrease in daytime cloud cover. [As a sidenote, those who assert that the decline in daytime cloudiness is from the banning of the use of bunker fuel for maritime transport should note that the vast bulk of shipping lanes are in the Northern Hemisphere while the reduction in cloudiness is in both Hemispheres.]
See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy and for Hayden’s essays on Basic Climate Physics https://www.sepp.org/science_papers.cfm?whichyear=2022.
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Shifting Winds: The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum took place in Davos, Switzerland, where President Trump created a disturbance. According to Lifesite News:
“Donald Trump has called ‘green energy’ and the Green New Deal the ‘greatest hoax in history’ in his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
During his special address on Wednesday at the World Economic Forum (WEF), Trump said the ‘Green New Scam’ (a reference to the ‘Green New Deal’) is ‘perhaps the greatest hoax in history.’
Trump noted that countries like Germany, which have embraced so-called ‘green’ energy, produce less energy now than they did years ago, have higher energy prices, and have less energy security.”
Commentator Jo Nova caught a significant shift in a video of one of the question-and-answer periods at Davos. A few years ago, Larry Fink CEO of BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest asset manager, was the darling of some political groups because he firmly supported the dangers of climate change (global warming) and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) political goals. Since then, BlackRock has quietly abandoned DEI goals. Nova writes:
“Way back in his 2021 annual CEO letter, Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, wrote: ‘No issue ranks higher than climate change.’ It will reshape global capital flows, he said, and declared ‘…anyone can see the impact of climate change in the natural disasters in California or Florida.’
Now though, never mind about global extinctions and flash floods. Fink just spoke at the Davos ski club for billionaires and declared that we need ‘trillions of dollars’ of investment for AI. Data centers, he said, are rapidly expanding — one technology company he spoke to said that ‘its data centers currently use about 5 gigawatts, but by 2030 it expects to need 30 gigawatts.’
But like a true banker, he doesn’t see a backflip; he sees only investment opportunities — the world is short of power he says. (He doesn’t say that this is in large part because BlackRock leaned on companies and countries all over the world to abandon fossil fuels.) Fink helped create the energy shortage that he now calls an investment opportunity. BlackRock is the largest asset manager in the world, controlling $10 Trillion dollars in assets, or five times Australia’s GDP. When that much money talks, everyone listens.
Now Larry Fink throws wind and solar under the bus
He’s matter of fact, with a straight face, almost like he never pushed intermittent generators:
Fink: ‘At the same time, this represents a huge investment opportunity. The world is going to be short of power. And to supply these data centers, you cannot rely solely on intermittent sources like wind and solar. You need dispatchable power because these data centers cannot simply turn on and off.’
Larry Fink slides the bomb in after 45 mins 30 seconds:
This man probably did more than any single person to pump up the Great Renewables Bubble that peaked in 2022. He presumably has taken his profits long before this speech — leaving mums and dads and pension funds holding the bag with investments in unreliable, expensive generators.”
See links under Questioning the Orthodoxy (Nova includes the video).
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Linear No Threshold Model: One of the biggest travesties of physical science is applying the linear no threshold model (LNT) when physical evidence does not exist. People die of water intoxication, drinking too much water too fast which dilutes the body’s electrolytes. Applying the LNT, one can claim that drinking any amount of pure water is deadly to humans.
Steve Milloy has frequently exposed entities such as the World Health Organizations using the LNT to claim millions of deaths from particulate matter of 2.5 microns or smaller (PM2.5) without any physical evidence such as corpses or even death certificates. In alerting the public that the current administration is addressing this travesty Milloy writes:
“The evaluation of a proposed rule’s costs and benefits has been a commonsense administrative requirement before setting new regulations since the Reagan administration. Until the Clinton administration, so-called cost-benefit analysis was an effective tool in stopping costly overregulation, particularly at the EPA. But the Clinton EPA figured out how to game the cost-benefit analysis process in order to issue its most expensive regulations – air quality rules that were eventually used by the Obama EPA to destroy half of the U.S. coal industry.
After failing in its first effort to implement an anti-fossil fuel agenda through a ‘BTU tax,’ the Clinton EPA moved to issue more stringent air quality standards for ozone. The problem is that the monetized benefits of the tighter ozone standard (possibly fewer asthma attacks triggered by outdoor air) paled in comparison to the economy-wide compliance costs of the regulation (tens of billions of dollars).
The Clinton EPA’s solution was to pair the ozone proposal with another proposal to regulate, for the first time, a newly invented air pollutant called ‘fine particulate matter’ or ‘PM2.5,’ which is microscopic dust, soot, or pollen in outdoor air. As described in great detail in my 2016 book ‘Scare Pollution,’ the Clinton administration developed the false and junk science-based notion that normal levels of PM2.5 in outdoor air could cause people to die prematurely.
How did this help the ozone proposal? The EPA claimed that regulating PM2.5 would prevent 20,000 premature deaths per year. Each prevented death, the EPA claimed, provided economic benefits of $5 million. When you multiply 20,000 premature deaths prevented by $5 million dollars, you get $100 billion in economic benefits, which the EPA claimed would be much greater than any possible compliance costs. So, the EPA’s proposed air quality rules passed the required cost-benefit test since the benefits outweighed the costs.
By the time of the Obama administration, the EPA was claiming that PM2.5 was responsible for 570,000 (i.e., about one in five) deaths per year in the U.S. and the value of preventing a premature death had risen to $9 million. Given that EPA determined there was no safe level of inhaling PM2.5, the cost-benefit analyses for its rules could beat back over $5 trillion in claimed compliance costs futilely spent trying to eliminate PM2.5 from the air.
The problem, though, is that the EPA’s claims were all chicanery. Both the alleged deaths caused by PM2.5 and the monetized value of a premature death were each invented out of thin air.
I have been in federal court with the EPA about its scientific claims on PM2.5, where it admitted that its primary line of evidence – i.e., epidemiology data – does not in fact show that PM2.5 outdoors has killed anyone. The EPA has also experimented on real people, including the sick and elderly, with high exposures to PM2.5. Those didn’t harm anyone either.
The monetization of premature deaths is truly bizarre. The $5 million value of a premature death avoided was derived through a type of economic research called ‘willingness to pay,’ in which people are polled for how much they would pay for something of value. In the case of PM2.5, EPA nonsensically asked people how much they would be willing to pay to reduce their risk of premature death by 1-in-100,000.
Let’s say, for example, that your risk of dying prematurely is 50%. Per the results of the EPA’s survey, people would pay $50 to reduce that risk to 49.99999%. That sum multiplied by 100,000 is where the $5 million came from. EPA has arbitrarily raised the willingness-to-pay figure to $9 million per life saved.
Now let’s say you are a 99-year-old who, because of PM2.5, dies ‘prematurely’ today instead of tomorrow, as EPA assumes otherwise would have happened. Because you died ‘prematurely,’ according to the EPA, PM2.5 caused an economic loss of $5 million. Contrast that EPA fantasy with the realistic situation of a 21-year-old young soldier being killed on the battlefield. The U.S. government’s standard valuation of that soldier’s life, paid out in real dollars, is $100,000.
The Trump EPA has now merely decided that it will no longer consider the monetization of imaginary PM2.5 deaths in the cost-benefit analyses of EPA air regulations. This will ensure that air pollution regulations make sense and are not pointlessly burdensome – a welcome change after 30 years of EPA just making things up.”
The Linear No Threshold Model was first applied to the nuclear industry and has been used to shackle innovation is nuclear power plants. In “DOE Dumps ALARA: Will the NRC Follow Suit?” Duggan Flanakin writes:
“When Secretary of Energy Chris Wright on January 12 announced that the DOE had ended the use of the ‘As Low as Reasonably Achievable’ (ALARA) principle for radiation safety directives and regulations, he was following both a directive from President Trump and a recommendation by scientists at the Idaho National Laboratory.
President Trump, in Executive Order EO 14300, criticized ALARA and the linear no-threshold (LNT) model on which it is based, stating ‘Those models lack sound scientific basis and produce irrational results, such as requiring that nuclear plants protect against radiation below naturally occurring levels.’”
No doubt many entities will announce that such actions are dangerous for public health. But unless they produce physical evidence, they have nothing but their empty claims. See links under EPA and other Regulators on the March,
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Poor Market Design? The free market is the product of untold billions of voluntary transactions by billions of people for thousands of years. However, often politicians and their collaborators think they understand what is important to people better than the people themselves. One example is replacing reliable electricity generation with wind and solar. When the system does not work the proponents often blame poor market or system design. Tilak Doshi effectively demolishes one such advocate who claimed that the market must be updated to accomplish what he desires it accomplish. However, with a “modern market” design, will the wind blow constantly, and the sunshine 24/7? See link under Energy Issues – General.
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Microplastics: One of the recent fears spread using poor studies is the fear of microplastics accumulating in human brains. Somehow microplastics get by the blood-brain barrier. A paper asserting microplastics accumulate in human brains was published in February 2025 in Nature Medicine. In WUWT, Charles Rotter highlights a new paper (Matters Arising) published in November 2025 in Nature Medicine that questions the first paper. According to the second paper:
“The study as reported appears to face methodological challenges, such as limited contamination controls and lack of validation steps, which may affect the reliability of the reported concentrations. In this Matters Arising, we highlight methodological limitations that have general relevance for advancing robust and reproducible MNP detection in human biomonitoring studies.”
See links under Other Scientific News.
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Number of the Week: Cut of 2.4%: Bloomberg News had a headline “Key US Power Grid Cuts Demand Outlook on Overstated AI Boom.” The article stated:
“The biggest US grid operator dialed back its forecast for power demand growth, offering a reality check to the frenzy around the artificial intelligence boom.
PJM Interconnection LLC, which manages the 13-state eastern grid from the mid-Atlantic to the Midwest, cut its peak demand forecast for the summer of 2027 to about 160 gigawatts. That’s down from a previous outlook of about 164 gigawatts.”
A reduction from 164 gigawatts to 160 gigawatt is 4 gigawatts or about 2.4%. The 2025 actual peak summer load was about 161 gigawatts in June. This reduction in forecasts is big news to Bloomberg News?
See link under Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism? and https://insidelines.pjm.com/pjms-updated-20-year-forecast-continues-to-see-significant-long-term-load-growth/ for PJM load factors and 20 year forecasts.
NEWS YOU CAN USE:
Censorship
Suppressing Climate Dissent Cannot Prevent Reality From Asserting Itself
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Jan 17, 2026
UN Censorship And The Manufactured Climate Crisis: How Global Elites Are Silencing Dissent
Climate change advocates at the UN launch an organized assault against free speech and information.
By Susan Quinn, Climate Change Dispatch, Jan 19, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
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
Observational Assessment of Changes in Earth’s Energy Imbalance Since 2000
By Norman G. Loeb, NASA Langley Research Center, at CERES Science Team Meeting, May 7-9, 2023
Short Summary of Observations Until December 2025
By Ole Humlum, Climate4your, Accessed Jan 24, 2026
Climate change deniers
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Jan 21, 2026
Link to earlier paper; Holocene thinning of the Greenland ice sheet
By B. M. Vinther, et al., Nature, Sep 17, 2009
And it’s not an innocent misunderstanding for all kinds of reasons including that they swallow unchewed claims that recent temperatures changes were unprecedented in speed, magnitude or both that are plainly untrue. In the longest credible series we have, for Central England, there was 2˚C of warming in just 40 years between 1695 and 1733, while Matthew Wielicki notes a number of points during the Holocene where the Greenland temperature rose, or fell, at least as fast as today.
[SEPP Comment: Wielicki uses the Greenland temperature reconstruction from Vinther et al., (2009).]
Climate Change is Not Causing Mass Extinctions, Says Bombshell Royal Society Paper
By Chris Morrison, The Daily Sceptic, Jan 21, 2026
Link to paper: Unpacking the extinction crisis: rates, patterns and causes of recent extinctions in plants and animals Open Access
By Kristen E. Saban; John J. Wiens, The Royal Society, B, Oct 15, 2025
From Morrison: When the history of the great Net Zero climate hoax comes to be written, pride of place will be given to the terrifying sixth mass extinction scare. Mainstream media barely question the idea that human-controlled climate is wreaking havoc with the life chances of millions of animal and plant species around the world. In November 2024, the Guardian reported that “as the planet warms up, scientists predict a series of ‘extinction cliffs’”. We are in danger of forgetting what the climate crisis means: extinction, was the cheerful article headline.
Defending the Orthodoxy – Bandwagon Science
Climate change fuels disasters, but deaths don’t add up
By Laurent Thomet, Phys.org, Jan 21, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Climate change is turbocharging heat waves, wildfires, floods and tropical storms, but how deadly have extreme weather events become for people in their path?…
Discerning an annual pattern is tricky, as a single disaster can make one year much deadlier than another.
In an annual report last week, Munich Re said deaths from floods, storms, wildfires and earthquakes rose to 17,200 last year, distinctly higher than the 11,000 fatalities recorded in 2024.
Thousands of deaths from major earthquakes in Myanmar and Afghanistan caused the death toll to spike year-on-year.
But the Munich Re figure was below the 10-year average of 17,800 deaths and 30-year average of 41,900 fatalities. The data excludes droughts and heat waves.
There is “no clear trend” when it comes to deaths from natural disasters, Grimm said.
[SEPP Comment: The author does not understand the basis for fierce weather. Heat does not create fierce storms; temperature and pressure gradients do. Fierce storms are common in the Antarctic in winter, particularly along the coasts.]
Claim: Climate Change Causes Deadlier Disasters with Fewer Deaths
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Jan 22, 2026
Link to: The 2025 Global Report of the Lancet Countdown
By Staff, The Lancet, 2025
[SEPP Comment: The biased, alarmist report calls for strengthening science-based communication to counter misleading information.]
Questioning the Orthodoxy
The Problem with ‘Peer Review’
By James Alexander, The Daily Sceptic, Jan 17, 2026
And if that was not pithy enough, here is Eric Voegelin, one of those great émigre scholars who went to America. This is from Robert B. Heilman and Eric Voegelin: A Friendship in Letters, 1944-1984, p. 312:
“If you place money in the hands of academic mediocrities, it will hardly improve scholarship or advance science but rather increase the social power of mediocrity.”
The Great Climate Reset
What comes next?
By Roger Pielke Jr., His Blog, Jan 20, 2026
Noah Kaufman, researcher at Columbia University, strikes the right note in my view in a recent essay in the Atlantic. Here he discusses economics specifically, but his message is more broadly applicable to claims across disciplines about the climate future:
High-profile economic studies claim to quantify the global damages that will be caused by climate change centuries into the future and have produced estimates that range from modest to catastrophic. They have lent a veneer of scientific authority to arguments for both complacency and alarm, even though these studies are far too limited to support either position. . .
[SEPP Comment: Generally, these studies and comments about them do not recognize that the greenhouse effects of water vapor and carbon dioxide are highly saturated. In the wavelengths (frequencies) that water vapor and carbon dioxide readily absorb infrared energy, there is nothing left to absorb. Thus, future great damages from increasing CO2 are not based on physical evidence.]
Watch Those Assumptions!
Five Figures – January 2026 – Key Takeaways from the IEA World Energy Outlook
By Roger Pielke Jr, His Blog, Jan 22, 2206 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Trump slams the ‘green’ agenda as ‘biggest hoax in history’ in Davos 2026 address
At Davos, Switzerland, the US president rebuked ‘green energy’ ideology and declared America avoided Europe’s ‘catastrophic energy collapse’ by rejecting the Green New Deal.
By Andreas Wailzer, Lifesite, Jan 21, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Big Banker Larry Fink abandons renewables for AI: “You cannot have intermittent power like solar and wind”
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Jan 23, 2026
Honeywell CEO Vimal Kapur: Powering Data Centers with Renewables is “Against Physics”
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Jan 23, 2026
The transition to net-zero emissions is a tax on the air you breathe
By Ronal Stein and Willie Soon, America Out Loud News, Jan 19, 2026
Is Climate Change A Religion?
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Jan 15, 2026
Video
Tidbits
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Jan 21, 2026
Global Warming is Only A Modest Problem
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Jan 19, 2026
Why are so many groups hyping and exaggerating the impacts of global warming? Claiming disaster and existential threats without a factual basis.
- For some, it may give them the satisfaction that they are “saving the world”, giving meaning to their lives.
- For others, it may be a political tool to undermine the opposing political party. Or a way to gain political power (e.g., certain prior governors)
- For others, it may be a way to gain money and resources. The Washington State CCA [Climate Commitment Act] is a poster child for such greed.
Whatever the reason, climate change hype and exaggeration are both destructive and counterproductive, often hurting the very people advocates claim to be concerned about.
World Economic Forum Elites Should Focus on Economics, Not Climate Change, Climate Change News
By Linnea Lueken, Climate Realism, Jan 20, 2026
Can You Be Too Clever For Your Own Good?
Apparently so, but only if you are a climate sceptic!
By John Ridgway, Climate Skepticism, Jan 23, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
In fact, if there has ever been a professional group that uses its intelligence to protect its own values, it must surely be the behavioral scientists. There is more than a hint of hypocrisy here, and I have to say that there is nothing more ironic than a bias blind spot that involves a professional group accusing others of being uniquely susceptible to bias blind spot.
Energy & Environmental Review: January 19, 2026
By John Droz, Jr., Master Resource, Jan 19, 2026
Problems in the Orthodoxy
Climate Retreat: Economic, Natural, Positive
By Robert Bradley Jr. Master Resource, Jan 22, 2026
Bad ecology is also at work. Wind and solar are the epitome of little-from-much, as in low-capacity factors, land sprawl, and transmission sprawl. Local environmentalists (versus Big Green) are protesting more and more.
After Paris!
Trump withdraws from UN Framework Convention; ends illusion we’ll always have Paris
By Marlo Lewis, Jr., Competitive Enterprise Institute, Jan 22, 2026
Donald Trump’s COP Out
By Stephen Eule, WUWT, Jan 20, 2026
Seeking a Common Ground
Weather Reanalysis Models
By Andy May, WUWT, Jan 18, 2026
The Bureaucratization of Science Is a Feature, Not a Bug
By Thiago V.S. Coelho, Misis Wire, Jan 16, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
In a free society, science is messy. It is argumentative, decentralized, and often embarrassing. That’s not a flaw; it’s how error correction happens. Bureaucratic science is tidy. It produces unified messaging, authoritative “guidance,” and a clear line between insiders and cranks.
Science information versus science narration
If America is going to have a functional future on subjects as diverse as climate and sexual differences, we must get ideology out of the laboratory.
By Anthony Sadar, American Thinker, Jan 20, 2026
Changing Weather
Global Warming? Deep Freeze Engulfs Parts of Europe and Russia
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Jan 18, 2026
Storm Goretti Was Not “Worst Since 1703”!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Jan 19, 2026
You will remember that Storm Goretti supposedly set a new record gust speeds at St Mary’s Airport on the Isles of Scilly earlier this month:
Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice
Scientists Race to Get to the Bottom of ‘Doomsday Glacier’
Team aims to drill half mile down into warming waters to gauge melt
By Arden Dier, Newser.com, Jan 21, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Over the next few weeks, they’ll attempt to drill roughly half a mile down through the ice to install instruments in the ocean below—gear that could clarify how warm seawater is eating away at the glacier from beneath, and how quickly that might translate into rising seas worldwide.
[SEPP Comment: If the ice is floating what is the danger?]
Changing Seas
NOAA Calls 2025 Third-Warmest Year On Record — The Science Doesn’t Add Up
Exposing NOAA’s 2025 climate report: sloppy guesswork and missing data.
By Lynne Balzer, Climate Change Dispatch, Jan 19, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Link to report: Assessing the Global Temperature and Precipitation Analysis in 2025
2025 finishes as third warmest globally and upper ocean heat content was record high
By Staff, NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Jan 14, 2026
From NOAA: Upper ocean heat content was record high in 2025.
From Blazer: In the year 2000, NASA charts showed about 0.5°C. of warming before 2000. But in 2023, the very same charts showed nearly 1.5°C of warming for the same time period.
[SEPP Comment: According to Loeb in “Observational Assessment of Changes in Earth’s Energy Imbalance Since 2000” (May 2023): “The EEI [Earth’s Energy Imbalance during the CERES period] trend is primarily associated with an increase in absorbed solar radiation (ASR) partially offset by an increase in OLR [Outgoing Longwave Radiation].” Since greenhouse gases block (delay) Outgoing Longwave Radiation, the physical evidence does not support any claim that the warming of the oceans is due to increased greenhouse gases.]
New Study: Sea Levels Rose 20 Times The Modern Rate During The Roman Warm Period
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Jan 23, 2026
Link to paper: English Coastal Archaeological Evidence of a Fifth Century (Dark Ages) 4-Meter Sea-Level Rise in 70 Years, Portending a Similar Rise Imminently
By Roger Higgs, Journal of Coastal Research, 2026, Jan 2, 2026
New Study: Brazil’s Relative Sea Level Was 2+ Meters Higher And SSTs 3-4°C Warmer 6000 Years Ago
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Jan 19, 2026
Link to paper: Ages of different shell species associated to vermetid bioconstructions remains and their implications on Mid-to Late-Holocene Brazilian sea-level curves
By Rodolfo José Angulo, et al., Quaternary Science Reviews, Mar 1, 2026
[SEPP Comment: Vermetid gastropods are a type of snail. Studies in the references indicate that sea levels have been falling (land masses rising) in the Southern Hemisphere.]
Agriculture Issues & Fear of Famine
Al Gore Wants To Pay Farmers To Grow Less Food To Fight Climate Change
By Harold Hutchison, Daily Caller, Jan 21, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Former Vice President Al Gore said on Wednesday that government policy should promote “regenerative agriculture” during a discussion at the World Economic Forum (WEF).
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?
NYT goes full witchcraft, cites an academic declaring Trump will cause bad weather! ‘Trump’s greenhouse gas emissions will cause Trump’s heat waves, Trump’s droughts, Trump’s floods, & Trump’s wildfires’
By Admin, Climate Depot, Jan 17, 2026
Witch hunts increased during the Little Ice Age
The Aztecs had one advantage over our climate experts—they realized the sun was responsible for global warming
Key US Power Grid Cuts Demand Outlook on Overstated AI Boom
By Bloomberg, Energy Connects, Jan 14, 2026
Communicating Better to the Public – Exaggerate, or be Vague?
Eye-rolling climate science from China
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Jan 20, 2026
Link to press release: The hidden warming challenge in climate action
By Staff, Science China Press, Jan 13, 2026
Link to paper: Aerosol reductions boost near-term warming rate in a plausible net-zero transition
By Yadong Lei, et al., Science Bulletin, Dec 30, 2025
Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.
The world is in water bankruptcy, UN scientists report – here’s what that means
By Kaveh Madani, The Conversation, Jan 20, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Opening sentence: The world is now using so much fresh water amid the consequences of climate change that it has entered an era of water bankruptcy, with many regions no longer able to bounce back from frequent water shortages. [Boldface added]
Water bankruptcy signs are everywhere, from Tehran, where droughts and unsustainable water use have depleted reservoirs the Iranian capital relies on, adding fuel to political tensions, to the U.S., where water demand has outstripped the supply in the Colorado River, a crucial source of drinking water and irrigation for seven states.
[SEPP Comment: Human caused climate change has nothing to do with it. Areas undergo periods of rainfall and lack of rainfall. The problem in Tehran, Iran, was caused by the government not maintaining a system providing adequate water. The Colorado River Compact was agreed upon during a period of high water, a foolish basis.]
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda
The Perpetual Climate Panic Machine ‘Collapses’
By Tim Graham, The Daily Signal, Jan 18, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
If the perpetual climate panic machine has collapsed, it’s because the facts never lined up to prove any reason to panic. Their authoritarian “solutions”—banning everything from gas-powered cars to gas stoves and grills—needed the fuel of panic to be forced on the public. The bloom is off their poisoned rose.
Questioning European Green
British Climate Crusade Creates Economic Disaster
By Vijay Jayaraj, CO2 Coalition, Jan 21, 2026
Nowhere is the insanity more visible than in the North Sea. For decades, offshore oil and natural gas were the crown jewels of the British economy, providing cheap, reliable energy and revenue to fund public services.
Today, this resource is being sacrificed at the altar of climate theology. The Prime Minister’s punitive windfall taxes and refusal to issue new licenses have effectively killed North Sea energy development. Investors have fled. Rigs are decommissioning. Thousands of skilled jobs are evaporating.
Bank of England warns Net Zero is slowing growth
Four-minute Video Peter Cardwell and Mourice Cousins of Net Zero Watch
“What is the … Plan for Gas?”: Even the Guardian has Slammed Mad Miliband’s Latest Green Energy Brainstorm
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Jan 17, 2026
But maybe The Guardian group is thinking ahead. When Britain’s electricity grid inevitably falls in a heap, a possibility which is becoming more likely with each passing year, a track record of pointing out the problems might give The Guardian maneuvering room to claim the failure was because of flaws in Mad Miliband’s energy plans, not the fault of renewable energy.
Questioning Green Elsewhere
The $20 Trillion Question: How to Spend It and How Not To
By William Murray, Real Clear Energy, Jan 5, 2026
Link to: The $20 Trillion Question
By Ron Clutz, His Blog, Jan 21, 2026
Money to ‘Decarbonize’ as Useless as Gym Memberships and Extended Warranties
By Gary Abernathy, Real Clear Energy, Jan 22, 2026
Detroit Thumps Detroit
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Jan 21, 2026
Litigation Issues
Offshore wind lawsuit confusion abounds
By David Wojick, CFACT, Jan 21, 2026
Empire Wind actually claimed to power 500,000 homes when it should have said “once in a while” because it requires sustained winds over 30 mph for full power which almost never happens off New York. Maybe ten days a year if that.
The basic point is that we now have standard Judicial review of a major Administrative order. There is no winner or loser at this point. It is the American balance of powers.
How Louisiana’s Legal Gambit Endangers U.S. Energy Security
By Rob Maness, Real Clear Energy, Jan 21, 2026
One of the key points of contention in these ongoing legal disputes is a fundamental jurisdictional question: should companies that acted under federal wartime authority be judged in federal court or state court?
New Lawsuit Claims Ziploc Plastic Bags Dose Food with Microplastics
The complaint contends that despite the risk of microplastic exposure and food contamination, there is no warning, disclaimer or disclosure on product packaging.
By Leslie Eastman, Legal Insurrection, Jan 19, 2026
Cap-and-Trade and Carbon Taxes
China Poised to Charge a Tithe on Global Shipping, Thanks to the Maritime Net Zero Framework
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Jan 19, 2026
Subsidies and Mandates Forever
CfD Subsidies Hit Record High In 2025
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Jan 18, 2026
Contracts for Difference subsidy payments hit a record high last year, reaching £2.64 billion:
Most of this was for offshore wind, which cost £2.02 billion.
[SEPP Comment: In the UK, the Contracts for Difference (CfD) subsidy assures revenue stability to the wind and solar generators. If market prices for electricity are lower than the “strike price” then the government (consumers) pay the difference. If market prices are higher than the “strike price” then the generator pays back the surplus revenue. As reliable generation is being driven out of the market by guaranteed returns wind and solar generators have (often subsidized), how high will the “strike price” go? The generators of reliable electricity will not remain in the game unless they can be assured high prices for providing so-called wind and solar “back-up.” The game does not benefit the consumer who desires reliable and affordable electricity.]
Taxpayers to Pay £15bn for Miliband’s Green Tech Blitz
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Jan 22, 2026
EPA and other Regulators on the March
STEVE MILLOY: Trump EPA Gets Fraud Out Of Air Pollution Rules
By Steve Milloy, Daily Caller, Jan 18, 2026
DOE Dumps ALARA: Will the NRC Follow Suit?
By Duggan Flanakin, Real Clear Energy, Jan 21, 2026
Energy Issues – General
Why Fossil Fuel Use Must Increase: The Numerical Reality
By Edward Ring, What’s Current, Accessed Jan 21, 2026
Link to: Statistical Review of World Energy, 2025, 74th edition
By Staff, The Energy Institute, 2025
Global emissions from energy grew 1% in 2024, setting record levels for the fourth consecutive year. Simultaneously, the world saw a 2% annual rise in total energy demand, reaching a new high of 592 EJ.
From Ring: For example, in 2024, oil, natural gas, and coal still amounted to 82 percent of total worldwide fuel consumption. Among various countries that percentage didn’t differ by much: USA 81%, China 82%, India 88%, and all of the African nations in aggregate 90%.
The UK’s Electricity Crisis is Not Caused by “Poor Market and System Design”. It’s Caused By Net Zero
By Tilak Doshi, Tilak’s Substack, Jan 21, 2026
Link to article Doshi tears apart: Outlook 2026: UK electricity – Today and tomorrow
Net zero is not the problem for the UK’s power system. The real issue is with an outdated market design in desperate need of modernization.
By Adi Imsirovic, Carbon Economist, Dec 15, 2025
Coal – the dying asset — sets a new all time record high (again!)
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Jan 22, 2026
Humans used more coal in 2025 than at any point in human history.
Europe’s Outrage Over Maduro Arrest Reflects Poor Understanding of Oil Industry
By Samuele Furfari, WUWT, Jan 17, 2026
Energy Issues – Europe
Constraint Payments Soar To New Record
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Jan 22, 2026
From the Telegraph:
Britain’s wind farm turbines wasted enough energy to power all of London’s homes last year, new figures show.
A record 10 terawatt hours (TWh) of wind power went to waste in 2025, according to a report from energy analyst Montel – costing billpayers a total of £1.4bn in “curtailment costs”.
From Homewood: Wind is currently supplying 43% of our electricity.
Miliband wants to triple that, which will give us 51 GW and 129% of total demand. Add the 8% from nuclear, which cannot be switched on and off, and we get 137%.
It’s hard to think of a more crackpot way to run an energy system!
Britain to extend life of ageing nuclear plants to keep the lights on
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Jan 22, 2026
Homewood: It is all very well keeping them going till 2030, but what happens after that?
German Chancellor admits shutting nuclear plants was a “serious strategic mistake” — will rebuild nuclear
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Jan 20, 2026
Germany to build 10GW of baseload gas plants (disguised as “future” hydrogen plants)
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Jan 17, 2026
Facing industrial death, Germany has finally decided it needs dispatchable reliable electricity. But they can’t announce that they suddenly need to build 10 gigawatts of fossil fueled gas power plants. It would be like admitting the sacred Energiewende had been a ghastly mistake that wasted billions of dollars on a reckless vanity quest to change the clouds. So instead, these new “power plants” with a focus on “gas-fired sites” must be convertible to run on hydrogen by 2045. Of course, they may never run on hydrogen, given that makes pipes brittle, leaks, and costs four times as much as natural gas, but it makes a good cover story.
[SEPP Comment: Will they design it to handle hydrogen, look at the costs of the special materials, then quietly forget hydrogen?]
As German Gas Storage Dips Dangerously Low…Shortage Hardly Avoidable
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Jan 21, 2026
Energy Issues – Australia
Aussie Coal Closure Delayed, to Lower Prices and Stabilise the Grid
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Jan 20, 2026
I know you will all be surprised as I am that $10s of billions spent on renewables has failed to produce a viable replacement for a single coal plant.
I’m confused. If renewables are cheaper than coal, how can keeping a coal plant open help reduce wholesale prices? And if coal is a far greater threat to grid reliability than renewables, as our Aussie federal energy minister has assured us, why does our reliable renewable grid need backup from an unreliable old coal plant?
The next Aussie federal election is due mid to late 2028, so maybe the plan is to shut down the coal plant early in the next election cycle, just in case there are a few minor teething problems with Australia’s Net Zero power grid.
How to back away slowly from Net Zero while pretending not to: Step 1 – keep extending largest coal plant
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Jan 21, 2026
The Zombie coal plant lives again
Energy Issues – Elsewhere non-US
South Korea’s Developing Net Zero Debacle
Germany, the continent’s model of green virtue, finds itself deindustrializing at a rate of 4.5% in 2024
By Vijay Jayaraj, California Globe, Jan 21, 2025
Germany, the continent’s model of green virtue, finds itself deindustrializing – at a rate of 4.5% in 2024, on par with a multi-year downward trend. The same year, the U.K.’s industrial energy consumption fell by 1.2% from 2023 to record what the government notes was “the lowest industrial consumption for over 50 years.”
The Bank of England has warned: “Net zero policies are slowing the global economy.” The World Bank predicts that “the 2020s will be the weakest decade for global growth since its records began in the 1960s.
Whether this decline is by design or daft incompetence, the effects are predictable. In a renewables-dominated Korean grid, bulk material industries like POSCO’s steel mills and Lotte’s petrochemical plants could be the first casualties, competing as they do on razor-thin margins.
[SEPP Comment: According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the Real Gross Domestic Product for Germany is now about the same as it was in the third quarter of 2019 (before Covid) after peaking in 2022.]
Energy Issues — US
Red States Have Reliable Power Because They Embrace an All-of-the-Above Strategy
By Greg Brophy, Real Clear Energy, Jan 21, 2025
The report reviewed 10 rural and conservative-leaning states – Arizona, Idaho, Iowa, Missouri, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming. It concluded the power grids in those states are 2 to 7 times more reliable than the national average, according to data on electrical outages from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
[SEPP Comment: If the states eliminate wind and solar will it reduce reliability or increase it Presumably, the national average reliability of the grid is over 99%. What would be 2 to 7 times as reliable be?]
Amazon Data Centers Aren’t Raising Your Electric Bills—They May Be Lowering Them
By Aaron Larson, Power Mag, Updated Jan 6, 2026
Link to report: Tailored for Scale: Designing Electric Rates and Tariffs for Large Loads
A Guidebook of Industry Best Practices and Examples from Real-World Amazon Data Center Case Studies
By Isabelle Riu, et al., Energy and Environmental Economics Inc., December 2025
[SEPP Comment: Contrary to the assertion by Larson, data centers generating surplus revenue does not mean that consumer costs remain the same or are lowered.]
Washington’s Control of Energy
In 2026, Congress Can Predict Our Energy Future By Creating It
By Gary Abernathy, Real Clear Energy, Jan 16, 2026
Increasingly free from the scare tactics of the radical left and reassured by new energy policies that deal in facts and practicalities, the national stage is set for spectacular energy development and expansion.
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
Chinese Solar Manufacturers Report Major Financial Losses
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Jan 18, 2026
A speculation on military risk with offshore wind — AI submarines
By David Wojick, CFACT, Jan 14, 2026
Plans for huge wind farm paused over ‘unfair’ grid charges
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Jan 21, 2026
[SEPP Comment: Is it unfair to the offshore wind developer to pay for the costs of delivering the power to the grid?]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Other
Chinese Investment Company: Tech Giants are Turning to Geothermal to Power AI
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Jan 21, 2026
WOT?? No Hydrogen?
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Jan 20, 2026
Headline: ‘Not enough hydrogen’ for region’s hydrogen buses.
Homewood: You might have thought they would have considered where they would get the hydrogen from before they wasted £10 million on them!
They probably thought you could just pluck it out of the air!
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles
For The Future Of EVs, What Policy Is “Stupid”?
By Francis Meenton, Manhattan Contrarian, Jan 21, 2026
For a different take, you might wonder where The New York Times stands on this. Well, I have your answer. Yesterday, they gave over a big chunk of their editorial page to an op-ed by a guy named Bill Saporito, headlined “$25 Billion. That’s What Trump Cost Detroit.” The thesis is that EVs are wondrous products, and that American EVs would be conquering the world, and earning big profits for the automakers, but for a “war” against EVs instigated by President Trump.
Nobody Wants EVs–Stellantis Boss
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Jan 19, 2026
Twelve-minute video
New Crackdown on Pavement Parking Spells Doom For EV Owners [UK]
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Jan 22, 2026
A new announcement by the Department for Transport appears to rule out charging of EVs on the street outside your home.
California Dreaming
California Shows How To Lose $1 Trillion Without Even Trying
I & I Editorial Board, Jan 12, 2026
Oh Mann!
Mighty Mickey Has Struck Out-Again
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Jan 22, 2026
Other Scientific News
The Brain Microplastics Claim and the Collapse of Scientific Restraint
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Jan 23, 2026
Link to one paper: Bioaccumulation of microplastics in decedent human brains
By Alexander J. Nihart, et al., Nature Medicine, Feb 3, 2025
Link to Matters Arising from this paper: Challenges in studying microplastics in human brain
By Fazel A. Monikh, et al., Nature Medicine, Nov 13, 2025
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE
Meteorologists blame a stretched polar vortex, moisture, lack of sea ice for dangerous winter blast
Meteorologists warn that a stretched polar vortex could bring severe winter weather to much of the United States
By Seth Borenstein, AP, Via ABC News, Jan 21, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Meteorologists said the eastern two-thirds of the nation is threatened with a winter storm that could rival the damage of a major hurricane and has some origins in an Arctic that is warming from climate change.
[SEPP Comment: It appears that the reporter wove quotes into his narrative to make it appear that a warming Arctic from climate change causes temperate region Northern Hemisphere freezing. At Station Nord, Greenland, the northernmost permanent weather station, the forecast for Friday Jan 22 was a high of -26F and a low of –32F.]
Net Zero Conservative MPs Promote Scheme to Cover Ponds With Solar Panels That’s Completely Quackers
By Chris Morrison, The Daily Sceptic, Jan 19, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
And none dafter than the recent suggestion from the Green Blob-funded Conservative Environment Network (CEN) to blanket inland water areas with solar panels, killing local aquatic life and tricking diving birds into crashing into them.
Screw Your Comfort: How Nature Became a Nagging Preacher
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Jan 17, 2026
Link to paper: Large carbon dioxide emissions avoidance potential in improved commercial air transport efficiency
By Stefan Gössling, et al., Nature, Communications Earth & Environment, Jan 7, 2026
From the abstract: Operating all routes at their demonstrated optimum could cut emissions by 10.7%. A theoretical 50% reduction is possible with the most efficient aircraft, all-economy layouts, and 95% load factors
[SEPP Comment: If the scheduled flight does not have a 95% load factor, is it cancelled?]
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