The Week That Was: 2026-02-07 (February 7, 2026)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week: “Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts” — Richard Feynman [H/t Francis Menton]
Number of the Week: $2.2 billion overdue
*********************
THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Scope: This TWTW begins with a further discussion on John Tyndall’s pioneering work on the influence of water vapor in slowing down nighttime cooling and how 19th and 20th century scientists confused the influence of water vapor with the influence of carbon dioxide. TWTW presents an essay by Howard Hayden on how Al Gore confused correlation with causation. TWTW continues with a discussion on the new rules of Scientific Evidence by Francis Menton which may significantly add to the confusion around the Greenhouse Effect. TWTW concludes with a discussion by Tilak Dosha on how Germany’s energy policy is destroying its once vaunted chemical industry.
*********************
Confusing Water Vapor with Carbon Dioxide: Last week TWTW briefly discussed John Tyndall’s experiments the results of which he reported to the Royal Institution of Great Britian in 1861, and which was published in “The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science” in 1863. Further the work was published in a book Contributions to Molecular Physics in the Domain of Radiant Heat: A Series of Memoirs Published in the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ and ‘Philosophical Magazine,’ with Additions (1872). TWTW asserted that: “Unfortunately, subsequent scientists including Svante Arrhenius used the term carbonic acid. Modern climate scientists have used this confusion to claim carbon dioxide is the primary greenhouse gas and to justify a positive water vapor feedback from carbon dioxide emissions.”
Reader Christopher Game correctly pointed out that often scientists at the time of Arrhenius used the term carbonic acid for carbon dioxide. According to an insert in the copy cited: Robert A Rohade for Global Warming Art photocopied the paper and stated: “throughout this paper, Arrhenius refers to carbon dioxide as ‘carbonic acid’ in accordance with the convention at the time he was writing.”
However, on page 239 of the copy Arrhenius writes:
“The selective absorption of the atmosphere is, according to the researches of Tyndall, Lecher, and Pernter, Röntgen, Heine, Langley, Angström, Paschen, and others* of a wholly different kind. It is not exerted by the chief mass of the air, but in a high degree by aqueous vapour and carbonic acid, which are present in the air in small quantities. Further, this absorption is not continuous over the whole spectrum, but nearly insensible in the light part of it, and chiefly limited to the long-waved part, where it manifests itself in very well-defined absorption-bands, which fall off rapidly on both sides t. The influence of this absorption is comparatively small on the heat from the sun but must be of great importance in the transmission of rays from the earth. Tyndall held the opinion that the water-vapour has the greatest influence, whilst other authors, for instance Lecher and P’ernter, are inclined to think that the carbonic acid plays the more important part. The researches of Paschen show that these gases are both very effective so that probably sometimes the one, sometimes the other, may have the greater effect according to the circumstances.” [Boldface added]
Clearly at the beginning of the paper Arrhenius distinguishes between water vapor (aqueous vapour) and carbonic acid and later combines the two. Thus, the highly cited calculations of Arrhenius and those who followed him are not for carbon dioxide alone, but for carbon dioxide and water vapor combined. As Tyndall stated, water vapor is the dominant gas delaying nighttime cooling. The calculations the greenhouse effect based on the work of Arrhenius and others using his work incorporate water vapor into their calculations of the influence of carbon dioxide.
In their paper “Dependence of Earth’s Thermal Radiation on Five Most Abundant Greenhouse Gases” (2020) based on over a century of experimental research plus decades of measurements using instruments on weather balloons and on satellites, van Wijngaarden and Happer show that water vapor accounts for about 75% of Earth’s Greenhouse Effect, carbon dioxide about 25% and the remaining gases are insignificant. In the abstract they write:
“Doubling the current concentrations of CO2, N2O or CH4 increases the forcings by a few per cent. These forcing results are close to previously published values even though the calculations did not utilize either a CO2 or H2O continuum. The change in surface temperature due to CO2 doubling is estimated taking into account radiative-convective equilibrium of the atmosphere as well as water feedback for the cases of fixed absolute and relative humidities as well as the effect of using a pseudoadiabatic lapse rate to model the troposphere temperature. Satellite spectral measurements at various latitudes are in excellent quantitative agreement with modelled intensities.”
The graphs in the paper show how the influence of water vapor overlaps the influence of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane. See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy – Radiation Transfer for the van Wijngaarden and Happer paper, and links under Challenging the Orthodoxy for Tyndall’s papers, and https://www.rsc.org/images/arrhenius1896_tcm18-173546.pdf for a copy of Arrhenius’s paper plus insert.
*********************
Another Confusion: Writing in The Energy Advocate, Howard (Cork) Hayden clarifies a confusion Mr. Gore had in his film “An Inconvenient Truth” which, apparently. Gore still does not understand – Correlation is not Causation. In “Some Climate Basics.” Hayden writes:
“It’s not always easy to predict what happens when you add some heat to something. The same amount of heat that increases the temperature of a kilogram of water by 1ºC would raise the temperature of a balloon holding one kilogram of argon gas by 8ºC. In both cases, we’re ignoring the thermal properties of the containers.
Now, increase the flux of absorbed sunlight by 1 watt per square meter. What does that do to the temperature of the ocean, the temperature of sand in the Sahara, to the temperature of a small pond, to the temperature of tree leaves in a forest, and so forth? How does that affect the “average” temperature of the planet? The problem is that there is no straight-forward way to infer an average temperature rise of our planet from a known increase in heat flux. But that is what climate scientists try to do when they make climate models based on changes in greenhouse gas concentrations and albedo.
Now, turn the problem around. Assume that the average temperature of the earth increases by 1ºC. How much does the amount of infrared from the surface rise? Apply the Stefan-Boltzmann law, and the answer emerges: about 5.5 watts per square meter.
Well, a closer look reveals that things aren’t quite so simple. At a temperature of 325 K (125ºF, 52ºC), the heat flux increases by 7.8 W/m2, while, at 240 K (–33ºF, –28ºC), the heat flux rises by 3.1 W/m2. So, obviously raising the temperature by 1ºC everywhere produces a temperature-dependent increase in IR flux. Things are not the same at the poles as they are at the equator. There is not as much land at latitudes near the poles as there is near the equator. Accounting for the areas involved and the average temperature change from equator to poles, the amount if increase in IR flux still averages very close to 5.5 W/m2 for each 1ºC in temperature rise.
To put it in simple terms, trying to calculate the temperature rise due to an increase in incoming heat flux is a fool’s errand. Calculating the increase in heat flux from the surface due to a temperature rise is very simple: just apply the Stefan-Boltzmann law. The rule of thumb is that surface IR emission increases by 5.5 W/m2 for each 1ºC increase in surface temperature.
Now, what happens to the temperature up there in the atmosphere if the surface temperature rises by 1ºC? The lapse rate—the decrease in temperature with altitude—varies with the amount of water vapor. With dry air, the lapse rate is 9.8ºC/km. When the air is saturated with water vapor (about to rain), the lapse rate is 5ºC/km. For the most part, the lapse rate is about 6.5ºC/km. But wherever you are on Earth, the lapse rate is essentially constant. What that means is that if the surface temperature rises by 1ºC, the temperature one kilometer up also rises by 1ºC, and so forth, right on up to the tropopause.
Correlation is not causation.
The Vostok (Antarctica) ice cores reveal trapped CO2 and an isotope of oxygen (18O), from which the temperature change can be inferred. The temperature change and the change in CO2 concentration go up and down together. In his movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” Al Gore showed data from the last 600,000 years showing the same correlation, and he strongly implied that CO2 was the cause and temperature was the effect. But what is cause and what is effect? We know that warming water emits CO2. Or are both the results of some unknown cause?
Curiously, the correlation between CO2 concentration and temperature is far weaker over the long history of the earth, although the properties of water and of CO2 do not vary with time. But climate models rely almost exclusively on correlation data. Never mind that the temperature changes came first.”
See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy or https://www.sepp.org/science_papers.cfm
*********************
Disturbing New Rules: On his website, Manhattan Contrarian, Francis Menton posted three essays addressing the US “Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, Fourth Edition” (2025). The forward of the manual is by Supreme Court Associate Justice Elena Kagan and the press release by the Federal Judicial Center states it is:
A joint product of the Federal Judicial Center and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, Fourth Edition supports judges in managing cases involving complex scientific and technical evidence by describing the basic tenets of key scientific fields and by providing examples of cases in which that evidence has been used. It is intended to assist judges in identifying issues commonly in dispute and to help judges reach an informed and reasoned assessment of those issues based on expert evidence that is faithful to the law and within the boundaries of scientifically sound knowledge. [Boldface added]
In the fourth edition, all reference guides from the previous edition have undergone extensive revision or have been written by new authors. New guides have been added to address eyewitness identification, computer science, artificial intelligence, and climate science, along with a new foreword from Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Elena Kagan.
The website the Federal Judicial Center states:
“The Federal Judicial Center is the research and education agency of the judicial branch of the United States Government. The Center supports the efficient, effective administration of justice and judicial independence. Its status as a separate agency within the judicial branch, its specific missions, and its specialized expertise enable it to pursue and encourage critical and careful examination of ways to improve judicial administration. The Center has no policy-making or enforcement authority; its role is to provide accurate, objective information and education and to encourage thorough and candid analysis of policies, practices, and procedures.
By statute, the Chief Justice of the United States chairs the Center’s Board, which also includes the director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts and seven judges elected by the Judicial Conference. The Board appoints the Center’s director and deputy director; the director appoints the Center’s staff. Since its founding in 1967, the Center has had twelve directors. Judge Robin L. Rosenberg became director in 2025. Clara Altman became deputy director in 2018.:
In July, the Department of Energy released a report by five independent scientists expressing that the influence of carbon dioxide on global temperatures has significant uncertainties and it is not clear if the influence is of concern. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) immediately attacked the report and prepared a report on EPA’s endangerment finding “Effects of Human-Caused Greenhouse Gas Emissions on U.S. Climate, Health, and Welfare” (2025). Key parts of the summary state:
“This overarching conclusion is supported by the following five conclusions:
(1) Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are increasing the concentration of these gases in the atmosphere. Human activities—such as the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, cement and chemical production, deforestation, and agricultural activities—emit GHGs, which include carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and fluorinated gases (F-gases), to the atmosphere. Total global GHG emissions continue to increase, even though U.S. emissions of CO2 have decreased slightly in recent years largely due to changes in energy production and consumption. Multiple lines of evidence show that GHG emissions from human activities are the primary driver of the observed long-term warming trend. No known natural drivers, such as incoming solar radiation or volcanic emissions, can explain observed changes.
(2) Improved observations confirm unequivocally that greenhouse gas emissions are warming Earth’s surface and changing Earth’s climate. Longer records, improved and more robust observational networks, and analytical and methodological advances have strengthened detection of observed changes and their attribution to elevated GHGs. Trends observed include increases in hot extremes and extreme single-day precipitation events, declines in cold extremes, regional shifts in annual precipitation, warming of the Earth’s oceans, a decrease in ocean pH, rising sea levels, and an increase in wildfire severity.
(3) Human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases and resulting climate change harm the health of people in the United States. Climate change intensifies risks to humans from exposures to extreme heat, ground-level ozone, airborne particulate matter, extreme weather events, and airborne allergens, affecting incidence of cardiovascular, respiratory, and other diseases. Climate change has increased exposure to pollutants from wildfire smoke and dust, which has been linked to adverse health effects. The increasing severity of some extreme events has contributed to injury, illness, and death in affected communities. Health impacts related to climate-sensitive infectious diseases—such as those carried by insects and in contaminated water—have increased. New evidence is developing about additional health impacts of climate change, including on mental health, nutrition, immune health, antimicrobial resistance, kidney disease, and negative pregnancy-related outcomes. Groups such as older adults, people with preexisting health conditions or multiple chronic diseases, and outdoor workers are disproportionately susceptible to climate-associated health effects. Even as non-climate factors, including adaptation measures, can help people cope with harmful impacts of climate change, they cannot remove the risk of harm.
(4) Changes in climate resulting from human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases harm the welfare of people in the United States. Climate-driven changes in temperature and precipitation extremes and variability are leading to negative impacts on agricultural crops and livestock, even as technological and other changes have increased agricultural production. Climate change, including increases in climate variability and wildfires, is changing the community composition and function of forest and grassland ecosystems and the services they provide. Climate-related changes in water availability and quality vary across regions in the United States with some regions showing a decline. Climate-related changes in the chemistry and the heat content of the ocean are having negative effects on calcifying organisms and contributing to increases in harmful algal blooms. U.S. energy systems, infrastructure, and many communities are experiencing increasing stress and costs owing to the effects of climate change.
(5) Continued emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities will lead to more climate changes in the United States, with the severity of expected change increasing with every ton of greenhouse gases emitted. Despite successful efforts in many parts of the world to reduce emissions, total global GHG emissions have continued to increase, and additional warming is certain. All climate models—regardless of assumptions about future emissions scenarios or estimates of climate sensitivity—consistently project continued warming in response to future atmospheric GHG increases. Applying fundamental physics of the Earth system leads to the same conclusion. Continued changes in the climate increase the likelihood of passing thresholds in Earth systems that could trigger tipping points or other high-impact climate surprises.”
There is no question the NASME is opposed to humanity emitting greenhouse gases even though they help create human prosperity. In his post, “Would You Trust The National Academies Of Science To Tell You How Science Works?” Francis Menton asks a disturbing question.. In part, Menton writes:
“Is Science a method of inquiry or a body of accepted knowledge (or both)?
[Lead author Michael] Weisberg [Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania] gets this one completely wrong. From page 50:
Science is both a body of knowledge and the process for building that knowledge based on evidence acquired through observation, experiment, and simulation. The term is accurately applied to knowledge on a wide variety of topics and to diverse lines of inquiry.
I completely disagree. The idea that Science can be a body of knowledge is where we get pronouncements from a priestly class that “The Science” has established such and so, and therefore we mere laymen and peons are not allowed to question it. That is the opposite of the scientific method. So, science cannot be both the method that questions all allegedly accepted propositions, and also a body of accepted knowledge. Richard Feynmann’s definition of science is the one I subscribe to: “Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”
Menton ends with:
“Correlation and causation
From page 92:
‘While the often-stated maxim that correlation does not imply causation is true, in fact, correlation is the only means that we have of establishing causation in science.’
That’s completely wrong. We absolutely have a way of ‘establishing causation’ — or at least of progressively ruling out causes other than our hypothesized cause — which is by disproof of the null hypothesis. In the most common example with which almost everyone is familiar, pharmaceutical companies seeking approval of a drug are required to (at least tentatively) prove its efficacy by disproving the null hypothesis that a placebo is as good or better.
Weisberg follows the statement I quote above with a long example about how the causal relationship between smoking and lung cancer was established through a long series of studies proving correlation. Yes, in part. But those studies also disproved the null hypothesis that people or animals not exposed to inhaled tobacco smoke got lung cancer at the same rate.
Conclusion
So, the operating hypothesis is that Professor Weisberg wrote this chapter in complete good faith to give the courts a neutral guide to science, and the flaws I have identified are just a few innocent mis-steps attributable to short deadlines or sloppiness. But then there’s the null hypothesis that what I say are flaws were actually very intentionally inserted to give support to the litigation efforts of the most politicized consensus ‘science’ scams going on these days, starting with the climate alarm scam. I kind of think that we are close to having to reject the original operating hypothesis in favor of the null hypothesis.”
The interpretation of science presented by The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will be addressed more fully in upcoming TWTWs. Since this report will probably become a major point in litigation regarding the Endangerment Finding, see links under Litigation Issues.
*********************
Destroying Industry: In “Germany’s Chemical Reckoning: How Europe is Dismantling its Industrial Core” Tilak Doshi describes how increasing energy costs are destroying Germany’s once vaunted chemical industry. After mentioning the serious ongoing harm to the auto industry, Doshi writes:
“But chemicals – the industry that quite literally underpins modern industrial civilization – now stands exposed as Exhibit B. The collapse of chemicals manufacturing in Germany will be unsalvageable: when energy costs explode, feedstocks disappear and plants shut, financial investments and physical capital relocate not easily but in an irreversible rupture with previous arrangements.
The Industry That Built Modern Germany and the World
As Vaclav Smil authoritatively established, the four foundational materials of human civilization are steel, cement, plastics, and ammonia. But ammonia is the most fundamental because it sits upstream of life itself rather than merely infrastructure. Through synthetic nitrogen fertilizers enabled by the Haber–Bosch process, ammonia underwrites modern agriculture and thus the food supply for roughly half the world’s population, without which steel mills, concrete cities and plastic goods would be socially meaningless luxuries. A civilization can endure with less concrete or fewer polymers, but it cannot survive the loss of fixed nitrogen – making ammonia not just an industrial input, but the metabolic backbone of modern human existence.”
After describing the importance of chemicals to modern civilization and to Germany in particularly Doshi concludes with:
“Beneath it lies a deeper malaise: Europe has lost faith in its own industrial vocation. It prefers to regulate rather than produce, to moralize rather than compete. Yet the world does not pause for European introspection. The United States under the Trump administration is focused on re-industrializing with its energy dominance agenda along with tariff policy. Asia and the Middle East continue to expand capacity.
Europe alone seems determined to prove that prosperity can survive without production. It cannot.
Germany’s chemical reckoning is therefore not a sectoral story but a civilizational one. It illustrates what happens when political elites elevate symbolic virtue over material competence, when policy is shaped by narratives rather than real constraints and when energy is treated as an ethical problem rather than an economic necessity. The country’s chemical industry once symbolized the triumph of science, industry and energy harnessed in service of human progress. Its current decline symbolizes something else entirely: the delusional triumph of ideology over physics and economics among policy elites. And, as ever, the twin disciplines will have the final word. As will chemistry.”
See link under Questioning European Green
*********************
Heartland Conference: The 16th International Conference on Climate Change by The Heartland Institute will be held on April 8 and 9 in Washington, DC. Early Bird tickets are available until February 8. See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
*********************
Number of the Week: $2.2 billion overdue. John Robson writes:
“And now we read that ‘The United Nations is on the verge of “imminent financial collapse,’ in large part due to the failure of member states to pay their mandatory dues, Secretary General António Guterres said in a letter sent this week to the 193 U.N. ambassadors. Leading the list of those in arrears is the United States, which owes nearly $2.2 billion in overdue and current assessments for the regular U.N. operating budget, dating back to the end of 2024, and hundreds of millions in funds pledged or assessed to other programs, according to a U.N. official.”
Reuters confirms Robson’s statement with:
“U.N. officials say the U.S. currently owes $2.19 billion to the regular U.N. budget, another $1.88 billion for active peace-keeping missions and $528 million for past peace-keeping missions.”
See link “Tidbits” under Questioning the Orthodoxy and https://www.reuters.com/world/un-chief-guterres-warns-imminent-financial-collapse-2026-01-30/ for the Reuters report.
NEWS YOU CAN USE:
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
TIME RUNNING OUT for Early Bird rates to Heartland’s Climate Conference in April!
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Feb 7, 2026
Contributions to Molecular Physics in the Domain of Radiant Heat: A Series of Memoirs Published in the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ and ‘Philosophical Magazine,’ with Additions
By John Tyndall, Longmans, Green, and Company, 1872
Chapter XVII. On radiation through the earth’s atmosphere
By John Tyndall F.R.S. The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, Volume 25, 1863, Issue 167, Online May 26, 2009
From Google Books
Some Climate Basics
By Howard (Cork) Hayden, The Energy Advocate, January 2026
Holocene Warming
By Andy May, WUWT, Feb 5, 2026
While it is remotely possible that current Arctic or global average temperature is higher than any seen in the past 6,800 years, it is very unlikely and can’t be demonstrated with data we have today. It is almost certainly true that the rate of change in global or Arctic temperature observed recently is not unprecedented in the Holocene Epoch. This modern myth has been thoroughly debunked in the literature and seeing it pop up in PNAS and elsewhere is disconcerting. I thought peer-review was supposed to catch such errors.
Comparing the rate of warming today when we have daily temperatures from all over the world to pre-industrial proxies is problematic. … It is much easier to reduce modern resolution for comparisons to the past than to try and increase proxy resolution. It is foolish to try and reconstruct global or hemispheric temperature records with proxies; they are very coarse and the averaging process used to make the reconstructions destroys the critical detail needed to determine a rate of warming.
Re-evaluating the Concern of Climate Change
By Andy May, WUWT, Feb 2, 2026
Bottom line: Scientists should stick to the facts as we know them today, conjecture and predictions are fine, as long as they are clearly labeled as such. We all are susceptible to defending our ideas and conjectures, it isn’t just Sharma, et al. However, logic and common sense tell us to stick with clear evidence. Reasonable conjectures should be kept in mind but not acted upon until facts and observations support them.
New Study Rebuts The Assumption That Anthropogenic CO2 Molecules Have ‘Special’ Properties
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Feb 6, 2026
Link to paper: On the Residence Time of CO2 in the Atmosphere and the Carbon Mass Balance
By Raimund Müller, Science of Climate Change, Accepted Oct 20, 2025
Is Canada Really Warming?
Is Canada really warming at double the global average rate, as the Canadian government says it is?
By Tom Harris, American Thinker, Jan 30, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Link to report: Artificial stepwise increases in homogenized surface air temperature data invalidate published climate warming claims for Canada
By Joseph Hickey. Correlation Research in the Public Interest, Dec 23, 2025
Climate Change Weekly # 569—Climate Change Front and Center at Heartland’s World Prosperity Forum
By Linnea Lueken, The Heartland Institute, Via WUWT, Jan 31, 2026
#DoEDeepDive: More model mismatches
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Feb 4, 2026
Dutch climate skeptics vindicated: KNMI reinstates seven pre-1950 heatwaves after long battle
Seven years after Dutch skeptics first challenged KNMI’s temperature adjustments, the institute has reinstated seven “lost” pre-1950 heatwaves at De Bilt — validating claims of over-correction that had erased 16 out of 23 historical extremes. The breakthrough came via the skeptics’ peer-reviewed paper.
By Marcel Crok, CLINTEL, Feb 4, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Link to paper: Winds are changing: An explanation for the warming of the Netherlands
By Jippe Hoogeveen, Han Hoogeveen, Royal Meteorological Society, June 17, 2022
From Crok: The long-term temperature trend in the Netherlands is clearly upward, particularly since the 1990s, though a comparable peak occurred in the 1940s. As demonstrated in our peer-reviewed paper with Jos de Laat (who is affiliated with KNMI), Dutch temperatures exhibited a stepwise increase starting in the late 1980s. Furthermore, a compelling study by two Dutch mathematicians — a father-and-son team — argues that changes in atmospheric circulation patterns, rather than CO₂, are the primary driver of temperature variations in the Netherlands. The findings of that paper may well become the focus of the next debate with KNMI.
Defending the Orthodoxy
Bjorn Lomborg: The USA Should Keep Funding the IPCC
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Feb 5, 2026
Questioning the Orthodoxy
Review of new book: Crisis or Hoax? Climate Change in Science, Media & Politics by Jules de Waart – A New Book by a Dissenting Climate Scientist
By Tilak Doshi, Via Climate Depot, Feb 5, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Tidbits
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Feb 4, 2026
Grin and polar bear it
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Feb 4, 2026
What, don’t extrapolate? Nature is complex? What will they think of next? And what will alarmists think of as a new mascot? The Vox article laments that polar bears just won’t do anymore.
“No other animal has been so closely tied to climate change as the polar bear. It was on the cover of TIME’s 2006 global warming issue. It was featured in Al Gore’s seminal documentary An Inconvenient Truth, which premiered the same year. It was used in funding campaigns for environmental groups…. Ultimately, it’s easy for people to care about polar bears. They’re big, they’re fluffy, and they’re unique. So perhaps, instead of ditching them as a mascot for warming, it’d be better to acknowledge that the story is more complicated than it’s often presented. Climate change impacts the natural world differently in different places.”
What a tactful way of saying we have no idea what’s going on despite yelling that we did. But now maybe instead of trying to manipulate people into supporting your agenda with cartoons, mascots and misrepresentations, just start discussing the facts, even when they don’t line up with the alarmist dogma. Otherwise, you may find your credibility vanishing faster than a hapless visitor who got too close to a polar bear.
A BRILLIANT take on cows, methane, and climate
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Feb 5, 2026
Climate Alarmists Are Often Wrong But Never in Doubt
By Gary Abernathy, Real Clear Energy, Jan 30, 2026
Crudely Put: Oil Is Everywhere
By Peter A. Coclanis, Real Clear Energy, Feb 4, 2026
When critics of fossil fuel wax on about transitioning from fossil fuels, they are deluding themselves in two major ways. First, as the French historian of technology Jean-Baptiste Fressoz has recently pointed out, in history there has never been a true energy transition. As “new” energy sources become more prominent, that is to say, they add to rather than replace the energy sources they are intended to replace. Secondly, critics of petroleum focus too closely—and crudely, as it were– on the complex mixture of hydrocarbon’s role in energy generation alone, in so doing paying insufficient attention to oil’s role as a key ingredient in and building block for modern life.
[SEPP Comment: Coal power replacing wood power was an energy transition. The internal combustion engine power (petroleum) replacing the horse (muscle) power (grass, etc.) was another. A superior product replaced the earlier one.]
Climate Activist Who Interviewed Greta Thunberg Comes Out to Warn Others About Being “Brainwashed” by Climate Ideology
By Will Jones, The Daily Sceptic, Feb 4, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Gaslighting 1924
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Feb 6, 2026
Energy & Environmental Review: February 2, 2026
By John Droz, Jr., Master Resource, Feb 2, 2026
Social Benefits of Carbon Dioxide
The effect of CO2 on Goldenclub
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Feb 4, 2026
From the CO2Science Archive.
Seeking a Common Ground
Three Radical Ideas to Reform the Scientific Enterprise
By Ross Pomeroy, WUWT, Feb 3, 2026
Science, Policy, and Evidence
Trump’s climate policy rollback plan relies on EPA rescinding its 2009 endangerment finding – but will courts allow it?
By Gary W. Yohe, The Conversation, Feb 2, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
What happens if EPA does drop the endangerment finding
As an economist who has studied the effects of climate change for over 40 years, I am concerned that the EPA rescinding the endangerment finding on the basis of faulty scientific assessment would lead to faster efforts to roll back U.S. climate regulations meant to slow climate change.
I see no scenario in which a legal challenge doesn’t end up before the Supreme Court. I would hope that both the enormous amount of scientific evidence and the words in the preamble of the U.S. Constitution would have some significant sway in the court’s considerations. It starts, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union,” and includes in its list of principles, “promote the general Welfare.”
[SEPP Comment: The author fails to present physical evidence that recent warming is not natural. Further, local air pollution needs to be addressed locally, and regionally. Applying the same standards nationally is ridiculous. CO2 emissions are a global issue, and applying restrictions only to developed countries ignores the fact the China and other developing countries are now the world’s biggest emitters of CO2.]
Trump Admin Uses Equity Stakes, New Mines to Secure Critical Minerals Supply Chain
Trump administration announced a $1.6 billion deal with USA Rare Earth for development of mines, magnet production, and enhanced rare earths processing techniques.
By Leslie Eastman, Legal Insurrection, Jan 30, 2026
Model Issues
We were wrong
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Feb 4, 2026
Alas, the story is not “science” just because it says it is on the package. It goes on immediately to explain that:
“That’s because for every one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming, the atmosphere can hold about 7 percent more moisture. And this storm happened in an atmosphere that has become up to five degrees C (nine degrees F) warmer than it was in past decades, according to the research organization ClimaMeter, which produced the new analysis. That means that this storm had up to 20 percent more precipitation than it would have if there was no human-caused warming.”
Now hold on, you may cry. Five degrees Celsius? Isn’t that the loony prediction of RCP8.5 not what anyone claims already happened? But before we get to that one, or the issue of multiplying seven times five and getting twenty which is more Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy than Scientists’ Guide to the Weather, let’s dispose of the premise. Which is based on the “Clausius-Clapeyron” principle that for every degree warmer the air gets its potential humidity rises by 7%. Potential, you understand. And as we observed in July of 2024, climate models assume without checking that its “specific humidity”, how much water it actually absorbs, rises in lockstep with its potential humidity. But as we also observed, actual new research revealed that outside the computers and the alarmist screeds, it doesn’t.
Measurement Issues — Surface
ENSO: Recent Evolution, Current Status and Predictions
By Staff, Climate Prediction Center / NCEP, NOAA, Feb 2, 2026
ENSO Alert System Status: La Niña Advisory
- La Niña is present.
- Equatorial sea surface temperatures (SSTs) are below average across the east central and eastern Pacific Ocean.
- Atmospheric anomalies over the tropical Pacific Ocean are consistent with La Niña.
- There is a 75% chance of a transition to ENSO-neutral during January-March 2026. ENSO-neutral is likely through at least Northern Hemisphere late spring 2026
Measurement Issues — Atmosphere
UAH v6.1 Global Temperature Update for January 2026: +0.35 deg. C
By Roy Spencer, His Blog, Feb 3, 2026
The Version 6.1 global area-averaged linear temperature trend (January 1979 through January 2026) remains at +0.16 deg/ C/decade (+0.22 C/decade over land, +0.13 C/decade over oceans).
Global Temperature Report, January 2026
By Staff Earth System Science Center, UAH, Feb 3, 2026
Map: https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2026/202601_Map.png
Graph: https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2026/202601_Bar.png
Text: https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2026/GTR_202601_v1.pdf
UAH Stays Cool January 2026
By Ron Clutz, His Blog, Feb 4, 2026
Residence time of Hunga stratospheric water vapour perturbation quantified at 9 years
By Xin Zhou, et al., Nature Communications Earth & Environment, Jan 24, 2026
Changing Weather
The Worst Flood in British History – 1953
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Jan 31, 2026
How Wet Was It Last Month?
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 6, 2026
Neither daily or monthly charts support the Met Office’s regular assertion that rainfall in the UK is becoming more extreme.
Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice
Polar Bear Numbers Rising And Health Improving In Areas With The Most Rapid Sea Ice Decline
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Feb 3, 2026
Link to paper: Body condition among Svalbard Polar bears Ursus maritimus during a period of rapid loss of sea ice
By Jon Aars, et al., Nature, Scientific Reports, Jan 29, 2026
From Abstract: We assessed how intrinsic (female reproductive state, age) and both males and females, BCI [Body Condition Index] declined until 2000, but increased afterwards, during a period with rapid loss of sea ice. In models including sea ice metrics and climate (Arctic Oscillation), there was no support for the predicted negative effect of warmer weather and habitat loss. This indicates a complex relationship between habitat, ecosystem structure, energy intake, and energy expenditure. Increases in some prey species, including harbor seals, reindeer, and walrus, may partly offset reduced access to seals. Our findings underline the importance not to extrapolate findings across populations.
From text: The Barents Sea (BS) area has experienced even greater temperature rises than other Arctic regions over the past few decades, with increases of up to around 2 °C per decade in some parts of the region.
True, Mother Jones, Polar Bears Are More Adaptable Than Alarmists Have Claimed
By Linnea Lueken, Climate Realism, Feb 5, 2026
Arctic Ice Recovering January 2026 Despite Vortex
By Ron Clutz, His Blog, Feb 1, 2026
Agriculture Issues & Fear of Famine
World Cereal Output Hit Record High In 2024
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 2, 2026
The long-term increase in food output has been undoubtedly driven by fossil fuels. Fertilizers have, of course, been hugely important, but maybe more important still has been the increase in productivity resulting from mechanization.
Mechanization on farms has obviously transformed the agricultural sector. But the ability to get foodstuff to markets, refrigeration and shipping are all equally important factors.
None of this would be possible without fossil fuels.
Un-Science or Non-Science?
Fake papers from China, Iran, flood science journals
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Jan 31, 2026
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?
Notice Anything Missing From Those Winter Storm Stories?
I&I Editorial Board, Jan 26, 2026
Editor’s note: The thought police at Google have declared that this editorial contains “unreliable and harmful claims” and is “dangerous and derogatory” and stripped its ads from the page (thereby proving our point that climate change is a religion, not a science).
No, Al-Jazeera, Climate Change Hasn’t Altered African Flood and Drought Patterns
By Anthony Watts, Climate Realism, Feb 3, 2026
Time: US Snowstorms and the Australian Heat Wave are Both Global Warming
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Feb 1, 2026
Sorry, Los Angeles Times, Coastal Highway 1 Has Always Suffered From Weather, Not Climate
By Linnea Lueken, Climate Realism, Feb 2, 2026
Aussie Green Radicals In Despair at Media Ignoring Their Warnings
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Feb 2, 2026
Communicating Better to the Public – Exaggerate, or be Vague?
Study ties particle pollution from wildfire smoke to 24,100 US deaths per year
By Dorany Pineda, AP, Feb 4, 2026
No link given, likely paper: Wildfire smoke PM2.5 and mortality rate in the contiguous United States: A causal modeling study
By Min Zhang, et al., AAAS Science Advances, Feb 4, 2016
From abstract: The relationships between chronic exposure to wildfire smoke PM2.5 (particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter of ≤2.5 μm) and mortality remain poorly understood, with causal evidence being particularly scarce. In this ecological study, we used a doubly robust method, incorporating flexible generalized propensity score estimation that captured potential nonlinearity and interactions among confounders and relaxed the distribution form assumption for exposure, to estimate the effects of annual exposure to wildfire smoke PM2.5 on all-cause and cause-specific mortality in the contiguous United States from 2006 to 2020.
[SEPP Comment: No physical evidence presented or evidence of the lethal dose of PM2.5. No doubt that under the new Federal rules for Science, this speculation would be called Science.]
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda
STEVE MILLOY: 20 Years After ‘An Inconvenient Truth’
By Steve Milloy, Daily Caller, Via WUWT, Feb 2, 2026
Why mock Europe
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Feb 4, 2026
According to the grey lady [New York Times], or perhaps blue from cold in recent weeks, the solution to insufficient energy is not to get more, it’s to use less:
“It’s part of a strategy called demand response that’s being used by power grid operators in times of peak energy use, like cold snaps and heat waves. The idea is to reduce power demand when supply is tight by incentivizing big electricity customers to use less.”
You won’t save money, because “incentivize” means “pay”. And if you’re into fancy words to hide bleak reality, things like “demand response” or “virtual power plants” or “coordinated energy reductions” (never mind “snaps” for cold and “waves” for heat even if the former last longer), we suggest “managed decline” to describe having lost both the strength of character and the clarity of thought to take bold measures to fix problems, especially ones that are self-inflicted.
Extreme heat will make Darwin unlivable say ABC prophets and soothsayer activists (who don’t know it was hotter 120 years ago)
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Feb 5, 2026
The Climate Justice Alliance seems to think climate change will hurt the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples disproportionately more than everyone else. But haven’t they been here for 40,000 years? If so, their ancestors survived the Holocene when the world was so much warmer that the seas were 1.5 meters higher around Australia. I hear the air conditioners were not too good either.
Expanding the Orthodoxy
The Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories
By Staff, UNIPCC, Accessed Feb 3, 2026
The IPCC Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (TFI) is responsible for the internationally agreed methodologies used for the calculation of national anthropogenic GHG emissions and removals by signatories to the UNFCCC and its Paris Agreement
Questioning European Green
Germany’s Chemical Reckoning: How Europe is Dismantling its Industrial Core
By Tilak Doshi, Tilak’s Substack, Feb 2, 2026
Just Another Week Of Net Zero Economy Wrecking
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 6, 2026
Questioning Green Elsewhere
Re-evaluating the Concern of Climate Change
By Andy May, WUWT, Feb 2, 2026
Bottom line: Scientists should stick to the facts as we know them today, conjecture and predictions are fine, as long as they are clearly labeled as such. We all are susceptible to defending our ideas and conjectures, it isn’t just Sharma, et al. However, logic and common sense tell us to stick with clear evidence. Reasonable conjectures should be kept in mind but not acted upon until facts and observations support them.
It didn’t work and you know it
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Feb 4, 2026
As Ryan Maue put it bluntly, “Report: Texas renewables ghosted the state during extreme weekend cold. ‘Wind, solar, and batteries fell from briefly supplying ~63% of generation to ~7% within roughly 48 hours.’ Grid is up + demand met by coal/gas/nuclear”. And Matthew Wielicki even more bluntly wrote “Renewables fail right when you need them most!” above a split-screen photo of solar panels covered in snow and a helicopter de-icing the blades of a wind turbine. The latter in particular is worth a thousand words on which energy you call on in a crisis, since the helicopter is definitely burning high-octane petroleum fuel.
Funding Issues
The Climate Agenda Is Collapsing—Will The Global Poor Finally Be Heard?
Poor nations refuse to follow Europe and the UN into economic suicide.
By Paul Driessen, Climate Change Dispatch, Feb 2, 2026
Global financial institutions are no better, including the World Bank and assorted Multilateral Development Banks, including the Asian Development Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and even the African Development Bank.
They remind me of Saint Augustine: let us embrace and promote development – but not yet, not too much, and not with fossil fuels.
Indeed, most of them still refuse to finance little more than wind, solar, and other “renewable energy” projects. They impose Carbon Colonialism, poverty, disease, and death on poor families, with self-righteous morality and feigned concern about the human tolls.
The Political Games Continue
Declare victory and withdraw
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Feb 4, 2026
Litigation Issues
The New Federal Reference Manual On Scientific Evidence: All The Smartest People Get Hoodwinked By The Climate Charlatans
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Jan 31, 2026
Link to: Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, Fourth Edition
By Elena Kagan, et al., Federal Judicial Center, 2025
Link to: Effects of Human-Caused Greenhouse Gas Emissions on U.S. Climate, Health, and Welfare
Committee on Anthropogenic Greenhouse Gases, Consensus Study Report, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025.: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/12404.
More On The Federal Judicial Center And The Attribution Scam
By Franics Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Feb 2, 2026
Would You Trust The National Academies Of Science To Tell You How Science Works?
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Feb 5, 2026
Cap-and-Trade and Carbon Taxes
UN dreams of siphoning a “climate tax”from The West through a tax on fossil fuel companies and the ultra rich
By Jo Nova, Her Blog Feb 4, 2026
CO2 Border Tariff? Don’t Even Think About It, DOE!
By Robert Bradley Jr., WUWT, Feb 5, 2026
Link to press release, Bipartisan Emissions Intensity Study Signed Into Law
Language Reflects Senators Cramer and Coons PROVE IT Act
By Office of Kevin Cramer, (R. North Dakota), Jan 27, 2026
Republicans Let ‘Carbon Tax Framework’ Slip Through Funding Bill, Opponents Warn
By Audrey Streb, Daily Caller, Feb 3, 2026
Subsidies and Mandates Forever
The Risks of AR7: Ed Miliband’s Poison Pill
Press Release, The Global Warming Policy Foundation, Feb 4, 2026
Link to report: The Risks of AR7: Ed Miliband’s Poison Pill
By David Turver, The Global Warming Policy Foundation, February 2026
[SEPP Comment: AR7 is Allocation Round 7, the January 2026 auction under the government’s Contract for Difference (CfD). It guarantees a minimum price for unreliable, renewable electricity. AR7 emphasizes offshore wind which is expensive as well as unreliable.]
Here, Have Another £1.9 Billion, Orsted!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 6, 2026
Why should UK energy customers be forced to hand over this money to a Danish state owned company who reneged on the first contract last year?
Energy Issues – Europe
Germany’s Natural Gas Storage Level Dwindles To Just 28%… Increasingly Critical
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Feb 6, 2026
Politicians, media lying about “harsh winter” being the cause of the shortage… Reality: Mismanagement is to blame…Germany was never even prepared for a WARM winter!
One Reason Only For Germany’s Heating Gas Crisis: Its Hardcore-Dumb… Energy Policy
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Jan 31, 2026
Under almost any realistic scenario involving a 20% storage level, which now appears unavoidable, the government has to force industries to shut down to ensure that homes, school and emergency services continue. The main consequence of a 20% storage is a severe economic hit.
[SEPP Comment: In the 1970s the US price controls on natural gas, resulted in severe winter shortages in 1976-77 forcing some public schools and businesses to close. Political fools have no nationality.]
Ed Miliband’s civil servants predict years of plunging gas prices
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 6, 2026
[SEPP Comment: The government has used rising natural gas prices as an excuse for higher electricity costs.]
Finland Regrets Its Green Grid
By Ron Clutz, His Blog, Feb 6, 2026
[SEPP Comment: Turbines don’t turn when frozen?]
Energy Issues – Elsewhere non-US
ABC: Green China is Building Lots of Backup Coal Plants Because they Need Reliable Energy
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Feb 4, 2026
Energy Issues — US
The Indispensable Role of Coal Baseload Power in Weathering Winter Storm Fern
Here, we give lessons from the grid’s performance and NERC warnings
By Terry L. Headley, Real Clear Energy, Feb 3, 2026
The events of late January 2026, during Winter Storm Fern, provided one of the clearest recent demonstrations of why the nation’s remaining coal-fired baseload fleet remains vital to grid reliability.
NERC’s Latest Long-Term Assessment: The Handwriting on the Wall
By Kristen Walker, Real Clear Energy, Feb 5, 2026
Link to NERC Report: Long-Term Reliability Assessment
By Staff, North American Electric Reliability Corporation, January 2026
NERC pinpoints the problem. Many on-site on-demand resources face retirements in the next five years only to be replaced with weather-dependent systems, complicating and impeding grid reliability.
American consumers expect and deserve reliable, affordable, and abundant energy.
Democrats in New York propose moratorium on new data centers
By Johan Sheridan, The Hill, Feb 6, 2026
[SEPP Comment: Is the meaning of Build Back Better Don’t Build At All?]
Microsoft Commits to Full Electricity Cost Recovery in Data Center Communities
By Sonal Patel, Power Mag, Jan 22, 2026
The PJM governors’ principles follow major regulatory action by FERC, which on Dec. 18, 2025, unanimously ordered PJM to overhaul its rules for co-located and behind-the-meter large loads. FERC found that PJM’s existing Behind-the-Meter Generation (BTMG) rules—which allowed load-serving entities to net BTMG output against peak demand and reduce transmission charges—violated cost-causation principles by inappropriately shifting costs onto other transmission customers. It directed PJM to propose a new megawatt threshold (stakeholder discussions have centered on roughly 20 MW) below which netting may continue, paired with a transition period for existing customers.
Back to Energy Reality: A Message to Leaders Finally Recognizing What Works
By David Holt, Real Clear Energy, Feb 5, 2026
Eliminate restrictions on reliable generation. Twelve states—including California, New York, and Massachusetts—currently prohibit new nuclear construction. At the exact moment AI and data centers push electricity demand toward 11-12% of total U.S. consumption by 2030, these states ban a proven, emissions-free, baseload power source.
Virginia Has No Reason to Rejoin RGGI
By Gregory Wrightstone, WUWT, Feb 6, 2026
A CO2 Coalition examination of the Pennsylvania proposal had described it as “a solution in search of a problem.” Ditto for Old Dominion.
Virginia policymakers should reject RGGI as a bad idea. The commonwealth has no climate crisis and no other good reason to join the consortium.
[SEPP Comment: According to the RGGI website: “RGGI is the first market-based, cap-and-invest regional initiative in the United States. Within the RGGI states, fossil-fuel-fired electric power generators with a capacity of 25 megawatts1 or greater (‘regulated sources’) are required to hold allowances equal to their CO2 emissions over a three-year control period.” [Boldface added] Elements of RGGI | RGGI, Inc. RGGI claiming it is market-based is a deceit. Legally restricting supply violates a free market. RGGI is a regulated market eliminating reliable generation.]
Data Centers Are Powering Texas’ Next Era of Growth
By Todd Little, Real Clear Energy, Feb 4, 2026
Washington’s Control of Energy
Biden’s Push for Renewables Funding Trump’s Push To ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’
By James Varney, WUWT, Feb 2, 2026
As it reorients the federal government’s energy loan portfolio, the administration has revamped the way those loans are made in response to questions raised about the Biden administration’s practices. The Environmental Protection Agency – a regulatory agency that Biden, for the first time, made into a financial arm of his NetZero push – now appears to be out of the energy loan business, even as questions linger about that activity.
Nuclear Energy and Fears
Meta’s Nuclear Bet Is an Endorsement of Trump’s Energy Vision
By Anthony Watts and H. Sterling Burnett, WUWT, Feb 6, 2026
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
Elon’s Solar Silliness
At Davos, Musk went off the deep end on solar. Again.
By Robert Bryce, His Substack, Feb 3, 2026
Link to Plan: Master Plan Part 3
Sustainable Energy for All of Earth
By Staff, Tesla, Apr 5, 2023
[SEPP Comment: Is Musk planning something other than the obvious?]
Why the ‘Hype Phase’ of Wind and Solar Is Over
As federal subsidies dry up under the Trump administration, wind and solar energy must compete on cost and reliability, experts say.
By Kevin Stocklin, The Epoch Times, Updated Feb 1, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Storage
Utility Scale Lithium Based Energy Storage Systems
By Richard Ellenbogen, WUWT, Feb 1, 2026
Link to paper: The Intrinsic Danger of Siting Utility Scale Lithium Based Energy Storage Systems In Densely Populated Areas: Such Danger Would Be Magnified In Nassau and Suffolk Counties
By Richard Ellenboge, [submitted report to the Hauppauge Fire Department] Jan 21, 2026
Consumers Will Pay For Ed Miliband’s Battery Subsidy Gold Rush
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 3, 2026
The UK uses about 50 GW [per hour] at peak periods, so 27 GW of storage might last half an hour! Last time I checked, the sun goes down for about 16 hours in midwinter.
Leake also repeats the lie that gas is currently the most expensive form of generation.
It is no wonder the fat cats are queuing up for this gold rush. But it is energy users who will pay their fat profits, which are estimated to be 15% return on capital.
Bess our souls
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Feb 4, 2026
We got an email from one of our energy providers “Brrr, it’s cold outside!” and “Stay warm, stay safe” with a multicultural mom bundling a child. Then it said “Ready if the power goes out? Winter storms, heavy ice accumulation and high winds can wreak havoc on your city’s power grid. Being ready with backup power solutions and emergency kits can help you comfortably weather the storm.”
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles
EV Bloodbath: Carmakers Suffer Face-Melting Losses As Buyers Flee, Credits End
By Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge, Feb 4, 2026
Australians slam brakes on EVs: Youngest drivers had a “stronger connection” to fossil fuel cars
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Feb 3, 2026
Carbon Schemes
Wood Vaulting – Dumbest Climate Geo-engineering Idea Ever?
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Jan 31, 2026
“Scientists Think We Could Slow Climate Change by Sinking Trees in the Arctic Ocean”
[SEPP Comment: Only if they are locally grown?]
California Dreaming
Can California’s Oil Industry Survive?
By Edward Ring, California Policy Center, Feb 4, 2026
The consensus across most of California’s oil industry is that the dominoes are falling. CalGEM, the regulator that approves drilling permits, has pretty much froze permitting for going on five years. There are plenty of oil reserves left in California, but rates of production for most wells are maximized in the first 5-10 years then taper down to become uneconomical usually within 20-25 years. Without a continuous program of new drilling, even existing fields with most of their oil still in the ground can become unproductive.
And then there are the refinery owners. In response to escalating regulations, Valero’s Benicia refinery is not the only dropout. Also giving up on California is the Phillips 66 refinery in Long Beach. These two refineries together processed 104 million barrels of crude oil per year, and shutting them down drops refinery capacity by 18 percent
Health, Energy, and Climate
Turning “What If” into “How Many”: The Rhetorical Alchemy of Climate Modeling
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Feb 4, 2026
Link to paper: Projected impacts of climate change on malaria in Africa
By Tasmin L. Symons, et al., Nature, Jan 28, 2026
From Rotter: In the end, this paper tells us less about the future of malaria than about the current state of climate-related modeling. It shows how uncertainty can be multiplied, smoothed, and translated into apparent precision. It shows how scenarios can be mistaken for forecasts. And it shows how, once numbers are published in a journal like Nature, they are treated as evidence—even when the authors themselves say they are not.
[SEPP Comment: If the authors of the paper truly cared about malaria, they would advocate indoor spraying of huts with DDT every six months. It worked for years until DDT was banned by the US.]
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE
Berlin Hospitals Struggle to Treat Hundreds of Falls During Winter Freeze Because Environmental Laws Forbid Use of Salt on Sidewalks
By Eugyppius, The Daily Sceptic, Jan 31, 2026
Texas sues wind turbine company for allegedly abandoning 3,000 blades in west Texas
By Amber Kite, Fox 4, Feb 5, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
[SEPP Comment: Isn’t wind power renewable?]
Climate Scientist Who Predicted End Of “Heavy Frost And Snow” Now Refuses Media Inquiries
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Feb 3, 2026
Green Mountain Transit EV buses out of commission
By Laura Ullman, WCAX 3, Vermont, Jan 29, 2026
The manufacturer said they are a fire hazard, so they can’t sit in the GMT garage. That’s why they are all covered in snow.
The buses have to be 41 degrees to charge, and there’s not a day of 40s in sight.
[SEPP Comment: The TV reporter said people called the snow topped buses Mohawks, she prefers Snowhawks.]
STEVE MILLOY: 20 Years After ‘An Inconvenient Truth’
By Steve Milloy, Daily Caller, Via WUWT, Feb 2, 2026
Nutty Alarmism: The Latest
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Feb 6, 2026
This inconvenient truth has the true believers upset. Consider the latest from Roger Hallam, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, where he works full-time:
“Another disastrously pathetic response from ‘environmental campaigners’ – who cares about the bloody ‘green new deal’. What needs to be communicated is that unless there is a drastic reduction in emissions – and that means including zero car emissions by 2030 – Europeans are going to starve to death. Literally, they are going to be dead.”
[SEPP Comment: CO2 is essential for photosynthesis, the food source for all life beyond chemosynthesizing bacteria, and life dependent of it. More photosynthesis will cause mass starvation?]
ARTICLES
1. The EU’s Secret Assault on Your Free Speech
A decision against X looks technical on the surface but is a road map for future censorship.
By Megan K. Jacobson, WSJ, Feb 5, 2026
Link to: Commission Decision: pursuant to Articles 73(1), 73(3) and 74(1) of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 October 2022 on a Single Market for Digital Services and amending Directive 2000/31/EC (Digital Services Act), European Commission, Dec 5, 2025
Distribution only on a ‘Need to know’ basis
The assistant editor of the WSJ begins with:
“The psychological concepts of projection and reaction formation explain a lot about today’s politics. People loudly insist they’re determined to protect liberal democracy while advocating policies that would trample it. So it is with the European Union’s Digital Services Act.
The U.S. House Judiciary Committee last week released the EU’s previously secret full decision to issue the first fine under the DSA to X (formerly Twitter) in December. It confirms what critics have warned: This law threatens everyone’s basic liberties.
Yes, everyone’s—even those far from Europe. The sprawling 2022 law pushes social-media platforms to enforce European speech laws worldwide. Its supporters portray it as a technocratic, ‘content neutral’ measure to ensure democratically enacted EU member states’ laws are applied justly. The European Commission asserts that the DSA’s ‘main goal’ is to ‘create a digital space that respects citizens and consumers’ fundamental rights’ by ‘establishing a clear set of rules across the EU.’
One of the most dangerous parts of the DSA is the massive power it hands to the commission, the EU’s international regulatory arm. While much of EU regulatory enforcement occurs at the national level, which is more accountable to voters, the DSA empowers the commission to investigate platforms and levy fines of up to 6% of their global annual revenue for each violation. In these investigations, the commission acts as both prosecutor and judge—accusing companies of noncompliance under a broad, ambiguous law, then deciding if companies’ answers are enough to disprove the allegations. An American court would strike down such a law as both unconstitutionally vague and a travesty of due process.
The EU portrays the commission as a neutral administrator. Its 12-paragraph public explanation of its decision to fine X in December seemed consistent with that. The three violations sounded technical: X’s current practice of minimally verifying blue-checkmark ‘verified’ users’ identities is deceptive; X hasn’t adequately provided a public, searchable repository of all its advertising content as the DSA requires; and X isn’t giving qualified researchers the access to its data that the law also mandates.
But the 184-page decision that American lawmakers made public shows the commission acting like a petty despot, with little if any regard for due process.
The decision relies on some stunning interpretations of law. It claims that X’s blue checkmarks violate the DSA’s Article 25, which says ‘online platforms shall not design, organise or operate their online interfaces’ in a way that ‘impairs’ users’ abilities to ‘make free and informed decisions.’ The commission’s definition of ‘decisions’ turns out to include mere thoughts: whether users believe an account is authentic on a platform ‘advertising itself as a source for information and news.’ As X protests in its response, the commission’s broad interpretation of Article 25 puts ‘at risk virtually every online interface implemented by every platform.’”
After going into further detail, the assistant editor concludes with:
“The commission further raised the pressure for X to give in on censorship by ordering it to give researchers easier access to its data, particularly for those investigating general ‘misinformation’—though the legal basis for this is questionable. This will make it much easier for pro-censorship figures—such as those the U.S. State Department banned from the country in December—to find fodder to support demands for the removal of content.
Unless Washington or sensible European voices push back against the commission, platforms and those of us who enjoy free online expression are largely at its whim. Let’s hope someone on either side of the Atlantic cares about preserving actual liberal democracy.”
I believe this august weekly roundup should be renamed. Renamed to what you may ask?
Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup
Incorporating The Miliband Times.
On a page scan he rarely scores below 14 mentions; the gift that keeps giving – especially if you happen to be a Danish windmill merchant in search of ever greater subsidies.
And for the middle classes with a few bob in the bank we have this splendid Guardian feature:
Homes with air source heat pumps or solar panels for sale in England – in pictures…
Oswestry, Shropshire
On the English side of the Welsh border (you wouldn’t think it from the name, Tan y Coed, which means “under the trees”) is this stone longhouse, originally designed to house livestock. It is nestled deep in a valley, surrounded by Candy Woods – once owned by Ian Fleming – and close to Oswestry. There are solar panels on the roof, and a new terrace raised on stilts over a pond. There are four bedrooms in the main house and another in a separate annexe. In the garden is a studio, a geodesic dome greenhouse and a folly bell tower. £1.1m.
Folly is the word.
Story Tip
Ganteför: Climate research has forgotten the waves
Sea-air carbon dioxide (CO2) flux is typically estimated from the product of the gas transfer velocity (K) and the CO2 fugacity difference between the ocean surface and atmosphere. Total gas exchange comprises interfacial transfer across the unbroken surface and bubble-mediated transfer from wave breaking. While interfacial transfer is symmetric for invasion and evasion, bubble-mediated transfer theoretically favours invasion due to hydrostatic pressure, though field evidence has been lacking. Here we provide direct field evidence of this asymmetry and develop an asymmetric flux equation. Applying the asymmetric equation reduces bias in K, and increases global oceanic CO2 uptake by 0.3-0.4 Pg C yr-1 (~15% on average from 1991 to 2020) relative to conventional estimates. Further evasion data are needed to better quantify the asymmetry factor. Our study suggests that the ocean may have absorbed more CO2 than previously thought, and the asymmetric equation should be used for future CO2 flux assessments.
There are other texts too
“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.”
Richard P. Feynman
Because of the significant (60% per TFK_bams09) non-radiative, i.e. kinetic, heat transfer processes of the contiguous participating atmospheric molecules the surface cannot upwell an “extra” 396 W/m^2 RGHE energy as a near Black Body.
As demonstrated by experiment, the gold standard of classical science.
For the experimental write up see:
https://principia-scientific.org/debunking-the-greenhouse-gas-theory-with-a-boiling-water-pot/
Search: Bruges group “boiling water pot” Schroeder
Or request copy.
“The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.”
Carl Sagan
“The principle of science, the definition, almost, is the following: The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific “truth.””
Richard P. Feynman, “Six Easy Pieces”
Because of the significant (60% per TFK_bams09) non-radiative, i.e. kinetic, heat transfer processes of the contiguous participating atmospheric molecules the surface cannot upwell “extra” energy as a near Black Body.
No BB = no RGHE.
As demonstrated by experiment, the gold standard of classical science.
For the experimental write up see:
Search: Bruges group “boiling water pot” Schroeder or request copy.