The Week That Was: 2026-02-28 (February 28, 2026)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week: “We have a way of checking whether an idea is correct or not that has nothing to do with where it came from. We simply test it against observation. So, in science we are not interested in where an idea comes from.”— Richard Feynman, “The Uncertainty of Science” in The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist
Number of the Week: ZERO
THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Scope: This TWTW begins a discussion of EPA’s Endangerment Finding and those who advocate that carbon dioxide is the “control knob” of climate. TWTW continues with an essay by Howard “Cork” Hayden demonstrating that critical evidence is missing from the reports of the IPCC and those who claim carbon dioxide has a major influence on global temperatures. TWTW concludes with part of a post by Ross McKitrick clarifying some of the misconceptions surrounding the report on the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions issued by the US Department of Energy in July.
*********************
A Tough Fight Looming?
Those who realize that carbon dioxide is a bit player in the complex play called climate change are celebrating the EPA’s rescission of the 2009 finding that carbon dioxide endangers public health and welfare. Water vapor is by far the dominant greenhouse gas, and the EPA twisted meanings to avoid claiming that water vapor endangers public health and welfare. If the EPA had made such a proclamation, farmers who depend on aerial spraying for irrigation would have been outraged, joined by suburbanites who spray their lawns, as well as municipalities that use spray sewerage treatment (to improve oxygen transfer, enhance efficiency, and control odor). The absurdity of the greenhouse gas finding would have been clearly exposed.
Unfortunately, it appears that to have this absurdity removed from the US laws and regulations will not be easy. As discussed in the February 14 TWTW, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) together with the Federal Judicial Center, wrote the new US Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence. Even though the Chapter on Climate Change has been thankfully dropped, the Manual contains assertions that are highly questionable in the fields of physical science. Such assertions include sections in the chapter “How Science Works.”
The private organization Government Accountability & Oversight (GAO) had several posts based on using the Freedom of Information Act showing continuing climate activism by National Academies – one post stated:
“Following up, most recently, on this post, GAO sees just how absurd it is for NASEM to purport to be any sort of impartial participant on ‘climate’ science or policy, particularly as it pertains to the effort to rush in and influence the Environmental Protection Agency’s reconsideration and rescission of the 2009 Endangerment Finding (EF).”
Further, H. Sterling Burnett of The Heartland Institute exposes a sustained program lasting years to mislead judges as to the causes of climate change. In “Congress, States Probe Attempts to Mislead Judges on Climate Change,” Burnett writes in part:
“Climate alarmists and environmental lobbyists have found still another backdoor way to get a favorable verdict, facts and law be damned: lie to, mislead, or ‘educate and train’ the judiciary about how to think about climate change.
Dozens of lawsuits have been filed against multinational oil and gas companies and the lobbying groups that represent them across the United States, by state and, primarily, local governments and some private parties. In truth, none of these lawsuits, with their novel and indeed unprovable notions of legal liability, should have ever made it through the courtroom door. In the U.S. Constitution, Congress and the president are given sole authority to regulate interstate commerce, which trade in and the use of oil, gas, and coal certainly are.
The courts are simply not the proper legal, constitutional forum for hashing out the relative benefits and costs of fossil fuel development and use. Consequently, each of these cases should have been barred at the courthouse door before the first pleading. That’s neither here nor there, however, because they have been allowed, and while some have been dismissed, others are still proceeding.
Climate Change Weekly, and Environment & Climate News when it was still in publication, have covered the progress of these cases, documenting the many dismissals and losses suffered by the plaintiff-activists pushing these lawsuits. Almost every dismissal was based on the federal preemption and interstate commerce issues I noted above.
Since the law doesn’t favor these lawsuits, and the facts and equities are a matter for Congress (as acknowledged in the cases that have reached final resolution so far), climate lawfare groups are attempting an end around by misleading the judiciary, as with a recent case in Oregon, and attempting to ‘train’ judges to think the ‘right way’ about climate change.
The attempt to train judges to think the ‘right way’ about climate change is not new. The Environmental Law Institute (ELI) has been hosting climate change education/litigation retreats and seminars for judges for more than a decade. Judges’ travel, lodging, meals, and materials are covered. The ELI is explicitly an advocacy organization, whose ‘mission is to foster innovative, just, and practical law and policy solutions to enable leaders across borders and sectors to make environmental, economic, and social progress.’
The ELI says it does this in part by ‘training judges around the world . . ..’
Judges, however, are not charged with innovating: they are charged with enforcing existing laws on the books as they were written and enacted by the duly elected representatives of the people. The courts are not the place to develop novel legal theories in pursuit of some particular judge’s or clique of judges’ ideas about social, economic, or environmental justice.
Although the ELI is not a party to the climate lawsuits filed around the country, its training materials cite and lend support to research by the same ‘experts’ and legal theories and positions the plaintiffs in these lawsuits use in the ongoing cases. ELI’s position is that climate change is a ‘major environmental and public health problem’ driven by ‘carbon pollution, largely from fossil fuels,’ which is ‘dramatically altering the climate and putting people in harm’s way.’ The ELI does not acknowledge the existence of a legitimate debate about the causes and consequences of climate change.
ELI is telling judges what they should think about climate science, what evidence is good, the value of consensus, and who is trustworthy. When those same experts and sets of studies are presented as evidence, the judges now have ELI’s training in the backs of their minds concerning who and what to believe. So much for justice being blind.”
For the Burnett article see link under Challenging the Orthodoxy, for the GAO article see link under Defending the Orthodoxy and for the previous TWTW comments on NASEM activism see https://www.sepp.org/twtwfiles/2026/TWTW%20February%2014,%202026.pdf
*********************
Missing Evidence: During the great debate in the 16th and 17th centuries whether Earth was the center of the Universe or just a planet orbiting the Sun, the scientific method came into fruition. The scientific method requires that all theories, hypotheses, etc. be supported by physical evidence. Often this evidence is gathered by carefully controlled experiments. If experiment is not possible, such as planets orbiting the sun, by careful systematic observations. If experiments and observations clash, observations are the ultimate and final judge.
Unfortunately, in its climate change activism, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) have lost objectivity and any sense of the scientific method. Social sciences often do not have physical evidence and therefore rely on means such as opinion, crude testing, or surveys. But physical sciences rely on physical evidence.
As discussed in the February 7 TWTW, by 1863 John Tyndall used early spectroscopy instruments to show that water vapor was the dominant greenhouse gas, preventing the Earth’s land masses from deeply freezing at night, killing growing vegetation. Subsequent scientists confused the issue using terms such as carbonic acid for water vapor and carbon dioxide (Carbonic acid is a liquid, not a gas).
Later, global climate modelers ignored the importance of water vapor, and pretended that carbon dioxide is the dominate greenhouse gas. In its 2009 Endangerment Finding,, the EPA continued this error. Global climate modelers continue to add water vapor at end of their calculations while it should be included in the entire calculations because it dominates the temperature effects of many other greenhouse gases.
Writing “A Secret Unwittingly Revealed” in the Energy Advocate, posted on the SEPP website, AMO physicist Howard “Cork” Hayden exposes the lack of understanding of radiative transfer and the greenhouse effect embodied in the global climate models. Hayden writes:
BEGIN QUOTE:
Sunlight brings heat to the earth, and infrared radiation (IR) going to space cools the planet. Some IR is trapped by the atmosphere. Even Al Gore understood that much way back in 2006 when his movie An Inconvenient Truth (from which the nearby picture was extracted) was released. Wouldn’t it be nice if climate-modelers knew that much! Unfortunately, they do not.
Let us begin at the beginning. Greenhouse gases do not cause hurricanes, sea-level rise, tornadoes, floods, droughts, ice storms, glacial melting, torrential rains, polar vortices, blizzards, El Niños, La Niñas, or any other type of weather disaster. Their ONE AND ONLY effect is to act on outgoing IR via the greenhouse effect. Changes in greenhouse gas concentrations cause changes in outgoing IR. Unbeknownst to Mr. Gore, the greenhouse effect is very much wavelength dependent.
You would imagine that the mechanism(s) by which IR interacts with the atmosphere would be the main concern of scientists who model the climate.
But you would be wrong.
No, climate models are based on nothing but (real or imagined) correlations. The secret has been given away in a publication by phys.org [1]:
Reliable predictions of how the Earth’s climate will respond as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels increase are based on climate models. These models, in turn, are based on data from past geological times in which the CO2 content in the Earth’s atmosphere changed in a similar way to today and the near future. [Emphasis added.]
The surface of our planet emits an average of 398 W/m2, but only about 239 W/m2 goes to space because of those greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. You would think that climatologists would fly balloons to measure how much IR exists at what altitude and what temperature.
But you would be wrong. They have never done so.
An increase in the concentration of any greenhouse gas ought to cause a decrease in the amount of IR going to space. You would expect the climate scientists who contribute their wisdom to the IPCC would cite numerous measurements of IR intensity made by satellites looking down to show the decrease in IR.
But you would be wrong.
There has been precisely one experiment that has compared the quantity of IR emitted to space from time to time. The CERES project [2] found that the amount of IR emitted to space has increased over time. Did you ever lose heat faster by putting on a blanket?
Carbon dioxide (CO2, known euphemistically as “carbon”) interacts with IR in a certain region of the IR spectrum. Increasing CO2 concentration should therefore cause some change in the spectrum of IR going to space. You might therefore believe that climate scientists would publish measured “before and after” IR spectra to show exactly that phenomenon.
But you would be wrong.
The IPCC has never—repeat, never—published so much as a single spectrum of measured outgoing IR. No BEFORE spectra, no AFTER spectra. Zero spectra.
See those cute little red wavy arrows that Al Gore’s fingers point to? They represent IR leaving the surface. The quantity is calculable from the surface temperature using the Stefan-Boltzmann law, which is to be found in every elementary physics book on the planet. As the surface temperature increases, the IR flux from the surface increases by about 5.5 W/m2 for every 1ºC of temperature rise. If a given model predicts a 4ºC temperature rise, the models surely need to explain how the increase of 22 W/m2 in IR emission is inhibited by that much increase in the greenhouse effect. Since this IR emission involves nothing very complicated, you would naturally assume that every climate model would account for it.
Again, you would be wrong. Every single model ever published simply ignores this simple calculation. Evidently, elementary physics is beneath IPCC’s dignity.
[1] “New temperature record challenges extreme high-latitude warmth paradigm,” edited by Gaby Clark, reviewed by Robert Egan, Jan 16, 2026, https://phys.org/news/2026-01-temperatureextreme-high-latitude-warmth.html
[2] Norman G. Loeb talk to CERES staff, “Observational Assessment of Changes in Earth’s Energy Imbalance Since 2000,” https://ceres.larc.nasa.gov/documents/STM/2023-05/15_Loeb_Contributed_Science_Presentation_2023.pdf
END QUOTE:
As TWTW readers may realize, the statement “These models, in turn, are based on data from past geological times in which the CO2 content in the Earth’s atmosphere changed in a similar way to today and the near future” [Emphasis added.] is false. The data, the physical evidence, used in these studies is the result of careful cherry picking – selecting only the data that supports the claim and ignoring the data that contradicts it. Here is the key in addressing the EPA’s recission of the Endangerment Finding – stick to the physical evidence, not what others claim it to be.
See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy or http://www.sepp.org/science_papers/A%20Secret%20Unwittingly%20Revealed.docx
*********************
Clearing Up: Canadian econometrician Ross McKitrick was one of the five independent Ph.D.’s who authored the report “A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate” for the US Department of Energy published in July. Judith Curry, another of the scientists, posted on her website, Climate, Etc., an essay by McKitrick clearing up a few misconceptions about the project. A co-recipient of the 2023 Frederick Seitz Memorial Award, McKitrick writes in part:
“First, it is alleged we were ‘secretive’ and kept our work from public scrutiny. Far from it. I’ve been an invited reviewer for many Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports. The IPCC selects chapter authors in a closed-door process, the chapter drafts are written in secret, reviewers are bound to secrecy, and we are forbidden from sharing either drafts or our own comments until after the final version is published. Academic journals likewise demand secrecy of referees regarding submitted drafts and review comments. Our group, by contrast, knew that our draft would be released for public comment, the comments would be published before our responses were, and everything would be out in the open. The process under which we have been working was far more transparent than either the IPCC or academic journals—indeed uncomfortably so.
Second, our report is sometimes described as ‘attacking climate science.’ Such nonsense is intended to discredit it and stop people from reading it. We quote extensively from past IPCC reports and rely on mainstream peer-reviewed science and data. We aimed to explain important topics and lines of evidence that have typically been downplayed in public discussions, in other words to broaden the scientific discussion, not attack it.
Third, it has been alleged that we were ordered to write a report attacking the 2009 Endangerment Finding (EF), a rule underpinning US greenhouse gas regulations. In truth we were kept well away from the EF reconsideration process. In early conversations we learned that the EF was up for reconsideration but also that we weren’t going to be involved in the draft rulemaking. For our part we demanded, and received, complete editorial independence. The EF team was housed at the Environmental Protection Agency while we were at the DOE, and we neither met them, knew who they were, nor what they were doing.
When news broke that the EPA would publish a draft rulemaking rescinding the EF we asked that our report be published separately so the two projects would not be conflated in the public mind. Alas the Administration did not avail themselves of our wisdom on that point and confusion ensued. But the final version of the EF rulemaking contains a footnote clarifying that they did not rely on our report for their decision.
Fourth, and on that point, there is now a view out there that—ha ha—the Administration ‘abandoned’ our report. No, the EPA neither accepted nor rejected it because they concluded they lacked statutory authority to do either. The rescission of the EF was based on recent court rulings that limit U.S. Agency powers to regulate in areas not specified in legislation. The EPA concluded they lacked regulatory authority over greenhouse gases, so neither can they issue findings on climate science, just as they have no authority to issue scientific findings on vaccines or cancer treatment.
Fifth we have been accused of ignoring our critics. No, due to the FACA lawsuit we are under court-imposed conditions not to function as the Climate Working Group, not even to respond to the comments we received, and not to publish a revised report. The ‘follow the science’ crowd succeeded in using litigation to shut down the debate. But we have been individually going through the critical comments, corresponding directly with colleagues, and developing response material. If the legalities get sorted out we will finish what we started by releasing a final report and a complete set of responses to the public comments.”
For this post and a review of a small section of the report by Canadian John Robson, see links under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
*********************
Number of the Week: ZERO: As AMO physicist Howard “Cork” Hayden writes above:
“The IPCC has never—repeat, never—published so much as a single spectrum of measured outgoing IR. No BEFORE spectra, no AFTER spectra. Zero spectra.”
We can calculate the greenhouse effect by subtracting the outgoing infrared radiation (IR) at the top of the atmosphere as observed by satellites and weather balloons from the infrared radiation emitted by the surface of Earth using the Stefan-Boltzmann Law validated by observations. For over thirty years the UN IPCC has been considered the world’s expert in the greenhouse effect and it has failed to make the one basic calculation needed to estimate it?
NEWS YOU CAN USE:
Science: Is the Sun Rising?
Sunspots Abruptly Disappear
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Feb 25, 2026
Changing Sunlight – Sun Movement and Spin
By Richard Willoughby, WUWT, Feb 22, 2026
[SEPP Comment: The sun is a ball of plasma, not bounded by land. Unlike Earth on which the equator and the poles rotate in unison, on the sun the equator rotates faster than the poles and the sun is influenced by the orbits of the planets.]
Censorship
Aussie Senator: US Social Media Reluctance to Censor Climate Skeptics – “This is the Problem”
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Feb 21, 2026
[SEPP Comment: Silence Mr. Trump?]
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
A Secret Unwittingly Revealed
By Howard “Cork” Hayden, The Energy Advocate, February 2026
http://www.sepp.org/science_papers/A%20Secret%20Unwittingly%20Revealed.docx
Clearing up some misconceptions about the DoE report
By Ross McKitrick, Climate Etc., Feb 21, 2025
Congress, States Probe Attempts to Mislead Judges on Climate Change
By H. Sterling Burnett, Heartland.org, Via Cornwall Alliance, Feb 17, 2026
Seven Lies We’re Told About Climate Change | Michael Shellenberger
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 24, 2026
New Research Reaffirms Clouds, Aerosols, And Surface Solar Radiation Are ‘Driving The Climate System’
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Feb 23, 2026
Link to paper: An overview of surface solar radiation data products at the German meteorological service
By U. Pfeifroth, et al., Journal of the European Meteorological Society, June 2026
[SEPP Comment: Verifies for Germany at least, that daytime warming is being driven by increasing sunshine as asserted by the NOAA’s CERES project.]
#DoEDeepDive: Ch. 6.4 on extreme precipitation in the US
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Feb 25, 2026
Trump Is Right: Science Demands That We Overturn the ‘Endangerment Finding’
Taking on the climate establishment with research that debunks the media narrative.
By Kevin Mooney, Real Clear Energy, Feb 25, 2026
Defending the Orthodoxy
More National Academies of Climate Activism
By Staff, Government Accountability & Oversight, Feb 26, 2026
Modeled and Observed Stratospheric Temperature Changes: Implications for Fingerprint Studies
By Benjamin D. Santer, Susan Solomon, David W. J. Thompson, Qiang Fu, AGU Advances, Feb 24, 2026 [H/t Carbon Brief]
Defending the Orthodoxy – Bandwagon Science
Making sense of a chaotic planet: How understanding weather and climate risks depends on supercomputers like NCAR’s
By Antonios Mamalakis, The Conversation, Feb 25, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
[SEPP Comment: Climate cannot be understood using models based on assumptions contradicted by physical evidence, no matter how complex the models are.]
Questioning the Orthodoxy
Changing climate attributed to climate change
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Feb 25, 2026
The notion that climate change is an entity, not a wide collection of statistical descriptions of all kinds of local, regional, or continental changes in weather in all kinds of ways, is already junk science. But it’s nothing to the notion that we could track it down, approach it in its lair, “fight” it, wrestle it to the ground, beat its brains out or make it say uncle, and have the weather never change. It’s a deeply embedded, entirely unexamined, and idiotic assumption.
The 1.5ºC and ‘well below’ 2ºC targets
An impossible dream
By Robin Guenier, Climate Skepticism, Feb 24, 2026
According to the World Economic Forum:
“The 1.5-degree Celsius threshold is considered a critical threshold, as it is the point at which the impacts of climate change are expected to become increasingly severe.”
Tidbits
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Feb 25, 2026
If basket-weaving as a college course is too much for you, or immune from criticism in these woke-snowflake times, fear not. Harvard seeks to repair the damage from generations of woke-snowflake activism masquerading as academic excellence with a new major in “Energy, Climate, and Environment” that will focus relentlessly on one side of the issue. As the Washington Free Beacon smirks, “The major is spearheaded by a professor who co-chaired an activist group that pushed Harvard to divest from fossil fuels and demanded that the university ‘Provide funds and staff for faculty engaging in advocacy on climate change in Massachusetts and at the national/international level.’” And surely it doesn’t help to have your “vice provost for climate and sustainability” insist that there’s such “a commitment to making this rigorous” that there will even be “a statistics requirement.” Or even to have such a vice provost. But fear not. It’s no mere major. It’s a “concentration”. Of activists.
The Rules of Credibility
What does it take to impress a climate sceptic?
By John Ridgway, Climate Scepticism, Feb 23, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
[SEPP Comment: Just physical evidence.]
Three Times The Cost, Causes Earthquakes–Roll On The Green Power Revolution!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 26, 2026
So, it’s OK to have earthquakes three times as powerful as from fracking, because geothermal is “good” and fracking “bad”.
Problems in the Orthodoxy
Bloomberg Net Zero Obituary: “Even at the peak of its popularity, net zero looked far-fetched”
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Feb 28, 2026
So, what happened to produce such a radical about face? One possibility, AI suddenly became really important in the investment landscape – and Bloomberg is a big player in the AI investment space.
And AI is incompatible with Net Zero.
Social Benefits of Carbon Dioxide
Surprising Discovery: Sahara Is Greening…Billions Of Trees Where Once Thought To Be Barren
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Feb 24, 2026
[SEPP Comment: The image is artificial; the benefits are not.]
The effect of extra CO2 on Blue Grama
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Feb 25, 2026
From the CO2Science archive
Seeking a Common Ground
The Great American Weather Tragedy: Excellent Forecasts But Poor Societal Response
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Feb 21, 2026
Hurricane Karina struck the U.S. Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005, producing extensive flooding of New Orleans due to levee failures. This storm resulted in 1833 deaths, the displacement of millions of people, and approximately $161 billion in damage, making it the costliest hurricane in U.S. history.
Finally, the levee infrastructure protecting New Orleans was not designed for the passage of a strong hurricane [to the East], with improvements delayed by legal actions from environmental organizations.
It is frustrating that the media spends so much time talking about loss of life from climate change, but never mentions that improved weather prediction and investments to improve resilience could reduce severe weather-related deaths and damage by 90% or more.
Science, Policy, and Evidence
Post Brexit Britain Still Isn’t Dredging Canals to Stop the Floods
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Feb 21, 2026
[SEPP Comment: Too busy building wind turbines to pump the water?]
Changing Weather
La Nina is Collapsing: Implications for Late Winter and Spring
As predicted, La Niña is collapsing, which should be good news for those worried about water supplies.
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Feb 23, 2026
[SEPP Comment: The US Pacific Northwest will become cool and wet again?]
Are the Strongest Nor’easters Getting Stronger? A Closer Look
A case study in confidence inflation in climate science
By Roger Pielke, Jr., His Blog, Feb 24, 2026
Link to paper: The intensification of the strongest nor’easters
By Kevin Chen, et al., PNAS, July 14, 2025
Changing Climate
The trees of New Brunswick talk to us
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Feb 25, 2026
Link to paper: High-resolution Forest and fire dynamics from Fish Lake, New Brunswick, Canada, during the last millennium
By Ryan J Collins, et al., Physical Sciences, Nov 6, 2026
From abstract: The Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA – AD 900–1400), Little Ice Age (LIA – AD 1400–1850), and the European settlement period were clearly demarcated in the pollen record.
Changing Climate – Cultures & Civilizations
When CO2 was ideal Easter Island was hit by severe drought for a century — “far worse than today”
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Feb 21, 2026
Link to paper: Prolonged drought on Rapa Nui during the decline of megalithic monument construction.
By Redmond Stein, et al., Nature, Communications Earth & Environment, Nov 5, 2025
From Nova: The extinction of tall trees and land birds on Easter Island became the apocryphal story of a man-made ecological disaster, but a new technique for estimating rainfall shows that there was a terrible drought starting in 1550AD that lasted for 100 years. This would have been a bit dire on a small island that doesn’t even have a river and relied on crater lakes.
Changing Seas
Efficacy of downwelling IR
By Andy May, WUWT, Feb 24, 2026
Is the Ocean Surface a boundary condition?
By Andy May, WUWT, Feb 27, 2026
Link to paper: The Response of the Ocean Thermal Skin Layer to Variations in Incident Infrared Radiation
By Elizabeth W. Wong, Peter J. Minnett, JGR Oceans, Mar 23, 2018
See link immediately above.
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?
They don’t know from ice
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Feb 25, 2026
Again, not just the “Younger Dryas” but all those “Dansgaard-Oeschger Events” we wrote of last week, where temperature suddenly shot up by as much as 10-16˚C in a couple of centuries or even less in the past 50,000, indicate that hitting tipping points is not, for Earth’s climate, evidence that it has destabilized, but the same old same old. As is a long glacial being followed by an interglacial yet again. Indeed, to call the Holocene its own “epoch” when it’s just one more interglacial on the 100,000 instalment plan is not merely self-centered. It’s ignorant.
So, what does Ripple prattle instead? Why:
“We’re now moving away from that stability and could be entering a period of unprecedented climate change.”
CCN’s Climate Bombs
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 27, 2026
You probably remember the outfit Covering Climate Now, which was set up to encourage journalists to forget the facts concerning weather events and make up stories about a “climate crisis” instead:
If 19 million tonnes is a “climate bomb”, I wonder what they would call the 11 billion tonnes China emits every year!
Wrong, Oceanographic Magazine, Sea Level Rise in Hawaii Is Not a Looming Catastrophe
By Anthony Watts, Climate Realism, Feb 23, 2026
Local relative sea level, measured by tide gauges, is the only real direct measurement of sea level rise and it is what determines flooding risk on Oʻahu. Satellite measurements from space are a calculation, based on a model. Thus, it is an indirect measurement.
BBC Praise China As Green Superpower
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 26, 2026
China, of course, has plenty of deserts, which are ideal for building solar farms on. But they know full well they can’t run a power grid on intermittent renewable energy alone. That is why they opened another 78 GW of coal power plants last year, adding 6% to the total capacity. Another 83 GW is currently under construction.
Well, scorch our scones
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Feb 25, 2026
No. You won’t notice any difference if it gets an alleged 0.1C warmer. Try turning up your thermostat that much and see if anyone in the family complains or, at any rate, changes their complaint.
Just kidding; thermostats don’t work in 10ths of a degree. It’s too trivial a change. But not for climate fanatics.
Communicating Better to the Public – Exaggerate, or be Vague?
We have ways to destroy your house
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Feb 25, 2026
Link to report: Weather Disasters and the Insurance Market in Canada: An Emerging Crisis?
By Likeleli Seitlheko. TD Economics, Nov 27, 2025
From Robson: Got it? The whole thing isn’t even about what did happen, it’s about what people who don’t know what did happen are sure will happen. Also, governments should force people to do things that reduce insurance payouts. Who saw that one coming either?
Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.
Claim: The “Open Fridge Effect” Baltic Sea Level Drop is Proof of Global Warming
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Feb 23, 2026
Communicating Better to the Public – Do a Poll?
Opinion Polls are falling fast on Net Zero in the UK
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Feb 26, 2026
It’s rare to see such a dramatic 20 point shift in such a short amount of time
[SEPP Comment: Still, above 50% think net zero is at least sensible.]
Communicating Better to the Public – Go Personal.
Former Radical Green New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern is Relocating to Australia
By eric Worrall, WUWT, Feb 26, 2026
This isn’t fair – take her back New Zealand, she’s your problem.
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda
South Fork Wind Malinformation
By Roger Caiazza, WUWT, Feb 24, 2026
Christopher Walsh’s latest article in the Easthampton Star, South Fork Wind’s Electricity Generation Proves Reliable repeats claims from the developer that the facility provides reliable energy. An infographic prepared for the U.S. Department of War’s Defense Counterintelligence Security Agency, defines malinformation as sabotage because it is based on fact but is used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate. Walsh’s article is based on fact, but the information presented is used out of context to mislead readers into believing that the South Fork offshore wind facility provided reliable electric generation to the grid during this winter’s extreme period.
Lessons From History – Part 2
Climate hysteria prevents lessons from being learned
By Mark Hodgson, Climate Skepticism, Feb 26, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Confronting a flood of nonsense
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Feb 25, 2026
Likewise, the Bloomberg Green item eventually gets around to admitting that nothing discernible is actually happening. It’s just, as so often, and not just on climate, it’s clickbait sensationalism about what might:
China Is Often Lauded for Its Devotion to Clean Energy. BTW, It Also Oppresses Freedom.
By Gary Abernathy, Real Clear Energy, Feb 20, 2026
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda on Children
More than eco-anxiety: Study exposes emotional fallout of climate crisis for youth
By Robyn Stubbs, MedicalxPress, Feb 26, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Expanding the Orthodoxy
United Nations Launches New IPCC for Artificial Intelligence, Bernie Sanders Issues Dire Warnings
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Feb 24, 2026
Questioning European Green
“It’s a disaster”: Germans allowed to use oil and gas to heat their homes again
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Feb 28, 2026
In a shock move, the German government will allow citizens to use oil and gas to heat their homes again, even though this might increase global temperatures by a thousandth of a degree in 80 years’ time. The government or rather, the taxpayers, will still be forced to subsidize 30 to 70% of the cost of a new heat pump, but won’t actually fine anyone or put them in jail if they buy an oil or gas heater. (Yay, “freedom”.)
Questioning Green Elsewhere
Global elites who cling to green policies are clueless how to sustain life as we know it
By Ronald Stein and Yoshihiro Muronaka, America Out Loud News, Feb 23, 2026
Green Jobs
Aberdeen Pays Price For Net Zero
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 22, 2026
So much for all those green jobs we were promised!
Funding Issues
Enough Climate Action — Shut The Money Spigot
I & I Editorial Board, Feb 25, 2026
RealClear Politics Is Right: The Climate Hoax Is a Massive Financial Scam
By Linnea Lueken, Climate Realism, Feb 24, 2026
Southern Co. Lands Largest Loan in DOE History—$26.5B for Gas, Nuclear, and Grid Projects
By Sonal Patel, Power Mag, Feb 26, 2026
The EDF program took its current form when the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed July 4, 2025, replaced the Biden-era Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment Program under Section 1706 of the Energy Policy Act, moving to drop the prior requirement that projects reduce greenhouse gas emissions in favor of three new eligibility criteria.
The Political Games Continue
Stop the Energy Policy Pendulum: You Can’t Finance 30-Year Infrastructure With Four-Year Rules
By Rabbi Yechezkel Moskowitz, Real Clear Energy, Feb 20, 2026
And right now, the biggest unpriced risk in U.S. energy isn’t technological. It’s political reversibility.
Litigation Issues
Judge orders Greenpeace to pay an expected $345M in connection with oil pipeline protest case
By Ashleigh Fields, The Hill, Feb 26, 2026
Local authorities said it took 178 agencies and four days to clear out protesters and clean up camps that produced millions of pounds of trash, per the AP.
A total of 761 arrests were made.
The Camel’s Nose (sorta) Under the Kentucky Tent
By Russell Cook, The Gelbspan Files, Via WUWT, Feb 23, 2026
Judge orders changes to Pacific Northwest dam operations to help salmon
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Feb 26, 2026
The order is the latest in decades of litigation related to dams in the Pacific Northwest. Environmentalists have argued that these dams have blocked off salmon from important habitats where they lay and fertilize eggs.
EPA and other Regulators on the March
EPA firing 22 environmental justice staffers, union says
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Feb 26, 2026
[SEPP Comment: How does environmental justice differ from equal treatment under the law?]
Interior scales back environmental regulations for public lands
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Feb 23, 2026
Notice in Federal Register: National Environmental Policy Act Implementing Regulations
By Office of the Secretary, Department of the Interior, Feb 24, 2026
The Department of the Interior (Department or DOI) is adopting the interim final rule (IFR) published on July 3, 2025, with minor changes, as final.
Energy Issues – General
‘Green’ Ideology a Force for African Oppression
By Vijay Jayaraj, CO2 Coalition, Feb 25, 2026
From the 1980s onward, per capita gross domestic product in much of Asia surged relative to sub‑Saharan Africa. Asian economies – led by China and India – have lifted hundreds of millions out of squalor. They did it by embracing industrialization and the dense, reliable energy required to power it – mostly with coal. In Western Europe, the United States, Canada and Australia, per capita incomes have climbed over decades as societies rode successive waves of growth powered by fossil fuels.
The pattern is unmistakable. Where energy use grows quickly, poverty declines rapidly. [Boldface added]
10T spent and “There is a 0% chance of the world hitting Net Zero by 2050” US tells off IEA
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Feb 24, 2026
Chris Wright, the US Secretary of Energy slammed the IEA (International Energy Agency) and threatened to withdraw US funding (which is about $6m of the total $22m). The US government wants the IEA to get back to their core mission and stop pushing Net Zero.
EPA’s CO2 Reversal Is Welcome Opening For Developing World
By Vijay Jayaraj, CO2 Coalition, Feb 25, 2026
Energy Issues – Europe
Heat pumps for all…or maybe not?
By Lars Schernikau, His Blog, (Germany) Accessed Feb 26, 2026
Taxpayer on the hook for millions as solar company faces administration
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 21, 2026
From Homewood: This raised huge questions
Who in the Government approved the taxpayer backing of that £60 million loan and why? As it was only a few months ago, the financial problems must have been pretty obvious at the time – companies don’t just suddenly collapse.
The fact that HSBC would not lend the money without the Government guarantee says it all.
[SEPP Comment: In the UK, “facing administration” is a bankruptcy proceeding. It means the company is insolvent and is entering a legal process to avoid immediate liquidation.]
AI data centre surge would put UK’s climate change targets at risk
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 23, 2026
From The Times:
Cost of Electricity Continues To Rise, Despite Govt Sleight Of Hand
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 27, 2026
Without this shuffling money around, electricity bills would now be £1005, or 90% higher than in 2019.
Energy Issues – Australia
Australia finally makes solar plants peak at 7am and 7pm!
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Feb 27, 2026
Solar panels peak at midday but demand for electricity is highest when everyone goes home and turns on the oven, the dryer and plugs in a Cybertruck. But that’s no problem when you have billions of taxpayer dollars to waste — just burn the money building generators that spend most of the day working at minimal efficiency. Then call that waste “Economic Curtailment” — supposedly because it not economically worth operating the equipment. This happens when wholesale prices have gone negative and solar plants are *choosing* to blow away the megawatts most of the day.
Energy Issues – Elsewhere non-US
Cuba Becomes The First Country To Reach Net Zero. Shouldn’t We Be Celebrating?
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Feb 23, 2026
There it was on the front page of Saturday’s New York Times: with a small assist from the United States, the island nation of Cuba has almost entirely ended the use of fossil fuels. Finally, we have the first country in the world to achieve the climate movement’s Holy Grail and nirvana — Net Zero! Or at least a very close approximation. This should be cause for a huge celebration.
By Executive Order 14057 of December 8, 2021, Biden had directed all federal agencies to pursue an aggressive “all of government” operation to achieve “net zero” on an accelerated schedule. Goals number 1 and 2 from that EO are “100 percent carbon pollution-free electricity on a net annual basis by 2030,” and “100 percent zero-emission vehicle acquisitions by 2035.”
Energy Issues — US
We Didn’t Just Get Expensive Electricity. We Built a System That Makes It Inevitable.
By William Murray, Real Clear Energy, Feb 23, 2026
The American electricity market is not guided by an “invisible hand” of supply and demand, but an accumulation of misaligned rules laid down over decades. Layer upon layer of regulation, subsidy, mandate, and accounting rules to a point where the system became fixed in an upward, inflationary tilt, impervious to efforts to change.
Energy Dominance 2.0: LNG Edition
By Daivd Middleton, WUWT, Feb 26, 2026
Prior to the “shale revolution,” we were a net importer of natural gas.
[SEPP Comment: With the fear of “running out” power companies built expensive facilities to import LNG.]
Power plant pollution rose last year, green group analysis finds
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Feb 26, 2026
Link to article; Coal Pollution Spiked After Trump Administration’s “Free Pass to Pollute.”
EPA data shows that sulfur dioxide pollution from coal plants increased 18 percent in 2025, with the plants that were given presidential exemptions leading the way.
By Mark Drajem, National Resources Defense Council, Feb 26, 2026
Link to data: Coal, power plant, sulfur dioxide.
By Staff, EPA, Accessed Feb 28, 2026
[SEPP Comment: In 2021 942,545 short tons were emitted; in 2024 604,245; in 2025 715,095.]
Unloved Coal Is Essential for Keeping the Lights On
By Bernard L. Weinstein, Real Clear Energy, Feb 25, 2026
The retirements of base-load power plants, both coal and nuclear, combined with the intermittency of wind and solar, have also impaired transmission grid resiliency and reliability. Power outages have doubled over the past decade due in large part to the closure of reliable backup power sources like coal, more intensive weather patterns, and a lack of investment in transmission upgrades.
Renewables Now Make Up 1/4 Of US Electricity Generation
By Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge, Feb 23, 2025
[SEPP Comment: If renewables are cheaper, why are costs of electricity increasing?]
“All of the Above” Is the Only Way to Win the AI Race
By Neil Z. Auerbach, Real Clear Energy, Feb 26, 2026
[SEPP Comment: Special pleading for unreliable energy which does not keep electricity bills down. Big tech is not buying wind and solar except for show.]
Oil and Natural Gas – the Future or the Past?
LNG Exports Are Not Driving Up Prices; Policy Failures Are
By Kristen Walker, Real Clear Energy, Feb 26, 2026
While average Henry Hub spot prices may soar to $30/MMBtu with cold snaps, the Northeast generally sees closer to $80/MMBtu, at times exceeding $100/MMBtu. Winter Storm Fern this past January saw some areas reach $300/MMBtu on its harshest days.
Last winter residential customers in Massachusetts paid 80% more for natural gas than those in Pennsylvania. The difference? Pennsylvania has adequate infrastructure.
Oil Spills, Gas Leaks, Etc. & Consequences
Tiny Amounts of Water in CO2 Pipelines Could Cause Catastrophic Release of Asphyxiating Gas
By Chris Morrison, The Daily Sceptic, Feb 24, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
On April 3rd, 2024, a carbon dioxide pipeline ruptured at the Lake Charles Pump Station in southwest Louisiana. Over the next two hours, a plume of dense white vapour spread across the surrounding rural area. Local roadblocks were put in place by emergency services, but thankfully no human casualties were reported.
[SEPP Comment: Deaths from carbon dioxide are extremely rare and confined to industries that produce or use it such as dry ice production. Often it is fatal to first responders to accidents who do not recognize the threat.]
Nuclear Energy and Fears
The Microreactor Race Is On
By Duggan Flanakin, Real Clear Energy, Feb 24, 2026
Trump also pledged to revamp the NRC to cut costs and timeframes for bringing new nuclear energy facilities – of all sizes – into production. This revolutionary move ended decades of bureaucratic overkill that choked off what could have long been a preeminent energy driver.
Nine months later, multiple private companies are racing to become the first to bring their advanced design reactors to market, and several are already moving toward pilot plants in conjunction with governmental or academic institutions and funding.
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
Solar Industry Searches for a Message (it is not economics)
By David Mergeron, Master Resource, Feb 24, 2026
I just returned from the Intersolar & Energy Storage North America conference in San Diego where the keynote address focused on how the long-duration storage industry can move forward under the headwinds of the current administration. Their strategy? Better messaging, shifting from climate-change arguments to affordability, reliability, and resilience.
At Intersolar, I went to a few vendors promoting residential solar-and-battery systems and asked a simple question: “If I go completely solar with battery backup, what is my approximate cost of energy (cents/kWh), assuming normal amortization and maintenance?” No one I spoke to could answer that basic, simple question.
Miliband’s Blot On The Landscape
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 27, 2026
Rooftop Solar: Is There a Case? (Part III)
By Robert Bradley Jr, Master Resource, Feb 27, 2026
[SEPP Comment: The previous parts of the series are linked.]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Other
GEL Brings UK’s First Deep Geothermal Plant Online
By Darrell Proctor, Power Mag, Feb 26, 2026
A UK-based geothermal and battery production group has brought the country’s first deep geothermal power plant online. Geothermal Engineering Limited (GEL) on February 26 said its United Downs power station in Cornwall is generating 3 MW of electricity, alongside the country’s first commercial-scale, zero-carbon lithium carbonate production facility.
[SEPP Comment: It will be interesting to see how it is performing after a couple of years. Geothermal at or near the surface, as in Iceland, works well; deep geothermal is questionable.]
British ports threaten to pull the plug on net zero charging
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 21, 2026
From the Telegraph:
“Ports are threatening to pull the plug on dockside chargers for electric ships after a jump in energy prices.”
E15 Is a Lifeline for America’s Farmers. Congress Must Act Before Farms Fail.
By Geoff Cooper, Real Clear Energy, Feb 15, 2026
[SEPP Comment: Special pleading for a fuel that is not needed.]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles
Germany: Electric Car Catches Fire At Charging Station, Sets Off Local “Inferno”, Widespread Damage
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Feb 21,2026
California Dreaming
Can Energy and Water Interests Find a Common Agenda?
By Edward Ring, What’s Current, Accessed, Feb 25, 2026
Wind and solar farms displace natural gas generating plants. California’s natural gas utilities only operate at 26 percent uptime these days, only reaching full output when there’s no sun or wind. Instead of investing in ultra efficient, ultra clean retrofits in order to resume their role as baseload power plants with 90 percent uptime, they have accepted managed decline.
Other News that May Be of Interest
Genetically Engineered Algae Mop Up Microplastics
By Josh Bloom, ACSH, Feb 20, 2026
Link to paper: Remediation and upcycling of microplastics by algae with wastewater nutrient removal and bioproduction potential.
By Bin Long, et al., Nature Communications, Dec 22, 2025
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE
Meet the Bengali Widows who Lost their Husbands to Tigers Because of Climate Change
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Feb 22, 2026
There is something very Indian about bureaucrats just letting people get eaten, without doing anything concrete to stop the carnage, because the victims don’t have the right permit. Or just sitting around blaming externalities like climate change when they should be organizing tiger hunts.
Carbon dioxide overload, detected in human blood, suggests a potentially toxic atmosphere within 50 years.
By Alexander N. Larcombe & Phil N. Bierwirth, Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health, Feb 26, 2026
From abstract: We analyzed serum bicarbonate (HCO3−), calcium (Ca) and phosphorus (P) levels from the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) from 1999 to 2020 as indirect proxies for atmospheric CO2 exposure.
[SEPP Comment: Obviously, during WWI and WWII the crews of German U-Boats died like flies until the snorkel was deployed about 1943. Tell that the U-Boat crews were died like flies from too much CO2 to the merchant marines of the UK and the US.]
No, Earth.com, Climate Change Isn’t Causing Dangerous Fungus Outbreaks
By Anthony Watts, Climate Realism, Feb 27, 2026
Link to article: Deadly fungus that will ‘eat you from the inside out’ is quickly spreading around the world.
By Eric Ralls, Earth.com. Accessed Feb 27. 2026
No link to paper, possible link: Climate change-driven geographical shifts in Aspergillus species habitat and the implications for plant and human health
By Uzzell, Christopher & Shelton, Jennifer & van Rhijn, Norman, iScience 29, 2026
Sabine Hossenfelder: Climate Action is Like Preventative Cancer Surgery
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Feb 22, 2026
ARTICLES
1. State Courts Can’t Run Foreign Policy
The Supreme Court agrees to take up a challenge to a Colorado lawsuit against energy companies.
By John Yoo and Michael Toth, WSJ, Feb. 24, 2026
The authors begin with [cited cases are italics in the article are boldface here]:
“The Supreme Court said Monday that it will review Suncor Energy v. County Commissioners of Boulder, a case testing whether state and local governments can sue oil and gas companies over alleged climate-related harms—effectively imposing their policies on the whole country. Suncor is also a golden opportunity for the justices to stop local officials from interfering with an industry critical to foreign and national-security policy. Liberal and conservative justices have long agreed to pre-empt states from undermining the federal government’s authority over foreign affairs.
Boulder and other local governments have sought to blame industry for worldwide emissions, the vast bulk of which—nearly 90%, according to the International Energy Agency—originate outside the U.S. The international share of global emissions has been growing for decades, a trend that’s likely to persist as the U.S. continues its transition from coal to less carbon-intensive natural gas and as energy access expands in the developing world.
Municipal climate cases like Suncor seek to impose what amounts to a global carbon tax on U.S. energy exports. As climate lawyer David Bookbinder recently confessed, a victory for the local governments ultimately affects “the people who are buying” U.S. energy. They will pay more once the courts impose damages on the companies. Mr. Bookbinder and others acknowledge that a massive damage award will undoubtedly make U.S. oil and gas more expensive. The municipal climate cases thus attempt to regulate commodities increasingly consumed globally.
Permitting state courts to tax global users of U.S.-produced oil and gas has serious implications for American grand strategy. Once the U.S. Navy sought to secure coal and oil supplies around the beginning of the 20th century, controlling energy constituted an important national-security interest. Energy underwrites the ability of U.S. industry to produce weapons and the capability of the U.S. military to use them. By contrast, cases like Suncor provide an opening to U.S. adversaries, whose energy exports aren’t targeted in any of the municipal climate lawsuits. Driving up the cost of U.S. energy will only make alternative sources, including Russian pipeline gas, more attractive to European buyers. The same holds for Chinese renewable energy exports to the Global South.
The Supreme Court has long recognized that the Constitution vests the conduct of foreign policy and national security in the federal government alone. The Framers called the Constitutional Convention in large part because the states had pursued their own foreign policies at the expense of the national interest. As a result, the Constitution expressly pre-empts state interference with federal treaties, war making, trade and control over international affairs. As recently as 2015, in Zivotofsky v. Kerry, the justices reaffirmed that the U.S. must “speak . . . with one voice” on the world stage.
With this understanding of federal primacy in foreign affairs, the Supreme Court has pre-empted state laws even in the absence of any affirmative actions by the president or Congress.”
Other cases are cited, then the authors conclude with:
“National interests on energy are at least equal to the issues in these earlier decisions. In a 1987 law, Congress declared the U.S. should “work toward multilateral agreements” on greenhouse-gas emissions with a “coordinated national policy,” including in the international arena. The Clean Air Act, moreover, directs agencies to enter “reciprocal” agreements with foreign nations to regulate international emissions. The U.S. has entered into and withdrawn from international agreements regulating greenhouse-gas emissions and continues to cooperate with other nations on energy. The municipal climate cases attempt to impose damages on the energy industry for the same conduct, on the same theory of harm, at issue in these international efforts.
With Suncor now before the court, the justices should decisively shut down state and local efforts to usurp the federal government’s exclusive authority over national energy security.”
“Mr. Yoo, a law professor at UC Berkeley Law and a research fellow at the University of Texas at Austin’s Civitas Institute, filed a friend of the court brief in Suncor. Mr. Toth is director of research at Civitas.”
*****************
Earth is cooler with the atmosphere/water vapor/30% albedo not warmer. Near Earth outer space is 394 K, 121 C, 250 F.
Ubiquitous GHE heat balance graphics don’t balance and violate LoT. Refer to TFK_bams09.
Solar balance 1: 160 in = 17 + 80 + 63 out. Balance complete.
Calculated balance 2: 396 S-B BB at 16 C / 333 “back” radiation cold to warm w/o work violates Lot 2. 63 LWIR net duplicates balance 1 violating GAAP.
Kinetic heat transfer processes of contiguous atmospheric molecules render surface BB impossible. By definition all energy entering and leaving a BB must do so by radiation. Entering: 30% albedo = not BB. OLR: 17sensible & 80 latent = not BB. TFK_bams09: 97 out of 160 leave by kinetic processes, 63 by LWIR = not BB.
RGHE theory is as much a failure as caloric, phlogiston, luminiferous ether, spontaneous generation and several others.
Near Earth outer space is 394 K, 121 C, 250 F.
Attenuation at zenith reduces to 364K (30K) (1.36kw-1kw)
Visible light reduces to 328K (reflected to space) 0.66kw
UV reduces 312K (16K absorbed in the stratosphere) (0.54kw)
Of which 34K is excess Leaving earth emitting global average 278K (0.34kw)
Poles average 244K (-34K excess lost to space).
The flaw in the earths energy balance is globalising the solar input (average over a sphere).
Oceans absorb the solar constant, land absorb and release heat.
Oceans 70.8% of 960w-m2 / 2 (340w-m2), Land max (0.68kw, Min 0.153kw) 0.527kw In, Out.
Wow, delivered the numbers. Any idea where they came from?
Especially “Oceans absorb the solar constant, land absorb and release heat.” & “…960w-m2…”
I’ll take that as “No.”
Solar constant is 1,368 W/m^2 more or less. Divide solar luminosity W by spherical surface m^2 at Earth’s average orbital distance.
Apply 30% albedo: 1,368 * .7 = 960. Look familiar?
There is no consensus on the 30% albedo or for that matter all of these numbers.
Dividing ISR by 4 to average 342 over spherical ToA is just flat wrong.
‘You would imagine that the mechanism(s) by which IR interacts with the atmosphere would be the main concern of scientists who model the climate.
But you would be wrong.’
Unfortunately, the above criticism is applicable to all scientists, alarmists and skeptics alike, who maintain that the phenomenological physics of radiative transfer theory (RTT), rather than convection, correctly models the transport of energy from the Earth’s surface to the upper troposphere, where it can then be radiated to space.
Perhaps, instead of continuing to play on the home turf of climate alarmism, a future offering from TWTW could address this criticism of RTT:
“Whether spelled out explicitly or not, the key premise of phenomenological photometry as well as of the phenomenological RTT is that matter interacts with the energy of the electromagnetic field rather than with the electromagnetic field itself. This profoundly false assumption explains the deceitful simplicity of the phenomenological concepts as well as their ultimate failure. Indeed, the very outset of both phenomenological disciplines is the postulation of the existence of the radiance as the primordial physical quantity describing the “instantaneous directional distribution of the radiant energy flow” at a point in space. This is followed by a“derivation” of the scalar RTE on the basis of “simple energy conservation considerations” and the postulation that it is the electromagnetic energy rather than the electromagnetic field that gets scattered by particles and surfaces.”
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20140012672/downloads/20140012672.pdf
Ken,
Please, where is that lead picture? As an old rock climber I thought I had seen all the spectacular valleys, either in person or in pictures, but I don’t recognize this one. It looks like the Sierra Eastside, but it could be anywhere in the West. Or is it AI?
I say AI. It appears to be a collage of different mountain scenes. There is a familiarity to certain portions of the whole – Pinnacle Ridge heading up to Mt Whitney, The Needles left of Mt. Whitney. The group of pinnacles on the right remind me of the South Face of Mt Thor (east of Mt Whitney), only about 3 times taller. But the feature that really jars is that huge flat ledge on the right pinnacle. This would be many acres in area, and it’s not how granite weathers. Outside of glaciated flat tops like in Greenland or Baffin Island, such a feature is rare or not to be found. It would be just like AI to make up a form that doesn’t occur in nature.
And the often overlooked or totally ignored corollary – without an atmosphere, our blood would boil, and we would all die..
Tyndall was a very clever fellow, and an alpinist. The less atmosphere between a thermometer and the sun, the hotter the thermometer. Yes, at altitude, more radiation reaches a thermometer. Read Tyndall where he explains the physics involved.
AOC’s Former climate activist reflects on the moment she realised climate activism was bullsh*t
https://x.com/iAnonPatriot/status/2028264070479249509
There is much in the list about how outgoing IR warms the atmosphere but narry a single word about how the air is heated by the hot surface in the daytime. Why is this?
It’s because eventually all heat lost has to go be radiation to space, but at the same time in the above article they are talking about heating of the air which must shed heat one way or another. The mechanisms involved are always the three standard heat transfer mechanisms: convection, radiation and conduction.
Conduction from the surface to the air is ignorable because it is so miniscule. But convection to the air from the hot surface is considerable and continues even in the absence of the other two. The air is heated by so much IR absorption blah, blah, blah. Yeah, well…it is heated by the surface as well but it is not mentioned once.
As radiative heating tends to zero, heating by convection (air propelled by thermals touching the ground) increases. In a clear atmosphere the surface would heat by approximately double the W/m^2 and and the atmosphere would gradually lose its ability to cool by radiation to space. Then what?
This is a good example of how to increase the air temperature in an oven: increase the heating by a hot surface and reduce its ability to cool by radiation. What is the inevitable consequence? This is basic thermal engineering. Do you think NASA rocket scientists designing space capsules don’t know this?
NASA’s (and EPA’s) “33 degrees of warming” from CO2 is nonsense and always was. They are calculating the contribution of IR absorptive gases and completely discounting warming by the hot surface. Yes the heating by IR will drop to zero if IR gases drop to zero, but that is only part of the heating equation.
What’s up TWTW? Why allow the argument to be defined by scientific illiterates? If the atmosphere was 100% Nitrogen, Oxygen and Argon it would be as hot as Hades 1 km above the ground because it wouldn’t be able to cool to space.