By Robert Bradley Jr.
“Climate alarmism and forced energy transformation is a losing argument now that the dust has settled. Exaggeration backfires, and here-and-now issues matter, not wasteful climate policies that do not and will not have any effect on climate for decades, if at all. As painful as it might be, it is time for Amy Westervelt (et al.) to check their premises. The Climate Industrial Complex is a beast just like, in her head, Big Oil.”
Amy Westervelt is in denial at DRILLED, a climate alarmist website. She gives four major reasons for “Climate Media’s Philanthropy Problem” (June 2, 2026).
“We’ve talked before about the massive bloodletting in climate media this year,” she begins:
even amidst the general demise of journalism, climate reporting stands out as having been hit particularly hard. The Washington Post and Reuters dismantled their climate teams, CBS did the same. Vox, The Los Angeles Times, and CNN all cut climate reporters in the recent past too. Last week, NPR joined the list, getting rid of its entire Climate Desk.
She then asks: “Why has climate been such a target?” She offers four theories (reproduced verbatim).
- It doesn’t deliver audience numbers – This really depends on how you slice the data and which stories you’re looking at, but if you wanted to find numbers that justify cuts, you could, and if you wanted to find numbers that justified keeping climate stories in the mix, you could find those too;
- “Nobody cares about climate” – This is only true if your definition of climate is detailed articles about atmospheric science. There are loads of surveys and polls out there that show people care a great deal about the things that climate action would deliver–clean air, consistent energy pricing, less dependence on a volatile commodity chief amongst them.
- The business model for media is broken – This is certainly true, but why is it climate reporting in particular that’s being cut entirely, when other verticals are losing some but not all reporters?
- Fear of the Trump administration – Certainly there’s a feeling out there that even saying the word “climate” or speaking negatively about oil companies could place one in Trump’s crosshairs, but good grief why bother even being a journalism outlet if you’re going to fold at the first sign of trouble?
Amy Westervelt then adds her own (fifth) theory that “philanthropy has particularly messed with the mechanics of climate journalism.” She explains:
… climate foundations that decided to dip a toe in the water of journalism over the past decade have done quite a bit of damage and are remarkably lacking in self awareness around it, probably for the same reason that they biffed it so hard in the first place: they never bothered to learn anything about journalism or media or even bring on consultants who know about such things to advise them.
Humm … but then she gets obtuse:
Instead, they took the same approach to journalism that their sworn enemies—oil majors—have: They focused on controlling the story and hijacking the influence of journalists and journalism to their own ends, as opposed to supporting an ecosystem that would benefit not only their own cause but democracy as a whole.
Get that? I didn’t.
How about this. Mega-money to create climate change as a top-tier issue has been in overdrive since the late 1980s. That is three-going-on-four decades. We have had Al Gore, the United Nations (IPCC), Greta, and monied foundations tooting the alarmist horn.
Predictions of ruin have come and gone. Meanwhile, energy systems designed (for the most part) by consumers has been coopted by the inferiors wind, solar, and batteries to create a new set of economic and environmental problems. Big Green has looked the other way at the industrialization of the landscape in their quest to replace fossil fuels with dilute, intermittent, low-capacity renewables.
And the grassroots (those living near these projects) have increasingly said that enough is enough. The current number of delayed or cancelled ‘clean” energy projects is 1,278, according to Robert Bryce’s databank: 617 for wind, 508 for solar, 153 for batteries. And the trend, which began in earnest in 2015, has dramatically increased year-to-year.
The sum result? Losing politics for cause. A recent New York Times article on the retreat from climate alarm by Lisa Friedman and Brad Plumer is required reading for Amy Westervelt. “With voters worried about spiking gas prices and inflation, some of the party’s leaders argue that they should stop trying to throttle oil and gas….
It’s a rejection of the approach taken during the Biden administration, which treated climate change as an existential threat and tried to stop new drilling and pipelines…. A recent Economist/YouGov Poll showed that just 5 percent of Americans say climate change is their top voting issue. By contrast, 29 percent say their top priority is inflation and prices, and 13 percent cite jobs and the economy. A number of strategists have urged Democrats to stop talking about the issues that excite already-committed voters and broaden their appeal.
Climate alarmism and forced energy transformation is a losing argument now that the dust has settled. Exaggeration backfires, and here-and-now issues matter, not wasteful climate policies that do not and will not have any effect on climate for decades, if at all.
As painful as it might be, it is time for Amy Westervelt (et al.) to check their premises. The Climate Industrial Complex is a beast just like, in her head, Big Oil. Consumers matter. Taxpayers matter.
How to begin a rethink? It must begin with internally. As Milton and Rose Friedman once said:
The only person who can truly persuade you is yourself. You must turn the issues over in your mind at leisure, consider the many arguments, let them simmer, and after a long time turn your preferences into convictions. [1]
[1] Milton and Rose Friedman, Free to Choose (1979), p. xii.
It’s been obvious for years that there is no climate crisis. The media know this but it was fashionable and virtue signalling to pretend that there was a problem. The problem for the media is that the public is wising up to their nonsense. Every proposed “solution” to the “climate crisis” damages the economy and living standards for no benefit at all. The media are backing off because their own credibility is being destroyed by pushing discredited nonsense.
But the Believers still believe.
A national chain of local newspapers in the UK just this week had a half page article demanding that the climate scare film “People’s Emergency Briefing” be broadcast on national TV. And the local MP agreed.
The believers still think we are doomed and it is they who are right.
It is still a very odd world where feelings and emotions outweigh logic and reason.
The UK media is in full hysterical cry about our impending doom caused by <0.05% of CO2 in the atmosphere…
The most important number of the climate crisis – 425.5ppm (0.0425%)
Above Safe level – 75.2ppm (0.0075%)
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/environment
And a Friday funny from Damian Carrington…
My trip to meet the scientists trying to refreeze the Arctic
Slashing carbon emissions to zero by ending the burning of fossil fuels is how the climate crisis ends.
…
In Cambridge Bay, researchers from the Real Ice project braved temperatures of -40C….
Utter nonsense. And it’s all based on RCP8.5 in Blighty.
UK Roundup
Burnham wins and Starmer is on the way out. Miliband tipped to be chancellor – net zero money achieved.
Big upset in Oil country
Tories upset SNP with historic Aberdeen South by-election win
Douglas Lumsden’s victory by 6,000 votes vindicates Kemi Badenoch’s ‘referendum’ on North Sea drilling
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/06/19/tories-win-aberdeen-south-by-election/
Drill baby drill.
The biggest farce about about the climate movement is tens of trillions of dollars have been spent and over the last 30 years annual global CO2 emissions have increased by half a billion tons annually. Emissions are nearly twice as high today as they were in 1988 when the alarm was first sounded. They may be lower in developed economies but they are much higher in developing economies.
If the actual global CO2 emissions each year were released with the same fanfare and headlines as the GDP or the unemployment rates, there is not a person in the world who would take the UN’s climate agenda seriously anymore.
Amy Westervelt holds a bachelor of arts degree in journalism from University of California -Berkeley. What else needs to be said?
“NPR joined the list, getting rid of its entire Climate Desk”
Now, if only it would get rid of its people who have TDS. There’d be nobody left of course. Listen to NPR and 95% of the time I try- within 10 seconds I’ll hear the name Trump and how horrible he is, or at least his administration. So, it no longer gets $$$ from the public but it should also lose its name that includes “Public” since that implies it has some national authority which it doesn’t have.
“…consistent energy pricing, less dependence on a volatile commodity chief amongst them. “ Some journalist she is.
If she were to spend merely 10 or 20 minutes doing a little AI assisted research, she would find that gasoline prices today, adjusted for inflation, are essentially the same as they were in 1960, which is also just about the long-term average. Notable exceptions were transient conditions such as the 2008 recession and the 2012 spike due to Iran threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz, and US hurricane strikes that impacted the refining sector. Shortly afterward, the shale oil boom expanded supply.
Here we are again in 2026 with Iran causing global oil price disruption. Prices have already begun to quickly drop back to the norm and stay that way if President Trump continues to have his way with the Iranian government and if some stupid, shortsighted Democrat doesn’t get elected.
Taxpayers AND consumers matter. Despite the bleating about renewables being cheaper consumers are tired of electricity prices increasing exponentially with no end in sight.
Many folks I talk to have expressed their concerns about where all this money being invested is ending up and how government is behind the spending.
This whole mess should be an example of what socialism and communism failures are. Government cannot replace the marketplace. It has never worked to advance society anywhere it has been implemented. Bureaucrats would like everyone to believe that it just wasn’t implemented correctly but they now have the knowledge and wherewithal to do so now? LOL! They end result will be no different than any time in history, totalitarianism.
From my local news on TV the story of doom and gloom seems unchanged. The problem with the article being commented on is the NASA record only goes back to 1979 with the record low in 2012. 2025 has almost 50% more ice at the low. 1930’s heat wave is ignored, 1000 AD centuries long warm period is ignored as are similar shorter periods. No satellites but there are estimates using other means of sea ice extent. The news makes money with doom and gloom not actual information. Not a word on anything after the news has milked it for the bucks.
The media pander to the herd which wants somebody to tell them what to do. All politicians and regimes use that mind set. Religion exists due to the mindset. Last year had almost 50% more ice than the 2012 low on records which go back to 1979, hence the 50 year claim. The previous warm periods like say the 1930’s, or the medieval warm period or the roman warm period are simply ignored despite estimates of ice from various researchers. Doom and gloom sell, makes money and advances the careers of politicians and folks like Ma nn. Reason and facts do not.
Media opportunity
The count at the by-election of Makerfield where A. Burnham won a majority.
Pictured with Count Binface (Monster Raving Loony party) and A. Wildlife candidate
I am not aware of any critical discussion what exactly if means that older model based projections were “spot on” (or at least precieved to be).
We know that the models were lacking (and still are, for example there are recent papers 2026 asking questions about the modeling of solids in the troposphere, dust and falling ice).
How can a right prediction be drawn from a flawed model unless the details and physics of the model are completely meaningless?
In early 70s I took an elective course in college that surprised me and it taught me about the Climate and how it was being monitored over time and what was changing the monitoring. It has stuck with me as I getting my Electrical Engineering degree.
I learned that people had used readings at specific locations that over time became more urban, concrete and often airport with jet wash causing temps to be higher then 100 years ago. Also many areas around the world are not monitored, like in Africa, Asia, and South America due to jungle or difficult areas.
The push by certain people and groups against electrical power plants of various types needs to end. This has been big by journalists for decades yet it seems they do not know what is best for both the economy and for the climate. Democrats, Liberals, and Journalists push Wind Power and Solar but both have very negative issues. The best electric production are power plants made of Nuclear, Natural Gas, Various Oil, Hydroelectric, and coal.
On day one of my engineering degree (in 1972) all the 400 odd first year students were gathered into the main lecture hall and addressed by the head of the faculty. One thing I remember him saying with crystal clarity is” Never refer to yourself as “an expert”. ” ‘X’ is an unknown quantity and a ‘spert’ (sic) is a drip under pressure’.
How much climate narrative is headlined by self proclaimed ‘experts’ or media claimed ones?
That;s all you need to know folks.