The Week That Was: 2026-08-29 (August 29, 2026)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week: “Nothing in life is to be feared; it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” — Marie Curie
Number of the Week: 1899 22%; 1936 22%
THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Scope: This TWTW begins with a paper by John Christy et al. presenting observations of summer warming and winter cooling covering virtually all of the conterminous US from 1899 to 2025. Discussed in the April 25 TWTW, the paper is further discussed here. TWTW discusses suggestions by Roger Pielke, Jr., on how to improve the US National Climate Assessment. TWTW concludes with another example showing that in today’s atmosphere carbon dioxide does not cause significant warming.
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Correcting Failure: NOAA has failed in its responsibility of retaining a reliable dataset of recorded high and low temperatures of the United States. A major part of this failure occurred when NOAA digitized the data, then manipulated it without recording how it was manipulated.
Atmospheric scientist John Christy of University of Alabama in Huntsville and his team have patiently gone through the records and found glaring discrepancies between NOAA’s current database and what was actually recorded. The team made corrections and carefully explained the reasoning and the steps taken. They identified the few instances where gaps in weather station data could not be filled. In April, Christy’s paper describing “Declines in hot and cold daily temperature extremes in the conterminous US, 1899–2025” was published in Theoretical and Applied Climatology. Since this was a team effort, TWTW will be referring to Christy et al. The abstract states:
“Knowledge of temperature extremes, and their potential changes within a climate system of increasing greenhouse gases, is of vital interest for humans and the infrastructure which supports them. To produce a better understanding of how daily extreme temperatures have changed over time in the conterminous US (CONUS), the United States Historical Climate Network (USHCN) database was extended back to 1899 and forward to 2025. The original 1,218 stations, selected in the 1980s by NOAA as capable of addressing climate concerns, have since been neglected – almost half of the stations have closed since 2000. Incomplete station records were supplemented with nearby stations with high correlation and removeable biases to provide time series for 1,211 of the stations with at least 92% of data present. Extreme temperature metrics for summer daily maximum temperatures and winter daily minimum temperatures were calculated. The general result is that metrics for extreme summer heat, e.g., hottest values, number of heatwave days, etc., show modest negative trends since 1899. Extreme cold temperature metrics also indicate a decline in their occurrences especially since the 1990s. In sum, instances of both hot and cold extreme metrics have declined since 1899. To demonstrate an application of this dataset we examined the claims of one source regarding changing temperature extremes, The National Climate Assessment 5.” [Emphasis in original]
The beginning of the paper states: [Citation details and figures are not given here but are in the paper. Boldface within paragraphs is added]
“1 Introduction
Of the high-impact weather events that disrupt human thriveability, extremes of temperature are significant. Indeed, the ability of any surface-dwelling species to live productively is often constrained by these near-surface air temperature extremes which in essence create the bounding limits for survival. With the increase in infrared-absorbing greenhouse gases (GHGs) there is a concern that such temperature-related extremes may be drifting to a regime in which more frequent and intense hot events are being experienced (e.g., Seneviratne et al. 2021).
To test claims that changes in the frequency and intensity of extremes in temperature have occurred, a relatively long-term observational dataset is necessary and one in which (a) the observations are consistently observed throughout the period of interest, (b) external (i.e., non-climatic) changes around the stations are minimal, and (c) a large number of stations are available to reduce the noise due to the inevitable errors that inhabit the observational record. [Boldface added]
This study reports on a dataset of daily maximum temperatures in the warm season (May-Sep) and minimum temperatures in the cold season (Dec-Mar) for specific stations within the conterminous US (CONUS). All values utilized are actual, observed temperatures (bias corrected when needed for merging) without any spatial or temporal interpolation or other types of homogenization methods applied to the station observations. Area-wide averages are calculated from these values by filling a 0.5° x 0.5° grid into which station metrics are interpolated using a 1/d2 weighting scheme where d is the distance from the center of the gridbox to the individual station. An average year will see 97.6% of the CONUS represented.
The study period begins with the US winter of Dec 1898-Mar 1899 and ends with the summer of 2025. This first winter was selected because this season included the mid-February 1899 Great Arctic Outbreak that set more daily record low temperatures in the CONUS than any other event since that time (Kocin et al. 1988). This was also near the beginning of the effort to standardize US weather observations as stations were being established by the federal (civilian) US Weather Bureau which was instituted in 1890 and began the general operations of data collection, printing and archiving within a few years.
With such a dataset many questions about extreme events may be answered. Such questions as, when did the hottest or coldest temperatures occur? What was the magnitude of the hottest or coldest temperature relative to the expected value in each year? What is the occurrence of continuous runs of hot or cold days over a specific time-frame (i.e., heat or cold waves)? Our goal is to construct time series to answer questions about whether changes over time may be detected. We shall discuss and draw conclusions from the answers to these questions regarding long-term changes which will include some information on systematic, non-climatic influences which are likely to have influenced the results to a minor extent. We shall close the discussion section by examining claims about extreme temperatures made by the National Climate Assessment 5.
2 Basic dataset
The United States Historical Climate Network (USHCN) was established in the 1980s by today’s National Center for Environmental Information (NCEI) to provide a “climate” dataset to examine potential changes over decades (Quinlan et al. 1987; Karl et al. 1990). The project selected those stations with (a) the minimum number of station-moves, (b) a complete or nearly complete record (i.e., few gaps), and (c) utilization of standard equipment and procedures. In many cases, a particular station’s record was not complete but could be made so by “threading” a nearby station’s data into the record – a station with highly correlated temperatures indicating that it was experiencing the same weather regimes as the original station. A total of 1,218 stations were selected by NCEI as meeting the requirements noted above. Green River Aviation, Utah and Binghamton, New York were official US Weather Bureau (USWB) stations whose observations were excellent but unfortunately not digitally available and require further keying-in from the original “1001” forms. Figure 1 displays the stations and the nine regions to be examined later.
The observed metrics of interest here are daily maximum temperatures (TMax) for May-Sep and daily minima (TMin) for Dec-Mar which represent the hottest and coldest temperatures. Because the fundamental metric is measured in integer degrees Fahrenheit (°F) we shall depart from conventional scientific notation and use °F as our basic unit with Celsius (C) in parentheses.
The most time-consuming portion of this project was devoted to completing the record for each of the 1,218 stations. This included identifying gaps, extending records for stations which had closed (almost half) and extending several time series back-in-time to Dec 1898.
This study will utilize the unaltered daily data from these stations and should not be confused with the often-used monthly-averaged USHCN temperature datasets which have had adjustments applied to account for various changes over time (e.g., Menne and Williams 2009; Menne et al. 2009; Williams et al. 2012).”
Christy et al. go through the changes needed to complete the datasets and the few stations for which the dataset could not be completed giving the reasons why. Using the complete datasets, Christy et al. give answers to four basic questions:
- Question 1. When did the all-time record hottest and coldest temperatures occur?
- Question 2. When did the extreme high (low) temperatures occur for each day of the season?
- Question 3. How extreme were year-by-year extremes?
- Question 4. When have heat waves and cold waves occurred since 1899?
In answering the questions graphs are used which illustrate the data from 1899. In the Discussion section they address issues brought up by the vast literature on the impact of non-climatic influences (NCIs) on surface air temperature measurements. These influences include urbanization, irrigation, aerosols, etc. Christy et al. then discuss the meaning of the results they have calculated and state, in part:
“Overall, our project indicates that extremes in summer heat-related metrics for the CONUS as defined in the four questions above do not show increasing trends, but rather modest negative trends, and thus appear to be substantially affected by other forcings such as natural variability in addition to GHGs. There are positive TMax metric trends in western regions which are countered by larger negative trends elsewhere.
The number of cold extreme events has declined in the past 30 years too and this is likely, in part, related to the development of infrastructure around the stations which disturbs the nocturnal boundary layer, inhibiting the formation of the cold, shallow layer in which TMin is observed. Additionally, this result may be an early sign of atmospheric warming of the coldest air masses by the added GHGs (e.g., Krayenhoff et al. 2018), though this hypothesis has not been confirmed as a direct result of GHGs (e.g., Huang et al. 2023).”
After discussing impact of non-climatic influences (NCIs) on surface air temperature measurements, Christy et al. state:
“We shall investigate a few claims about changing hot temperature extremes from the National Climate Assessment Climate 5 (NCA5, Jay et al. 2023) which states in many places that “Climate Change” i.e., change induced by human emissions of GHGs, is causing observed changes. For example, this statement is fairly clear and bold,
The evidence for warming across multiple aspects of the Earth system is incontrovertible, and the science is unequivocal that increases in atmospheric greenhouse gases are driving many observed trends and changes. (Ch 2, Introduction).”
In brief, Christy et al. show that at least for the conterminous US, the US data does not support many of the findings of the Fifth US National Climate Assessment. Christy et al. conclude with:
“In the field of climate change, attention has been drawn to extreme metrics occurring in the last several years as evidence for human influences through increasing GHGs (e.g., USGCRP 2017; Seneviratne et al. 2021; Jay et al. 2023). Examining this aspect of climate and weather is appropriate since human thriveability is often constrained by the magnitude of the extremes that we experience. We describe here a dataset constructed to examine the occurrence through time of extreme temperature metrics in the CONUS for the coldest winter and hottest summer days since Dec 1898. The dataset is based on the 1,218 USHCN stations 1,211 of which have been supplemented to be “complete”, i.e., each station having at least 92% of days available for analysis. The results indicate that extremes in heat-related metrics for daily TMax in the summer have not increased and in fact often show modest declines since 1899, due mostly to the early heat events during 1925–1954. This is consistent with Seneviratne et al. 2021 (IPCC AR6, their Fig. 11). Cold-related extreme events based on winter TMin show evidence of decreasing occurrences, two causes of which were proposed, (1) increasing human development around weather stations, and (2) an early response to increasing GHGs as they warm the coldest air first. When taken together, the occurrences of heat and cold extremes have declined over the past 127 years in the CONUS, i.e., the climate over the CONUS has become less impacted by temperature extremes to this point. Relating this reduction of extreme events to increasing GHGs would be difficult as the magnitude of the regional natural variability of weather and climate is considerable in comparison to a small GHG-induced temperature rise.
The impact of Non-Climatic Influences was considered in the temperature evolution of one USHCN station, Fresno California, as an example of a clear and large response to forcings unrelated to the increasing GHGs. In this case, the urbanization impact on TMin of 5 °F (~ 3 °C) is clearly apparent, while summer TMax (with urbanization) indicates a trend not significantly different from zero. Voluminous research has and will be performed on this aspect of surface temperature records as these types of influences need to be identified and removed so that changes in the background climate due to GHGs may be estimated with more confidence. We also demonstrated that one must be cautious when interpreting official statements about extreme weather events for the CONUS.” [Boldface added]
The paper gives links to the data and the codes used. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
According to its website:
“The Global Change Research Act of 1990 mandates that the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) deliver a report to Congress and the President not less frequently than every four years that “integrates, evaluates, and interprets the findings of the Program and discusses the scientific uncertainties associated with such findings; analyzes the effects of global change on the natural environment, agriculture, energy production and use, land and water resources, transportation, human health and welfare, human social systems, and biological diversity; and analyzes current trends in global change, both human-induced and natural, and projects major trends for the subsequent 25 to 100 years.”
The Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5) fulfills that mandate by delivery of this Assessment and provides the scientific foundation to support informed decision-making across the United States. By design, much of the development of NCA5 built upon the approaches and processes used to create the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4),2 with a goal of continuously advancing an inclusive, diverse, and sustained process for assessing and communicating scientific knowledge on the impacts, risks, and vulnerabilities associated with a changing global climate (App. 1).
The findings in this report are based on a comprehensive review and assessment of information sources determined to meet the standards and documentation required under the Information Quality Act and the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018 (App. 2), including peer-reviewed literature, other literature, Indigenous Knowledge, other expert and local knowledge, and climate data processed and prepared for authors by NOAA’s Technical Support Unit (TSU; see Guide to the Report section below and App. 3).
NCA5 was thoroughly reviewed by Federal Government experts, external experts, and the public multiple times throughout the report development process. An expert external review was performed by an ad hoc committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Additional information on the development of this Assessment can be found in Appendix 1: Assessment Development Process.”
In short, Christy et al. have produced physical evidence based on observations from the extremely cold year of 1899 to 2025 covering virtually all of the coterminous US. The physical evidence contradicts the National Climate Assessment Climate 5 (NCA5, Jay et al. 2023) and its “experts.” There is no extreme warming or cooling trend occurring in the United States. Note that this includes 2024 which NOAA claimed to be the warmest year since records began in 1850.
See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy and https://nca5.climate.us/chapter/front-matter for NCA5.
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National Climate Assessment: On his Substack site, Roger Pielke Jr considers the efforts being made by the Trump administration to address the National Climate Assessment as minor. He recommends an overhaul of the legislation. Under “What Congress should do to fix the NCA”, Pielke writes:
“The National Climate Assessment matters. Congress created it for good reasons, and the U.S. citizens who have invested tens of billions of dollars into climate research deserve an assessment of that research with the highest standards of scientific integrity.
Fixing it requires amended legislation, not executive orders.
Here are five proposed amendments to the Global Change Research Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-606):
1. Most importantly, move the assessment out from under the White House. Vest assessment authority in a body insulated from direct executive control — a standing National Academies committee, or a structure under Congress resembling CBO or GAO, with an empaneling committee, staggered terms, and appointments from a bipartisan group of legislators (like the members of the House Science committee). Nearly every failure on my list traces back to an author team that produced a report that sounded more like a marketing or communications strategy than a dispassionate review of climate research. This fix will make sense no matter who holds the White House.
2. Require a published plausibility assessment for every scenario used. Any scenario supporting a projected impact must arrive with a documented evaluation against observed emissions, energy-system trends, and demographic projections — and any scenario difference presented as a policy benefit must state its reference case explicitly. Notably, at the international level ScenarioMIP still has not done this. A US assessment could show the world how it’s done.
3. Make review comments and responses public and binding. Publish every substantive comment, every response, and every rejection with its stated and supported reason and a named responsible author.
4. Mandate an independent citation audit before release. Here AI tools may prove useful. Citations are more than window dressing or plausible deniability for claims — they are the basis for the claims. In my areas of expertise, the NCA5 failed to accurately represent the literature it was supposedly assessing, in favor of cherry picking and misrepresentations. The review process for NCA5 failed comprehensively.
5. Require conflict-of-interest disclosure. The image below shows just some of the climate advocacy organizations and businesses with interests in climate policy whose employees played major roles in writing the NCA5.”
Images Not Shown Here
“Imagine if these organizations were those opposed to climate policy and from fossil fuel companies. The problem would be the same. There needs to be one COI standard for the NCA and applied consistently.
Bottom line:
If the Trump administration wants to improve the national climate assessment process, forget about corrections and executive orders. Work with Congress to improve the process and create a NCA6 with scientific integrity that can be trusted by the American public.”
That’s where I’d start.”
Pielke’s suggestions are valuable, but in today’s Washington it is unlikely that any such revision will even be attempted. Too many politicians and organizations have advanced by exaggerating the influence carbon dioxide on Earth’s climate, and many people believe it has a significant impact. The approach taken by Christy et al., above, seems to be more appropriate: Expose the physical evidence which contradicts the claim that increasing carbon dioxide will cause significant warming and dire climate change.
See link under Seeking a Common Ground.
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Declining Influence: In their paper “Dependence of Earth’s Thermal Radiation on Five Most Abundant Greenhouse Gases” W.A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer demonstrate that based on the best physical evidence available water vapor is the dominate the greenhouse gas and carbon water vapor is secondary. The influence of both these gases on temperatures is well into diminishing returns. Kenneth Richard discusses a paper by Peter Stalliga in Atmospheric and Climate Sciences. The abstract states:
“The feedback between carbon dioxide, CO2, and the temperature of the atmosphere is analyzed. Starting with the assumption that the average temperature is a function of the carbon-dioxide concentration in the atmosphere, [CO2], the so-called greenhouse effect, feedback is introduced into the system: increased temperature can further increase the CO2 concentration that causes the temperature rise in so-called positive feedback. On the basis of the available data, it is argued that this cannot be the case; the feedback must be negative at the moment. Moreover, the observed correlation between [CO2] and temperature varies across different time scales, suggesting different processes are at work. It is not possible to explain all the data with a single phenomenon like the greenhouse effect, even when feedback is included.”
The work appears to be consistent with the work of van Wijngaarden and Happer, the influence of carbon dioxide in today’s atmosphere is small and it is overwhelmed by other factors that may lead to warming or cooling periods. Unfortunately, Richard overstates the finding by asserting: “2025 Study: ‘There Exists No Unequivocal Experimental Evidence For The CO2 Greenhouse Effect.’” Starting with John Tyndall in 1861 and 1863, there is considerable experimental evidence for the CO2 greenhouse effect. Unfortunately, many commentators have misunderstood this evidence. See the link under Challenging the Orthodoxy – Radiation Transfer for the van Wijngaarden and Happer paper and the links under Questioning the Orthodoxy for the new paper and Richard’s commentary.
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Number of the Week: 1899 22%; 1936 22%. Christy et al. reported that:
“The results indicate that the single years of 1936 (1899) experienced extreme hot (cold) events that dominate the time series, each enveloping about 22% of the CONUS. The next four years in order with large areas for extreme heat were 1934, 2021, 1954 and 1930 all at or below 5%. The four next coldest years were 1912, 1905, 1937, and 1936, also representing less than 5% of the CONUS.”
NOAA’s claim that 2024 was the warmest year since records began in 1850 is not supported by evidence compiled in the US. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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
https://www.heartland.org/media-library/pdfs/CCR-II/CCR-II-Full.pdf
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
https://wvanwijngaarden.info.yorku.ca/files/2020/12/WThermal-Radiationf.pdf?x45936
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
https://scienceofclimatechange.org/wp-content/uploads/SCC-2025-vWijngaarden-Happer.pdf
Challenging the Orthodoxy
Climatologist Says a Century of Weather Data Contradicts Claims of Record Heat
Despite perception, study indicates a moderation of both hot and cold temperatures in the U.S. over the past century.
By Kevin Stocklin, Epoch Times, Aug 24, 2026 [H/t S. J. Cvrk]
Link to paper: Declines in hot and cold daily temperature extremes in the conterminous US, 1899–2025
By John Christy, Theoretical and Applied Climatology, Apr 18, 2026
Cloud cover over Europe, part trois
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Aug 26, 2026
Link to paper: Millennium-Scale Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and Soil Moisture Influence on Western Mediterranean Cloudiness
By Nazzareno Diodato, Kristina Seftigen, and Gianni Bellocchi, Research, Feb 26, 2025
https://spj.science.org/doi/10.34133/research.0606
The Ocean’s Seasonal Exhale: Rethinking the Keeling Curve
By Jennifer Marohasy, Her Blog, Aug 23, 2026
Link to paper: A thermal acid calcification cause for seasonal oscillations in the increasing Keeling curve
By Ivan R. Kennedy,, et al., Preprint, April 30, 2025
https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.06253
Concentrations peak in the northern late winter or early spring and reach their lowest point around October. The standard explanation attributes the seasonal swing almost entirely to the land biosphere — plants taking up CO2 in summer and releasing it through respiration in winter. The long-term rise is attributed almost entirely to fossil-fuel emissions.
Our preprint proposes instead that the ocean is the main driver of the seasonal pattern, and that it also contributes to the year-on-year increase through an entirely natural process consistent with the current warming cycle.
The key process is thermal acid-calcification, or TAC for short. Calcium carbonate (the material of shells, corals and limestone) becomes less soluble as water warms — a property known as retrograde solubility. When surface seawater warms in spring and summer, calcification is favored.
[SEPP Comment: This hypothesis is not inconsistent with the standard explanation.]
EXCLUSIVE: Climate Review Linked To Lawsuits Was ‘Sham’ Shrouded In ‘Secrecy,’ Attorneys General Allege
By Paris Apodaca, Daily Caller, Aug 27, 2026 [H/t C.J. Cvrk]
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine produced a biased climate report designed to bolster lawsuits against fossil fuel companies, a coalition of state attorneys general alleges in a Thursday letter obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
NASEM subsequently launched a review, but the attorneys general argue its structure and lack of publicly available information do little to address their underlying concerns.
The coalition is now asking federal agencies to consider whether those alleged problems justify cutting NASEM off from federal funding.
“Taxpayer money should not be funding NASEM’s biased actions, which warrant suspension or debarment,” the attorneys general wrote. “If NASEM continues to lend its imprimatur to litigation-driven advocacy, then Congress should find another source for objective analysis and consider revoking the 1863 charter that designates the Academies as an adviser to the federal government.”
Do I Believe in Global Warming?
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Aug 23, 2026
The scientific evidence and demonstrated societal impacts are clear: human-caused global warming is a modest problem. It is not an existential threat to humanity.
[SEPP Comment: The human contribution may be primarily from changing Earth’s surface.]
#Canary in a Climate World: Prof. Ian Clark on changing his mind
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Aug 26, 2026
But something funny happened on the way to the consensus: he looked at the data. More precisely, he had a conversation with a senior and highly-esteemed colleague who had studied the very-long-term CO2-and-climate record and told him there was no connection. “That forced me to go back and critically examine the evidence,” Clark said. “And when I did, what I found was deeply concerning.” Not “concerning” as in climate-crisis-we’re-all-going-to-die but concerning as in the data are at odds with what we keep being told. So, the scientific establishment isn’t self-correcting in keeping with the true scientific method.
Defending the Orthodoxy
El Niños have become 40% stronger in the last 40 years than the previous 1,000 – and this year’s event is on track to be the biggest ever
By Shivali Best, Daily Mail, Aug 27, 2026
Link to paper: Recent strengthening of eastern Pacific ENSO in the last millennium paleorecord
By J. E. Cole, et al., AAAS Science, Aug 27, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ady2660
Abstract
The Pacific El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) generates climate extremes that endanger ecosystems, infrastructure, and human well-being worldwide. The response of this system to climate warming is poorly constrained, due both to data scarcity and uncertainties in climate models. The geochemistry of Galápagos coral skeletons across the past millennium reveals a large recent increase in interannual variability of sea surface temperature in the eastern equatorial Pacific compared to existing paleorecords that exceeds simulated natural variability. This increase parallels rising global temperature and results from stronger El Niño events. Central Pacific coral data also show increased variability, although less distinctly than in the Galápagos. Our results provide long-term context for understanding ENSO variability trends, with troubling implications for climate extremes.
Defending the Orthodoxy – Bandwagon Science
The Rising Costs of Trump’s Assault on Clean American Energy
By Amanda Levin , Yuqi Zhu, Real Clear Energy, Aug 2, 2026
Link to report: An Affordability Crisis of Trump’s Own Making
The Trump administration’s energy policy is driving up costs for American households and making us sick.
By Amanda Levin, Director, Policy Analysis, Science Office, and Yuqi Zhu, National Resources Defense Council, Aug 25, 2026
Imagine an attack on the U.S. energy system that wiped out 40% of the nation’s new power plants, $700 billion of infrastructure and sent electricity bills through the roof.
What American leader would stand for that?
Unfortunately, those are among the real-world consequences of actual policies the Trump administration has already put in place to try to stunt the development of clean American power, new analysis we released this week shows.
Amanda Levin is director of policy analysis and Yuqi Zhu is a senior policy analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy organization with more than 3 million supporters nationwide.
[SEPP Comment: A highly politicized misleading report. One need only to look at electricity costs in the UK and Germany to see that wind, solar, and storage are an expensive failure.]
Questioning the Orthodoxy
The prattle of Britain
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Aug 26, 2026
It is true that if you cut real pollution locally, as Europe did especially with the genuinely toxic Soviet bloc industries after 1989, or Ohio with the Cuyahoga River after 1969, or indeed the UK with the Thames starting around 1850, you generally get real benefits locally and often faster than you had expected or even hoped. But to the extent that CO2 drives temperature and weather it does it globally, given the way the atmosphere crosses national borders (due among others to a thing called “wind” you’d expect columnists to have heard of), and so reducing British emissions only affects British weather by its impact on global emissions and hence global weather. Again, it is incomprehensible that intelligent people do not know it, or knowing it that they do not think about it while typing.
Trump administration proposes changes to Biden-era climate report
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Aug 27, 2026
“This proposed amendment is a clear politicization of climate science,” said Carlos Martinez, senior climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, in a written statement.
In a call with The Hill, Martinez also pointed out that climate scientists also stopped using their best-case climate scenario, saying the Trump administration was not similarly eliminating that consideration.
[SEPP Comment: Clear politicization of a politicized report?]
No, MIT, ‘clean energy’ isn’t the future — nor is it actually clean
By Bonner Cohen, CFACT, Aug 21, 2026
Data… if you dare
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Aug 26, 2026
Essentially a picture of fluctuations without an apparent trend. Despite what they say. Speaking of which, if you prefer facts to arm-waving, Roger Pielke Jr. has just unveiled his “Global Extreme Weather and Climate Change Dashboard” which, he says, offers “288 indicators from 57 variables across 8 phenomena and for the entire world and every continent” plus “a dedicated page for normalized losses and a consistency check with the IPCC AR6, and more.” It is remarkable how often and how loudly people say extreme weather is getting more common, more extreme and more weathery, including obviously wildfires, when in fact it’s not.
Oh say can you sea
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Aug 26, 2026
It is well-documented that as prosperity increases, there is an inverted-U curve of GDP and environmental quality because at first growth requires spoiling the environment but past a fairly modest level, which much of Africa sadly has not reached, people can afford to care about it and governments can afford to look after it and things start to improve.
2025 Study: ‘There Exists No Unequivocal Experimental Evidence For The CO2 Greenhouse Effect’
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone Aug 25, 2026
Link to paper: Feedback between Carbon Dioxide and Temperature in the Atmosphere
By Peter Stallinga, Atmospheric and Climate Sciences, March 31, 2025
https://content.scirp.org/pdf/acs2025152_74701317.pdf
Kathleen Stock is Right About Climate – But Wrong About What’s Making Things Worse
By Tilak Doshi, Tilak’s Substack, , Aug 24, 2023 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
It is remarkable that Ms. Stock agonizes over elderly people wilting in poorly insulated flats or sweltering in Britain’s many hospitals without once mentioning the glaring lack of air-conditioning – the one technology already proven, unambiguously, to reduce heat mortality wherever it has been allowed to spread. Yet the Luddite ruling class in the UK and EU would rather have their citizens face the risk of a grisly, painful death from heatstroke than provide cheap electricity and allow them to install a $400 air conditioner. Air conditioning is nearly universal in American and Japanese homes (approximately 90%) but remains the exception rather than the rule across Europe (approximately 23% average) and is especially uncommon in the UK (estimated at low-teens to single-digit percentages).
Heat-Related Deaths
How medical journals serve the narrative
By John Ridgway, Climate Scepticism, Agu 25, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
[SEPP Comment: A dialogue with AI Gemini on the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).]
Tidbits
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Aug 26, 2026
Heatmap declares, to wallop Donald Trump over the Iran War, that “Now Is the Worst Time for Diesel to Get Expensive” because “Agricultural equipment largely runs on diesel, and with the harvest season coming up, that spells bad news for farmers.” But um isn’t the whole point of carbon taxes, credits and regulatory restrictions to drive up the price of hydrocarbon energy so people use less of it? And then it’s secretly where food comes from? Oh dear. And you only just thought of it now?
Problems in the Orthodoxy
Say What? China is building Ultra super critical coal fired power plants in just three years…
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Aug 22, 2026
Link to source: Guazhou Changle power station
Global Coal Plant Tracker, Global Energy Monitor, Accessed Aug 28, 2026
From Nova: We’re so used to the glacial bloated pace of Western production it is hard to even remember a day when such things were possible, but satellite photos show the pace of construction and finished plants. See The GEM site for more.
Imagine saying Australia could start today and build a coal plant by 2029? Cough, choke, gasp. We’d spend ten years to issue the first permit, and probably have to start university degrees in coal fired PTSD before the first shovel hit dirt.
Desperate Climate Crisis Cultists Turn to OnlyFans for ‘Sexy’ Messaging
Meanwhile, Statistician William Briggs has crunched the numbers and shows we have reached “peak climate change”.
By Leslie Eastman, Legal Insurrection, Aug 23, 2026
After Paris!
COPs Are Not Much Cop!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 24, 2026
[The “Cop Curve”] Says it all really!
Claim: China is Considering Hosting COP33 in 2028
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Aug 22, 2026
Social Benefits of Carbon Dioxide
The effect of additional CO2 on Japanese Honeysuckle
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Aug 26, 2026
From the CO2Science archive.
Seeking a Common Ground
I Wouldn’t Start From Here
The Trump administration proposes to amend NCA5. No amendment fixes that report — only Congress can restore integrity to climate assessments
By Roger Pielke, Jr. The Honest Broker, Aug 25, 2026
The Future of Climate Science with Roger Pielke, Jr.
38-minute Video by Competitive Enterprise Institute, Via WUWT, Aug 26, 2026
“The [climate issue] perception gap is an information problem”
By Russell Cook, GelsppanFiles.com, Aug 21, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kesphire]
Changing Weather
“Super” El Nino Misinformaton
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Aug 28, 2026
Surprisingly, there is nothing called a “Super El Nino” in the scientific world.
If the temperature anomaly (difference from normal) of the ocean surface in the tropical Pacific is 1.5 to 2 C above normal, it is called a strong El Niño. More than 2C, a very strong El Niño. The media calls this a “super”; the scientific community does not.
Below is the latest forecast by NOAA. They are predicting a very strong El Niño this autumn (peaking around 2.2 C above normal).
2026 Atlantic Cyclone Energy Index Running At 85% Below Normal!
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Aug 23, 2026
Link to source: Current Season North Atlantic Ocean ACE (1991-2020 Climatology)
By Staff, Tropical Meteorology Project, Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State U. Aug 28, 2026
Earth, Wind And Fire
By Tony Heller, Real Climate Science, Aug 26, 2026
The massive Ross Fire west of Fort Worth, Texas is devouring the Barton Chapel Wind Plant and the Pinnington Solar Farm, as well as an oil field.
Agriculture Issues & Fear of Famine
Wrong, Reuters, An Early Champagne Harvest Isn’t Proof of Climate Change
By Anthony Watts, Climate Realism, Aug 27, 2026
Champagne grapes are harvested when they reach the desired balance of sugar and acidity, not on a fixed calendar date. If weather accelerates ripening in a particular year, growers harvest earlier. If cooler weather delays ripening, they harvest later.
By the way, even if climate change were resulting in earlier harvests, that wouldn’t necessarily mean disaster or proof of a crisis for the industry. Farmers and vintners regularly adapt to changing conditions. A crisis would be if harvests failed or declined substantially overtime and data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization show that that is not the case. Reuters’ story is advocacy masquerading as reporting. Its readers deserve better.
[SEPP Comment: In many traditional wine growing regions, the desired acid-sugar balance is occurring earlier. This is more a result of more rapid photosynthesis from increasing CO2 rather than warmer temperatures from increasing CO2. With more rapid photosynthesis there is less fear of an early frost killing the harvest.]
Claim: Climate Driven Droughts Will Triple the Price of Wheat
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Aug 23, 2026
Link to paper: Climate-Induced Severe Water Scarcity Events as Harbingers of Global Wheat Price
By Miroslav Trnka, et al., AGU, Earth’s Future, Aug 21, 2026
From abstract: A SWS [ severe water scarcity events] wheat price relationship model was developed for period 2001–2021 and tested for 1986–2000 and 2022–2024 with future projections calculated under climate change using climate model simulations from CMIP5 and CMIP6 up to 2100.
[SEPP Comment: Base forecasts on models that fail basic hindcasts?]
Lowering Standards
Excess Winter Deaths Cover Up
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 25, 2026
For more than a decade, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published annual reports detailing excess winter mortality in England & Wales. In other words, how many more people had died in winter on average, compared to the rest of the year.
According to the ONS, they are “the UK’s largest independent producer of official statistics and its recognized [as a] national statistical institute”.
If they are truly “independent”, why have they bowed the knee to Government demands to cease the publication of politically inconvenient statistics?
Weather is Unpredictable But the Met Office is Not
By Laura Dodsworth, The Daily Sceptic, Aug 27, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
It’s disappointing to hear that the best summer of my entire life might be over. But 50 millimeters? A whole month’s rain in a just few hours. This got my attention with a jolt, just as it was supposed to.
The Met Office also warns:
The rain returns with a vengeance this week. Whilst rain is welcome for many, for others it brings the risk of torrential downpours, flash flooding, lightning and hail. How has the atmosphere switched so dramatically? Watch this week’s Deep Dive with Aidan
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?
Nepal Floods? Blame Them On Climate Change!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 27, 2026
There have, of course, always been floods in Nepal and the long term data shows no upward trends.
Wrong, Deutsche Welle, There Is No Such Thing as a “Super El Niño,” Nor Is it on Team Climate
By Anthony Watts, Climate Realism, Aug 25, 2026
That claim is presented as settled fact, but no evidence is offered by DW to support it.
In reality, year-to-year changes in global temperature are overwhelmingly dominated by natural variability, particularly the transition between El Niño and La Niña. That is why global temperatures can rise sharply during a strong El Niño and then level off or even decline afterward. Over decades and centuries, other natural oceanic current patterns, like the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and the Pacific Meridional Overturning Circulation are significant factors in climate change as they redistribute ocean heat.
The BBC’s El Niño Apocalypse Friday
By Guy de la Bédoyère, Daily Sceptic, Via WUWT, Aug 25, 2026
The BBC’s El Nino Apocalypse
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 26, 2026
It is a fact that El Ninos go hand in hand with lower rainfall in India. This year so far, the monsoon has seen rainfall 13% below average:
The pyro scene
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Aug 26, 2026
Never mind the Anthropocene. After a temporary bout of forest fires the New York Times Climate Forward has called the present age the “Pyrocene”, linking to a piece in which David Wallace-Wells thunders: “The skies above New York are now cleared of smoke, after several grim and portentous days when parents worried over whether to keep their children indoors and the middle-aged worried over the health and safety of their parents and plenty of others endured just a throat-burning dread, with déjà vu indistinguishable from environmental foreboding.” Yes, indistinguishable because they treat every bit of bad weather with the same boilerplate hysteria.
Global Wildfires At Record Low This Year
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 26, 2026
While the media obsesses about record wildfires, the satellite data shows the opposite – worldwide, wildfire area is at the lowest for time of year since records began.
Reform’s Richard Tice Isn’t ‘Out of touch on Climate Change, ITV News Is
By Linnea Lueken, Climate Realism, Aug 28, 2026
Wrong, Honolulu Civil Beat, One Hurricane Doesn’t Prove Climate Change
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Aug 22, 2026
The historical record simply does not support that conclusion.
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda
“We Don’t Have Time” (climate pity party)
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Aug 27, 2026
The Swedish website We Don’t Have Time declares itself to be “The World’s Largest Media Platform for Climate Action.” It is added: “We are democratizing knowledge about climate solutions to inspire and mobilize global action toward a prosperous, fossil-free future.”
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda on Children
Nearly 90% of students at two US universities fake progressive views for professors and friends
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Aug 25, 2026
Link to one reference: Performative Progressivism and Integrity Fatigue: Expression Regulation Under Evaluative Pressure in Higher Education
By Kevin Waldman, psychFORM Research Lab, Accessed Aug 28, 2026
We’re Teaching Kids Scarcity in an Age of Abundance
By Nathan Harden, WUWT, Aug 26, 2026
Expanding the Orthodoxy
The “Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels” project has become a global program
By David Wojick, CFACT, Aug 24, 2026
Link to report: Final report of the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels
By Staff, Government of the Netherlands, June 23, 2026
From Wojick: Action 3.4. Plan the phase down and definitive closure of fossil fuel extraction”
The usual green fantasy given that something like 80% of global energy production is from fossil fuels.
Action 3.4 may be a serious confusion since fossil fuel extraction includes huge feedstocks for petrochemicals not just for energy. Vast quantities of consumer and industrial products require these fossil fuel chemicals, from clothing to fertilizers. The section text makes no mention of petrochemicals or their products, just energy.
There is also the obvious need for huge amounts of money. This is touched on briefly in the fourth Pathway:
Hollywood’s Climate Change Campaign Falls Flat with Voters?
By Christian Toto, WUWT, Aug 26, 2026
Al Gore did more than win an Oscar for 2006’s “An Inconvenient Truth.”
The former Vice President unleashed a wave of Climate Change movies that have yet to let up. Documentaries. Sci-Fi fables. Action flicks.
Questioning European Green
EU Decarbonization Is a Security Threat for the West
By Samuele Furfari, Daily Signal, Aug 26, 2026 [H/t Gordon Tomb]
Throughout history, energy has been the foundation of state power. Nations with secure access to affordable energy possess stronger economies, greater military capabilities, and more freedom of action. Nations dependent on external suppliers expose themselves to coercion and worse.
Global energy trends reinforce these facts. According to the 2026 Statistical Review of World Energy, 86% of global primary energy consumption was fed by fossil fuels. Despite growth in renewable technologies, the world remains overwhelmingly reliant on oil, natural gas, and coal. Many major powers are adapting to this reality, as the Brussels bureaucracy seems to ignore it.
Adapt, Europe (stop whining)
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Aug 28, 2026
Questioning Green Elsewhere
Net Zero as Ponzi Scheme Twice Over, A Meta Example
By Jennifer Marohasy, Her Blog, Aug 28, 2026
The electrons that arrive there are the same mixed stream everyone else on PacifiCorp’s system receives: whatever is generating that hour — coal, gas, hydro, wind, solar — blended on a shared grid. There is no private sunshine cable into the server halls.
And yet the company has long been able to say the campus is matched with 100 percent clean energy, even ‘emission-free’ in the language of corporate sustainability. That sentence is not a description of the wires. It is a description of a purchase.
Funding Issues
Fair Question: Who’s Paying for Climate Reporting in the Mainstream Media?
By Gary Abernathy, Real Clear Energy, Aug 24, 2026
Litigation Issues
Attorney General Hilgers Files Lawsuit Against First Street for Harming Nebraska Homeowners
Press release from Nebraska AG office., Via WUWT, Aug 27, 2026
[SEPP Comment: Founded as a research nonprofit, the company claims to provide physics-based climate risk data and analytics. The website claims its mission is “Connecting climate and financial risk. We leverage the most advanced science and engineering approaches to quantify and communicate the risk of every property in the world.”
It is highly unlikely that its models recognize the physical evidence of the small influence that increasing CO2 will have on Earth’s temperatures (particularly in a specific region). Further it is unlikely that its models recognize that the major climate change threat to humans is a global cooling.]
Foreign Lawfare Threatens Transatlantic Energy Security
By Bob Dees, Real Clear Energy, Aug 26, 2026
Following the DAPL [Dakota Access Pipeline] protests, a North Dakota jury found Greenpeace liable for facilitating a coordinated and unlawful campaign against Energy Transfer – the company behind the pipeline – and the court entered a judgment of approximately $345 million. Yet a countersuit the organization has filed in the Netherlands challenges the American litigation that produced that verdict and seeks relief that could blunt its consequences. What happens now could affect how effectively the U.S. can protect critical energy infrastructure from unlawful interference.
If Greenpeace succeeds in using a foreign court to dilute accountability imposed by the American legal system, other activist organizations may conclude that they can disrupt energy projects without impunity.
Climate NGOs and Foundations: The Hidden Conflicts of Interest
Guest Post by Stephen Heins, originally posted at The Word Merchant, Climate Realism, Aug 26, 2026
Consider the Rockefeller family’s long-standing involvement. For over a decade, Rockefeller-funded groups have spearheaded legal crusades against fossil fuel companies, launching subpoenas and lawsuits aimed at crippling the industry. This “climate lawfare”—using courts to enforce environmental policies—isn’t just activism; it’s a strategic assault on reliable energy sources.
Now That’s (Public) Service!
From Climate Litigation Watch, Via WUWT, Aug 25, 2026
The documents below (full production and privilege log here and here) complete the circuit: Worthington enclosed Ripple’s affidavit in a lobbying letter to Washington defending the Multnomah climate suit he prosecutes. Oregon’s congressional delegation leapt to action. Apparently the public universities supply the credentials, elected officials provide the plaintiff, the plaintiff’s lawyer supplies the money, other elected representatives run cover to protect the litigation, and the finished product returns to the lawyer’s advocacy file.
Subsidies and Mandates Forever
Congress Can Provide Relief for Americans By Renewing the Biodiesel Fuel Tax Credit
By Brian Klippenstein, Real Clear Energy, Aug 26, 2026
The American people don’t deserve to suffer through even more price increases, but the situation could worsen if Congress doesn’t pass the Supporting Energy and Economic Development (SEED) Act.
Energy Issues – Europe
Electricity Costs Onward and Upwards
New report from Onward not enough to stop electricity prices rising.
By David Turver, Eigen Values, Aug 23, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Link to report: Firm Foundations: The case for cheap and reliable power
By Ed Hezlet, Onward, Aug 18, 2026
Whilst it is commendable that Onward have taken the first step towards putting a plan together to deliver cheaper electricity, it is clear this plan is not enough. The cost structure of the electricity system is already far too high, and the system costs are set to double again by 2030. If this is allowed to happen, Britain will be left with a structurally uncompetitive economy for decades to come that will lead to catastrophe.
Net zero is weakening the grid’s resistance to covert foreign attacks
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 26, 2026
From Homewood: It’s ironic that we kept the electricity flowing during the Second World War, regardless of bombs and whatever else Hitler threw at us!
Yes, of course, there were inevitably blackouts when substations, pylons and other grid infrastructure were blown up. But the grid as a whole maintained its integrity.
Now a bunch of Iranian hackers could potentially bring the whole thing down.
We did not need battery storage or digital gizmos back then. We had millions of tonnes of coal sat outside power plants.
Net zero grid upgrade costs spiralling out of control
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 23, 2026
Don’t Blame Gas Prices, Miatta!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 28, 2026
Ed Miliband’s deputy at the DESNZ [Department for Energy Security and Net Zero], Miatta Fahnbulleh, has obviously been well trained in gaslighting. It’s a pity nobody bothered to teach her basic arithmetic!
Here’s her exact quote on LBC:
“The reason why our energy bills are much higher than in other countries is because those costs are being driven by global fossil fuel markets”
The data from her own Department proves she is lying.
Grid Upgrades Will Add £200pa to Bills by 2030
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 25, 2026
So, the £300 saving Ed [Miliband] promised us was a lie!
Why Scandinavia Can Become the Next Epicenter of Global Data Centers
By Prathyaj Mantha, WUWT, Aug 27, 2026
Energy Issues – Australia
Times have changed: Woodside kills off clean energy funding with zero apologies
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Aug 28, 2026
This week with no apology and no mincing of words, the CEO of Woodside, Australia’s largest energy company, ditched their commitment to spent $7 billion on green energy by 2030.
After years of shareholder activism, their green energy ambitions were simply being left by the side of the road. Instead of spending money trying to redirect the jetstreams, the new CEO, Ann Westacott, has this radical plan to assess future investments for their ability to deliver returns to shareholders.
Huge battery boom in Australia accidentally ruins the business case for Snowy 2.0
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Aug 27, 2026
Energy Issues – Elsewhere non-US
A Chinese mystery
What is going on?
By Robin Guenier, Climate Scepticism, Aug 26, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kespshire]
That was unexpected: why was coal consumption not declining when most was used for electricity generation and that was being replaced by renewables? It seemed to me that the answer was possibly a combination of an increase in overall electricity generation with coal’s use increasing in absolute terms and an increase in coal’s use in non-electricity applications such as steel and cement production.
End of ‘Green’ Enslavement in Latin America
By Vijay Jayaraj, CO2 Coalition, Aug 26, 2026
Energy Issues — US
Western water fight also impacts power generation
By Duggan Flanakin, CFACT, Aug 20, 2026
AI: Peak Demand and Peak Supply Postponed (fossil future)
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Aug 24, 2026
Link to article: AI Could Make Big Oil Even Bigger
By Tsvetana Paraskova, Oil Price.com, Aug 18, 2026
- AI could strengthen fossil fuels, with oil and gas productivity gains potentially outweighing emissions savings from renewables.
- AI could create nearly $500 billion in value for E&P companies by 2030 through lower costs and higher production.
- Exxon and Chevron are already deploying AI in exploration, potentially uncovering new drilling opportunities and accelerating development.
The Ark-La-Tex May Be Leading America’s Lithium Race
By Duggan Flanakin, Real Clear Energy, Aug 28, 2026
Net Zero Is Dying: Blackouts, High Costs & the Politicians and CEOs Who Quietly Changed Their Minds
By John Stossel, WUWT, Aug 27, 2026
6.5-minute video. [SEPP Comment: Will the US achieve President Biden’s pledge of net zero by 2050?]
Net Zero Is Dead and Gone
By Stephen Moore, Creative Writers.com, Aug 18, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Texas Is Sending a Clear Message on AI Infrastructure. Fermi Was Built for It.
By Lee McIntire, Real Clear Energy, Aug 24, 2026
Backlash Against AI Data Centers Is Real, Organic, Widespread
By Brendan Steinhauser, WUWT, Aug 28, 2026
Congressional Races Will Impact Energy Affordability and Reliability
By Isaac Orr, Real Clear Energy, Aug 27, 2026
Link to one dated report: The Budgetary Cost of the Inflation Reduction Act’s Energy Subsidies: IRA Energy Tax Credits Could Cost $4.7 Trillion by 2050
The massive cash transfer from taxpayers to private firms under the guise of environmentalism creates an overwhelming and undue burden on taxpayers who continue to pay for fiscally irresponsible federal spending.
By Travis Fisher and Joshua L. Loucks, CATO Institute, Mar 11, 2025
Washington’s Control of Energy
Trump declares national emergency to ban some foreign grid equipment
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Aug 27, 2026
Under the order, it will be up to Energy Secretary Chris Wright, in coordination with other officials, to determine whether a piece of equipment poses an issue.
Trump administration moves to relax fuel efficiency standards for commercial trucks
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Aug 28, 2026
Environmental activists criticized the move, saying that less efficient vehicles means higher fuel costs.
[SEPP Comment: Independent truckers and fleet owners don’t realize that?]
Nuclear Energy and Fears
Army spending $2B to build nuclear microreactors at 5 bases
By Ashleigh Fields, The Hill, Aug 27, 2026
Nuclear microreactors can produce 1-20 megawatts of thermal energy that could be used directly as heat or converted to electric power.
Microreactors are built in a factory and are small enough to be transported on a truck, according to the Department of Energy.
Nuclear microreactors will be installed at Fort Bragg, N.C., by Antares Nuclear Inc.; Fort Campbell, Ky., by BWXT Advanced Technologies LLC; Fort Hood, Texas, by General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems; Fort Benning, Ga., by Radiant Industries Inc.; and Fort Drum, N.Y., by Westinghouse Government Services.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) specifically requested Fort Drum to be selected for the project because its missions require secure power generation, The Associated Press reported.
[SEPP Comment: Does Sen Schumer realize that New York state is on the path of frequent blackouts?]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
Renewables: Energy Addition, not Substitution (a retreating narrative)
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Aug 25, 2026
When the climate alarmists/forced energy transformationists bow to reality, it is worth noting. The latest example is a setback to the governmental push for wind, solar, and batteries in place of consumer-driven oil, gas, and coal. Instead of “energy transition” and “Net Zero,” the reality is, to use a term of Alex Epstein, fossil future.
Wyoming needs eagle death numbers before it approves more wind projects
By David Wojick, CFACT, Aug 26, 2026
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Storage
Don’t Rely on Batteries!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 26, 2026
Energy Trends: June 2026, special feature article – Grid-scale battery storage statistics
Special feature article from the June 2026 edition of Energy Trends statistical publication.
By Staff, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, June 30, 2026
From report: Battery power capacity measures the maximum rate of electricity output from a battery (in MW), while energy capacity measures the maximum amount of energy stored by a battery at one time (in MWh). We do not currently have a reliable data source for energy capacity figures.
From Homewood: I am frankly amazed they don’t track the energy capacity, as this is the only figure that matters.
But an average of 1-hour storage, as implied, is enough to run the grid for about 15 minutes.
Given the unaffordability of large scale storage, the only role for batteries is short term balancing – fast reaction to frequency changes, for instance, to keep things ticking over for a few minutes while gas plants get up and running.
Keep counting them worry beads!
California Dreaming
Dredging the Delta Can Prevent a Catastrophe
By Edward Ring, California Policy Center, July 23, 2026
One great irony in all this is that although dredging was once was believed to harm the environment, not dredging has created even worse environmental problems. During the century when dredging was performed throughout the delta, salmon populations thrived. Even though bass, a salmon predator, were introduced to the delta in the 1870s, it wasn’t until recent years that bass predation began to seriously impact salmon populations. This is because bass prefer shallow, warm water, and while salmon need some shallow habitat to feed, they prefer deeper, cooler channels for migration.
California Lawmakers Chase Unicorns While Real Crises Mount
As typhus hits Los Angeles, wildfires incinerate our cities, and our water infrastructure deteriorates, our state legislators more about gene-edited pets.
By Leslie Eastman, Legal Insurrection, Aug 24, 2026
California is running out of refineries—and running out of time
By Ronald Stein and Mike Ariza, America Out Loud News, Aug 24, 2026
With no pipelines crossing the Sierra Nevada, California is an energy island, separated from the crude oil supplies and refinery infrastructure of the other continental states. As a result, the state’s transportation fuel needs—for airports, cars, trucks, and ships serving three of America’s busiest ports—must be met by in-state refineries.
[SEPP Comment: For years California has been a net exporter of oil and related products. However, the state government is shutting down production. “California is the eighth-largest crude oil producer in the United States and ranks fourth in barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) produced.” The Kinder Morgan’s SFPP West Line is a 14-inch, 515-mile refined products pipeline that runs from Colton CA (North of Los Angeles) to Phoenix. It crosses the state line near Yuma. A coalition of companies led by Phillips 66 is considering reversing the flow and expanding to bring refined products from the Texas panhandle and west Texas to California. The effort is called the Western Gateway Pipeline Project. The pipeline does not cross the Sierra Nevada,]
A Suspected Arsonist, a Wildfire, and California’s Failure to Protect the Public
Suspected arsonist Brandon Glasgo is homeless with a history of arrests and mental health problems.
By Leslie Eastman, Legal Insurrection, Aug 21, 2026
We do not have to live like this.
Californians should not tolerate local or state leadership that allows untreated severe mental illness, chronic homelessness, repeat criminal conduct, and public-safety failures to compound until they become a regional emergency.
Climate change activists want to make California insurance crisis even worse
By Craig Rucker, CFACT, Aug 27, 2026
Other Scientific News
Trump Space Policy Targets 1,000 U.S. Launches, Reentries Annually by 2030
SpaceX changed the launch game. Trump wants U.S. infrastructure to catch up.
By Leslie Eastman, Legal Insurrection, Aug 26, 2026
Link to: The National Space Transportation Policy
Presidential Memoranda, Aug 20, 2026
[SEPP Comment: Space X had about 170 in 2025. About 12 thus far in August.]
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE
Net Zero ideology ‘putting NHS patients at risk’, warn top doctors
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 27, 2026
Under the regulations, major suppliers will have to publicly report emissions from worldwide operations, commit to reaching Net Zero by 2050 and set out what they are doing to cut emissions.
Companies which fail to meet the minimum requirements will not qualify to go to the next stage of the buying process.
Telegraph Blame Nepal Floods On “Melting Glue”
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 28, 2026
We owe it to those who have died, as well as those who may be at risk in future, to carefully collate all the facts and not jump to convenient “blame it on global warming” conclusions.
Still Carney after all these years
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Aug 26, 2026
The actual institutional framework is the kind of thing that Yes Minister would struggle to parody, like Carney’s Major Projects Office that hasn’t approved a single major project in nearly a year, or his sovereign wealth fund built on borrowed money:
“Business Future Pathways was created to develop a ‘made-in-Canada’ sustainable finance taxonomy in partnership with the Canadian Climate Institute. An appointment committee led by the former chair of the Trudeau-era ‘sustainable finance action council’ assembled the ‘taxonomy and transition planning council,’ a mix of institutional investors, regulators, bankers, academics and climate activists that oversees the project.”
And sometimes one hopes such ventures in keeping minutes while wasting hours will collapse of its own pompous weight, or float away from its own insubstantiality. Just because a report says “The taxonomy will be credible, usable, interoperable, dynamic, regionally specific, and prioritized” doesn’t mean it will be. Or that some of those words have real-world meanings. We particularly suspect “interoperable” and “prioritized”, classic bits of Carney-speak that could mean anything, nothing or both depending which way the wind is blowing but sure sound good.
Burnham’s ‘Climate Tsar’ Has Racked Up 250,000 Air Miles on Taxpayer-Funded Flights
By Toby Young, The Daily Sceptic, Aug 23, 2026
Andy Burnham’s ‘climate tsar’ Rachel Kyte has racked up 250,000 air miles on taxpayer-funded flights – including business-class trips to Rio de Janeiro, Seoul and Barbados – at a cost of £107,000 in under two years.
Ms. Kyte, an academic, has previously spoken of air travel’s negative impact on the environment.
Internal watchdog finds FEMA crew violated Hatch Act by skipping homes with Trump signs
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Aug 25, 2026
A new report from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general’s office determined that the crew violated the Hatch Act and FEMA policy when it skipped 11 Florida homes that indicated support for Trump, who was a candidate at the time.
The report comes after the Trump administration itself has also faced accusations of politicizing disaster aid. Politico reported earlier this year that the president had approved 23 percent of disaster funding requests from blue states and 89 percent of requests from red states.
ARTICLES
1. Now California Is Coming for Your Tires
A new rule by Gov. Gavin Newsom orders 70% of today’s car tires off the market by 2033.
By The Editorial Board, WSJ, Aug. 23, 2026
TWTW Summary: The editorial begins with:
“California’s climate obsessives never tire, and now we mean literally. Last week Gov. Gavin Newsom’s energy regulators rolled out costly new regulations for automobile tires to reduce CO2 emissions.
The California Energy Commission moved to impose so-called rolling resistance standards on tires that they say will improve fuel economy. ‘This ultimately is about protecting consumers,’ said chairman David Hochschild. What would Californians do without progressive regulators to protect them by restricting choices?
Environmentalists complain that most tires people buy at auto shops have a higher drag than those that come with new vehicles. That’s because auto makers equip new models with ultra-low drag tires to meet fuel economy and emission standards in labs. But these tires are more expensive and come with real-world trade-offs.
They tend to wear out faster, so they have to be replaced more often. They also have less traction, which can make driving in wet conditions more perilous. Such safety considerations are particularly weighty for SUVs and trucks, which have longer stopping distances and can cause more damage during collisions.
Mr. Newsom’s regulators brushed past these concerns and ordered some 70% of tires currently sold in the state off the market by 2033. Tire manufacturers say models that meet the new standards cost hundreds of dollars more per set, far more than the commission’s estimate and any savings consumers would derive from improved fuel economy.
California regulators notoriously low-ball the economic costs and exaggerate the benefits of their endless rules. They continue to insist the state’s green-energy mandates save money for consumers, though California’s electricity rates are more than double those in neighboring states. State energy efficiency requirements don’t offset the higher rates.
The rising costs of the state’s climate regulations explain why many Californians are souring on them. A recent survey by the Public Policy Institute of California found that 32% support Mr. Newsom’s ban on new gas-powered cars by 2035, down from 49% in 2021. Only 38% say they are willing to pay more for renewable electricity versus 56% in 2016.”
