The Week That Was: 2026-10-03 (October 3, 2026)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week: “No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.”— Albert Einstein
Number of the Week: $10 trillion for 3%.
THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Scope: This TWTW begins with a discussion of the discovery of large vertebratebones from the last Ice Age where it is too cold for the animals to exist today. TWTW discusses a letter from the Buckeye Institute to the Director of the Federal Judicial Center calling for the removal of the chapter “How Science Works” in the new reference manual on scientific evidence. TWTW discusses several issues regarding current litigation in the US. TWTW concludes with a discussion on New York’s Climate Week.
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Perplexing Fact: In physical science, physical evidence is the ultimate and final judge in determining what ideas, theories, are correct. That does not mean that all physical evidence can be easily explained. There are many perplexing facts about the history of Earth. However, in applying the scientific method, perplexing facts cannot be ignored. These facts illustrate that there is something wrong with the prevailing ideas or theory. One such fact is the Würm glaciation discussed by paleontologist Professor Gernot Rabeder in Canary In a Climate World, Vol 3, as presented by John Robson. Robson writes:
Professor Gernot Rabeder is “… author of more than 450 scientific papers on fossil records and the climate history of the Pliocene and Pleistocene. He draws our attention to a cave located nearly 2,800 meters above sea level in the Dolomites which was discovered in 1987 by an amateur mineral collector. The cave is far above the tree line and is surrounded only by rock, scree, and sparse alpine vegetation. Yet inside the cave scientists discovered the remains of cave bears, large herbivores that can only survive in forests with abundant plant life. The bones of the bears indicate that bears throve at that altitude, or thrived if you like but it was long ago, indicating the region had to have been much warmer than today. Then the real surprise came when the bones were carbon dated.
Detailed analysis and reanalysis of the fossil remains reliably places the bones at between 44,000 and 48,000 years before the present. Which places them not in the current or previous interglacial but smack dab in the middle of the Würm glaciation (named after the Würm river in Bavaria), a period much colder globally than the present. Despite which, when Rabeder looked at clues from the alpine climate and the current vegetation patterns, he concluded that during the millennia that the cave bears lived in the Conturines cave the mountain must have been about 10 degrees [10°C (18°F] warmer than at present.
This conclusion flies in the face of long-held theories about the climatic history of Europe and the alarmist dogma that until humans invented CO2, climate changed slowly if at all. So, could a lengthy warm period really have set in even during the depths of the glaciation era? Rabeder notes that fossil remains of lions, leopards and hyenas have also been found in caves in the region, and even a fossil hippopotamus dated to roughly the same interval was found in the Rhine valley, whereas today such animals only live in hot regions of Africa.
In fact, Rabeder says that there are nearly 300 dated fossil samples from Alpine caves that support a finding of substantial warmth in that part of the continent over an extended interval between 30,000 and 60,000 years ago. ‘The climate history of the region,’ he states, ‘has been far more dynamic than is often assumed.’ The fossils remind us ‘that the climate of the Earth has never been static. Over tens of thousands of years, it has changed repeatedly, sometimes dramatically.’
In a recent survey paper, he and his coauthors review some of the disputes the Conturines cave bear remains have given rise to. Various challenges to the reliability of the findings have been raised, but the findings keep being reaffirmed. And the climate history from the paleontological record is also supported by analysis of Milankovitch cycles. But climate scientists are responding as you might expect.
As Rabeder and his coauthors state:
‘It is to be hoped that at some point the many ‘climate prophets’ will adapt their predictions about the future climate to the scientific data and findings. There are numerous speculations and models for the probable climate change in the coming decades and centuries. Looking back to the recent geological past would change these models significantly. Unfortunately, the message that the Conturines Cave brought us is still being ignored today.’
As too often, the people who boast most often and loudly about following the science seem not to understand the phrase.”
To this, TWTW emphasizes that the analysis of the bones of the cave bears shows that they were largely herbaceous animals. From Rabeder’s chapter:
“The structure of their jaws and teeth shows clear adaptations for grinding plant material, and isotopic analysis of their bones confirm a diet dominated by vegetation. Leaves, herbs, and other forest plants appear to have formed an important part of their food supply.
Large herbivores require substantial plant biomass. The present alpine vegetation around the Conturines Cave cannot sustain such animals. At this altitude, the vegetative zone consists mainly of grasses and dwarf shrubs. Even the subalpine belt below the tree line lacks the deciduous vegetation that appears to have been central to the cave bear diet.”
Rabeder suggests that central Europe was subject to a regional warming that does not appear in the Greenland ice-core data. He examines two alternative hypotheses and rejects both. One is that the bones are left over from the Eemian Interglacial (about 130,000 to 115,000 years ago). But the radiocarbon measurements and molecular ages estimates consistently place the fossils between 60,000 and 44,000 years ago. The second alternative hypothesis is tectonic uplift. But the process is too slow to account for an uplift (elevation change) of some 1500 meters (about 5000 feet) over 40,000 years. Furthermore, stalactites inside the cave, formed both before and after the bears occupied the cave, contradict this hypothesis. As Rabeder states:
“Much of what is known about Ice Age climate comes from oxygen-isotope records derived from ice cores and marine sediments. These records are extremely valuable for understanding global climatic cycles. However, their direct application to regional terrestrial environments is limited.
Fossil vertebrates provide another line of evidence. Animals are strongly constrained by ecological conditions, and their presence or absence therefore provides direct information about the habitats that existed at a given time.”
The bones inside the Alpine cave and the bones of other animals that thrive in warmer climates yet are found in central Europe are perplexing facts. Ignoring such physical evidence is common to the UN IPCC and its followers. This deliberate ignorance demonstrates that the IPCC is not engaged in physical science but in persuasion. See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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Scientific Evidence: David Tryon of The Buckeye Institute wrote a letter to Judge Robin Rosenberg, Director of the Federal Judicial Center calling for the removal of the “How Science Works” chapter from the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, Fourth edition. The letter is endorsed by several other non-profits including the Florida Legal Foundation, Inc., American Legislative Exchange Council, and the Caesar Rodney Institute. The letter begins with [citations omitted here]:
The Federal Judicial Center recently removed the Reference Guide on Climate Science from the Fourth Edition of the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence. For similar and additional reasons, the undersigned respectfully request that the Federal Judicial Center (‘FJC’) also remove the ‘How Science Works’ (‘HSW’) chapter from the Fourth Edition of the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence (‘Manual’). The HSW chapter departs from the Manual’s proper educational role by endorsing contested scientific conclusions, elevating ‘consensus’ over Rule 702 reliability analysis, and contradicting core principles articulated in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Background: Congress established the FJC ‘to further the development and adoption of improved judicial administration in the courts of the United States.’ After the U.S. Supreme Court’s Daubert decision, the Manual expanded the FJC’s role to provide ‘a resource to assist judges in understanding relevant scientific methods and principles that may arise in their cases.’ Importantly, however, the First Edition of the Manual cautioned that ‘[t]he reference guides do not instruct judges concerning the admissibility of specific types of expert evidence or conclusions of specific scientific studies, and they are not intended to establish minimum standards for acceptable scientific testimony.’ The Fourth Edition omits that caution and suggests the ‘consensus’ model of science is definitive. [Boldface added here]
TWTW note: Consensus may be important in behavioral sciences such as sociology or psychology sciences. But consensus is of little value in physical sciences such as physics. Physical sciences are based physical evidence, not what humans think about the physical world. The physical world does not care what humans think about it.
Tyron’s letter states five specific issues with the “How Science Works” chapter followed by the rationale for removing the chapter because it incorporates the specific issue. The five issues are: [Boldface italics in original.]
- “The HSW chapter incorporates material from the removed Climate Science chapter.
- The HSW Chapter would not meet the standard of Rule 702 because it grossly overstates the status of the science.
- The HSW chapter contradicts Daubert.
- The HSW chapter’s assertion that ‘widespread acceptance’ is ‘the highest level of certainty science has to offer’ undermines Rule 702 and resurrects Frye.
- The HSW chapter ignores bias—which can warp the supposed ‘consensus.’”
The letter concludes with:
“The Manual serves an important educational purpose. But the ‘How Science Works’ chapter goes beyond explaining scientific methodology and instead endorses contested scientific conclusions and a consensus-based framework inconsistent with federal rules and Supreme Court holdings. Because the chapter risks influencing courts away from the individualized reliability analysis required by federal law, the undersigned respectfully request that the Federal Judicial Center remove it from the Manual.”
In the third edition of Manual the “How Science Works” chapter was written physics professor David Goodstein of CalTech. There were no issues with that chapter. See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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Let the Judges Do It: Getting Federal courts to require the Federal government to do things that are generally beyond the limited powers the Constitution granted to the Federal government has a long history. In “‘Big Oil Is the New Big Tobacco’ (Remembering the 2012 La Jolla Legal Plan)” Stephen Heins recounts how a group of politically motivated scientists met to work out a plan to blame oil companies for causing severe weather events. They are trying to have local juries establish local liability for an international issue. How much of the current warming is caused by carbon dioxide and how much did local oil companies contribute as compare with China? Some of the interesting passages include the following:
“Where La Jolla wanted courts to do what legislatures would not, the update keeps filing after federal judges have thrown cases out, and keeps hoping a state jury will do the regulating. The tobacco line is still the prestige analogy. It still does the work of making a complicated energy system sound like a pack of Marlboros.
What the script leaves out is the part a Midwest reader notices first. It leaves out that the same fuels under indictment are why infant mortality fell and why a Wisconsin winter is survivable. It leaves out that the United States has cut emissions while growing, largely by swapping gas for coal and by not shutting the nuclear plants that still run.
It leaves out that China builds coal plants on a scale that makes a San Francisco lawsuit look like a press release. It leaves out the woman in a kitchen in Lagos or rural India whose ‘transition’ is still a wood fire and a bad lung. And it leaves out the price of the remedy on offer: intermittent power, higher bills, and a planning system that treats reliability as a moral failure.”
The editors began the post with a quote from James Hansen who insisted that carbon dioxide was changing climate:
“Let’s be clear: the frequent comparison of the fossil fuel and tobacco industries is nonsense. Fossil fuels are a valuable energy source that has done yeomen service for humankind.”
On September 30, the US House Judiciary Committee released a “Report: How Radical Environmental Special Interests Manipulate the Federal Judiciary.” The press release states:
“The report reveals how the Environmental Law Institute (ELI), a left-wing environmental activist group that pushes for greater regulation of American industries, and its Climate Judiciary Project (CJP) target judges whom they believe may be likely to hear disputes surrounding climate change with one-sided judicial training seminars intended to influence the outcome of litigation.”
The effort to have the judges do it can run into difficulty. In “Green Energy Mandates Meet the Commerce Clause” Jonathan Lesser writes:
“Pennsylvania’s renewable energy mandate is finally facing a constitutional test. In a lawsuit filed September 3, West Virginia argues that Pennsylvania’s requirement that many qualifying renewable generators be located within the state violates a basic principle of interstate commerce: states cannot rig markets to favor their own businesses. The case highlights a broader problem with renewable energy mandates: their high cost.
Twenty-eight states and the District of Columbia mandate that electric utilities purchase increasing percentages of their customers’ electricity from specific types of ‘green’ generating resources. Qualifying suppliers are issued renewable energy credits, or RECs, [Renewable Energy Certificate] which utilities must purchase. Utilities then pass the costs on to consumers.
The rationales for the mandates have spanned everything from fighting climate change and reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil to promoting economic development and “green” jobs. While none has accomplished those goals, they have all increased electricity costs by forcing electric utilities to purchase increasing quantities of RECs and SREC [Solar Renewable Energy Credit (a certificate).]”
Currently six states and the District of Columbia require utilities purchase Solar Renewable Energy Credits for renewable energy generation. All are in the northeast, where solar power potential is notoriously low.
On a positive note, in “The D.C. Circuit’s NEPA Reckoning Is a Win for American Energy” Danie Turner writes:
“The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals was once a graveyard for infrastructure projects. As venue for heavily litigated statutes like the Clean Air Act (CAA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), it was where projects went to die, bleeding out slowly from the combined effects of delays, uncertainty, and legal fees, with real costs to job creation and economic growth.
Recently, though, the D.C. Circuit appears to be singing from a new hymnal. The court has begun implementing new Supreme Court precedent to restore a degree of sanity to federal permitting, delivering a blow to the activist environmental groups that traditionally find a friendly reception within its walls.
On August 25, the D.C. Circuit upheld the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) approval of Venture Global’s CP2 liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in Louisiana, tossing out a challenge from environmental groups and commercial fishermen that threw 11 separate legal claims at the project. This export terminal is the kind of infrastructure key to the president’s energy and trade dominance agendas, facilitating the export of American energy, creating hundreds of good-paying jobs, and reducing the trade deficit. Judge Douglas Ginsburg, writing for a unanimous panel, said the challengers were asking for a level of second-guessing the law simply doesn’t allow.”
See links under Litigation Issues and Article #1.
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New York Climate Week: In “New York’s Climate Circus: Same Clowns, Emptier Promises” Tilak Doshi writes:
“Every September the United Nations General Assembly’s high-level week coincides with what its promoters modestly call the world’s largest climate event – Climate Week NYC. The organizers insist the timing is no accident. With heads of state, ministers, bankers, and the assembled apparatus of the climate-industrial complex already gathered for the General Assembly, running a parallel, thousand-event climate jamboree spares everyone a second transatlantic flight. This year the pattern held precisely to form.
The 81st UNGA’s General Debate ran from September 22nd to 26th; Secretary-General António Guterres convened his “High-Level Meeting on Climate Action and the Just Transition” in the middle of it, on September 23rd; and Climate Week NYC filled the gaps around it from September 20th to 27th. Research outfits such as Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy duly received star billing in the proceedings, as I noted last year when reviewing this event’s visible decline into irrelevance.
The two events are formally distinct – the General Assembly is the UN’s own sovereign-state machinery, while Climate Week is run by a private non-profit, the Climate Group, with no UN mandate at all – but the distinction is academic. The whole point of scheduling one alongside the other is that presidents, prime ministers, central bankers, and NGO grandees are already in Manhattan for the diplomatic circuit, so a parallel program of corporate pledges, academic research institutions and philanthropic panels can be organized at minimal extra travel cost. The result, year after year, is the same choreography: a sober-sounding UN track running alongside a carnival of announcements timed for maximum media pickup, with the same cast of characters drifting between the two rooms.
The Sermon from Turtle Bay
On September 23rd, Mr. Guterres delivered his now-familiar green liturgy to the General Assembly: the world, he intoned, is crying out for ‘climate justice’; there is, naturally, ‘not a moment to lose’; and renewables, he assured delegates, are ‘the cheapest, fastest and most secure source of new electricity almost everywhere’, with clean energy having gone ‘from alternative to unstoppable’. As with every liturgy, doom is swiftly followed by salvation. He reassured the UN General Assembly that ‘fortunately, we have a way out,’ It is the standard two-step of climate rhetoric: warn of Armageddon, then offer redemption. [Boldface added]
The trouble is that the ‘cheapest electricity’ claim collapses the moment it is measured honestly. The levelized-cost comparisons habitually cited strip out the cost of the backup capacity, transmission, and storage that intermittent wind and solar require to keep a modern grid running. These are costs that, once included, erase the supposed savings of renewables. Nor did the Secretary-General pause to mention that electricity accounts for only around one-fifth of global final energy consumption. The other four-fifths – heating, transport, heavy industry – still runs overwhelmingly on hydrocarbons. [Boldface added]
Compare the Secretary-General’s triumphalism with the observation by US Energy Secretary Chris Wright when he said that roughly $10 trillion in cumulative global spending on wind, solar and batteries over the past two decades has still not lifted their combined share of global primary energy past about 3%. Twenty years and 10 trillion dollars for a 3% penetration level in global energy use is not “
See link under Defending the Orthodoxy.
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Number of the Week: $10 trillion for 3%. “In a recent statement that has sparked widespread discussion, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright highlighted a stark reality in the global push for renewables. Quoting from the White House Rapid Response account on X:
‘We definitely want energy from everywhere we can get it. We’re driving nuclear forward in the Trump Administration—but in the last 20 years, the world spent $10T on [green energy]. It hasn’t made it to 3% of global energy, and it’s just driven up prices.’
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
#Canary in a Climate World: Professor Gernot Rabeder on the Conturines Cave
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Sep 30, 2026
Removal of the How Science Works chapter from the Reference Manual on Scientific
Evidence
By David Tryon, et al., The Buckeye Institute, Sep 23, 2026
file:///C:/Users/Ken%20Haapala/Downloads/Buckeye%20Inst%20HSW%20ltr%209-23-26.pdf
“More And More Severe Storms”: When Can We Declare This Hypothesis To Be Definitively Falsified?
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Sep 29, 2026
The fact is that the claim (hypothesis) that warmer temperatures lead to more frequent and more severe hurricanes has already been falsified, whether they will admit it or not. By failing to admit it, they just confirm that they are charlatans rather than scientists.
Defending the Orthodoxy
Declare the climate crisis a Public Health Emergency of International Concern
By Nicholas Brink, et al., The Lancet Sep 29, 2026
Climate change is shaping health in the 21st century. In the past few weeks alone, Nepal has faced unprecedented flash floods, and multiple countries have experienced deadly heatwaves and catastrophic wildfires.1 El Niño is now firmly established and projected to intensify further.2 The southern hemisphere faces a summer of extreme heatwaves, droughts, and floods, threatening maternal and child health in particular, and increasing infectious disease outbreaks
New York’s Climate Circus: Same Clowns, Emptier Promises
By Tilak Doshi,, Tilak’s Substack, Sep 29, 2026
Politicians organize to drive up the cost of electricity
By David Wojick, CFACT, Sep 25, 2026
It is called the U.S. Climate Alliance, and while making electricity more costly may not be the goal, it is the certain outcome of their goal, which is to end fossil fuel use.
[SEPP Comment: From its website: Alliance members are committed to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement. Members are Maine; Vermont; New York; Massachusetts; Rhode Island; Pennsylvania; New Jersey; Connecticut; Virginia; Maryland; Delaware; North Carolina; Michigan; Minnesota; Wisconsin; Illinois; Colorado; New Mexico; Arizona; Washington; Oregon; California; and Hawaii.]
Defending the Orthodoxy – Bandwagon Science
Households will pay more for energy because of federal policy changes, think tank says
By Jennifeer McDermott, AP, Via The Hill, Oct 2, 2026
Link to report: Economic, Consumer Cost, Pollution Impacts of Federal Energy Policy Changes In 48 U.S. States
Federal policy changes since January 2025 will harm the 48 contiguous U.S. states with higher energy prices, lost economic growth and jobs, worse air pollution and healthcare costs, and less grid reliability. Click the map below to see how federal policy changes will affect your state.
By Olivia Ashmoore, Robbie Orvis, Daniel O’Brien, Energy Innovation, Oct 1, 2026
From article: Households in the contiguous United States will pay thousands of dollars more for energy through 2040 because of federal policy changes since President Donald Trump returned to office such as canceling new clean energy projects, according to modeling released Friday by a nonpartisan think tank.
[SEPP Comment: Subsidies for wind and solar plus batteries are increasing costs of electricity in the UK, Germany, and Australia. Why is the US different? See Number of the Week.]
The Great Red North
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Sep 30, 2026
Link to report: Canada’s Changing Climate Report 2026
By Staff, Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) Government of Canada, Sep 3, 2026
Link to Summary: https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/eccc/documents/pdf/science-tech/cccr2026/CCCR%202026_Report%20Summary-EN-Sep2.pdf
From Robson: The Canadian Climate Institute hollers “Canada must prepare for a 5°C hotter future and act now to avoid worst impacts: new federal report” and quoted their “Adaptation Research Director” that: “Canadians must prepare for decades of more severe wildfire seasons, more extreme heat days, rising seas, thawing permafrost, and diminishing water resources due to glacier loss. That’s the grim takeaway from the latest edition of Canada’s Changing Climate Report, a comprehensive federal scientific assessment released today.” Or not, because the report actually wasn’t available when they went nuclear over it (or perhaps solar). But it doesn’t matter, because they aren’t interested in the validity of the claims, only their shrillness.
Questioning the Orthodoxy
Morano featured speaker at UN’s NYC Climate Week
By Staff, CFACT Editorial, Sep 25, 2026
I guess almost, and I think the biggest mistake that activists should avoid is getting the UN or someone like Al Gore, making environmental issues political left, right, or Democrat, Republican, conservative, liberal — all of that makes it a niche issue because you’re going to have people who are repulsed immediately.
I think this is one of the biggest mistakes with the UN. The UN politicizes the hell out of climate change to the point where they do all the tipping points; it just turns off half of the audience immediately.
Doom Never Goes Out of Fashion: The Problem With PIK’s “Planetary Health Check
By Tilak Doshi, Tilak’s Substack, Sep 27, 2026
Link to report: Planetary Health Check 2026 finds mounting pressures across Earth’s life support systems
By Staff, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Sep 21, 2026
A patient’s chart is only as good as the thresholds written on it. When those thresholds are arbitrary, unfalsifiable and renewed every September with the same verdict — worse than ever, but redeemable if only we act right now — readers would do well to ask not whether the planet is sick, but whether the diagnosis was ever really about the planet at all.
Climate Alliance featured “affordability” law is anti-affordability
By David Wojick, CFACT, Oct 2, 2026
Spending untold billions of dollars on renewables, batteries, and new nukes (if ever) is not going to “hold the line” on electrical bills.
Batteries in particular are incredibly expensive to buy and provide no new supply. They just make money for their owners by buying low off-peak and selling high on-peak. In fact, they consume energy in this expensive arbitrage process.
I’m not sure how they Certify the Certified Climate Science Professional but their timing is just awful.
By Mumbles McGuirck, WUWT, Oct 1, 2026
It’s the Economy, Stupid — Again
By David DesRosiers, President, RealClearFoundation, Sep 29, 2026
Artificial insinuations
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Sep 30, 2026
Energy & Environmental Review: September 28, 2026
By John Droz, Jr., Master Resource, Sep 28, 2026
Social Benefits of Carbon Dioxide
The effect of extra CO2 on the Kentucky Coffee Tree
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Sep 30, 2026
Seeking a Common Ground
Throwing the baby out and keeping the bathwater, at NOAA
By Dave Burton, WUWT, Sep 30, 2026
NOAA’s CO-OPS TidesAndCurrents “Sea Level Trends” website is shutting down tomorrow
They’re replacing it with a new “Sea Level Trends and Extremes – BETA site,” which lacks the core functionality of the old site.
[SEPP Comment: Long term trends in sea levels are needed. The longer the better.]
There Is A Drought in Academia: A Drought in Honest Research on the Subject of Drought and Other Weather Extremes
By Thomas J. Shepstone, Climate Realism, Sep 29, 2026
Models v. Observations
Correcting climate model errors results in less projected Arctic warming
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Sep 30, 2026
Link to paper: Lessened projections of Arctic warming and wetting after correcting for model errors in global warming and sea ice cover
By Ziyi Cai, et al., Science Advances Mar 5, 2026
Measurement Issues — Atmosphere
UAH v6.1 Global Temperature Update for September 2026: +0.61 deg. C
By Roy Spencer, His Blog, Oct 2, 2026
The Version 6.1 global area-averaged linear temperature trend (January 1979 through September 2026) remains at +0.16 deg/ C/decade (+0.22 C/decade over land, +0.13 C/decade over oceans).
The following table [in post] lists various regional Version 6.1 LT departures from the 30-year (1991-2020) average for the last 33 months (record highs are in red).
Changing Weather
Talking yes, listening no
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Sep 30, 2026
Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice
September 2026 Arctic Ice Beats Expectations
By Ron Clutz, Science Matters, Oct 1, 2026
Devastating year for Switzerland’s glaciers
Glaciers are melting faster than ever before in Switzerland. New measurement data shows that Swiss glaciers lost more than 5 per cent of their volume in 2026, following a winter with little snow and record-breaking summer heatwaves.
By Marianne Lucien, ETH Zurich, Oct 1, 2026
Link to paper: Annual mass balance of Swiss glaciers in 2025/2026
By Matthias Huss, et al., Swiss Glacier Monitoring Network (GLAMOS), Sep 23, 2026
[SEPP Comment: But not devastating to villages threatened by glaciers as during the Little Ice Age.]
Changing Seas
Two More Paleo Reconstructions Affirm Meters-Higher Sea Levels Across Ireland, Brazil 7000-6000 Years Ago
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Sep 30, 2026
Link to one paper: A limpet’s eye view of post-glacial isostasy: fixed biological indicators provide new sea-level indexpoints for the Mid-Holocene relative highstand in eastern Northern Ireland
By Michael J. Simms and Paula J. Reimer, Boreas, 2026
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/bor.70048
From abstract: This is>3 m higher than previous empirical data for the region but is consistent with recent glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) models.
Link to second paper: Ages of different shell species associated to vermetid bioconstructions remains and their implications on Mid-to Late-Holocene Brazilian sea-level curves.
By Rodolfo José Angulo, et al., Quaternary Science Reviews, Mar 1, 2026
From abstract: Taking the paleolevels previously determined for the studied samples and using the revised ages reported here, we infer that relative sea level in southern Brazil was more than 2 m above present between 6000 and 7000 cal aBP.
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?
New York Times Publishes a Balanced Climate/Energy Article
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Sep 30, 2026
“Many states and businesses are backing off ambitious climate targets, and Democrats are less vocal nowadays about climate change. Tech companies are using more natural gas to meet exploding demand for data centers. The International Energy Agency, after some browbeating by Mr. Wright, is revising up its projections for how long fossil fuels will stick around.” – New York Times
Extreme rhetoric
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Sep 30, 2026
Legacy Media Weep as Trump Axes Biden’s Fuel Economy Diktat
By Tilak Doshi, Tilak’s Substack, Oct 2, 2026
And on the pollutants that actually damage health, the internal combustion engine has an extraordinary record that the coverage never mentions. The EPA says new cars, SUVs and pickups are roughly 99% cleaner than 1970 models for hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and particulates, and that total emissions of the six principal air pollutants fell 79% between 1970 and 2024 even as vehicle miles travelled rose 195%.
Fuel economy mandates were never about those pollutants. They were about carbon dioxide, which is not a pollutant at all. As the physicist William Happer of the CO2 Coalition has testified, the real pollutants are fly ash, carbon monoxide, oxides of sulphur and nitrogen, heavy metals and volatile organic compounds, while CO2 and water vapour, the dominant products of combustion, are not among them.
Wrong, Euronews: Climate Change Has Not Created a Food, Energy, and Economic ‘Meta-Crisis’
By Anthony Watts, Climate Realism, Sep 25, 2026
Wrong, TIME, One Nor’easter Isn’t Proof of Climate Change
By Anthony Watts, Climate Realism, Sep 30, 2026
No, NPR, Climate Change Is Not Challenging New York’s Apple Growers
By Linnea Lueken, Climate Realism, Sep 28, 2026
Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show that apple production and yields in New York have risen 35 percent from just 1980 to 2025, with 2025 having seen an all-time record for production.
If long term climate change was damaging apple production, one would expect long-term damage to be indicated by the data, but it is not.
Communicating Better to the Public – Exaggerate, or be Vague?
Talking yes, listening no
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Sep 30, 2026
Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.
Met Office Caught Fabricating Daily Temperature Record Claims
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Sep 27, 2026
Daily temperature records are meaningless in terms of climate and weather. But they are of immense propaganda value.
So, step forward Marco Petagna, Media Advisor & Senior Operational Meteorologist at the UK Met Office.
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda
The scandal gets worse
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Sep 30, 2026
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda on Children
Albanese Government $6 Million Grant for Climate Change Mental Health Research
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Sep 26, 2026
Link to paper: Analysis of children’s questions on climate change reveals that they are most concerned about how to take action
By Chloe H. Lucas, et al., One Earth, Apr 19, 2024
From introduction: Science for society
Climate change will affect the wellbeing of today’s children across their whole lives. Children have a right to information and a right to have their opinions taken into account when adults are making decisions that affect them. But science, industry, and government have so far failed to engage with the voices and opinions of the generation that will bear the brunt of these decisions. We asked 1,500 children to tell us what they wanted to know about climate change. Their questions show that climate action is their greatest concern—they want to know what can be done and what is preventing rapid action. Many children see climate change as posing an existential threat to the planet within their own lifetimes, and this leads to feelings of anxiety, grief, despair, and concern and a search for hope and reassurance. Our research reveals a need for holistic climate change education in schools and greater opportunities for children to be involved in shaping the future they will inherit. [Boldface added]
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Children for Propaganda
It’s a Syndemic! Climate Change makes children eat junk food (they say)
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Sep 26, 2026
Link to article: Climate crisis is affecting children’s nutrition
By Marina Maintinguer Norde, et al., The Conversation, Sep 24, 2026
Questioning European Green
Green Energy Debacle: German Expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt Warns Of Severe Economic And Social Consequences
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Sep 30, 2026
Vahrenholt warns of deindustrialization and a potential destabilizing loss of competitiveness. High energy costs and policy-driven phase-outs of reliable baseload power (such as nuclear and coal) are pricing German industry out of global markets.
When All Else Fails, Start a War: Europe’s Descent From Net Zero Folly to Military Mobilization
By Tilak Doshi, Real Clear Energy, Oct 1, 2026
Link to report: The future of European competitiveness: Report by Mario Draghi
By Mario Draghim former European Central Bank President, September 2025
Part A | A competitiveness strategy for Europe
Part B | In-depth analysis and recommendations
Mario Draghi’s competitiveness report found that the EU’s total real output, measured at 2015 prices, had slipped from a little more than 15% below the United States in 2002 to 30% below by 2023. At market exchange rates the EU’s share of world GDP has fallen from roughly 29% in 1980 to about 17% in 2024. China’s surged over the same span while the US maintained its leading position.
Funding Issues
Tidbits
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Sep 30, 2026
It’s only a crime when the other guys do it. The Free Beacon reports that a shadowy Michael Bloomberg-seeded “Impact Center” at NYU that paid people to work in state attorney-generals’ offices pushing climate cases against fossil fuel companies has gone quiet, archiving their website, deleting pages, changing emails and removing references on LinkedIn. Apparently as state and federal investigators closed in the gang high-tailed it out of town. Imagine if climate skeptics were putting up money to place activist staff in government offices who then scrambled to cover their tracks once their activities came to light. It would be an outrage.
The Political Games Continue
Repealing Power Plant Limits Is a Good Start. ARC-ES Would Give It Lasting Impact.
By Gary Abernathy, Real Clear Energy, Sep 25, 2026
While the EPA’s laudable intent is to make it difficult for future administrations to revert to the old far-left ways when it comes to stifling America’s energy output, the best way to achieve that goal is to enact the Affordable, Reliable, Clean Energy Security Act (ARC-ES), introduced in Congress last year by U.S. Rep. Troy Balderson (R-OH). ARC-ES would guarantee that our most abundant and cost-effective energy resources will always remain a crucial part of the mix, making it much more difficult for the climate zealots to ever again justify funneling billions in taxpayer subsidies to so-called “alternatives.”
Litigation Issues
Report: How Radical Environmental Special Interests Manipulate the Federal Judiciary
Press Release, House Judiciary Committee, Sep 30, 2026 [H/t WUWT]
The D.C. Circuit’s NEPA Reckoning Is a Win for American Energy
By Daniel Turner, Real Clear Energy, Sep 30, 2025
Green Energy Mandates Meet the Commerce Clause
By Jonathan Lesser, Real Clear Energy, Sep 29, 2026
Federal Judge Strikes Down New York’s $75 Billion Climate Superfund
Now, two federal judges have ruled against New York’s law to make large oil companies pay for damage it blames on climate change.
By Tom Gantert, The Epoch Times, Sep 29, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
“Big Oil Is the New Big Tobacco” (Remembering the 2012 La Jolla Legal Plan)
By Stephen Heins, Master Resource, Oct 1, 2026
Cap-and-Trade and Carbon Taxes
Trump’s Carbon Tax
The president meets the “Iron Law
By Roger Pielke Jr., The Honest Broker, Sep 29, 2026
On 28 February, President Trump went to war with Iran. Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz stopped, and oil and gas prices skyrocketed. I was curious about what level of carbon tax would be equivalent to the oil and gas price increases since the military action started and how the public has responded around the world.
[SEPP Comment: A blockade is the same as a tax?]
Energy Issues – General
Africa’s Poorest Countries Need Energy, Not Empathy
By Vijay Jayaraj, CO2 Coalition, Oct 1, 2026
Why does so little firm power exist in places that need it most? Follow the finance. The World Bank stopped financing coal more than a decade ago. It then would end upstream oil and gas lending after 2019.
US Unshackles Its Power Plants; Poor Nations Must Do the Same
By Vijay Jayaraj, CO2 Coalition, Oct 1, 2026
The arithmetic is simple: Emissions are a global quantity, a single nation’s power sector is a rounding error within it, and the supposed health benefits of shuttering that sector are too remote and too speculative to justify the certain, measurable damage of expensive electricity.
The USA is Weathering the Storm, but Oil Shock is Smashing European Economies
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Sep 30, 2026
The Market Is Pricing the Oil, Traders Are Pricing the Voyage
By Sarah Twomey, Real Clear Energy, Sep 30, 2026
Energy Issues – Europe
Political Spite Won’t Keep the Lights On
So, this is Andy Burnham’s solution to soaring energy prices: nationalization and relitigating the 1970s. It’s just a shame, says Ben Pile, that energy was far cheaper under Thatcher than in our Net Zero era.
By Ben Pile, The Daily Sceptic, Oct 2, 2026
Back in February, it was announced that GBE [Great British Energy] had made a billion pounds available for such projects. But the devil is in the detail. Last month, Burnham revealed that just £30 million was on the table for “People’s Power projects”, with the remaining £970 million presumably waiting for interested parties.
Great British Energy Posts Loss in First Year
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Sep 30, 2026
Link to report: Great British Energy annual report and accounts 2025 to 2026
Great British Energy’s annual report for the period ending 31 March 2026.
By Staff, Great British Energy, Sep 14, 2026
[SEPP Comment: It took 5 and one-half months to get out the annual report. US corporations have 60 to 90 days.]
On the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee’s new report
Idiot wind
By JIT, Climate Scepticism, Oct 1, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Link to: Zero sum game: How the UK can reframe the energy transition
This is a House of Commons committee report, with recommendations to government. The Government has two months to respond.
By Staff, Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, Sep 17, 2026
Related inquiry: Building support for the energy transition
The last two recommendations of the Committee:
76. recommendation
In response to this Report, the Government should set out its assessment of the merits of granting Ofcom further legislative powers and resources to more effectively regulate misleading information online regarding the energy transition, especially on the “credibility laundering” of information. The Government should also explore the merits of tasking Ofcom with producing speedy, interim decisions on complaints, as part of its efforts to counter the spread of misinformation.
77. recommendation
We recommend that Ofcom should explore how to ensure information on climate change and energy transition from trusted sources is prominent and easy to find on social media platforms, specifically on how authoritative information might be given greater prominence within the algorithms of social media platforms and search engines.
[SEPP Comment: Ofcom is the UK regulator for the communications services. According to its website it does not “decide what can be printed in newspapers and magazines; or censor what people write or post on the internet. Our job is to make sure that online services take steps to keep their users safe.” (Boldface added)]
Great British Grid
Yet more hot air
By Mark Hodgson, Climate Scepticism, Sep 29, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Diesel Drivers Paying Price For Govt Neglect
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Sep 28, 2026
In 2001, we had nine major refineries, with capacity of 1.78 mb/d. Now we are left with just four – Fawley, Humber, Pembroke and Stanlow, which have capacity of 1 mb/d.
Fawley Maintenance Shutdown Will Exacerbate Diesel Crisis
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Sep 30, 2026
[SEPP Comment: According to its website, Fawley Refinery operated by ExxonMobil is “the UK’s largest integrated petrochemical complex, producing a range of energy products, lubricants and chemicals…” The maintenance shutdown was scheduled and may continue through December.]
Another Electricity Margin Notice
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Sep 29, 2026
[The National Energy System Operator] NESO issued yet another Electricity Margin Notice for yesterday evening’s peak period, with low winds and solar power dropping away.
Energy Issues – Australia
Let the bunfight begin! Energy giants battle the bureaucrats in the interconnector cost blame wars
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Oct 1, 2026
The Renewables-Interconnector Bill has arrived
Energy Issues – Elsewhere non-US
Canada is Our Energy Friend
By Robert Bradley Jr. Master Resource, Sep 29, 2026
Link to report: Counting Canada Wrong: The Hidden surplus Behind the Headline Deficit
By Staff, Institute for Energy Research, September 2026
Energy Issues — US
The Absurdity of calls to “Pace” Artificial Intelligence
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Sep 28, 2026
Imagine if inventors in other fields were forced to accept an “embedded evaluator”, who potentially has strong personal ties to big players who would profit enormously from stealing their ideas. I believe most people in the AI industry, in any industry, would find such a commercial risk intolerable, and would put a lot of effort into circumventing the requirement for such oversight.
Any attempt to police AI in the way proposed by some AI giants (not all) would be counterproductive – it would drive commercially sensitive AI research underground. In many cases researchers have the resources they need to conduct AI research at home, why should they tell anyone else what they are doing? Most AI advances don’t need to be tested on billion dollar computers, a $10,000 computer has plenty of AI capacity for a proof of concept test. In the face of a serious clampdown, secret AI breakthroughs could be laundered through third party countries which hadn’t signed up to the AI oversight system.
Data Centers Skip the (Interstate Pipe) Line
Outsmarting liberal permitting blockades one mega datacenter at a time
By Isaac Orr and Mitch Rolling, Energy Bad Boys, Sep 26, 2026
U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data show a large increase in interstate pipeline capacity from 2006 through 2009, and again from 2011 through 2017. These increases correlate roughly with the surge in natural gas production in the Barnett shale of Texas in the mid-2000s and the steep production increases in Appalachia in the 2010s.
However, by the mid-2010s the sledding had become much more difficult for interstate natural gas projects. Once a sleepy, nearly foregone conclusion at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, pipeline approvals became increasingly contentious as state officials and climate groups used permitting and litigation to constrain new natural gas infrastructure
Energy Affordability: An IQ Test For New Yorkers That They Will Very Likely Fail
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Sep 25, 2026
Link to: Final New York State 2026 RGGI Operating Plan Amendment
By Roger Caiazza, Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York, Feb 3, 2026
And then there’s the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or “RGGI.” RGGI is a compact among eleven Northeastern states to force greenhouse gas emitters (i.e., electric power plants) to purchase allowances for every ton of CO2 that they emit. The quantity of allowances shrinks every year, thus forcing the auction price to increase. The auction clearing price has gone from $2.53/ton in 2017 to $37.65/ton in the most recent auction this month. And the cost of the allowances ultimately gets added into the electricity rates. In short, this is a program whose main purpose is intentionally to drive up electricity rates.
Do New Yorkers have sufficient IQ to figure out that they are getting scammed with this “energy affordability” mantra from Governor Hochul. I guess we will find out in the upcoming election. But let’s face it — New York voters are very likely to fail this test.
[SEPP Comment: Same with voters in many other states.]
Refrigerators: The Next Battle Frontier?
By Timothy Maney, WUWT, Sep 26, 2026
There is also a broader industrial-base issue at play. We spend enormous amounts of time debating where the components in our weapons systems are manufactured, and rightly so. We should apply the same scrutiny to the digital and physical infrastructure supporting those weapons and the people who operate them. Supply-chain security cannot stop at the aircraft, missile, satellite, or autonomous system. It must extend to the connected infrastructure underneath the entire enterprise.
America’s diesel market looks like a Mad Max film. The America First fix is hiding in plain sight.
By David S. Cohen, Real Clear Energy, Sep 25, 2026
If refining is this profitable, why is no one rushing to build refineries? No major greenfield refinery has been built in the United States since 1977. Worldwide capacity has diminished because of the Iran and Ukraine wars. Domestic capacity is shrinking instead.
The reasons are rational, and that is the problem. A new refinery takes the better part of a decade to permit and build, draws fierce local opposition and costs billions, a bet no corporate board will make on margins it expects to fade, against demand clouded by electric vehicles and hostile state policy. And incumbents have no reason to add capacity that would erode the margins they now enjoy; buybacks pay better. No conspiracy is required. A scarcity is simply the more profitable business model, and without a policy response it will persist.
The Diesel Export Trap: A Quick Fix That Raises Prices
By Kristen Walker, Real Clear Energy, Sep 30, 2026
Coal’s Real Value Is Optionality
By Portia Roberts , Lars Schernikau, Real Clear Energy, October 01, 2026
The DOE’s order for Indiana coal plants is about more than a temporary reliability fix. It is a warning against “energy subtraction,” i.e., prematurely retiring dependable resources. A serious energy strategy should preserve the option to use every reliable resource capable of keeping the lights on, powering industry, and protecting consumers from unnecessary cost and insecurity.
Oil and Natural Gas – the Future or the Past?
Comeback Story? – New Pipelines Boost Permian Natural Gas Economics, But Oil Still Drives Activity
By Lisa Shidler, RBN Energy, Sep 30, 2026
Nuclear Energy and Fears
Helion Admits Technical Problems are Delaying their Nuclear Fusion Timetable
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Oct 1, 2026
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
Parr Station Modernization Writes the Next Chapter in a Century of Reinvention
By Aaron Larson, Power Mag, Oct 1, 2026
Now Dominion Energy South Carolina (DESC) has retired those Frame 5 units and replaced them with two GE Vernova LM6000 PF+ aeroderivative combustion turbines—part of a broader peaking modernization program that gives the utility fast-start, dual-fuel, black start, and synchronous condensing capability at a moment when solar has become the variable resource the system needs to manage, rather than hydro in the early 20th century.
[SEPP Comment: Doubt these new gas power plants are anywhere near as efficient as natural gas combined cycle. Why not use just use gas rather than use it to backup solar which fails over 65% of the time?]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles
Trump wipes out the EV car mandate — cars don’t have to try to change the weather
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Sep 29, 2026
Why I Will Still Never Buy an Electric Car
In summer 2023 Dr Colin M. Barron published a book, I Will Never Buy an Electric Car, in which he set out all the shortcomings of EVs. Now, three years later, he says the case has only got worse.
By Dr. Colin Barron, The Daily Sceptic, Sep 30, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
My new book also contains a chapter on how electric car ownership fits in with the United Nations Agenda 2030 plans, which see no future for private car ownership as the emphasis will be on limited public transport with many people travelling on foot or on a bicycle.
California Dreaming
Washington State climate laws cloning those of California
By Ronald Stein Energy Literacy Advocate, Accessed Sep 30, 2026
Health, Energy, and Climate
Fraud, compromise, and groupthink: How warped research incentives undermine science
By Arielle Selya, ACSH, Sep 30, 2026
Other News that May Be of Interest
America’s Freedom to Slow AI Is Priced in Magnets
By Carlo J.V. Caro, WUWT, Oct 1, 2026
Infinite Friction: Why the Nuclear Analogy Is Wrong for AI
By Garrison Moratto, WUWT, Sep 27, 2026
The conventional wisdom is well-established: the race between the United States and China to build powerful artificial intelligence is most akin to the arms race of the atomic age. Sam Altman of OpenAI famously compared his company’s efforts to The Manhattan Project. Anthropic’s Dario Amodei compared selling advanced chips to China as akin to selling nuclear weapons to North Korea.” Elon Musk went further, saying “…the danger of AI is much greater than the danger of nuclear warheads, by a lot…”
What Hayek Can Teach Us About AI Safety
The great economist’s lessons on knowledge and spontaneous order offer the best path forward.
By Adam D. Thierer, City Journal, Sep 29, 2026
Other scholars advanced similar reasoning to explain how safety itself is an evolutionary discovery process of continuous learning and improvement—a sort of spontaneous order in Hayekian terms. Safety emerges through decentralized experimentation, continuous feedback, knowledge gained from failures, and ongoing societal resilience. This was the great lesson of political scientist Aaron Wildavsky’s 1988 book Searching for Safety, which warned of the dangers of “trial without error” as compared with ongoing experimentation and iteration.
OpenAI Agent Reportedly Bypassed Safeguards and Hacked Australian Health Website
AI agent was tasked to collect mundane data collection and autonomously used hacking techniques to get it.
By Leslie Eastman, Legal Insurrection, Sep 27, 2026
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE
Even Tom Cruise can’t make a politically correct climate satire against Big Oil funny
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Oct 2, 2026
Ultra Bad El Nino to kill 450,000, it’s the “worst in 1,000 years” (or at least since satellites began)
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Sep 30, 2026
This El Nino is absolutely definitely the worst – apart from all the other ones we don’t know about, which is most of them.
The Guardian calls Climate Change Treachery on a Major Aussie Coal Mine Extension
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Oct 2, 2026
ARTICLES
1. Biased Climate Classes for Judges
A House report reveals a stealthy effort to steer judicial decisions.
By The Editorial Board, WSJ, Sept. 30, 2026
TWTW Summary: The editorial begins with discussing the climate lobby’s efforts to influence the judiciary and this week’s report by House Judiciary Committee, which is discussed above. The editorial continues with:
“According to the Judiciary investigation, the climate groups schedule judicial education programs to target judges in areas affected by droughts or wildfires. When nature causes damage, climate litigators file lawsuits blaming fossil-fuel companies for climate change, using theories like public nuisance or consumer deception.
One CJP [Climate Judiciary Project (CJP) by the Environmental Law Institute (ELI)] curriculum module teaches judges about ‘Applying Attribution: Impacts of Climate Attribution Science on Tort Litigation.’ ‘Detection and Attribution of Climate Change’ teaches judges about supposed human influence on extreme weather.
In one email to a CJP Advisory Committee member in June 2022, CJP Founder Paul Hanle said his group ‘target[s]’ states where climate cases are expected, according to the Judiciary Committee report. In testimony to the committee, Mr. Hanle said the purpose of the training is for judges to understand ‘its basis’ and as a consequence ‘they would see that climate change is . . . real, human caused.’ Few doubt that humans influence climate, but that’s a long way from saying weather events are caused by fossil fuels produced by specific companies when CO2 emissions are a complicated global issue.
Mr. Hanle told Congressional investigators that CJP didn’t directly invite judges to its events and that the Federal Judicial Center was ‘charged with inviting the judges.’ But he was contradicted by internal documents in which CJP leaders discussed how to use ‘‘back-channel efforts’ to target states and key judges for upcoming climate-related judicial seminars,’ the report says.
In a 2022 letter to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientist Michael Wehner, Mr. Hanle wrote that ‘I’d like to tell you how we are going about reaching key judges, and I have a specific idea about attribution . . . that could make a great difference in the final outcome of cases.’ Without ‘legislative or executive action to address the climate problem,’ he wrote, ‘real government action might still be derived from court decisions based on scientific understanding of the consequences of global warning.’
This isn’t the unbiased musing of a neutral educator. Mr. Hanle told the committee he meant ‘reaching key judges’ with the science so that ‘judges would make better informed decisions.’ But CJP works with groups including Columbia’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, whose executive director Michael Burger has an of-counsel position at climate-litigation firm Sher Edling.
None dare call it conspiracy, but it sure looks like an organized, stealthy effort to influence how judges rule on cases. At least 140 federal judges have attended CJP judicial training sessions. That’s great for the growing climate tort industry but treating climate ideology as settled fact is a disservice to the rule of law. [Boldface added]
**************
2. Boulder Has No Business Making Foreign Policy
The Supreme Court takes up a lawsuit against oil companies that far exceeds legitimate local authority.
By William P. Barr, WSJ, Oct. 1, 2026
TWTW Summary: The former US Attorney General begins with:
“When the Supreme Court returns for its new term on Monday, the first case it will hear is Suncor Energy v. Boulder County, which asks whether state and local governments may use state tort laws to impose liability on American companies for the effects of global climate change.
Boulder County and the city of Boulder sued Suncor and Exxon Mobil in a Colorado court, claiming their community has been harmed by global climate change. The plaintiffs seek damages for local harms. Liability would be based not on the company’s actions in Colorado but on the extent its worldwide production and sale of fuels are found to have contributed to greenhouse gases in the global atmosphere. A trial would give a local jury the authority to determine what share of global climate change each American company should be held responsible for. It is part of a wave of such litigation by left-leaning states and localities that aim at bankrupting fossil-fuel companies.
The defendants have several strong constitutional arguments: Our federal structure doesn’t permit one state to regulate inherently interstate matters. Extraterritoriality principles prevent a state from applying its own law to impose liability for activities in other states or countries. The Clean Air Act assigns primary responsibility for regulating emissions to the Environmental Protection Agency, while preserving only limited state authority over in-state sources.
But one fundamental defect in Boulder’s case hasn’t received as much attention as it deserves: It intrudes directly into foreign policy, a field the Constitution commits to the federal government.
Boulder’s complaint makes that plain. The city’s claims are based on the global phenomenon of climate change and the atmospheric accumulation of greenhouse gases from every carbon source around the world. Its lawsuit therefore takes a position not merely on local environmental harms, but on how responsibility for an international problem should be allocated among American companies, foreign companies and foreign nations. That is foreign policy.
From the beginning, the Constitution was designed to ensure that the U.S. would speak with one voice in its dealings abroad. States may not conduct their own foreign relations or establish competing national policies toward other countries. The Supreme Court has repeatedly enforced that principle, recognizing that federal authority in matters affecting foreign relations must be free from local interference.”
Mr. Barr gives reasons why the principle of the Federal government, not states, conducting foreign relations is sound than concludes with:
“Boulder can’t plausibly claim a traditional state or local role in regulating worldwide greenhouse-gas emissions. States have authority over local environmental matters, but not over the global climate.
The conflict with foreign policy is obvious. For decades, presidents and Congress have pursued climate policy through federal statutes, diplomacy and international agreements. Those policies reflect difficult balancing of environmental interests, economic growth, national security and relations with other countries. A state-law liability regime that imposes its own costs on American companies for global emissions would necessarily alter that national balance.
The problem would multiply if Boulder’s theory were accepted. Dozens of states and municipalities could impose different standards, different measures of liability and different judgments about responsibility for the same global emissions. American energy companies could face massive cumulative liability—estimated by plaintiff-aligned experts in the trillions of dollars—under a patchwork of local rules, while the principal foreign sources of emissions remain outside American courts’ reach.
Whatever one thinks about climate change or the proper regulation of fossil fuels, the Constitution assigns responsibility for the nation’s dealings with the rest of the world to the federal government. The basic principle is older than the modern climate debate: America doesn’t conduct foreign policy through state courthouses. Suncor gives the Supreme Court an opportunity to reaffirm that principle. Foreign policy is a job for the U.S. government, not Boulder.”