Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
The mainstream media and policy analysts have been slower than sloths in displaying an understanding of how the United States’ dismantling greenhouse gas limits for power plants is a profound turning point for global energy policy. Moreover, while Washington reclaims industrial common sense, the promise of energy reformation languishes in Africa, especially in nations that sit at or near the bottom of national income.
The mainstream media and policy analysts have been slower than sloths in displaying an understanding of how the United States’ dismantling greenhouse gas limits for power plants is a profound turning point for global energy policy. Moreover, while Washington reclaims industrial common sense, the promise of energy reformation languishes in Africa, especially in nations that sit at or near the bottom of national income.
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation found that household smoke kills Burundians at high rates, and women and girls spend four hours daily gathering fuel. In Egypt where cooking gas is widely used, such hardships are hardly known.
Energy Access and Poverty One of the primary reasons for these levels of poverty is lack of access to energy, especially electricity. And some of the statistics could come from societies of dark pre-industrial eras.
The Central African Republic’s electricity network runs on the hydroelectric power of one waterway. The Boali complex on the Mbali River – three units totaling less than 39 megawatts – produces far less than a single modern coal-fired plant, which typically generates 1,000 megawatts or more. Of the country’s 5 million people, 4.3 million do not have electricity.
Burundi’s entire national grid produced less than 167 megawatts in 2025, even with a recent addition of nearly 50 megawatts. The national access to electricity sits below 12%. Burundi’s 14 million people depend on a system that is barely enough for a single American shopping mall.
South Sudan’s installed capacity reached roughly 214 megawatts by 2023, of which about half worked.
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.
Vijaya Ramachandran of the Breakthrough Institute says blanket bans on financing hydrocarbon projects entrench poverty. Addressing climate change and ignoring poverty is “completely immoral,” she says. “The average Ethiopian consumes only 130 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, about the amount the average person in the United States consumes in four days.”
Ms. Ramachandran is not a climate “skeptic” but rather an economist who knows what happens at a clinic that has insufficient electricity to refrigerate its drugs.
African governments should demand that the African Development Bank and World Bank restore financing for fossil fuel plants and for the infrastructure to connect them to consumers. This is the bare minimum needed for the continent’s most desperate to escape poverty.
Originally published at PJ Media, September 30, 2026.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at theCO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India. He served as a research associate with the Changing Oceans Research Unit at University of British Columbia, Canada.
On Saturday, President Trump announced that he had approved new vehicle fuel economy standards, and on Monday the Transportation Department made the final rule official. Within hours, the legacy media covered the rollback of Biden’s vehicle mandates with shrill criticisms. The New York Times told readers that the administration was gutting a signature federal effort to speed the shift to electric vehicles.
Start with an irony that the NYT buries in its own reporting. The paper conceded that Congress had already scrapped the fines for automakers that miss the mileage targets, leaving Monday’s rollback more symbolic than substantive. That penalty repeal, part of last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill, is what mattered.
On Saturday, President Trump announced that he had approved new vehicle fuel economy standards, and on Monday the Transportation Department made the final rule official. Within hours, the legacy media covered the rollback of Biden’s vehicle mandates with shrill criticisms. The New York Times told readers that the administration was gutting a signature federal effort to speed the shift to electric vehicles. Politico judged the revision “one more nail in the coffin” for Biden-era EV policy. Bloomberg’s headline announced that the US “guts” auto mileage rules, while the Washington Post ran its own story under the banner “Analysts are doubtful”, reporting that “experts” scoffed at the administration’s claim of a $1,300 cut in new-car prices.
The final rule requires a fleetwide average of 34.9 miles per gallon by model year 2031, in place of the roughly 50 mpg demanded by Biden’s standards. To the assembled commentariat, this is climate vandalism, a betrayal of drivers and a gift to Beijing. Every one of these claims is false or badly misleading. And the missing context – what the Biden mandates cost, who paid, and what they actually bought – is the story the legacy press coverage never reveals.
A funeral for a rule already dead
Start with an irony that the NYT buries in its own reporting. The paper conceded that Congress had already scrapped the fines for automakers that miss the mileage targets, leaving Monday’s rollback more symbolic than substantive. That penalty repeal, part of last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill, is what mattered. Politico’s own expert, Joshua Linn of the University of Maryland, explained that without penalties CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) had become little more than a polite request: Detroit is asked nicely to add technology, with no consequence for declining. Neither outlet drew the obvious conclusion. If the standards were toothless, the handwringing over their formal retirement is theatre. If they still bit, they were a mandate – precisely what the Times insists Trump falsely accuses Biden of imposing. The coverage wants it both ways.
As for the Post’s doubtful analysts, Stephanie Brinley of Mobility Global and Jessica Caldwell of Edmunds argue that savings will not reach buyers when the average new vehicle already costs around $50,000, and that any saving would first be absorbed by tariffs. In fact, NHTSA itself cautions that its estimated $1,289 reduction in average vehicle cost by model year 2031 materialises only if manufacturers pass it on. But whether a cost saving shows up at the dealership is irrelevant to what the vehicle efficiency mandates cost in the first place, and who paid.
The hidden tax on every showroom floor
The answer is not hard to find, though it requires reading beyond the Beltway press. The Heritage Foundation’s Diana Furchtgott-Roth and Andrew Weiss showed that Biden-level CAFE targets exceeded what gasoline-powered cars can plausibly achieve, converting fuel economy regulation into a backdoor EV mandate. The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Marlo Lewis argues that this ran afoul of the statute’s own limits.
To comply, legacy manufacturers had to raise the EV share of their fleets, selling the extra EVs at a loss, and then recoup the loss by charging more for gasoline models or by buying regulatory credits from Tesla – a compliance tax according to the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The gasoline-car buyer subsidised the EV buyer, one sticker price at a time.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation and the American Energy Institute quantified this cross-subsidy in 2025. On its estimates, each model-year 2023 EV imposes between $94,121 and $152,695 in hidden 10-year social costs, borne by gasoline-car buyers, taxpayers and electricity ratepayers, while CAFE, EPA greenhouse-gas and state ZEV credits can be worth $46,000 to $115,000 per EV to the manufacturer.
The academic literature points the same way. UC San Diego’s Mark Jacobsen, cited in a January public comment by the American Consumer Institute, finds CAFE three to four times costlier than an equivalent gas tax, with each additional mile per gallon costing consumers $11.2 billion in the first year and $24.1 billion after 10. Cato Institute’s Peter Van Doren puts CAFE’s cost at no less than six times that of a carbon tax, and the Mackinac Center cites Jacobsen’s figure of $222 per ton of CO2 abated. CEI reckons the reset spares buyers about $900 on the average new car. These studies measure different things, but they converge on one conclusion: the mandate was expensive, and the expense was hidden.
The bill came due in Detroit. Ford took a $19.5 billion write-down in December as it cancelled EV programmes, including the electric F-150 Lightning, and GM followed in January with a $6 billion charge. These are the balance sheets of firms that built what regulators demanded rather than what buyers wanted. The Times frets that the rollback may encourage bigger pickups and SUVs, yet Van Doren’s point is that footprint-based standards already penalise small, cheap cars and subsidise big trucks and SUVs.
CAFE doesn’t set one mileage target for every car. The target for each vehicle depends on its ‘footprint’, which is approximately the area between its four wheels. The larger the footprint, the lower (easier) the mpg target. A small hatchback must hit a demanding number, while a full-size pickup gets a lenient one.
Reuters reports that under the Trump rollback, lifetime fuel costs rise by more than $1,600 per vehicle higher through 2050 than under the Biden rules. The Biden rules added roughly $1,289 efficiency technology costs to a car’s price in exchange for that $1,600 in fuel savings. But if a buyer could recoup $1,600 at the pump for $1,289 of technology, why would a mandate be needed in the first place?
Non sequitursand the China bogeyman
Critics offer three further objections. The first is that tariffs and dearer fuel – gasoline at $4.48 a gallon since the US-Israeli attacks on Iran began in February – will swamp any regulatory saving. True, and irrelevant. Tariffs and Gulf-driven pump prices exist whether or not CAFE mandates are loosened. Keeping the mandate would not abolish them; it would merely stack another cost on top. To argue that because one burden is heavy, one should insist on carrying a second, is a non sequitur.
A second criticism in the mainstream media coverage is that the rest of the world is ‘racing toward EVs’ and America will be left behind. Dan Becker of the Center for Biological Diversity warns that Detroit is being told it may be competed into oblivion by Chinese EV exports. But the evidence suggests that EV sales are disappointing everywhere outside China.
In March 2024, CNBC published a widely cited article entitled ‘EV euphoria is dead. Automakers are scaling back or delaying their electric vehicle plans’. The outlet’s automotive industry reporter Michael Wayland wrote:
For years, the automotive industry has been in a state of EV euphoria. Automakers trotted out optimistic sales forecasts for electric models and announced ambitious targets for EV growth… Now the hype is dwindling, and companies are again cheering consumer choice. Automakers from Ford Motor and General Motors to Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Jaguar Land Rover and Aston Martin are scaling back or delaying their electric vehicle plans.
NPR reported that EVs have held 5-6% of new US car sales into 2026, and even the second quarter ‘rebound’ left sales down 20.5% on a year earlier. Detroit is not failing for want of a mandate, it is writing off billions on EVs that it cannot sell.
I wrote in these pages last year on the false promise of EVs. The EV story is overwhelmingly a China-focused one. Europe bought 1.6 million more electric cars in in the first half of 2025 relative to the same period last year, or 27% more. North Americans bought only 0.7 million more, or 3%. The ‘rest of the world’ bought 0.6 million more EVs or 36% from a very small base. China alone accounted for 4.4 million new EV units, logging a growth of 33%. To call what is essentially a China-dominated story a global EV success story is a sleight of hand.
News reports in China are opaque and dominated by CCP interests, like so much else of life in that country. There have been reports of vast ‘graveyards’ of unsold EVs in various cities. A Bloombergarticle in 2023 reported that “a subsidy-fuelled boom helped build China into an electric-car giant but left weed-infested lots across the nation brimming with unwanted battery-powered cars”.
The third criticism of the Trump CAFE rollback is that this is ceding EV and battery leadership to China. That also rests on a false premise. Chinese dominance is built on coal-fired power and on control of the dirty, energy-intensive global upstream supply chain of mining, refining and processing of rare earths and minerals. Western consumers who believe their EVs are ‘clean’ never see the dirty secrets of EVs. China commissioned 78 gigawatts of new coal power in 2025, the most in a decade, and accounting for four-fifths of all coal capacity brought online worldwide, while developers submitted a record 161 gigawatts of new or reactivated proposals. Celebrating China’s EV penetration while ignoring its coal build-out is like admiring the showroom and ignoring the boiler room out of sight behind.
Tailpipes, power stations and philosopher kings
The final refuge is pollution and climate. The NYTreminds readers that transportation is the country’s largest source of greenhouse gases, and the Sierra Club, which has promised to challenge the rule in court, says families will be handed the bill at the pump and with their health. But cutting tailpipe emissions is not cutting emissions. It relocates them to power stations, mines and smelters, out of sight of the showroom. 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.
The larger context is the belief that bureaucrats know better than households how to spend money on energy. In Plato’s Republic the philosopher king rules and the plebs obey; if energy efficiency were the bargain its promoters claim, we would not need experts at the IEA, the EPA or McKinsey to tell us so. Households and businesses, and motorists for that matter, do not need to be told how to save money that energy efficiency would bring. One Mercatus study found that much efficiency policy analysis assumes people never make sound choices. Mandated standards are the philosopher king’s favourite tool precisely because, unlike explicit subsidies, they conceal their costs, which land first on manufacturers and reach consumers untraced. If buyers are poorly informed, the remedy is better information, not a mandate.
The Sierra Club will see Trump in court, and the litigation will be dutifully chronicled. But the real news of the week is not that Washington retired a rule it had already defanged. It is that a mandate born of the 1975 oil embargo has been recognised, at last, as an expensive way of making people buy what they were reluctant to buy. In the same fortnight that New York hosted its annual climate circus, the American car buyer got something rarer than another pledge: a little of his own freedom back.
The strangulation of the regulatory state is to be welcomed, and one should never mourn the end of intrusive mandates – for motorists as for others – designed by bureaucrats and know-it-all philosopher kings. As Friedrich von Hayek taught us many years ago, “the curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design”.
Dr Tilak K. Doshi is the Daily Sceptic‘s Energy Editor. He is an economist, a member of the CO₂ Coalition and a former contributor to Forbes. Follow him on Substack and X.
Ancient Egypt was one of the longest- lasting civilizations in history, thriving along the Nile River for roughly 3,000 years (from around 3100 BCE to 30 BCE). Its history is traditionally divided into periods of strong centralized rule (“Kingdoms”) separated by times of fragmentation and foreign influence (“Intermediate Periods”). The civilization’s success rested on the predictable annual Nile floods, which supported intensive agriculture, surplus food, a strong central state, and monumental architecture.
Climate played a foundational role in both the rise of ancient Egyptian civilization and several of its major periods of stress or decline.
Egypt’s entire society depended on the Nile River’s annual floods, which deposited fertile silt and enabled intensive agriculture in an otherwise arid landscape. Local rainfall was minimal; the floods were driven primarily by monsoon rains over the Ethiopian highlands (feeding the Blue Nile) and equatorial Africa (White Nile).
AI generated by Grok
Ancient Egypt was one of the longest- lasting civilizations in history, thriving along the Nile River for roughly 3,000 years (from around 3100 BCE to 30 BCE). Its history is traditionally divided into periods of strong centralized rule (“Kingdoms”) separated by times of fragmentation and foreign influence (“Intermediate Periods”). The civilization’s success rested on the predictable annual Nile floods, which supported intensive agriculture, surplus food, a strong central state, and monumental architecture.
Rise: Unification and Early Strength
In the Predynastic Period (c. 5000- 3100 BCE), communities along the Nile shifted from nomadic hunting and gathering to settled agriculture. Villages grew into towns, early forms of hieroglyphic writing emerged, and distinct cultures developed in Upper Egypt (south) and Lower Egypt (north, the Nile Delta).
Around 3100 BCE, Upper and Lower Egypt were unified under a ruler traditionally identified as Narmer (also associated with the legendary Menes). This event marks the start of the Early Dynastic Period (Dynasties 1- 2, c. 3100- 2686 BCE). A capital was established at Memphis, the concept of the divine pharaoh (as the living embodiment of Horus) solidified, and early administrative and religious systems took shape.
The Old Kingdom (Dynasties 3- 6, c. 2686- 2181 BCE) represents the first major peak.
Centralized power enabled the construction of the Step Pyramid of Djoser (designed by Imhotep) and the great pyramids at Giza (built for Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure). Solar worship (centered on Ra) rose, along with early development of the Osiris cult. Egypt expanded its influence and trade networks.
Cycles of Decline and Recovery
The Old Kingdom collapsed into the First Intermediate Period (c. 2181- 2040 BCE) due to a combination of factors: weakening of central authority, succession problems, rising power of local governors (nomarchs), and severe climate stress (including the 4.2- kiloyear event around 2200 BCE). Prolonged droughts and low Nile floods caused famine, leading to political fragmentation between northern and southern centers.
The Middle Kingdom (c. 2055/2030- 1650 BCE) began with reunification under Mentuhotep II of Thebes. It was a time of renewed prosperity, stronger central control (especially under Senwosret III), expansion into Nubia, and cultural flourishing (literature, art, and the Coffin Texts). Decline set in with weaker later rulers and loss of control over peripheral areas.
The Second Intermediate Period (c. 1650- 1550 BCE) saw foreign Hyksos rulers (of Levantine origin) control the Delta while native dynasties held the south. The Hyksos introduced technologies such as the horse- drawn chariot and composite bow. They were eventually expelled by Ahmose I, founding the New Kingdom.
Peak: The New Kingdom Empire
The New Kingdom (Dynasties 18- 20, c. 1550- 1070 BCE) was Egypt’s imperial high point. Pharaohs expanded territory from Nubia in the south into the Levant and parts of modern Syria. Famous rulers include Hatshepsut (a powerful female pharaoh), Thutmose III (great military conqueror), Amenhotep III, Akhenaten (who briefly promoted monotheistic Aten worship), Tutankhamun, Seti I, and Ramesses II (the Great). Monumental temples (Karnak, Luxor, Abu Simbel), the Valley of the Kings, and international diplomacy and trade flourished.
Gradual Fall
Decline began in the late New Kingdom. Factors included:
Overextension from costly wars and building projects.
Invasions and pressure from the Sea Peoples (repelled by Ramesses III but at great cost).
Prolonged drought, famine, and disruption of Mediterranean trade networks during the wider Late Bronze Age collapse (around 1200 BCE).
Growing power of the priesthood of Amun, economic strain, corruption, and civil unrest.
This led to the Third Intermediate Period (c. 1070- 664 BCE), with divided rule (pharaohs in the north, high priests of Amun in the south), Libyan dynasties, and eventual Nubian (Kushite) reunification under the 25th Dynasty. Assyrian invasions in the 7th century BCE ended Nubian control.
The Late Period (c. 664- 332 BCE) saw a Saite revival (26th Dynasty) under Psamtik I, followed by two periods of Persian (Achaemenid) rule, interspersed with brief native independence. Egypt became a Persian satrapy.
In 332 BCE, Alexander the Great conquered Egypt. After his death, the Ptolemaic Dynasty (Greek Macedonian rulers, 305- 30 BCE) governed, blending Greek and Egyptian traditions (most famously under Cleopatra VII). Native Egyptians were often marginalized politically. The dynasty ended with the defeat of Cleopatra and Mark Antony by Octavian (Augustus) in 30 BCE, after which Egypt became a Roman province.
Key Factors in Rise and Fall
Rise: Nile- based agriculture and surplus; geographic protection (deserts); strong ideology of divine kingship; effective bureaucracy and writing; control of trade routes.
Fall: Climate variability and droughts that reduced Nile floods; internal political fragmentation and succession crises; economic overreach and inequality (temples and elites controlling land); military technological lag at times; repeated foreign invasions (Hyksos, Libyans, Nubians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans).
Egyptian culture, religion, language, and artistic traditions proved highly resilient and continued under foreign rule for centuries, influencing later Mediterranean and Near Eastern societies. The end of independent pharaonic rule in 30 BCE marks the conventional close of “ancient Egypt”, though its legacy endures.
Map of Ancient Egypt, AI generated by Meta
Cleopatra VII (Cleopatra VII Philopator) is widely regarded as the last pharaoh of Egypt.
She ruled from 51 BCE until her death in 30 BCE as a member of the Ptolemaic (Macedonian Greek) dynasty, which had governed Egypt since the time of Ptolemy I after Alexander the Great’s conquest. She initially co- ruled with her younger brothers (Ptolemy XIII and then Ptolemy XIV) and later with her son Ptolemy XV Caesarion (also known as Caesarion, son of Julius Caesar).
After her defeat (along with Mark Antony) by Octavian (the future Emperor Augustus) at the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE and the subsequent Roman invasion of Egypt, Cleopatra died by suicide in Alexandria in August 30 BCE.
Egypt then became a Roman province, ending more than three millennia of independent pharaonic rule.
Key nuances
Caesarion was briefly the nominal sole ruler for a short time after Cleopatra’s death before Octavian had him executed. Cleopatra is still considered the last active and effective pharaoh.
The last native Egyptian pharaoh (of fully Egyptian ancestry) was Nectanebo II of the 30th Dynasty (reigned c. 360- 343/342 BCE), before the second Persian conquest.
Later Roman emperors were sometimes depicted and given traditional pharaonic titles by Egyptians in temple contexts (as a form of local recognition), with the practice continuing in a limited way until around the early 4th century CE (e.g., Maximinus Daza). However, they ruled Egypt as a Roman province and are not counted as traditional independent pharaohs.
In standard historical accounts, Cleopatra VII marks the end of the long line of pharaohs.
AI generated by Meta
Climate played a foundational role in both the rise of ancient Egyptian civilization and several of its major periods of stress or decline.
Egypt’s entire society depended on the Nile River’s annual floods, which deposited fertile silt and enabled intensive agriculture in an otherwise arid landscape. Local rainfall was minimal; the floods were driven primarily by monsoon rains over the Ethiopian highlands (feeding the Blue Nile) and equatorial Africa (White Nile).
Climate and the Rise of Ancient Egypt
During the early- to- mid Holocene (roughly 10,000- 6,000/5,000 years ago), the Sahara experienced a “Green Sahara” or African Humid Period. Higher rainfall supported grasslands, lakes, and widespread human settlement across what is now desert. As Earth’s orbital changes caused the African monsoon to weaken and shift southward, the region gradually aridified.
Populations that had lived as pastoralists or foragers in the Sahara were forced toward the more reliable Nile Valley. This concentration of people along a narrow, highly productive floodplain created the conditions for denser settlement, intensive agriculture, social complexity, and eventual state formation. By the Predynastic period (c. 5000- 3100 BCE), the climate was generally wetter than today, with higher Nile flows supporting early farming communities.
The unification of Upper and Lower Egypt around 3100 BCE (under Narmer/Menes) and the rise of a centralized state coincided with the later stages of this drying process, which increased “environmental circumscription”, making the Nile Valley far more productive than the surrounding hinterland and encouraging political consolidation and control over resources.
Reliable (but not excessive) Nile floods allowed surplus food production, population growth, specialized labor, monumental architecture, and a strong central administration. Extreme floods or prolonged low floods could disrupt this system.
Major Climate Impacts Across Egyptian History
Climate variability continued to influence Egypt throughout its history.
Key patterns and events include:
Predynastic to early Old Kingdom: Generally favorable or transitional conditions with relatively high Nile flows supporting the development of hieroglyphs, early towns, and unification.
Old Kingdom (c. 2686- 2181 BCE) and the 4.2-kiloyear event: The most famous climate- linked crisis. Around 2200 BCE (the 4.2 ka BP aridification event), a widespread megadrought affected the Mediterranean, Near East, and parts of Africa and Asia. In Egypt, this meant weaker summer monsoons in Ethiopia, reduced Nile flood volumes and baseflow, increased aridity, encroachment of desert sand into the valley, and lower agricultural yields. Evidence includes sediment cores from the Nile Delta and Saqqara showing low floods, higher aeolian (wind- blown) inputs, and changes in pollen and isotopes. Contemporary texts describe famine, and the centralized state fragmented into the First Intermediate Period. Climate stress interacted with internal factors (weak succession after the long reign of Pepi II, rising power of local governors, and administrative strain). It was a major contributing factor rather than the sole cause.
Middle Kingdom recovery: Conditions improved somewhat (moister overall), supporting reunification and prosperity, though a drier phase contributed to later decline.
New Kingdom and later: The period ended under drier conditions. Broader Late Bronze Age stresses (including droughts around 1200 BCE) affected the eastern Mediterranean and contributed to pressures on Egypt (e.g., Sea Peoples invasions), though Egypt proved more resilient than some neighbors.
Ptolemaic period (late centuries BCE): Volcanic eruptions (sometimes distant, such as in Alaska) could suppress the African monsoon, lowering Nile floods for years. Studies link certain low- flood years to crop failures, economic stress, disease, and social unrest that compounded political challenges leading toward the dynasty’s end.
After the Late Period, an increasingly arid climate became established across the Nile Basin and has largely persisted.
Overall Pattern and Resilience
Ancient Egypt repeatedly adapted to climate variability through irrigation, grain storage, centralized redistribution, and administrative responses. Periods of stable or moderate Nile floods supported prosperity and state strength. Extreme low floods (drought) or occasionally excessive flooding often correlated with political instability, famine risk, and fragmentation, especially when combined with other stressors such as succession crises, elite competition, or foreign threats.
Climate was never the only factor, but Egypt’s extreme dependence on a single river system made it particularly sensitive to changes in monsoon strength, the Intertropical Convergence Zone, and related global climate patterns (including possible links to North Atlantic Oscillation or volcanic aerosols). Modern paleoclimate research, using sediment cores, isotopes, pollen, lake levels, and historical Nile records, continues to refine this picture.
“Green Sahara” or African Humid Period, AI generated by Meta
Major climate impacts on ancient Egypt centered on the Nile River’s annual floods, which were the foundation of agriculture, surplus production, and state power in an otherwise arid environment.
Egypt received almost no significant local rainfall; floods depended on monsoon rains far upstream in the Ethiopian highlands (Blue Nile) and equatorial Africa (White Nile). Variations in these floods, driven by shifts in the African monsoon, the Intertropical Convergence Zone, and broader climate patterns, repeatedly shaped the civilization’s trajectory.
1. Drying of the Sahara and the Rise of the State (c. 6000- 3100 BCE)
During the early- to- mid Holocene “Green Sahara” (African Humid Period), higher rainfall supported grasslands, lakes, and widespread settlement across what is now desert. As orbital changes weakened the monsoon and shifted it southward, the region aridified. Populations migrated toward the more reliable Nile Valley. This concentration of people along a narrow, highly productive floodplain enabled denser settlement, intensive farming, social complexity, and the eventual unification of Upper and Lower Egypt around 3100 BCE. The drying process increased “environmental circumscription,” making the Nile core far more productive than the hinterland and favoring centralized control.
2. The 4.2- Kiloyear Event and Collapse of the Old Kingdom (c. 2200 BCE)
This is the most significant and best-documented climate crisis. Around 2200 BCE, a widespread megadrought (the 4.2 ka BP aridification event) affected large parts of the Mediterranean, Near East, Africa, and Asia. In Egypt it produced:
Weaker summer monsoons over Ethiopia.
Sharply reduced Nile flood volumes and baseflow.
Increased aridity, encroachment of desert sand into the valley, and lower agricultural yields.
Famine and food shortages documented in contemporary texts.
Sediment cores from the Nile Delta, Saqqara, Faiyum, and other sites show low floods, higher wind-blown sand, changes in pollen, and isotopic evidence of drier conditions. The centralized Old Kingdom fragmented into the First Intermediate Period of political division and local rule. Climate stress interacted with internal factors (long reign of Pepi II, succession issues, and rising power of provincial governors), acting as a major contributing cause rather than the sole one.
3. Later Periods of Drought and Variability
End of the Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period: A drier phase contributed to decline and vulnerability to foreign (Hyksos) control.
Late New Kingdom / Late Bronze Age (around 1200 BCE): Broader regional droughts and climate stress across the eastern Mediterranean reduced Nile reliability, strained resources, and coincided with invasions (including by the Sea Peoples), economic pressure, and the transition to the Third Intermediate Period.
Ptolemaic Period (especially late centuries BCE): Distant volcanic eruptions could suppress the African monsoon for years, producing abnormally low Nile floods. These led to crop failures, economic hardship, disease outbreaks, and social unrest that compounded political weaknesses and contributed to the dynasty’s challenges.
4. Long-Term Aridification
After the Late Period, an increasingly arid climate became established across the Nile Basin and has largely persisted to the present, with occasional severe drought episodes in later historical times.
Overall Pattern
Stable or moderate Nile floods supported prosperity, population growth, and strong central government. Extreme low floods (drought) or occasionally excessive flooding often correlated with political instability, famine risk, and fragmentation, especially when combined with succession crises, elite competition, or external threats. Egypt repeatedly adapted through irrigation works, grain storage, centralized redistribution, and administrative responses, which helped it survive longer than many contemporary societies.
Paleoclimate evidence (sediment cores, isotopes from shells and sediments, pollen records, lake levels, and historical flood data) continues to refine these connections.
Climate was rarely the only factor, but Egypt’s extreme dependence on a single river system made it highly sensitive to monsoon variability and related global climate shifts.
The Version 6.1 global average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) anomaly for September 2026 was +0.61 deg. C departure from the 1991-2020 mean, down from the August 2026 value of +0.68 deg. C.
The Version 6.1 global average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) anomaly for September 2026 was +0.61 deg. C departure from the 1991-2020 mean, down from the August 2026 value of +0.68 deg. C.
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 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).
Year
Mon
Globe
NHem
SHem
Tropic
US48
Arctic
Aust.
Can.
2024
Jan
+0.80
+1.02
+0.57
+1.20
-0.19
+0.40
+1.12
+0.97
2024
Feb
+0.88
+0.94
+0.81
+1.16
+1.31
+0.85
+1.16
+2.45
2024
Mar
+0.88
+0.96
+0.80
+1.25
+0.22
+1.05
+1.34
+1.12
2024
Apr
+0.94
+1.12
+0.76
+1.15
+0.86
+0.88
+0.54
+1.39
2024
May
+0.77
+0.77
+0.78
+1.20
+0.04
+0.20
+0.52
+0.67
2024
June
+0.69
+0.78
+0.60
+0.85
+1.36
+0.63
+0.91
+0.19
2024
July
+0.73
+0.86
+0.61
+0.96
+0.44
+0.56
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Year
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Time Series Plots for Tropics, USA48, Canada, and Australia
The full UAH Global Temperature Report, along with the LT global grid point anomaly map for September 2026 and a more detailed analysis by John Christy, should be available within the next several days here.
The monthly anomalies for various regions for the four deep layers we monitor from satellites will be available in the next several days at the following locations:
The Democratic Socialists of America aren’t whispering anymore. Their official party platform is a blueprint to remake the country: tax the rich, cancel student debt, free healthcare including “gender-affirming care,” free college and medical school, a living wage, and a 32-hour workweek with full pay.
The new DSA Green New Deal keeps all of that and piles on “social, economic, racial, regional, and gender-based justice and equality.”
The Democratic Socialists of America aren’t whispering anymore. Their official party platform is a blueprint to remake the country: tax the rich, cancel student debt, free healthcare including “gender-affirming care,” free college and medical school, a living wage, and a 32-hour workweek with full pay.
Their big tent panders to pretty much everything — except John Fetterman and traditional American values.
They vilify President Trump for denying a catastrophic climate crisis; walking away from Paris; and reviving coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear power.
So, the DSA promises a Green New Deal to reverse all of that — one that goes well beyond what Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey proposed in 2019.
Ending fossil fuels and converting the grid to weather-dependent wind and solar would do exactly that — and leave Americans without the fuels, fertilizers, plastics, and medicines that come from oil and gas.
Many of the same advocates also wanted “cooperative and public ownership” of essential industries — starting with utilities and the grid — and some wanted the government to own transportation, manufacturing, and natural resources.
Washington would then subsidize the newly jobless and make sure “the public” got “appropriate ownership stakes and returns on investment.”
The new DSA Green New Deal keeps all of that and piles on “social, economic, racial, regional, and gender-based justice and equality.”
What leprechaun pot of gold pays the tab? How does an economy buried in that kind of debt help American workers and families? On those questions, they take the Fifth.
On what planet have wind, solar, communal ownership, and anti-capitalist government delivered anything but poverty and decline?
Britain and Germany now have nearly the highest household and industrial electricity prices on earth. They have sent millions of jobs and entire industries to China and India — countries that burn coal, lean on oil and gas, and emit far more greenhouse gases than the United States, Europe, Australia, and Africa combined.
Rich UK families are already leaving for lower-tax shores. In the process, the Brits, Germans, and other Europeans have set the planet to mining metals and minerals for turbines, panels, batteries, and thousands of miles of new transmission lines that blanket the land and slaughter birds and bats.
This, they assure us, is clean, green, renewable, and sustainable.
Climate-obsessed California and New York are on the same path: the highest continental U.S. electricity prices, lost jobs, and the same ecological wreckage at home and abroad.
“Natural disasters are getting far worse,” and “hurricanes are intensifying,” Sanders claimed. “Safe, sustainable, resilient, affordable housing is a HUMAN RIGHT,” Ramirez insists — especially amid our “urgent climate crisis.” Colorado DSA candidate Melot Kiros calls the GND “a floor, not a ceiling” and a zero-emissions grid “feasible and essential.”
The Housing Act would mandate all-electric apartments — supposedly resilient to climate threats but chained to policies that drive power prices ever upward.
Back on the actual planet, we face no climate crisis. No Category 3-5 hurricanes hit the United States from October 2005 to August 2017. Models and press releases are not evidence. And the GND is only the opening bid.
The same DSA platform also wants to fight mass incarceration and police brutality, “Free Palestine,” end the U.S. war machine, demilitarize the border so workers can “migrate as they wish,” and extend full voting rights to noncitizens.
Ultimately, the DSA treats almost every problem as a symptom of capitalism’s alleged drive for resource extraction, excess profits, and endless growth. The more “educated” people become at Indoctrination U, the more they share those views.
A change-the-entire-economy thing? They want to change everything about the America we love. We’ve long said today’s Greens are watermelons: green on the outside, red on the inside. This platform proves it.
That these factions, ideologies, and policies already control too much of our educational system, media, boardrooms, and state and local governments is bad enough.
On September 1, after Democratic primary voters embraced multiple Democratic Socialist candidates, the House of Representatives adopted a resolution denouncing socialism “in all its forms.” All Republicans and eight Democrats supported the resolution; 192 Democrats voted against denouncing socialism, and two voted “present.”
Give the Democrats and Democratic Socialists control of Congress and the Supreme Court, and affordability, justice, equality, and opportunity become a distant memory — or a pipe dream — for the middle- and working-class Americans they claim to champion.
Glacier archaeologist Marcel Cornelissen describes glaciers as “treasure troves”. As they melt, artifacts emerge on the surface (rather than being deeply buried), giving unique insights into the past. Finds are increasing with accelerated ice loss. Researchers are often alerted by mountaineers who spot objects, then document, stabilize, and transport them for laboratory analysis and dating.
AI generated by Grok
Switzerland’s melting glaciers are revealing ancient secrets, according to an article published on October 2, 2026, by SWI swissinfo.ch.
Glacier archaeologist Marcel Cornelissen describes glaciers as “treasure troves”. As they melt, artifacts emerge on the surface (rather than being deeply buried), giving unique insights into the past. Finds are increasing with accelerated ice loss. Researchers are often alerted by mountaineers who spot objects, then document, stabilize, and transport them for laboratory analysis and dating.
Notable discoveries
Bronze Age weapons (including a bow and arrowheads from the Lötschen Pass on the Bern-Valais border)
Ancient animal remains (such as a cow’s skull)
A small Roman statue
A rosary
Other items linked to Mesolithic rock crystal extraction and use
Some of these appear in an exhibition at the Glacier Garden in Lucerne. Cornelissen is involved in the “Bergeis” project at the Uri Institute Cultures of the Alps and is especially interested in reconstructing daily life from thousands of years ago (e.g., hunting, protecting livestock, or possible conflicts).
The urgency
Glacial ice acts as a major archaeological archive that is disappearing rapidly.
Related reporting notes that about a fifth of Swiss Alpine ice has vanished in five years, with 2026 heatwaves and low winter snowfall accelerating the loss of dozens of glaciers.
Cornelissen warns that “a great deal of archaeological knowledge is being lost”, as future analytical methods may arrive too late for much of the remaining ice.
The piece is a short (~3- minute) feature translated from German, focusing on the race to document these finds before they are gone.
“Bergeis” (Mountain Ice) is a research and public archaeology project at the Uri Institute Cultures of the Alps (Urner Institut Kulturen der Alpen and Institut Kulturen der Alpen), an affiliated institute of the University of Lucerne based in Altdorf, Canton Uri, Switzerland.
Focus and goals
It investigates the extraction, processing, and use of rock crystal (Bergkristall and quartz) by Mesolithic hunter- gatherer societies in the Swiss Alps (primarily Cantons Uri and Valais), roughly 8000/7000- 5800 BC. The project examines how people sourced and worked this material at high altitudes, its societal value, and the broader environmental and climatic context (including past and present glacier dynamics).
A key site is a rock- crystal extraction fissure near the Untere Stremlücke and Fuorcla da Strem Sut (around 2817- 2831 m), exposed by the retreating Brunnifirn glacier (Oberalpstock area).
Discovered in 2013 by a crystal hunter (“Strahler”), it yielded:
Rock- crystal tools, manufacturing waste, and knapping debris
Rare organic remains preserved in the ice (antler artefacts and wood fragments, the oldest ice-preserved organic finds known in the Alps at the time)
This is described as the first securely dated Mesolithic glacial rock-crystal extraction site in the Swiss Alps. The project also studies related assemblages elsewhere in Uri and Valais and includes further field surveys (in collaboration with cantonal archaeological services).
Dual aims:
Scientific research into alpine Mesolithic life, raw- material procurement, and the deep history of crystal hunting (“Strahlen”), a tradition that continues in the region.
Public outreach: raising awareness of alpine cultural history, potential glacier/ice-patch finds, and encouraging hikers, mountaineers, crystal hunters, and locals to report discoveries to authorities.
Leadership and timeline
Project lead: Marcel Cornelissen, M.A. (freelance archaeologist and Junior Research Fellow at the institute, specializing in early post-glacial and alpine archaeology). He runs it on a mandate basis.
Official run: approximately January 2021- October 2023 (with related fieldwork, analysis, and outreach continuing; listed as 2021- 24 in some of Cornelissen’s records).
Related activities and outputs
Excavations and surveys (e.g., 2020 work at the Stremlücke site).
Exhibitions such as “Bergeis- Strahlen der Steinzeit” (shown at Talmuseum Ursern in Andermatt and Stockalperschloss in Brig, 2022- 2023/2025), featuring tiny rock- crystal tools, large- format photos by Valentin Luthiger, and documentation of the fieldwork team.
Publications (including a 2022 paper in Norwegian Archaeological Review on the glacially preserved site) and outreach materials such as flyers and brochures
The project sits under the institute’s research focus on “Forms of cultural inscription” and highlights how melting glaciers both reveal and threaten this archaeological archive. It connects prehistoric alpine practices with contemporary mountain culture and climate change.
This is a Science X Dialog piece written by the lead author of the research. It closely follows (and largely reproduces) his earlier “Behind the Paper” post on the Springer Nature Research Communities site. It summarizes the findings of the March 2026 paper in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science.
There is a blog post by Susmit Subhransu Satpathy (PhD student researcher at the IBS Center for Climate Physics) on the Springer Nature Research Communities site. It discusses his team’s research paper published in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science.
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This is a Science X Dialog piece written by the lead author of the research. It closely follows (and largely reproduces) his earlier “Behind the Paper” post on the Springer Nature Research Communities site. It summarizes the findings of the March 2026 paper in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science.
Atmospheric circulation not only drives weather and climate but also carries angular momentum. Shifts in winds or mass distribution allow the atmosphere to exchange momentum with the solid Earth, slightly changing the planet’s rotation rate (and thus the Abstract
Changes in the large-scale atmospheric circulation that regulate Earth’s climate can slow its rotation by increasing the Length of Day (LOD). Using large-ensemble simulations from three global climate models under the SSP3-7.0 scenario, we find that global warming-driven changes in Atmospheric Angular Momentum (AAM) propagate into measurable variations in LOD. These arise from modifications in both the mass and motion components of AAM. As the climate warms, expansion of the Hadley cell, intensification of subtropical jets, and weakening of tropical trade winds enhance the motion of the AAM, while a strengthened westward pressure gradient force associated with mountain torque and weakened surface friction torque indicate a reduced efficiency of momentum exchange with the solid Earth. Together, these processes accelerate the atmosphere and slow Earth’s rotation. By the late 21st century, AAM-driven LOD increases reach 10–18% of the lunar tidal friction trend, highlighting anthropogenic climate change’s role in Earth’s rotational dynamics., or LOD).
Previous work had projected rising Atmospheric Angular Momentum (AAM) under warming, but the dynamical reasons were unclear. Using large- ensemble simulations from three global climate models under a high- emissions scenario, the team found a consistent picture:
The Hadley cell expands poleward
Subtropical jets intensify
Tropical trade winds weaken
Upper- level zonal winds strengthen
These well- known responses to warming systematically increase AAM. At the same time, momentum exchange between the atmosphere and solid Earth weakens (through changes in mountain and friction torques).
The result is a slightly faster -moving atmosphere and a slightly slower- rotating Earth.
By the end of the 21st century, the atmospheric contribution to LOD increase reaches about 10- 18% of the long- term lunar tidal friction trend. Although modest, the signal is systematic (externally forced by anthropogenic warming rather than internal variability) and arises from well- understood circulation changes.
The authors place this in context: tidal friction has long been the dominant long- term driver of rotational slowing, while core- mantle interactions dominate decadal- to- centennial variability. Atmospheric changes represent an additional, climate-driven component.
Climate change is reshaping the fundamental dynamical balance of the Earth system. The atmosphere, oceans, cryosphere, and solid Earth are tightly coupled, so changes in one can propagate into others in unexpected ways. Global warming influences Earth beyond the climate system itself.
The weakening of the momentum exchange between the solid Earth and atmosphere through changing mountain and friction torques. Credit: Susmit Subhransu Satpathy
There is a blog post by Susmit Subhransu Satpathy (PhD student researcher at the IBS Center for Climate Physics) on the Springer Nature Research Communities site. It discusses his team’s research paper published in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science.
Key research findings
The paper, Anthropogenic warming- driven atmospheric circulation shifts and angular momentum increase: influence on the Earth’s rotation (Satpathy, Franzke, Yuan, Maher, Park & Lee, 2026), shows that global warming alters atmospheric circulation in ways that increase Atmospheric Angular Momentum (AAM). This accelerates the atmosphere slightly and slows Earth’s rotation, lengthening the day (increasing Length of Day, or LOD).
Using large- ensemble simulations from three climate models (CESM2- LE, ACCESS- ESM- 1.5, and MIROC6) under the high- emissions SSP3- 7.0 scenario, the researchers found:
Circulation changes that boost AAM (especially its motion component):
Poleward expansion of the Hadley cell
Intensification of subtropical jets
Weakening of tropical trade winds
Strengthening of upper- level zonal winds
Weakened momentum exchange between the atmosphere and solid Earth (via changes in mountain and surface friction torques), so the Earth does not “keep up” as efficiently with the faster-moving atmosphere.
By the late 21st century, the AAM- driven LOD increase reaches about 10- 18% of the long- term lunar tidal friction trend (the dominant natural process that has been slowing Earth’s rotation for billions of years). The effect is subtle but systematic and externally forced by anthropogenic warming, not just internal variability.
Broader context
Earth’s rotation rate already fluctuates due to lunar tides, core- mantle interactions, post- glacial rebound, and mass redistribution (e.g., melting ice sheets increasing polar flattening and oblateness). This work isolates the atmospheric contribution as an additional climate- driven signal. Conservation of angular momentum means gains in atmospheric angular momentum are balanced by a corresponding slowing of the solid Earth’s spin.
The blog emphasizes that climate change reshapes fundamental dynamical balances across the Earth system (atmosphere, oceans, cryosphere, and solid Earth), producing effects that extend beyond temperature, precipitation, or extremes.
The increasing trend of AAM with global warming. Credit: Susmit Subhransu Satpathy
Anthropogenic warming- driven atmospheric circulation shifts and angular momentum increase: influence on the Earth’s rotation
Changes in the large-scale atmospheric circulation that regulate Earth’s climate can slow its rotation by increasing the Length of Day (LOD).
Using large- ensemble simulations from three global climate models under the SSP3-7.0 scenario, the authors find that global warming- driven changes in Atmospheric Angular Momentum (AAM) propagate into measurable variations in LOD.
These arise from modifications in both the mass and motion components of AAM.
As the climate warms, expansion of the Hadley cell, intensification of subtropical jets, and weakening of tropical trade winds enhance the motion component of AAM, while a strengthened westward pressure gradient force associated with mountain torque and weakened surface friction torque indicate reduced efficiency of momentum exchange with the solid Earth.
Together, these processes accelerate the atmosphere and slow Earth’s rotation. By the late 21st century, AAM- driven LOD increases reach 10- 18% of the lunar tidal friction trend, highlighting anthropogenic climate change’s role in Earth’s rotational dynamics.
Key points from the paper
Background: Earth’s rotation rate (and thus LOD) varies due to core-mantle coupling, lunar tidal friction, post- glacial rebound, and mass redistribution (e.g., melting ice sheets increasing polar oblateness/J₂). AAM consists of a motion term (related to zonal winds) and a mass term (related to surface pressure distribution). Conservation of angular momentum means changes in AAM are balanced by opposite changes in the solid Earth’s spin.
Methods: Analysis of large- ensemble simulations under the high- emissions SSP3-7.0 scenario:
CESM2- LE (100 members)
ACCESS- ESM-1.5 (40 members)
MIROC6 (50 members) These allow separation of externally forced signals from internal variability. Baseline period: 1850- 2014.
Main results:
Both motion and mass components of AAM increase under warming (motion component dominates).
Circulation changes driving higher motion AAM include poleward Hadley cell expansion, stronger subtropical jets, weaker tropical easterlies and trade winds, and stronger upper- level equatorial westerlies (including signs of equatorial upper- tropospheric super-rotation later in the century).
Surface torques weaken, reducing momentum transfer from atmosphere to solid Earth.
Rising AAM translates linearly into increasing LOD anomalies. By late 21st century the atmospheric contribution reaches ~10- 18% of the long- term lunar tidal friction trend (~2.4 ms/century). The magnitude is comparable to effects from ice- sheet melting and oblateness changes.
Rough scaling: ~0.09- 0.11 ms of LOD lengthening per degree of global mean surface temperature rise.
Significance: The atmospheric signal is a systematic, externally forced response to anthropogenic warming. It demonstrates that climate change influences Earth’s rotational dynamics beyond the better- known effects of ice melt and mass redistribution.
The full article (including figures on AAM trends, Hadley cell expansion, torque changes, and LOD projections) is freely available as open access at the link above, with a PDF download option.
Susmit Subhransu Satpathy¹˒², Christian L. E. Franzke¹˒², Naiming Yuan³˒⁴˒⁵, Nicola Maher⁶, Wonsun Park¹˒² & Sun-Seon Lee¹˒⁷¹ Center for Climate Physics, Institute for Basic Science (IBS), Busan, Republic of Korea ² Department of Carbon Neutrality and Climate Change, Pusan National University, Busan, Republic of Korea ³ School of Atmospheric Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai, China ⁴ Key Laboratory of Tropical Atmosphere-Ocean System, Ministry of Education, Zhuhai, China ⁵ Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory, Zhuhai, China ⁶ ARC Centre of Excellence for Weather of the 21st Century and Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia ⁷ Pusan National University, Busan, Republic of Korea
Changes in the large-scale atmospheric circulation that regulate Earth’s climate can slow its rotation by increasing the Length of Day (LOD). Using large-ensemble simulations from three global climate models under the SSP3-7.0 scenario, we find that global warming-driven changes in Atmospheric Angular Momentum (AAM) propagate into measurable variations in LOD. These arise from modifications in both the mass and motion components of AAM. As the climate warms, expansion of the Hadley cell, intensification of subtropical jets, and weakening of tropical trade winds enhance the motion of the AAM, while a strengthened westward pressure gradient force associated with mountain torque and weakened surface friction torque indicate a reduced efficiency of momentum exchange with the solid Earth. Together, these processes accelerate the atmosphere and slow Earth’s rotation. By the late 21st century, AAM-driven LOD increases reach 10–18% of the lunar tidal friction trend, highlighting anthropogenic climate change’s role in Earth’s rotational dynamics.
A “spotlight” article posted by Asia Nikkei claims climate change is destroying Indonesian coffee crop, a major agricultural export for the country. Fortunately for Indonesian coffee producers and the Indonesian economy, this it flat out false.
In fact, Indonesia’s most recent production record was set in 2024, with the previous record having been set in 2021. With just two years of modest declines, Indonesia’s coffee yields increased eight of the past 10 years.
A “spotlight” article posted by Asia Nikkei claims climate change is destroying Indonesian coffee crop, a major agricultural export for the country. Fortunately for Indonesian coffee producers and the Indonesian economy, this it flat out false. Amid modest warming over the past century and a half, Indonesia’s coffee production and yields have increased dramatically, regularly setting new records for production.
Fathiya Dahrul, the author of the of the Asia Nikkei story, “Indonesia coffee trade wilts under brunt of climate change,” writes, “[i]n southern Sumatra, the cost of global warming stares Rusi Siruadi in the face as he surveys the stunted trees on his coffee farm.”
“On a plot of land, a little bigger than a soccer field, Siruadi expects his robusta bean crop to shrivel by nearly a third from last year’s level once harvesting is wrapped up in late September,” Dahrul continues. “Robusta beans, often used to manufacture instant coffee, account for 80% to 90% of the crop across Indonesia, one of the world’s top five coffee producers.
“The culprit, Siruadi told Nikkei Asia, is the kind of extreme, erratic rainfall Indonesia has seen since last year,” Dahrul says. “Scientists attribute those weather patterns to human-induced climate change.”
The first clear error in this story is its author attributing a single year’s bad weather to climate change. While this one coffee producer, or even coffee growers across some or all of Indonesia, may have suffered crop losses due to weather in 2026, that, as meteorologist Anthony Watts points out in Climate at a Glance: Weather Vs. Climate, is a symptom of weather, not necessarily indicative of long-term climate change for the region. Farmers have always suffered good and bad years and even, on occasion, multiple good and bad weather years back-to-back, hurting or boosting crop production in the short-term.
To show that a year’s weather is associated with climate change, one would have to find a long-term consistent trend in the type of weather of concern. That is not what we find in Indonesia, however. Indonesia historically has experienced wet and dry monsoon seasons, and this hasn’t changed in recent decades. Indonesian agriculture relies upon the monsoon. Some years are wetter than others and some dryer. But the trend over time is that the monsoons arrive and provide the moisture Indonesia needs for crop production. This has not changed.
And Indonesia’s coffee production trend since 2000 shows substantial growth rather than a decline. Data from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) show that Indonesia’s coffee production and yields have, if anything, benefitted from modestly warmer temperatures, more consistent precipitation, and carbon dioxide fertilization. Specifically, from 2000 through 2024, the last year for which Indonesia has reported agricultural data, supposedly the hottest decades on record:
Indonesia’s coffee yields increased by approximately 45 percent; and
Indonesia’s coffee production grew by nearly 46 percent. (See the figure, below)
In fact, Indonesia’s most recent production record was set in 2024, with the previous record having been set in 2021. With just two years of modest declines, Indonesia’s coffee yields increased eight of the past 10 years. In short, whatever the coffee growers interviewed by Asia Nikkei have experienced and may believe, there is no evidence in the data that climate change is causing coffee to “wilt,” or is harming coffee production in general. Anecdotal evidence from interviews with a few growers concerning a single year’s crop output can’t put to lie the long-term data.
Had the mainstream media not been falsely blaming climate change for nearly every bad weather event over the past 30 years, I would wager that if those same farmers had been interviewed during a year of high heat and or erratic rainfall in 1994, for example, they would not have blamed climate change for any resultant crop failures. Rather, they likely would have said it was the vagaries of the weather, representing ups and downs that they had known throughout their years of farming.
In the end, the data suggests that Indonesia’s coffee growers have been benefitting from modest climate change, not suffering. Somehow Asia Nikkei, failed to get the memo. Its writers and fact checkers need to wake up to the existence of real-world long-term data before penning and allowing false stories to be posted about a climate disaster that isn’t in evidence.
The Climate Alliance coalition of Democrat Governors recently featured a new Illinois “affordability” law which is actually the opposite. This is a good example of the Alliance’s anti- affordability policies.
Keep in mind that the idea of “affordability” refers to alleviating today’s escalating energy costs, especially electricity bills. In stark contrast, this bill is claimed to save electricity users a lot of money over the next 20 years or so, but it only does so at great expense today. So, it is an anti-affordability law.
Business woman refusing to take bribe. Female at desk and money on table.
The Climate Alliance coalition of Democrat Governors recently featured a new Illinois “affordability” law which is actually the opposite. This is a good example of the Alliance’s anti- affordability policies.
The reported and claimed name of this new law is the “Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act (CRGA)”. That is what the Governor’s press release and news reports call it. The official name however is hilarious. The bill is here and is clearly labeled the “SWIMMING FACILITY COLD SPA” law.
Apparently, the Democrat controlled Legislature took a rule-avoiding shortcut. They took this little swimming pool bill, which was already well along, stripped it of its text and added a monster 1,200-page energy bill, then quickly passed the critter.
In any case, this is not an affordability law — quite the contrary — and this speaks to the Climate Alliance’s entire policy posture.
Keep in mind that the idea of “affordability” refers to alleviating today’s escalating energy costs, especially electricity bills. In stark contrast, this bill is claimed to save electricity users a lot of money over the next 20 years or so, but it only does so at great expense today. So, it is an anti- affordability law.
Here is how the Governor’s press release puts it:
“CRGA will lower costs by driving the development of new energy resources, enacting new regulatory powers to support consumers, and creating and enhancing consumer cost-saving programs. The Illinois Power Agency (IPA) found that CRGA’s critical measures are expected to save Illinois energy customers $13.4 billion over the next two decades.”
These supposedly lower future costs come at the usual huge present day green costs. The biggest cost drivers are lots of renewables, batteries, and efficiency programs, all paid for by suffering ratepayers.
There is also lots of electrification and EV stuff, plus “environmental justice,” and so on — the whole big green ball of money.
They do lift the ban on nuclear power, which is good news since Illinois used to be a leader on this. But it saves nobody anything in the near future.
Here is the “affordability” fantasy made clear: “We’re making it easier to develop renewable energy,” bill sponsor Sen. Bill Cunningham, D-Chicago, said at the signing ceremony. “We’re going to deploy battery storage; we’re lifting the nuclear moratorium. That’s all going to bring more supply onto the grid, and that will help hold the line on our electrical bills.”
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.
A law like this that is certain to drive up electricity bills can best be described as anti- affordability. It is just more hugely expensive energy transition nonsense.
The Climate Alliance boasts that they have over 4,000 laws, executive orders, and related policy documents from their member States in their policy database.
These are basically the “blue states,” and if anti-affordability Illinois CRGA is representative of these over 4,000 mandates, then it is no wonder these state’s electricity prices are far greater than in the other states. The so- called energy transition is driving up people’s bills.
People in blue states suffering from exorbitant electric bills need look no further than the U.S. Climate Coalition to see what is hitting them. Anti- affordability is the policy.
The Hittites were an ancient Indo- European people who established a major Bronze Age civilization and empire in Anatolia (modern- day Türkiye) from roughly the 17th to the early 12th century BCE. They were one of the great powers of the Late Bronze Age Near East, rivaling Egypt, Mitanni, Babylon, and Assyria. Their language is the oldest attested Indo- European language.
Hattusa (also spelled Hattuša, Hattusas, or Hattusha; Turkish: Hattuşaş) was the capital of the Hittite Empire during the Late Bronze Age. Its extensive ruins lie near the modern village of Boğazkale (formerly Boğazköy) in Çorum Province, north- central Türkiye, about 150- 210 km east of Ankara, within the great bend of the Kızılırmak River (ancient Marashantiya/Halys).
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The Hittites were an ancient Indo- European people who established a major Bronze Age civilization and empire in Anatolia (modern- day Türkiye) from roughly the 17th to the early 12th century BCE. They were one of the great powers of the Late Bronze Age Near East, rivaling Egypt, Mitanni, Babylon, and Assyria. Their language is the oldest attested Indo- European language.
They did not call themselves “Hittites.” That name comes from the biblical Hebrew term for the land of Hatti (central Anatolia).
In their own records they referred to their realm as the Land of Hatti. They absorbed and blended with earlier local populations, especially the non- Indo- European Hattians (whose language and many cultural elements they adopted), as well as Luwians and Hurrians.
Origins and Early History
Speakers of an Indo- European language (related to later languages such as English, Greek, and Sanskrit) appear to have entered Anatolia by the early 2nd millennium BCE, possibly from regions north of the Black Sea. Early polities included the kingdom of Kussara and the city of Kanesh/Neša (modern Kültepe), an important Assyrian trading colony site.
The Hittite state proper began around 1650 BCE when Hattusili I (or Labarna) made Hattusa (modern Boğazkale/Boğazköy, about 150- 200 km east of Ankara) the capital. The city, set in a rugged, defensible highland basin, became the political, religious, and administrative heart of the kingdom for centuries.
Scholars conventionally divide Hittite history into:
Old Kingdom (c. 1650- 1500/1400 BCE)
A poorly documented Middle Kingdom or interregnum
New Kingdom / Empire (c. 1400- c. 1180 BCE)
The Old Kingdom
Early kings expanded control across central Anatolia and into northern Syria. Notable rulers include:
Hattusili I (c. 1650- 1620 BCE): Consolidated power and established Hattusa.
Mursili I (c. 1620- 1590 BCE): Conducted a dramatic raid down the Euphrates that sacked Babylon around 1595 BCE, ending the Amorite dynasty there. The Hittites could not hold distant Mesopotamian territories.
Dynastic struggles and weak succession followed. King Telipinu issued an edict attempting to regulate royal succession and stabilize the state.
The Empire Period (New Kingdom)
The empire reached its height in the 14th-13th centuries BCE. Key rulers:
Suppiluliuma I (c. 1344-1322 BCE): The greatest Hittite conqueror. He destroyed the Mitanni kingdom, established firm control over northern Syria, and placed vassal kings (including his own sons) in key cities such as Carchemish and Aleppo. The empire then stretched across most of Anatolia, northern Syria, and parts of Upper Mesopotamia.
Muwatalli II (c. 1295-1272 BCE): Fought the famous Battle of Kadesh (c. 1274 BCE) against the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II. One of the largest chariot battles in history, it ended in a tactical stalemate; both sides claimed victory.
Hattusili III (c. 1267-1237 BCE): Negotiated the world’s oldest known surviving international peace treaty with Egypt (c. 1259 BCE). The parity treaty established mutual non-aggression, defensive alliance, and extradition provisions; copies survive in both Hittite and Egyptian versions. A dynastic marriage followed.
Later kings faced growing pressure from Assyria, internal rivals, the Kaska tribes to the north, and western Anatolian states.
Society, Culture, and Achievements
Language and Writing: Hittite (Nesite) was written in cuneiform on clay tablets. Archives at Hattusa contain tens of thousands of tablets covering laws, treaties, rituals, myths, correspondence, and administration, many in multiple languages (Hittite, Akkadian, Hurrian, Hattic, Luwian). Hieroglyphic Luwian was also used, especially on monuments. Bedřich Hrozný deciphered Hittite in 1915, proving it Indo- European.
Law and Administration: A sophisticated legal code existed. Kings ruled as divine representatives but relied heavily on treaties with vassals, a system of oaths, and delegated authority suited to Anatolia’s fragmented geography.
Military: Famous for three- man chariots and effective use of iron technology (though widespread iron use came later). They maintained professional armies and extensive fortifications.
Religion: Highly polytheistic and inclusive, “the Land of a Thousand Gods”. They readily incorporated deities of conquered or neighboring peoples (Hattian, Hurrian, Mesopotamian). Major gods included the Storm God of Hatti (Tarhunt and or Teshub) and the Sun Goddess of Arinna. The capital contained numerous temples; the king performed important ritual roles. Rock sanctuaries such as Yazılıkaya feature elaborate processions of deities.
Architecture and Art: Monumental stone walls, gates (Lion Gate, Sphinx Gate), temples, and rock reliefs. Hattusa was a large, planned city with upper and lower sections, reservoirs, and sophisticated defenses.
Decline and Collapse
Around 1200-1180 BCE the empire disintegrated as part of the broader Late Bronze Age collapse. Hattusa was largely abandoned (and later burned); the royal archives cease. Contributing factors appear to have included:
Prolonged severe drought (tree- ring evidence points to multi- year droughts around 1198-1196 BCE that devastated grain harvests)
Internal dynastic strife and loss of central control
Attacks by the Kaska and other groups
Pressure from migrating peoples (including those associated with the “Sea Peoples” in Egyptian records)
Economic disruption and plague
The Hittite language and cuneiform tradition disappeared from central Anatolia. Successor “Neo- Hittite” (or Syro- Hittite) states continued in southeastern Anatolia and northern Syria (e.g., Carchemish) into the Iron Age until conquered by the Assyrians in the 8th- 7th centuries BCE. Biblical references to Hittites generally refer to these later groups or to residual populations in Canaan.
Legacy and Rediscovery
Forgotten for nearly three millennia except for brief biblical mentions, the Hittites were rediscovered through archaeology in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Excavations at Hattusa (begun systematically by German teams in 1906 under Hugo Winckler and continuing today) revealed the capital’s scale and the vast tablet archives. The site is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Hittites demonstrated sophisticated diplomacy, legal innovation, multi-ethnic administration, and military power in a challenging highland environment. Their peace treaty with Egypt remains one of the earliest examples of formal international diplomacy, and their Indo- European language provides crucial evidence for historical linguistics.
Hattusa (also spelled Hattuša, Hattusas, or Hattusha; Turkish: Hattuşaş) was the capital of the Hittite Empire during the Late Bronze Age. Its extensive ruins lie near the modern village of Boğazkale (formerly Boğazköy) in Çorum Province, north- central Türkiye, about 150- 210 km east of Ankara, within the great bend of the Kızılırmak River (ancient Marashantiya/Halys).
It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (inscribed 1986) recognized for its urban organization, monumental fortifications, temples, royal residences, sculptured gates, and the nearby Yazılıkaya rock sanctuary.
Historical Overview
Settlement at the site dates back to the Chalcolithic period (as early as the 6th millennium BCE), with continuous occupation through the Bronze Age. In the early 2nd millennium BCE, it was a Hattian town (called Hattush). Around the mid- 18th century BCE, the Hittite king Anitta of Kussara conquered and destroyed it, placing a curse on the site.
It was reoccupied and became the permanent capital around 1650 BCE under Hattusili I (who took his throne name meaning “man of Hattusa”), shifting the center of power from earlier cities such as Neša and Kanesh. It remained the main political, administrative, and religious capital for most of the empire’s history (with temporary relocations, such as under Muwatalli II to Tarhuntassa and earlier under Tudhaliya III to Samuha).
At its peak in the 14th-13th centuries BCE (especially under Suppiluliuma I and later kings), the city covered roughly 1.8 km² (about 440 acres or 180 hectares). Estimates of population range up to 40,000-50,000. It consisted of:
An inner and lower city (c. 0.8 km²) with the royal citadel, major temples, and administrative buildings.
An outer and upper city with additional temples, residences, and monumental gates.
The city was gradually abandoned around 1200-1180 BCE during the Late Bronze Age collapse, as the Hittite Empire disintegrated. Evidence points to a methodical evacuation by the royal administration and elites rather than a sudden violent conquest; the city was later burned. Contributing factors included severe multi- year droughts (tree- ring data indicate extreme dryness around 1198-1196 BCE), famine, internal instability, and external pressures. Sparse post- Hittite settlement followed.
Layout and Major Features
Hattusa occupied a rugged, elevated plateau (around 1,100 m) with natural defenses of steep ridges and valleys. Key elements include:
Fortifications: Massive double walls (casemate construction) totaling 6- 8 km in length, following the terrain in a zigzag pattern. Built or expanded especially under Suppiluliuma I (c. 1344- 1322 BCE). Sections reached 8 m or more in height. A reconstructed stretch of mud- brick wall (using traditional materials) helps visualize the original appearance.
Monumental Gates:
Lion Gate (southwest): Famous pair of large stone lions (or lion-sphinxes) carved in high relief, facing outward as guardians.
King’s Gate (east): Features a warrior- God relief (originally interpreted as a king; now seen as a deity, possibly the war god).
Sphinx Gate (south, on the Yerkapı rampart): Originally had four sphinxes (some now in museums; replicas on site).
Yerkapı (“Earth Gate”): An artificial embankment with a long (c. 70- 71 m) stone-lined postern tunnel that visitors can still walk through.
Büyükkale (“Great Fortress”): The royal citadel and palace complex on the highest peak, containing administrative buildings, archives, and residential quarters of the king.
Great Temple (Temple 1) in the Lower City: The largest known Hittite temple complex (roughly 65 × 42 m or more, covering thousands of square meters). Dedicated primarily to the Storm God of Hatti and the Sun Goddess of Arinna. It included storage magazines with enormous pithoi (storage jars). A notable large green stone (possibly a cult object or base) is associated with the temple area.
Upper City temples: Multiple additional temples (at least four major ones) arranged around courtyards.
Yazılıkaya: An open- air rock sanctuary about 1- 2 km northeast of the main city. It features elaborate processional reliefs of Hittite (and Hurrian- influenced) deities, kings, and mythological scenes carved into natural rock chambers. It likely served major religious ceremonies.
Other features include water reservoirs, workshops, residential areas, and outlying fortresses (e.g., Kayalıboğaz).
Archives and Discoveries
Excavations have yielded more than 30,000 cuneiform clay tablets and fragments (the Boğazköy Archive). These form the primary source for Hittite history, law, diplomacy (including the Egyptian peace treaty after Kadesh), religion, mythology, and administration. Tablets appear in Hittite, Akkadian, Hurrian, Hattic, Luwian, and other languages. Recent finds include a previously unknown Indo-European language linked to the region of Kalašma.
Archaeology and Modern Site
French explorer Charles Texier first drew attention to the ruins in 1834. Systematic excavations began in 1906 under the German Oriental Society (Hugo Winckler) and have continued, primarily under the German Archaeological Institute (currently directed by Andreas Schachner). Work is ongoing (reaching the 120th season in recent years) and involves multidisciplinary teams. The site remains an active dig and open- air museum.
Visitors can explore the extensive ruins, reconstructed wall sections, gates, temples, and Yazılıkaya. The surrounding landscape of rocky hills and valleys still conveys the dramatic setting chosen by the Hittites for their highland capital.
Hattusa stands as the best-preserved and most informative capital of a major Late Bronze Age Near Eastern empire, providing unique insight into Hittite urbanism, religion, and statecraft.
Hattusa (near modern Boğazkale in Çorum Province, north- central Türkiye) sits on the high central Anatolian plateau at roughly 1,000- 1,250 meters elevation. Its climate is continental and semi- arid, both in the present day and, with some variations, during the Hittite period (c. 1650- 1180 BCE).
Modern Climate
Central Anatolia experiences a classic continental climate influenced by surrounding mountain ranges (Pontus to the north, Taurus to the south):
Hot, dry summers: Daytime highs often reach 30- 31°C in July- August, with very little rainfall (August averages around 10 mm).
Cold winters: January daytime averages around 3°C, with nights frequently dropping to –5°C or lower; snow is common and can persist on higher ground for weeks.
Precipitation: Annual totals are relatively low, typically 550- 600 mm, concentrated in winter and spring (highest in December, around 80 mm). Summers are the driest period.
Seasonal pattern: Short, vibrant springs with wildflowers; crisp, clear autumns; limited possibilities for extensive artificial irrigation due to the terrain and water sources.
Average annual temperatures are around 11°C overall. The landscape is steppe- like with limited forest cover today, though pollen and other evidence suggest denser woodlands existed in earlier periods before human impact (including Hittite- era deforestation for construction, fuel, and agriculture).
These conditions support one main annual harvest in good years, primarily of grains, making the region vulnerable to rainfall variability.
Ancient Climate and Impacts on the Hittites
Paleoclimate data (especially pollen analyses) indicate that overall climatic conditions in central Anatolia have remained broadly similar for the last ~12,000 years since the end of the last Ice Age, continental and semi- arid, with limited rainfall. However, there were significant short- term fluctuations.
The Hittite core territory around Hattusa depended heavily on rain- fed agriculture (wheat, barley) and animal husbandry. The empire developed resilience strategies, including grain storage, taxation systems, and redistribution from more productive areas, which allowed it to survive ordinary single- year droughts(which occurred regularly).
Key climate impact — the severe multi-year drought of c. 1198–1196 BCE:
A landmark 2023 study published in Nature analyzed tree- ring widths and stable carbon isotope (δ¹³C) records from ancient juniper trees recovered at Gordion (about 230 km west of Hattusa, still within the broader central Anatolian climate zone). These trees provide an annually resolved dryness record spanning centuries.
The data show a general shift toward drier conditions from the later 13th into the early 12th century BCE.
The standout event was an unusually severe, continuous three-year drought approximately 1198- 1196 BCE (±3 years). This ranks as one of the driest (or the driest) multi-year intervals between 1400 and 1000 BCE.
Narrow tree rings indicate the trees were severely stressed by lack of water; isotope data independently confirm the extreme dryness.
Consequences for Hattusa and the empire:
Near- complete crop failure for three consecutive years would have exhausted grain stores (normally sufficient for one bad year).
Widespread famine, collapse of the agricultural tax base, inability to feed the large standing army, and social unrest.
Hattusa and other key sites show evidence of empty grain depots around this time.
Textual references from the late Hittite period and neighboring regions (e.g., Ugarit) mention famine and grain shortages.
The landlocked nature of the Hittite heartland limited options for importing food on a large scale.
Combined with existing stresses (dynastic conflicts, external pressures from groups such as the Kaska, possible disease, and broader Late Bronze Age disruptions), the drought is widely viewed as a major tipping point that overwhelmed the state’s resilience. Hattusa was methodically abandoned by the royal administration and elites around 1180 BCE (or shortly after), with later burning of the emptied city.
Scholars emphasize that climate was not the sole cause of the empire’s collapse, it interacted with political, economic, military, and social factors in a “perfect storm.”
Single- year droughts were manageable; three consecutive extreme years were not.
This event provides one of the most precisely dated links between climate stress and the fall of a major ancient Near Eastern power.
In summary, Hattusa’s semi- arid highland environment shaped Hittite agriculture, urban planning (including water management features), and ultimately contributed decisively to the empire’s end through a rare, prolonged drought at a critical historical moment.
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