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.
They said what they were doing. The fossil-fuel industry, they argued, had copied the tobacco companiesโ old trick of manufacturing doubt.
My question is: What is the โcancerโ of climate change that we need to focus on?โ
A barrel of oil, a ton of coal, and a thousand cubic feet of natural gas are the inputs of modern life. They heat the house in Sheboygan in January. They move us from place to place.
โLetโs 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.โ โ James Hansen (below)
At the time, this environmental workshop was not secret. That is the first thing worth saying about the June 2012 meeting at the Martin Johnson House, on the grounds of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla.
On June 14 and 15, the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Climate Accountability Institute brought together about two dozen scientists, lawyers, historians, and public-opinion hands. The workshop was conceived by Naomi Oreskes, then at the University of CaliforniaโSan Diego; Peter C. Frumhoff and Angela Ledford Anderson of the Union of Concerned Scientists; Richard Heede of the Climate Accountability Institute; and Lewis M. Branscomb. Seth Shulman of UCS wrote the summary. In October 2012 they published it under a title that did not bother with code: Establishing Accountability for Climate Change Damages: Lessons from Tobacco Control.
They said what they were doing. The fossil-fuel industry, they argued, had copied the tobacco companiesโ old trick of manufacturing doubt. The remedy, they proposed, was to copy the tobacco control campaign in return: find internal documents, build a public story of knowing deception, attach particular damages to particular companies, and take the fight into court.
Oreskes put the assignment in one sentence that still reads like a brief. โWhen I talk to my students I always say, tobacco causes lung cancer, esophageal cancer, mouth cancer. My question is: What is the โcancerโ of climate change that we need to focus on?โ
That was the agreed propaganda. Not a slur. A plan, written down.
The reportโs own highlights are plain. A breakthrough against tobacco came when internal documents showed the industry had misled the public. Similar documents, the group said, โmightโ sit in the vaults of fossil-fuel companies and their trade associations. Any corporate talk about climate could certainly be used against them.
They discussed how a forthcoming โcarbon majorsโ analysis could let advocates attribute sea-level rise and other changes to named producers. But, a compelling public narrative was still missing, and litigation, science, and advocacy should reinforce one another.
Stanton Glantz, a veteran of the tobacco document wars, was in the room. So was Sharon Eubanks, who had led the Justice Departmentโs racketeering case against the cigarette makers. So were trial lawyers and legal scholars, including Mary Christina Wood. The point was not a seminar. The point was they were looking for a transferable methodology to demonize energy.
However, this method had a hole in it the size of a nuclear power plant, and the hole is still there.
A cigarette is a product that harms the person who buys it, sold by companies that spent years denying the harm their own scientists had measured. A barrel of oil, a ton of coal, and a thousand cubic feet of natural gas are the inputs of modern life. They heat the house in Sheboygan in January. They move us from place to place. They move the grain. They make the fertilizer, the steel, the plastic in the hospital equipment. James Hansen, father of the alarm, put the mischaracterization in its place:
Letโs 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.
Treating the seller of that energy as the legal twin of the seller of cigarettes required a story that ignored the difference. The La Jolla group set out to build that story before the attribution paper even existed. Heedeโs carbon-majors work came after the meeting that had already decided it would be useful.
What followed tracked the actual memo. The PR came first.
InsideClimate News and the Los Angeles Times, with Columbia Journalism School, published the 2015 investigations that became #ExxonKnew. Rockefeller family philanthropies helped fund the work. New Yorkโs attorney general opened an investigation of the kind the workshop had sketched.
State and city lawsuits followed, many of them filed by the same small circle of firms, pleading public nuisance and consumer fraud, and seeking money for sea walls and adaptation. The Center for Climate Integrity and allied groups kept the public script running.
Oreskes stayed on the case, later co-authoring the 2023 Science paper on Exxonโs old internal projections. Frumhoff and UCS stayed in the briefing business. Heedeโs producer-by-producer accounting became a standard exhibit. The โcancerโ they settled on was not one disease. It was every flood, fire, and heat wave that could be passed through an attribution study and handed to a plaintiff.
That is the current green propaganda, and it has chief proponents rather than a single author.
The legal wing is the plaintiffsโ bar that lives on these cases, backed by the Center for Climate Integrity and by funders who have been open about wanting industry documents and industry money. The scientific wing is attribution research put to work as exhibit A, with Oreskes as the historian of the indictment.
The advocacy wing runs from the Union of Concerned Scientists through 350.org and the larger climate NGOs, which still frame the problem as a conspiracy of sellers rather than a physics-and-engineering problem of supply. The media wing, led for years by the New York Times, the Guardian, and the specialty climate outlets, treats the La Jolla theory as settled background. The political wing is the attorney general or the city council that files, then poses.
The script has been updated, not replaced. Where La Jolla said โfind the documents,โ the update says โthey knew.โ Where La Jolla asked for a cancer, the update supplies a weekly one: this hurricane, this wildfire, this heat dome, with a percentage attached.
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 โtransitionโ 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.
La Jolla was candid about means. The current campaign is candid about villains. Neither has been candid about the product. Energy is not tobacco. A strategy that needs them to be the same thing is a strategy for the courtroom and the headline, not for the energy grid.
The 36 pages from October 2012 are still the best field guide to what followed. Compare them against the lawsuits, the attribution briefs, and the evening news. The plot has not changed. Only the stationery has changed.
At a construction site for a new courthouse (Justice Palace) in Bukov, a district of รstรญ and Labem in northern Bohemia (Czech Republic), archaeologists uncovered a major Late Gravettian site with remains of at least 20 woolly mammoths from around 27,000 years ago.
Upper Palaeolithic (also spelled Upper Paleolithic) is the final subdivision of the Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age), roughly spanning 50,000/45,000 to 12,000/10,000 years ago (ending with the close of the last Ice Age / Pleistocene).
Gravettian culture (roughly 33,000- 22,000 years ago, or ~33- 22 ka cal BP) was a major Upper Palaeolithic tradition of modern humans (Homo sapiens) across much of Europe.
The culture developed and flourished during a period of progressive climatic deterioration within Marine Isotope Stage 3 (MIS 3) that ultimately led into the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) of MIS 2 (~26.5- 19 ka cal BP).
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At a construction site for a new courthouse (Justice Palace) in Bukov, a district of รstรญ nad Labem in northern Bohemia (Czech Republic), archaeologists uncovered a major Late Gravettian site with remains of at least 20 woolly mammoths from around 27,000 years ago.
The discovery began by chance in November 2024 during routine archaeological monitoring of earthworks. Systematic excavations in 2025, involving teams including the Institute of Archaeology in Brno and local heritage institutes, revealed more than 3,500 animal remains across roughly 1,000 square meters (about the size of four tennis courts).
These were sealed in silt. Identification of the mammoths relied mainly on 19 lower jaws plus one isolated tooth. Other Ice Age species present included woolly rhinoceros, horse, reindeer, and hare. Nearly all parts of the mammoth skeletons appeared, but skulls and tusks were scarce.
Cut marks on bones, broken stone points and tools, the mortality profile (mostly sexually mature but still-growing animals aged roughly 13- 27 years, unlikely to die naturally in such numbers) point to repeated human hunting and systematic butchery rather than a natural die- off or random accumulation.
Charcoal from four hearths yielded radiocarbon dates of approximately 28,800- 25,600 years before present. Stone- tool styles confirm the Late Gravettian cultural attribution. Additional finds include red ochre and a pendant made from mammoth ivory, indicating symbolic or cultural activity alongside processing of the carcasses.
This site is notable as a geographic and temporal outlier: comparable Gravettian mammoth -bone deposits are known from Moravia, Lower Austria, and southern Poland, but nothing similar had previously been documented in Bohemia, and later- period examples are rare.
A 2026 study in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports details the findings. Construction of the courthouse complex (which will house courts, administrative space, and parking for hundreds of staff) was delayed by the excavation work and is now targeted for completion around May 2028; the building will rise on the site after the archaeological remains have been documented and removed.
It highlights how modern construction can still yield major Paleolithic insights into Ice Age hunter- gatherer life in central Europe.
Upper Palaeolithic (also spelled Upper Paleolithic) is the final subdivision of the Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age), roughly spanning 50,000/45,000 to 12,000/10,000 years ago (ending with the close of the last Ice Age / Pleistocene).
It marks a major shift in human behavior associated primarily with anatomically modern Homo sapiens in Europe, western Asia, and parts of Africa and Siberia.
Key characteristics include:
Technological advances: Blade- based stone tool industries (long, thin flakes), specialized tools (burins, scrapers, points), bone/antler/ivory tools, and early projectile weapons. Cultures are named after type- sites or distinctive tool types (e.g., Aurignacian, Gravettian, Solutrean, Magdalenian).
Symbolic and artistic expression: Widespread cave art (e.g., Lascaux, Chauvet, Altamira), portable art (figurines such as Venus figurines), personal ornaments (beads, pendants), and use of ochre. Evidence of complex social and possibly ritual behavior.
Subsistence and mobility: Highly skilled big- game hunting (including mammoths, reindeer, horses, bison), fishing, and gathering. Seasonal camps, longer- distance raw- material exchange, and denser populations in favorable regions.
Chronology and cultures in Europe (approximate):
Early Upper Palaeolithic: ~45- 30 ka (Aurignacian dominant).
Mid: ~30- 22 ka (Gravettian).
Late: ~22- 12 ka (Solutrean in southwest Europe; Epigravettian elsewhere; then Magdalenian).
The Gravettian culture (roughly 33,000- 22,000 years ago), to which the recently reported Bukov / รstรญ and Labem mammoth site in northern Bohemia belongs, is a classic mid- Upper Palaeolithic tradition. It is known for sophisticated hunting of large mammals (including repeated mammoth processing sites), bladelet tools, and early artistic traditions. The ~27,000- year- old dates from the Bohemian hearths and fauna fit squarely in the Late Gravettian.
The period ends with the transition to the Mesolithic as climates warmed, large Ice Age fauna declined, and human societies adapted to forested post- glacial environments.
Gravettian culture (roughly 33,000- 22,000 years ago, or ~33- 22 ka cal BP) was a major Upper Palaeolithic tradition of modern humans (Homo sapiens) across much of Europe.
It is best known for sophisticated blade and bladelet technologies (including distinctive Gravette points), specialized big- game hunting (especially woolly mammoths, reindeer, and horses), portable art (e.g., Venus’s figurines), and evidence of complex social organization, long- distance raw- material transport, and symbolic behavior (ochre use, ornaments).
The culture developed and flourished during a period of progressive climatic deterioration within Marine Isotope Stage 3 (MIS 3) that ultimately led into the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) of MIS 2 (~26.5- 19 ka cal BP).
Climate Context
The broader period featured repeated, rapid oscillations between colder stadials (Greenland Stadials, GS) and milder interstadials (Greenland Interstadials, GI), recorded in Greenland ice cores, plus occasional Heinrich Events (massive iceberg discharges that caused abrupt cooling and aridity).
Key events overlapping the Gravettian include Heinrich Event 3 (HE3, ~30 ka) near the start of the Middle and Late Gravettian and HE2 (~24 ka) near its end.
Overall trend: steady cooling through late MIS 3, with increasingly severe winters, expanding ice sheets, lower sea levels, and a shift toward open, cold, arid โmammoth- steppeโ landscapes (grasses, herbs, and cold- tolerant shrubs rather than dense forest). Summer insolation declined, contributing to harsher conditions.
In central Europe (including the Czech Republic, the Bohemia- Moravia region relevant to the recent Bukov mammoth site), pollen, charcoal, and faunal records indicate open, cool, and relatively arid environments with limited tree cover (mostly cold- tolerant conifers in sheltered spots). Conditions supported productive grasslands that sustained large herds of mammoth, reindeer, and other megafauna, but winters were long and severe, with expanding permafrost in many areas.
Late Gravettian occupations (including sites around 28- 25 ka, such as the Bukov, รstรญ nad Labem mammoth- processing site dated ~28.8- 25.6 ka) occurred amid significant climatic instability (e.g., transitions through GS 5.1, GI 4, GS 4, and GI 3).
Climate Impacts on Gravettian People
Climate strongly shaped settlement, technology, mobility, and subsistence:
Subsistence and hunting strategies: Cold, open steppe environments favored large migratory or semi-sedentary herds of mammoths and reindeer. Hunters adapted by targeting specific age classes or seasons (e.g., autumn reindeer hunts for peak fat, hides, and antler). Climatic shifts altered mammoth demography, migration patterns, and local abundance, prompting changes in weaponry (projectile point size and variety) and site placement. Mammoth- bone deposits (as at Bukov and classic Moravian sites like Dolnรญ Vฤstonice or Milovice) reflect repeated, organized processing of carcasses in productive but fluctuating environments.
Technology and innovation: Some researchers argue that cooling and resource unpredictability helped drive Gravettian lithic innovations, efficient blade and bladelet production, standardized backed points, and highly mobile, modular toolkits suited to long- distance travel and maintenance under harsh conditions.
Settlement and demography: Early- and mid- Gravettian saw relatively dense occupation in favorable river valleys and loess regions of central and eastern Europe. As cooling intensified toward the LGM, populations declined sharply in many areas (some estimates suggest reductions to one-third of earlier levels in parts of Europe). Groups either migrated (southward or to refugia), became more mobile, or experienced local extinctions. Northern and higher- elevation zones became less hospitable; sites cluster in protected valleys or lower altitudes. The Late Gravettian in Bohemia/Moravia represents a geographic and temporal outlier relative to earlier concentrations farther east and south.
Landscape and preservation: Reduced vegetation and landscape instability (erosion during arid phases) affected both living conditions and the archaeological record. Hearths, ochre, and ivory ornaments (as found at Bukov) show continuity of cultural practices even under stress.
After ~22 ka, as the full LGM set in, classic Gravettian traditions largely gave way to regional successors (Solutrean in the southwest, Epigravettian farther east). Some genetic and archaeological lineages persisted in southern refugia and later expanded with post- glacial warming.
In short, the Gravettian represents a successful long- term adaptation to a cooling, increasingly unstable Ice Age world, exploiting the rich but challenging mammoth- steppe ecosystem through technological sophistication, logistical hunting, and cultural complexity, until the most extreme LGM conditions forced major demographic and cultural shifts.
The recent Bohemian find fits this picture well: a Late Gravettian mammoth- hunting and processing locale operating during a phase of climatic variability in a region that was becoming more marginal.
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Comparison of the Gravettian with earlier and later Upper Palaeolithic periods in Europe highlights both continuity and major shifts driven by technology, climate, demography, art, and genetics.
The sequence is broadly:Aurignacian (earlier) โ Gravettian (mid) โ regional successors during and after the Last Glacial Maximum (Solutrean in the southwest, Epigravettian farther east and south) โ Magdalenian (later, mainly western and central Europe).
Earlier: Aurignacian (~43,000/42,000- 33,000/30,000 years ago)
Technology: Emphasized blades, carinated scrapers, and distinctive bone and antler points (especially split- base points). Toolkits were versatile but less standardized for composite projectiles than later ones. Organic technology (bone, antler, ivory) was already advanced.
Art and symbolism: Early figurative art, music (bone flutes), and personal ornaments appear (e.g., Lion-Man of Hohlenstein- Stadel, early Venus- like figures, cave art beginnings). Symbolic behavior is well- established but often more individual or site- specific.
Subsistence and settlement: Broad- spectrum hunting of large game in relatively milder MIS 3 conditions. Populations expanded across Europe after modern humans largely replaced Neanderthals. Sites show mobility but somewhat less logistical organization than Gravettian mammoth specialists.
Climate: More interstadial fluctuations within MIS 3; environments still supported mixed forests and steppe in many areas.
Genetics and continuity: Western European Gravettians show genetic continuity with preceding western Aurignacians. Central and southern Gravettians relate more to local earlier groups. The Gravettian represents a technological and cultural reorganization rather than a complete population replacement.
Key differences from Gravettian: Aurignacian toolkits are less focused on backed bladelets and standardized points for projectiles. Gravettian art shifts toward more portable female figurines (Venus types) and widespread ochre use, with greater emphasis on mammoth hunting and long-distance networks. Gravettian develops during progressive cooling.
Later: Solutrean (~24,000/22,000- 19,000/17,000 years ago, mainly southwest Europe- France and Iberia)
Technology: Peak of pressure- flaked lithic craftsmanship with exquisite bifacial leaf- shaped (laurel-leaf) points. Bone and antler tools exist but are generally less diversified than in Aurignacian or Magdalenian. Eyed needles appear, suggesting tailored clothing for extreme cold.
Art and settlement: Continuity of cave art traditions in refugia. Populations contracted into southwestern climatic refugia during the full LGM.
Climate impact: Developed under the harshest LGM conditions (maximum ice extent, extreme cold and aridity). This forced major demographic reduction and geographic restriction compared with the broader Gravettian range.
Genetics: Western Gravettian ancestry largely survived into Solutrean groups in the southwest.
Key differences: Solutrean is more regionally restricted and specialized for extreme cold. Lithic technology is highly refined but narrower in focus; organic technology is less elaborate than later Magdalenian. It acts as a โbottleneckโ culture in refugia.
Later: Epigravettian (~24,000/22,000- 12,000/10,000 years ago, mainly Italy, Balkans, eastern and central Europe)
Often viewed archaeologically as a continuation or local development of Gravettian traditions (backed points persist), but genetic evidence shows significant turnover and replacement in southern Europe around the LGM, with north-to-south dispersals of new groups.
Technology continues bladelet and backed- point traditions but adapts regionally. It fills the role of the โlate Upper Palaeolithicโ east of the Alps where classic Magdalenian is absent or limited.
Climate: Spans the LGM and the subsequent deglaciation and warming.
Later: Magdalenian (~17,000/18,000- 12,000/11,000 years ago, mainly western and central Europe)
Technology: Highly diversified organic tools (harpoons, spear- throwers and atlatls, eyed needles, elaborate bone and antler working). Lithics include blades and some microliths. Greater emphasis on fishing and a wider range of prey as climates improved.
Art: Culmination of Upper Palaeolithic art โ spectacular polychrome cave paintings (Lascaux, Altamira), detailed engravings, and portable art. Often more narrative and naturalistic scenes.
Settlement and demography: Population rebound and re- expansion northeastward after the LGM as ice retreated and forests spread. Larger, more semi- sedentary groups in productive river valleys; evidence of higher population densities.
Climate: Post- LGM warming (still cold but improving), transition toward the end of the Pleistocene. Mammoth steppe declined; reindeer and horse remained important.
Genetics: Largely descends from the western Gravettian- Solutrean lineage that survived in southwestern refugia, then expanded. Later (~14 ka) partially replaced by southern (โVillabruna-relatedโ) ancestry linked to Epigravettian groups.
Key differences from Gravettian: Magdalenian shows greater organic technological elaboration, artistic peak, and demographic expansion into newly available northern territories. Hunting shifts away from the classic mammoth focus of many Gravettian sites as megafauna declined. It represents a post- glacial โgolden ageโ of Upper Palaeolithic complexity in the west.
Broader Patterns
Aspect
Aurignacian (earlier)
Gravettian
Solutrean / Epigravettian (LGM)
Magdalenian (later)
Climate
Milder MIS 3 fluctuations
Progressive cooling to LGM
Full LGM extremes
Post- LGM warming
Range
Broad Europe
Pan- European
Restricted (SW or E/S)
Western and central expansion
Key tech
Blades, split- base points
Backed points, bladelets, mammoth focus
Leaf points (Solutrean) or continued backed (Epigravettian)
Harpoons, needles, diversified organics
Art
Early figurative, flutes
Venus figurines, ochre
Continuity in refugia
Peak cave & portable art
Demography
Expansion
Dense then declining
Bottleneck and refugia
Rebound & expansion
Genetics
Foundational
Regional continuity with Aurignacian
SW survival (Solutrean); turnover in south (Epigravettian)
SW Gravettian-Solutrean and later southern input
The Gravettian sits at a pivotal midpoint: building on Aurignacian foundations with more specialized hunting and symbolic systems suited to cooling climates, then giving way (through both cultural evolution and population shifts) to LGM adaptations and the post- glacial florescence of the Magdalenian.
The Bohemian Late Gravettian mammoth site (~27 ka) falls near the end of this tradition, just before the most severe LGM conditions forced major contractions and regional divergences.
In September last year, images from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Tianjin โ Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi smiling, arms linked โ told Brussels and London more than any communiquรฉ about where two decades of energy self-harm had led.
The result, as the shuttered ammonia lines at Ludwigshafen attest, is not the low-carbon prosperity promised by the architects of the European Green Deal but a slow, voluntary surrender of manufacturing capacity. This has migrated to jurisdictions unburdened by carbon pricing, renewables mandates and the regulatory thicket of the EUโs โsustainability disclosureโ regime.
The EUโs Defence Readiness Roadmap 2030 projects high-intensity war as a near-term likelihood. It sets 2030 as the date by which Europe must be able to deter Russian aggression.
In September last year, images from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Tianjin โ Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi smiling, arms linked โ told Brussels and London more than any communiquรฉ about where two decades of energy self-harm had led. On the sidelines, Gazprom and CNPC signed a โmemorandumโ on the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline through Mongolia. This was a political signal, not a priced gas contract. I set out at the time, in How the West Snookered Itself in Energy Geopolitics, how the obsession with Net Zero had handed Moscow and Beijing a strategic gift while leaving Germany, once Europeโs industrial powerhouse, prostrate.
A year on, the diagnosis has not changed. What has changed is the prescription. Having wrecked their own economies through the fantasy of decarbonisation, the EU and UKโs governing liberal-left establishment โ stagnant, unpopular, and facing the electoral rise of AfD in Germany and Marine Le Penโs Rassemblement National in France โ has settled on a time-honoured remedy for domestic failure: warnings of the threat of war.
The Wages of Self-Sabotage
I have written at length about the irrationality of EU and UK energy policy (here and here among others). America pursued a radically different trajectory during President Trumpโs second term. Washingtonโs November 2025 National Security Strategy openly abandoned the pretence that Europe remains a serious partner. It described a continent that has traded its classical liberal inheritance โ free speech, open inquiry, democratic accountability โ for the utopian triad of Net Zero, mass immigration (consisting largely of young unskilled men from the Middle East, North Africa and West and South Asia) and an ever-expanding regulatory, growth-killing state.
Mario Draghiโs competitiveness report found that the EUโs 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 EUโs share of world GDP has fallen from roughly 29% in 1980 to about 17% in 2024. Chinaโs surged over the same span while the US maintained it leading position.
Chemical and industrial firms have voted with their capital: for example, BASFโs Ludwigshafen closures of its ammonia and fertiliser lines, and the relocation of production to the United States and Asia. This reflects the industrial logic of policy-inflated energy costs working itself out. Heavy and energy-intensive industries, from automotive to steelmaking and oil refineries, have moved to where energy is cheap and abundant โ to the US and above all to China, now the worldโs dominant industrial power by far. The US under President Trump is increasingly incentivising a โreshoringโ of industrial capacity. To give momentum to the reshoring of industry, America has ditched the Paris Agreement and, as of January this year, formally withdrew America from the IPCC and UNFCCC along with dozens of other multilateral bodies judged contrary to American interests.
None of this need have happened. Europe possessed impressive endowments โ a skilled workforce, deep capital markets, an educated population, robust economic growth arising out of the ashes of World War II. It could and did ably compete with the United States and China. What it lacked was the political will to resist a green industrial policy conceived by activists and bureaucrats rather than engineers and economists.
In Britain that policy has a name and a face: former Energy Secretary (and now Foreign Minister) Ed Miliband, whose economic and energy illiteracy has been widely remarked upon. The result, as the shuttered ammonia lines at Ludwigshafen attest, is not the low-carbon prosperity promised by the architects of the European Green Deal but a slow, voluntary surrender of manufacturing capacity. This has migrated to jurisdictions unburdened by carbon pricing, renewables mandates and the regulatory thicket of the EUโs โsustainability disclosureโ regime.
From Climate Alarmism to War Fever
The climate consensus that sustained two decades of European energy policies is collapsing under its own contradictions. US support for the globalist green agenda is gone, the IPCCโs alarmist scenario modelling has been retracted and ESG finance is in retreat. The EU and UK political establishments that built their legitimacy on the alarmist climate consensus need a new organising threat. The rhetoric of imminent war with Russia, barely audible eighteen months ago, has become the dominant note of European public life, displacing the language of climate emergency that had until recently served much the same unifying, mobilising function.
The pattern will be familiar to students of political history: a governing class unable or unwilling to reverse policies that have visibly impoverished its own population reaches for an external threat large enough to make domestic failure feel secondary. What is unusual about the present European episode is the speed of the transition and the transparency of the motive. One season the enemy is carbon dioxide; the next, it is Vladimir Putin. The rhetorical machinery โ moral urgency, the demand for public sacrifice, the casting of suspicion on dissenters โ barely needs repackaging.
Manufacturing an Enemy
The EUโs Defence Readiness Roadmap 2030 projects high-intensity war as a near-term likelihood. It sets 2030 as the date by which Europe must be able to deter Russian aggression. Military planning deadlines of this kind are how governments convince their citizens to prepare for war. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has said Russia could be โreadyโ to use military force by 2030. Even while insisting President Putin โis in a bad placeโ and is โnot winning the warโ in Ukraine, he simultaneously urges NATO members toward heightened readiness against a Russian attack. This characterization of Russia as both weak and a dangerous threat is an odd combination of confidence and alarm that only makes sense as political theatre.
Britainโs Defence Secretary, Wes Streeting, has told households to keep cash, bottled water and tinned food at home, warning that the country faces a โgreater risk of warโ with Russia than at any point in his lifetime. Polandโs Foreign Minister Radosลaw Sikorski told reporters that he keeps rice, a hand pump and home-made preserves against the day Russia attacks. Germanyโs Bundeswehr has gamed out scenarios in which up to 1,000 wounded soldiers a day would arrive from a NATO-Russia front. It is reopening a Cold War-era underground medical bunker in Ulm. The Somerset squire Jacob Rees-Mogg has taken to informing viewers that in the next few years the country may face a war, and that people may have to die to save it, as they did in the world wars. Unsurprisingly, this invitation to send other peopleโs sons to someone elseโs war declared by the British government was met with disgust. More remarkable still was the television exchange in which former Labour adviser Paul Richards proposed that Britain would need to โlock a few people upโ, namely, โpro-Russian voicesโ who doubt the threat is real. This is the language not of deterrence but of pre-emptive mobilisation of opinion, a rehearsal for wartime censorship before a single shot on NATO soil has been fired.
Sergei Lavrovโs rejoinder at the UN General Assembly last month was bald and direct. Russiaโs calls for calm, he told reporters in New York, were being met by a European arms build-up that risked becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy โ investment in weapons production that, sooner or later, risk nuclear war. He dismissed talk of a planned Russian assault on Europe as nonsense, and posed the obvious question that Western commentary studiously avoids: why would a Russia, a โfull-spectrum commodity superpowerโ spanning eleven time zones, covet territory in a culturally exhausted, economically stagnant Western Europe bereft of natural resources?
The Ministry of Truth Comes to Britain and Brussels
The war rhetoric has been accompanied, entirely predictably, by a parallel tightening of the permissible bounds of debate. Prime Minister Andy Burnham used his address to the UN General Assembly this September to announce a new โNational Centre for Information Defenceโ. He will task this quango with detecting and disrupting โhostile information attacksโ working alongside intelligence agencies and social media platforms to police what counts as a โdistorted and untrue narrative about Britainโ.
Brussels, meanwhile, presses ahead with an EU-wide digital age-verification and identity wallet regime that, whatever its stated purpose, builds the infrastructure through which online access is conditioned on identity disclosure. This creeping authoritarianism, with profound irony, has led the EU and UK to increasingly resemble the late Soviet Union in institutional architecture, ideological rigidity and lack of free-speech protections. Britainโs own Ministry of Truth apparatus of government, police and media monitoring reflects a government obsessed with suppressing anti-immigration sentiment on social media.
None of this is coincidental. Vice President JD Vance in his seismic speech last year told the assembled dignitaries of the Munich Security Conference that the threat he worried about most vis-ร -vis Europe was neither Russia nor China but the retreat of European elites from their own foundational liberal values. These include the suppression of dissent and the restriction of speech deemed unhelpful to the official line, and the importation, without public consent, of mass immigration of mostly young men from the Middle East, Africa and West and South Asia that is steadily replacing the historic populations of the countries in question. President Trump has made much the same point: that the two most self-destructive policies pursued by the EU and UK establishment are green energy fanaticism and open-borders migration. He wants none of it for an America grounded in Christian values, the Bill of Rights and Enlightenment constitutionalism.
Whose War, Exactly?
The final irony deserves stating plainly. The European establishmentโs newfound zeal for confronting Russia has been consistently deployed to frustrate any diplomatic off-ramp. When Ukrainian and Russian negotiators reached the outlines of a framework agreement in Istanbul in the spring of 2022, Boris Johnsonโs unscheduled visit to Kyiv days later is remembered by Ukraineโs own chief negotiator, David Arakhamia, as the moment London counselled Kyiv to โsign nothingโฆ and just fight.โ Mr. Johnson, of course, denies exerting decisive pressure but the timeline is not in dispute. Nor is the fact that Ukraine, the supposed frontline democracy in whose name the West is being asked to countenance war with a nuclear power, has held no national election since 2019. A regime installed by a US-led coup in 2014 which displaced an elected government is now asked to stand as the vindication of Western democratic principle. Ukraineโs own reputation for endemic corruption was a persistent feature of independent rankings for years before the war. Western commentary treats any mention of the fact as tantamount to Kremlin sympathy. The moral capture of the debate has become totalizing with the charge of โPutin stoogeโ being the classic put-down line to all criticism of the NATO-led expansion since 1991, leading Ukraine down the primrose path to catastrophe.
An Old Story, Retold
As the saying goes, when all else fails, start a war. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that this old and cynical political logic โ familiar episodes of governing-class failure across history โ is precisely what is now in play across Western Europe and Britain. The regionโs political elites presided over two decades of self-inflicted energy poverty, deindustrialisation and demographic upheaval. They now face electorates increasingly inclined to reward the populist parties that promise to reverse course. A governing establishment that built its legitimacy on Net Zero and open borders has discovered that a foreign enemy, real or embellished, is a more reliable route to continued power than an honest reckoning with its own record.
Vladimir Putinโs Russia makes an unusually convenient target: distant enough to be safely feared, weak enough (on Mr Rutteโs own telling) to be safely provoked, and useful enough, as an organising threat, to justify the curtailments of speech and dissent that a discredited establishment now finds it needs. Europeans and Britons alike would do well to ask, before this logic runs its course, who exactly is being asked to do the dying, and in whose interest.
Dr Tilak K. Doshi is an energy economist and the Daily Scepticโs Energy Editor. He is a member of the CO2 Coalition and a former (cancelled) contributor to Forbes.
The 2025 Kamchatka tsunami (from the Mw 8.8 megathrust earthquake on 29 July 2025 off the Kamchatka Peninsula) produced long- lasting, coherent oscillations across the Pacific that persisted for many hours, and analysis of its dominant periods (its โrhythmโ) has potential value for improving tsunami warnings.
DART stands for Deep- ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis. It is a real- time deep- ocean tsunami detection and monitoring network operated primarily by NOAA (U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), with contributions from other countries.
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The 2025 Kamchatka tsunami (from the Mw 8.8 megathrust earthquake on 29 July 2025 off the Kamchatka Peninsula) produced long- lasting, coherent oscillations across the Pacific that persisted for many hours, and analysis of its dominant periods (its โrhythmโ) has potential value for improving tsunami warnings.
On 29 July 2025 (23:24:52 UTC), an Mw 8.8 earthquake ruptured along the Kuril- Kamchatka Trench near Petropavlovsk- Kamchatsky. It generated a trans- Pacific tsunami with local run- ups reaching up to ~19 m near the source (and isolated higher splash values in steep valleys), while far- field waves were generally more moderate than initially feared (often โค1- 2 m in many places, with some higher local values).
The event reactivated parts of the same margin as the larger 1952 Mw ~9.0 earthquake but with differences in rupture depth and slip distribution that limited the far- field tsunami energy relative to 1952.
A key observational feature was the prolonged โringingโ of the Pacific basin: wave trains continued for many hours (reports of multi- hour to multi- day activity at some coastal and deep- ocean sites due to reflections, refraction, and multi-path arrivals). Deep- ocean DART buoys recorded clear signals that could be analyzed spectrally.
In a numerical modeling and analysis study led by Amin Rashidi with co-authors including Denys Dutykh (and Mohammad Mokhtari), researchers simulated the tsunami using an earthquake source model and compared results to six observed DART waveforms.
The simulations matched arrival times and amplitudes reasonably well. Fourier and wavelet analyses of the records showed a coherent long- period signal in the ~30- 70 min band, with station- specific peaks near 32, 43, and 64 min. These periods relate to the source dimensions and the basin- scale propagation characteristics.
The authors note that identifying such dominant periods supports tsunami hazard assessments for Kamchatka- type megathrust events and highlights the practical value of spectral and period analysis for Pacific warning systems. Knowing the characteristic โrhythmโ of the wave train can help refine forecasts of wave heights, arrival of maximum energy (which often comes later than the first wave), and the duration of elevated hazard, complementing traditional amplitude and arrival- time predictions.
Related work on the same event has examined rupture complexity (deeper slip limiting far- field energy), ionospheric and atmospheric signatures detectable via GNSS, SWOT satellite altimetry snapshots, and comparisons with the 1952 tsunami, all contributing to better understanding of source- to- basin effects.
In short, the long- lasting, spectrally coherent oscillations of the 2025 event provide both a validation benchmark for models and a potential operational cue (period content) that warning centers can incorporate to improve the quality and duration of alerts.
The July 29, 2025 earthquake and its tsunami. Top left, the rupture model of the US Geological Survey used in our simulation: the fault surface off Kamchatka, cut into patches colored by their slip, with the epicenter (star) and the mechanism of the earthquake. Bottom left, the resulting rise (red) and fall (blue) of the seafloor. Right, the highest tsunami wave computed at every point of the Pacific; the dashed lines join the places that the waves reached at the same hour. Credit: Amin Rashidi, Denys Dutykh and Mohammad Mokhtari
DART stands for Deep- ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis. It is a real- time deep- ocean tsunami detection and monitoring network operated primarily by NOAA (U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), with contributions from other countries.
How a DART system works
Each DART station has two main components:
A Bottom Pressure Recorder (BPR) anchored on the seafloor (typically at depths of 1,000- 6,000 m). It measures changes in water pressure caused by the passage of a tsunami with very high sensitivity (down to ~1 cm of sea- surface height change).
A surface buoy moored nearby that communicates with the BPR via acoustic signals and relays the data to shore via satellite (Iridium or GOES).
Operating modes:
Standard mode: Routine low- rate transmissions (e.g., hourly summaries of 15-minute averages) for system health monitoring.
Event mode: Automatically triggered when the BPR detects a pressure change exceeding a threshold (or manually triggered by warning centers). It switches to high-frequency sampling and rapid transmission (15- second or 1- minute data) for several hours.
These deep- ocean measurements are free of coastal amplification and shelf effects, so they provide a clean signal of the tsunami as it propagates across the open ocean.
Network size and coverage
The U.S. operates 39 DART systems, strategically placed mainly in the Pacific, with additional coverage in the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean.
Other countries maintain additional stations, bringing the global network to more than 60 systems.
Stations are positioned in regions with a history of generating destructive tsunamis to give the earliest possible detection far from shore.
Data flow in near real time to NOAAโs two Tsunami Warning Centers (Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and National Tsunami Warning Center), where they are used to refine source estimates, update forecast models (e.g., MOST/SIFT), and improve warnings of amplitude, arrival time, and duration.
Role in the 2025 Kamchatka event
In the July 2025 Mw 8.8 Kamchatka tsunami, multiple DART stations (including ones relatively near the source such as 21416) recorded clear signals. These waveforms were central to the Rashidi, Dutykh & Mokhtari (2026) study: the authors compared numerical simulations against six DART records and performed Fourier/wavelet analysis that revealed the coherent 30- 70 min dominant periods (with peaks near 32, 43 and 64 min). Early DART detections also helped constrain rupture extent and improve real- time forecasts during the event.
Current status and modernization
NOAA continues to operate and maintain the array. Equipment modernization (funded in part by recent infrastructure investments) is underway to improve reliability and data availability, with replacements planned through the late 2020s. Historical and real-time data are archived and publicly available through NOAAโs National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) and National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).
In short, the DART network is the primary deep- ocean โeyesโ of modern tsunami warning systems.
It supplies the critical open- ocean measurements that convert seismic information into quantitative forecasts of what is actually heading toward coastlines.
The six deep-ocean stations of the DART network whose records we compared with our simulation (circles), and the epicenter of the earthquake (star). The table gives, for each station, the time at which the first waves arrived and the height of the highest wave, as recorded and as simulated from the earthquake alone. Credit: Denys Dutykh; coastlines: Natural Earth
Fourier analysis and wavelet analysis are complementary mathematical tools used to study the frequency content (the โrhythmโ or dominant periods) of time-series signals such as the sea- level records from DART buoys.
1. Fourier Analysis
Fourier analysis decomposes a signal into a sum of pure sinusoidal waves of different frequencies (or periods).
Core idea: Any reasonably well- behaved time series can be expressed as a combination of sines and cosines of various frequencies, each with its own amplitude and phase.
The result is a power spectrum (or periodogram) that shows how much energy is present at each frequency and period.
In tsunami studies it answers the question: โWhat are the dominant periods present in the entire record?โ
Strengths:
Excellent for identifying the overall dominant periods in a stationary (statistically constant) signal.
Computationally efficient (via the Fast Fourier Transform- FFT).
Limitations:
It loses all time information. You know which periods are strong, but not when they occurred or how they evolved.
It assumes the signalโs statistical properties do not change much over the whole record.
In the 2025 Kamchatka paper, Fourier analysis of the DART records revealed a coherent energy band roughly between 30 and 70 minutes, with clear peaks near 32, 43 and 64 min.
2. Wavelet Analysis
Wavelet analysis is a time-frequency method. It examines the signal with a set of โwaveletsโ, localized oscillating functions that can be stretched (to capture long periods) or compressed (to capture short periods) and slid along the time axis.
Core idea: Instead of one global spectrum, you obtain a scalogram (or time- frequency map) showing how the strength of each period changes over time.
Common choice for geophysical signals is the Continuous Wavelet Transform (CWT), often using a Morlet wavelet (a complex sinusoid modulated by a Gaussian envelope).
Strengths:
Reveals when particular periods appear, strengthen, or decay.
Handles non- stationary signals (tsunamis are highly non- stationary: the first arrival is different from later reflected or trapped waves).
Useful for tracking the evolution of the wave train as it propagates and interacts with bathymetry.
Limitations:
Slightly more computationally intensive.
There is a trade- off between time resolution and frequency resolution (controlled by the choice of wavelet and scales).
In the same Kamchatka study, the wavelet analysis confirmed that the 30- 70 min energy was coherent and persistent, and showed how the station- specific peaks evolved after the main arrival, information that a pure Fourier spectrum cannot provide.
How they are typically combined for tsunami records
Pre-process the DART time series (remove tides, de- spike, filter if needed).
Apply Fourier analysis โ global dominant periods.
Apply wavelet analysis โ time- frequency evolution of those periods.
This combination is why the paper could confidently state that the tsunami โgenerated a coherent 30- 70 min signalโ with specific peaks, and why such spectral information is valuable for improving tsunami warnings: knowing the characteristic rhythm helps forecast how long elevated water levels will last and when the largest waves are likely to arrive.
1 / 1 Sea level recorded at three of the stations, with the tide removed: the nearest to the source (top), one in the middle of the network and the farthest (bottom). Before the tsunami arrives, seismic waves from the earthquake shake the sensors (shaded). The red line marks the arrival of the first tsunami waves. At the nearest station the crest reached 85 centimeters, the second-largest reading in the history of the network. After the first waves, the sea keeps oscillating for many hours. Credit: Denys Dutykh; data: NOAA National Data Buoy Center
Primarily tsunami modeling of the Mw 8.8 Kamchatka Peninsula earthquake on July 29, 2025
An Mw 8.8 megathrust earthquake along the Kuril- Kamchatka Trench near the eastern coast of Petropavlovsk- Kamchatsky, Russia, on 29 July 2025 triggered a Pacific- wide tsunami with a reported maximum wave height of 19 m.
The authors:
Performed numerical modeling of the tsunami.
Analyzed six observed tsunami waveforms recorded at DART (Deep- ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis) gauges.
Conducted Fourier and wavelet analyses to identify the dominant period range of the tsunami.
Main findings:
Simulated waveforms show a good fit with the recorded sea- level data.
Wavelet, Fourier analysis reveals a coherent 30- 70 min signal, with station- specific peaks at 32, 43, and 64 min across the DART stations.
Comparison of maximum simulated amplitudes and arrival times shows reasonable agreement with observations, supporting the reliability of the earthquake source model used.
The results confirm that Kamchatka megathrust events can generate basin- wide tsunamis carrying coherent long-period energy.
This supports existing tsunami hazard assessments and highlights the value of dominant- period (โrhythmโ) analysis for Pacific warning systems.
The long- lasting coherent oscillations (the โPacific ringingโ for many hours) and the characteristic periods are presented as useful diagnostic information that can help refine forecasts of wave- train duration, timing of maximum energy, and overall hazard persistence beyond first- arrival predictions.
The full text is behind a Springer paywall and subscription; only the abstract and some front- matter (figures list, references) is freely visible on the page.
An Mw 8.8 megathrust earthquake along the KurilโKamchatka Trench near the eastern coast of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Russia, on July 29, 2025, triggered a tsunami across the Pacific Ocean with a reported maximum wave height of 19 m. In this study, we perform numerical modeling of the tsunami generated by this event and analyze six observed tsunami waveforms recorded at DART tide gauges. Additionally, Fourier and wavelet analyses are conducted on these records to identify the dominant period range of the tsunami. Our simulated waveforms show a good fit with the recorded sea level data. WaveletโFourier analysis shows the tsunami generated a coherent 30โ70 min signal, with station-specific peaks at 32, 43, and 64 min across the DART stations. The comparison of maximum simulated tsunami wave amplitudes and arrivals shows reasonable agreement with recorded data, implying that the earthquake source model is capable of accurately reproducing the tsunami. These findings confirm that Kamchatka megathrust events can generate basin-wide tsunamis with coherent long-period energy, supporting existing tsunami hazard assessments, and highlighting the value of dominant period analysis for Pacific warning systems.
Pennsylvaniaโs renewable energy mandate is finally facing a constitutional test. In a lawsuit filed September 3, West Virginia argues that Pennsylvaniaโs 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.
We the People, the beginning of the United States constitution lit by a window light
Pennsylvaniaโs renewable energy mandate is finally facing a constitutional test. In a lawsuit filed September 3, West Virginia argues that Pennsylvaniaโs 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 customersโ electricity from specific types of โgreenโ generating resources. Qualifying suppliers are issued renewable energy credits, or RECs, which utilities must purchase. Utilities then pass the costs on to consumers.
Most RECs come from wind and solar generation, but some states, including Pennsylvania, allow other resources, such as waste coal and burning garbage. Moreover, solar RECs are often carved out into their own category, called SRECs.
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 โgreenโ jobs. While none has accomplished those goals, they have all increased electricity costs by forcing electric utilities to purchase increasing quantities of RECs and SRECs. Over the six-year period, 2020โ2025, U.S. electric ratepayers paid almost $45 billion more for their electricity. As the mandates increase, so do the annual costs. The economic damage is compounded because higher-cost electricity ripples through the entire U.S. economy, increasing costs for virtually all goods and services.
In their zeal to promote in-state economic development, several mid-Atlantic states, notably Pennsylvania, also require generation owners eligible for RECs to be physically located within their boundaries. Thatโs problematic for ratepayers and out-of-state suppliers, as a lawsuit West Virginia filed against Pennsylvania points out.
In 2004, when Pennsylvania enacted Act 40, its renewable energy mandate, it contained no restrictions on the physical location of qualifying generators, as long as they were within PJM, the regional grid operator that coordinates generation in 13 states and DC. But in 2017, the state amended Act 40 to restrict qualifying โTier 1โ solar generators and โTier IIโ generators to facilities physically located within the state. The amendments made it clear that the purpose was to promote in-state economic development.
The amendments clearly promoted the well-being of in-state renewable energy developers; according to a report prepared by the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission, the prices of RECs soared from 22 cents per megawatt-hour (MWh) in 2018 to almost $27 per MWh in 2025, a more than 100-fold increase. In 2025 alone, Pennsylvania ratepayers paid over $700 million for renewable energy credits โ about $55 per person.
Courts have long held that, under the Dormant Commerce Clause, states generally cannot discriminate against out-of-state economic interests to benefit in-state ones. By limiting eligibility for renewable energy credits based on physical location and explicitly citing economic development as justification, Pennsylvania has provided West Virginia ample evidence that the law discriminates against interstate commerce.
Moreover, artificially high credit prices have encouraged the development of uneconomic renewable energy, contributing to instability in PJMโs wholesale energy market and, especially, its capacity market, where prices increased by a factor of 10 over the last two years.
Pennsylvania is unlikely to be the only state to face such a challenge. New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia, have similar geographic restrictions and may soon face challenges of their own. The Pennsylvania case could mark the beginning of broader scrutiny of state renewable energy mandates that favor in state generation.
With energy affordability a heightened concern, costly renewable energy mandates make little sense, especially when geographic restrictions artificially raise prices even higher. The best solution would be to eliminate these mandates entirely. Failing that, eliminating geographic restrictions such as Pennsylvaniaโs would be a good first step.
Climate has profoundly shaped the City of David (the original core of ancient Jerusalem on the southeastern ridge), primarily through its effects on water availability. The siteโs location was chosen around the perennial Gihon Spring, the only reliable local water source in an otherwise semi- arid environment. Fluctuations in rainfall, droughts, and extreme weather over the last 3,000 and more years directly influenced settlement size, fortifications, water engineering, agriculture, and periods of growth or stress.
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The City of David (Hebrew: สฟฤชr Davฤซd; also known locally in Arabic as Wadi Hilweh) is the archaeological site widely regarded as the original settlement core of ancient Jerusalem during the Bronze and Iron Ages.
It occupies a narrow, elongated ridge (the southeastern hill) immediately south of the Temple Mount, Ophel saddle, west of the Kidron Valley and east of the Tyropoeon Valley. The Gihon Spring, the ancient cityโs primary water source, lies on its eastern slope. This location made it defensible and strategically important from the earliest periods of settlement.
According to the Hebrew Bible (e.g., 2 Samuel 5), King David conquered the Jebusite city (often called Zion or Jebus) around 1000 BCE and established it as his capital, renaming or identifying it as the โCity of Davidโ.
Later kings, including Solomon, expanded the city northward toward the Temple Mount. The site remained the core of Jerusalem through the Kingdom of Judah until the Babylonian destruction in 586 BCE, and occupation continued into later periods, including the Second Temple era.
Archaeologically, permanent settlement evidence begins in the Early Bronze Age (3rd millennium BCE), with major fortifications appearing in the Middle Bronze Age (around the 18th century BCE) around the Gihon Spring. The site is central to debates about the scale and nature of Jerusalem in the 10th- 9th centuries BCE (the traditional United Monarchy period).
Major Archaeological Features and Discoveries
Gihon Spring fortifications and water systems: Middle Bronze Age walls, towers, and passages protected the spring. Later systems include Warrenโs Shaft and Channel II.
Stepped Stone Structure and Large Stone Structure: Massive Iron Age constructions. The Stepped Stone Structure is one of the largest known Iron Age man- made features in Israel (over 20 m high). Eilat Mazar interpreted the adjacent Large Stone Structure as a monumental public building (possibly linked to a royal or administrative complex from the time of David or shortly thereafter). Dating and exact identification remain debated among scholars.
Siloam Tunnel (Hezekiahโs Tunnel) and Pool of Siloam: A famous water tunnel traditionally associated with preparations for the Assyrian siege under Hezekiah (late 8th century BCE), though some evidence suggests earlier origins. The Pool of Siloam and the adjacent stepped street (Pilgrimage Road) were major features in the Second Temple period.
Iron Age city walls and other fortifications: Segments of the mid- slope fortification (Kenyon- Shiloh Wall) from the 8th century BCE and earlier; a massive rock- cut moat and trench separating the City of David ridge from the Ophel and Temple Mount area, used during the Kingdom of Judah period.
Other finds: Bullae (seal impressions), pottery, destruction layers from 586 BCE, a unique First Temple-period ritual structure with rock- hewn rooms (altar, standing stone, oil and wine presses) that may have gone out of use during Hezekiahโs reforms, and extensive Second Temple remains.
Recent radiocarbon studies (sampling organic material from multiple areas) support significant activity already in the 10th century BCE and earlier westward expansion of the city (toward Mount Zion) by the 9th century BCE, refining older chronologies.
The City of David is part of the Jerusalem Walls National Park and a major tourist site operated with visitor centers, guided tours, the Pilgrimage Road, access to the Siloam Tunnel (often by flashlight), and interpretive exhibits. It continues to yield new finds through ongoing salvage and research excavations by the Israel Antiquities Authority, Hebrew University, and other teams.
In short, the City of David is the archaeological heart of ancient Jerusalem- providing the physical evidence for its earliest urban phases, water management, fortifications, and continuous development over millennia- while remaining a focal point for both scholarly debate and public interest in biblical archaeology.
Climate has profoundly shaped the City of David (the original core of ancient Jerusalem on the southeastern ridge), primarily through its effects on water availability. The siteโs location was chosen around the perennial Gihon Spring, the only reliable local water source in an otherwise semi- arid environment. Fluctuations in rainfall, droughts, and extreme weather over the last 3,000 and more years directly influenced settlement size, fortifications, water engineering, agriculture, and periods of growth or stress.
Paleoclimate Context for the Southern Levant and Jerusalem
High- resolution proxies, including Dead Sea sediment cores (which act as a regional โrain gaugeโ), speleothems from nearby caves such as Soreq (recording precipitation via isotopes), pollen records, and solar activity indicators, reveal multi- decadal to multi- centennial climate swings rather than a stable climate.
Key patterns relevant to the last ~3,000 years (roughly Iron Age onward):
A ~150- year arid phase at the end of the Late Bronze Age (around the 13th- 12th centuries BCE) contributed to societal disruptions across the eastern Mediterranean.
Wetter conditions returned in Iron Age I, supporting highland settlement expansion and the rise of early kingdoms.
Iron Age II conditions were generally moderate (closer to modern averages), but with notable variability, including drier intervals and flash- flood events.
Later periods (including Roman, Byzantine, and medieval) also show oscillations, with lower groundwater recharge during cooler and drier epochs (e.g., parts of the Iron Age Cold Epoch and Little Ice Age) and higher recharge in warmer and wetter intervals.
Overall, the region experienced a long- term drying trend through much of the Holocene, punctuated by wetter and drier episodes. Climate alone rarely caused total collapse; societies often adapted through engineering, agricultural changes, and resilience strategies.
Specific Impacts and Adaptations at the City of David
Water security was existential. Drought reduced spring discharge and crop yields, while intense storms caused erosion, flash floods in the Kidron and Tyropoeon valleys, and soil loss. Archaeological evidence shows repeated investment in water infrastructure as a response:
Late 9th century BCE (ca. 805- 795 BCE), Siloam Dam: Radiocarbon dating of organic material in the mortar pins construction of this massive dam (blocking the Tyropoeon Valley to create/expand the Siloam Pool) to a narrow decade. Climate data from Dead Sea cores show increased aridity (halite layers) plus evidence of torrential rains and floods around 850- 800 BCE. Soreq Cave stalagmites indicate minimum precipitation near 850 BCE. This coincides with the Homeric Grand Solar Minimum (reduced solar activity linked to climate shifts). The dam stored water from the Gihon Spring and captured flood runoff, securing supply during dry spells while managing flood risk. It forms part of a broader late- 9th and early- 8th- century expansion of Jerusalemโs water systems.
Hezekiahโs Tunnel and related works (late 8th century BCE): Traditional association with preparations for the Assyrian siege, but these systems also enhanced resilience to climatic variability by protecting and redirecting the springโs flow underground.
Broader Iron Age patterns: Radiocarbon- dated sequences from City of David excavations show continuous settlement and architectural development from the 12th- 10th centuries BCE onward, with westward expansion by the 9th century and major fortification after a mid- 8th- century earthquake. Climate variability is one factor among others (political, economic, seismic) influencing these dynamics. Desert- fringe areas felt climatic impacts more strongly than core highland zones like Jerusalem.
Longer- term groundwater and vegetation: Modeling of the Jerusalem region over ~4,500 years shows precipitation- recharge relationships remained relatively linear despite temperature and vegetation changes, though drier decades reduced recharge efficiency. Human impacts (deforestation, overgrazing, terracing, fruit- tree cultivation) further modified the local environment.
Summary of Climate- Human Interaction
In the City of David, climate impacts manifested mainly as water stress and flood risk. Rather than abandonment, the archaeological record documents sophisticated engineering responses, dams, tunnels, pools, and fortifications, that allowed the settlement to grow into a significant urban center. These adaptations highlight both vulnerability (dependence on a single spring and rainfall- dependent agriculture) and ingenuity. Modern parallels exist: the eastern Mediterranean continues to face drying trends and water challenges, making the ancient record relevant for understanding long- term resilience.
Ongoing excavations and multi- proxy climate studies continue to refine these connections, showing that climate was an important but not solitary driver of change at the site.
The Homeric Grand Solar Minimum (also called the Homeric Minimum or Homerian Climate Anomaly) was a prolonged period of unusually low solar activity that began around 800 BCE and lasted roughly 200 years (approximately 2750- 2550 cal BP, with a stronger phase early on).
It is detected through elevated levels of cosmogenic isotopes such as carbon-14 (in tree rings and the atmosphere) and beryllium-10 (in ice cores and lake sediments).
These indicate reduced solar magnetic shielding, allowing more cosmic rays to reach Earth.
The event is sometimes linked to a broader โHallstattโ solar minimum complex and coincided with a geomagnetic excursion (Etrussia- Sterno).
Climate Effects
In Europe (especially western and central), it is associated with colder, wetter, and windier conditions (the โHomeric Climate Oscillationโ or 2.8 ka event).
In the eastern Mediterranean and Levant, regional proxies point to a different response: overall reduced precipitation (aridity), combined with intermittent intense rainstorms that produced flash floods.
Key evidence near Jerusalem includes:
Dead Sea sediment cores showing increased aridity (halite deposition) beginning around 850 BCE, along with graded layers indicating floods.
Soreq Cave speleothems (about 20 km west of Jerusalem) recording minimum precipitation near 850 BCE, followed by a gradual recovery.
Supporting signals from pollen and isotopic data on olive pits indicating shifts in rainfall patterns around 830 BCE.
Connection to the City of David
Researchers directly link this solar- driven climate shift to major water engineering in Jerusalemโs City of David. Precise radiocarbon dating of microscopic organic material (straw and twigs) in the mortar of the Siloam Dam places its construction in a narrow window of 805- 795 BCE.
The dam (a large stone structure that blocked the Tyropoeon Valley) created or expanded the Siloam Pool. It was part of a coordinated system that:
Fortified and protected the Gihon Spring (the cityโs main water source).
Redirected spring water through channels into the artificial reservoir.
Captured both spring flow and flood runoff for storage during dry periods while managing destructive flash floods.
This project is attributed to the early Kingdom of Judah, likely under King Jehoash or his successor Amaziah.
It represents sophisticated urban planning to cope with the unpredictable weather (prolonged dry spells punctuated by violent rains) associated with the Homeric Grand Solar Minimum. The scale of the works underscores Jerusalemโs importance and organizational capacity at the time.
In short, the Homeric Grand Solar Minimum provides a climatic backdrop for one of the City of Davidโs most impressive Iron Age water systems, illustrating how ancient Jerusalem adapted to solar- influenced climate variability through large- scale engineering.
Researchers have confirmed that ancient ice in the high- altitude Guliya Ice Cap (northwestern Tibet) preserves climate records from the last ice age and beyond, making these the oldest ice cores recovered from the region.
The Guliya ice cap (western Kunlun Mountains, northwestern Tibetan Plateau) is a cold- based (polar- type) glacier. Cores to bedrock were recovered in 1992 (GP1992, 308.7 m) and 2015 (GP2015, 309.7 m) on the plateau (~6200 m asl), plus thinner summit cores in 2015. Earlier work suggested ages >110 ka (and possibly much older near the bed based on ยณโถCl).
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Researchers have confirmed that ancient ice in the high- altitude Guliya Ice Cap (northwestern Tibet) preserves climate records from the last ice age and beyond, making these the oldest ice cores recovered from the region.
The study, led by Lonnie Thompson (professor of earth sciences and senior research scientist at Ohio Stateโs Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center) and published in Science Advances, compared ice cores drilled from the Guliya Plateau in 1992 and 2015. Both showed matching oxygen isotope patterns, confirming that the environmental signals are consistent and reproducible over decades.
To date the ice, the team used radioactive isotopes beryllium-10 and chlorine-36. These marked the Laschamp Geomagnetic Excursion (a major shift in Earthโs magnetic field more than 41,000 years ago). Combined with oxygen- isotope records from nearby Tibetan cave deposits, the data indicate the Guliya record extends well over 128,000 years (and more than 100,000 years overall).
This is significant because, outside the polar regions, it is the only mountaintop ice core that reaches so far back. For comparison, cores from Peruโs Nevado Huascarรกn go back only a bit over 30,000 years. Earlier work had suggested Guliyaโs record ended in the Mid- Holocene (starting ~12,000 years ago), but the new evidence shows some ice is much older and that portions of the ice cap survived the last ice age.
Accurate timescales like this help answer broader questions about when major glaciations began and ended and how natural ice loss processes worked. The team plans further analyses of the cores for additional climate and environmental indicators. The research was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation; Ohio State co- authors include Mary Davis and Ellen Mosley- Thompson, with international collaborators from Switzerland and China.
Sources: Ohio State News (Tatyana Woodall) and the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center announcement (both dated around September 30- October 1, 2026).
Geographic setting of the GIC. Credit: Science Advances (2026). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aeh2912
Additional evidence supports a timescale exceeding 100,000 years for the Guliya ice cap, Tibetan Plateau
The oxygen isotope (ฮดยนโธO_ice) record from a ~310 m core drilled on the Guliya ice cap (GIC) in 2015 (GP2015) is reproducible with a nearby ~309 m core from 1992. The timescale for a composite of the GIC cores was constructed using ยนโฐBe and ยณโถCl to identify the ~41 ka Laschamp geomagnetic excursion, plus a match to a ฮดยนโธO_atm- dated core from the Guliya Summit. Comparison of the GIC ฮดยนโธO_ice with an Asian Monsoon speleothem ฮดยนโธO record supports a timescale back to 128 ka, the oldest known so far from Tibet. The ฮดยนโธO_ice record shows orbital- scale variations in phase with June insolation and polar ice- core stable-isotope records through the last glacial cycle (with a phase reversal after the deglaciation that requires further study). Radiocarbon- dated ice from the glacier margin confirms glacial- stage ice in the GIC. The ยณโถCl/ยนโฐBe ratios in GP2015 confirm that GIC ice is older than 100 ka.
Key background and context
The Guliya ice cap (western Kunlun Mountains, northwestern Tibetan Plateau) is a cold- based (polar- type) glacier. Cores to bedrock were recovered in 1992 (GP1992, 308.7 m) and 2015 (GP2015, 309.7 m) on the plateau (~6200 m asl), plus thinner summit cores in 2015. Earlier work suggested ages >110 ka (and possibly much older near the bed based on ยณโถCl).
Recent studies of nearby cores (Chongce ice cap and a 2021 Guliya Plateau core drilled close to the earlier sites) produced much younger (Holocene or Late Holocene) ages, challenging the long timescale. This paper extends and independently supports the longer chronology for the 1992 and 2015 plateau cores.
Main results and methods
Reproducibility: High-resolution ฮดยนโธO_ice profiles from GP1992 and GP2015 match closely by depth and can be stratigraphically aligned, allowing transfer of the timescale.
Timescale construction (to 128 ka):
ยนโฐBe and ยณโถCl peaks at ~187 m mark the Laschamp excursion (~41 ka).
Matching of the upper part to the ฮดยนโธO_atm- and ยนโดC- dated Guliya Summit composite.
Further extension by matching the ฮดยนโธO_ice record (pre- 41 ka) to the continuous, ยฒยณโฐTh-dated Southeast Asian Monsoon speleothem ฮดยนโธO composite from SE China caves.
Supporting evidence of pre- Holocene ice: Two ยนโดC- WIOC samples from ice ~50 cm above bedrock at the southeastern margin of the GIC yielded mean calibrated ages of ~24.1 ka and ~24.8 ka (last glacial stage).
Cosmogenic isotopes: Combined ยณโถCl (from both cores) and ยนโฐBe (GP2015) data, placed on the new timescale, show the Laschamp peak and a possible Mono Lake excursion (~33 ka). Nuclear-weapons- testing ยณโถCl is confined to the near- surface. The ยณโถCl/ยนโฐBe ratio decreases with depth in a manner consistent with radioactive decay and ages >100 ka (effective half-life ~384 kyr under standard assumptions). Establishing a precise timescale beyond 128 ka remains challenging due to possible post- depositional mobility or production- rate issues near the bed.
Climatic implications (discussion highlights)
The composite GP1992/2015 ฮดยนโธO_ice and deuterium-excess records track orbital (insolation) and millennial- scale features seen in polar ice cores and (with the expected antiphase relationship) Asian monsoon speleothems through much of the last glacial cycle. A phase shift relative to the speleothem records occurs around the deglaciation (~18- 19 ka), possibly linked to changing atmospheric circulation (westerlies vs. Asian monsoon) and moisture sources as Northern Hemisphere ice sheets retreated. Cooler conditions around the Laschamp excursion are consistent with modeled climate responses to geomagnetic field weakening.
The paper addresses prior challenges to the long timescale and concludes that the Guliya plateau cores preserve a continuous climate archive spanning the last glacial cycle and beyond 100 ka, unique among non- polar, high- elevation ice cores. Future work is suggested to refine ages deeper than 128 ka and to investigate the post- deglaciation isotopic phase change.
In their article How Does Climate Change Impact Norโeasters? TIME magazine claims that a norโeaster which struck the northeastern United States in mid- September illustrates how climate change is making powerful storms more intense. Thatโs false.
There is no evidence that the recent norโeaster was at all unusual or represents a long- term climate change induced shift in the occurrence or strength of such storms.
In their article How Does Climate Change Impact Norโeasters? TIME magazine claims that a norโeaster which struck the northeastern United States in mid-September illustrates how climate change is making powerful storms more intense. Thatโs false. There is no evidence that the recent norโeaster was at all unusual or represents a long-term climate change induced shift in the occurrence or strength of such storms. TIMEโs claims go well beyond what the evidence can establish about an individual storm and lacks support in data and meteorological records.
โWhile September norโeasters arenโt unheard of, they are uncommon,โ states TIME. โAnd as the climate warms, research suggests that the strongest storms are also going to become more intense.โ TIME then uses speculative sleight of hand to link the recent storm to increasing number of billion-dollar disasters.
The historical record and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) show substantial natural variability in extratropical storms and low confidence in observed trends in their intensity, making TIMEโs attempt to turn a single weather event into a climate-change story scientifically unjustified.
The basic problem with TIMEโs article is right there in its premise. A norโeaster is a weather event. Climate is the statistical behavior of weather measured over decades.
As Climate at a Glancehas explained, individual hurricanes, floods, droughts, heat waves, cold snaps, and storms are weather. Long-term changes in their frequency or intensity can potentially constitute evidence of climate change, but one storm cannot establish such a trend. See the graphic below from the European Space Agency to visualize this.
That distinction is fundamental to climate science, yet it increasingly disappears when a dramatic weather event presents an opportunity for a climate headline.
TIME reports that this particular norโeaster produced heavy rain, flooding, winds exceeding 60 mph, and coastal flooding in New Jersey. Those facts establish that a strong storm occurred. They do not establish why it occurred, much less demonstrate that human greenhouse gas emissions made it unusually powerful.
More revealing is an admission buried halfway through the article: โScientists are still not 100 percent clear about how norโeasters are changing due to climate change.โ
That should have been the beginning of TIMEโs analysis, not a caveat quickly brushed aside before returning to claims of worsening storms.
The IPCCโs Sixth Assessment Report on climate change provides no findings that extreme weather events, such as norโeasters, are increasing in number of intensity.
Norโeasters are extratropical cyclones, and Chapter 11 of IPCC AR6 specifically examines these storms. The IPCC reports โlow confidence in past changes of maximum wind speeds and other measures of dynamical intensity of extratropical cyclones.โ
This is true for many weather events, as seen in the table below.
Table. Summary table showing lack of weather event attribution from Chapter 11 of the IPCC AR6 report.
The IPCC also finds that there is low confidence in past-century trends in the number and intensity of the strongest Northern Hemisphere extratropical cyclones because of large year-to-year and decadal variability and limitations in the historical data.
Even more directly, the IPCC states that studies attributing changes in the most extreme extratropical cyclones are not available and that there is โoverall low confidenceโ in attributing changes in individual extreme extratropical cyclone events to human influence.
Somehow, TIME missed the IPCCโs conclusion on this topic.
TIME blurs those two very different propositions.
Dollar losses are not a physical measurement of storm intensity. A storm striking todayโs heavily developed East Coast encounters vastly more homes, businesses, roads, vehicles, utilities, and expensive infrastructure than the same storm would have encountered decades ago. Inflation alone also increases nominal losses. Increasing billion-dollar disaster counts do not, therefore, demonstrate that storms have become meteorologically more severe.
Climate Realism has repeatedly addressed this error in media reporting: increasing economic exposure and wealth can increase disaster losses even without a corresponding increase in the underlying weather hazard.
There is an additional irony in TIME publishing this story in September 2026.
While TIME cites a single norโeaster to suggest that storms are intensifying, the Atlantic tropical basin has been experiencing an extraordinary lack of hurricanes.
As of September 21, the Atlantic had produced six named tropical storms but not a single hurricane. It was the first time since 1914, 112 years ago, that the basin had gone that far into the official Hurricane season without producing one. The climatological peak of Atlantic hurricane activity occurs around September 10, so this historic quiet occurred during what normally is the busiest part of the season.
NOAA National Hurricane Center records confirm the unusually weak activity, with the storms through mid-September remaining below hurricane strength. A strengthening El Niรฑo and associated wind shear have been identified as important factors suppressing Atlantic hurricane development this year.
Does that remarkably quiet hurricane season prove climate change has stopped affecting storms? Of course not. Itโs weather. And that is precisely the point.
A quiet Atlantic hurricane season cannot disprove long-term climate change, just as one powerful September norโeaster cannot prove that climate change is making storms worse. Climate trends require decades of data, not whichever storm happens to dominate this weekโs headlines.
Indeed, TIMEโs own expert undermines the articleโs framing. Professor Mathew Barlow acknowledges that researchers are โnot seeing any changes in the overall averageโ number of norโeasters and that the total number of storms โmight actually be going down a little bit.โ
That admission deserves considerably more attention than TIME gives it.
TIME starts with a storm, asks how climate change made it worse, and then assembles quotations supporting that premise while relegating contradictory evidence to a few sentences. Thatโs not how climate science is supposed to work. Nor is it how science journalism should work.
A norโeaster struck the Northeast. It produced heavy rain, strong winds, flooding, and disruption, all facts making the storm worthy of significant news coverage. But, there is no evidence whatsoever that climate change had any influence on the recent norโeaster. Since neither data nor historical records suggest any significant changes in the formation or behavior or norโeasters, TIME should make no such connection to climate change. The story goes beyond the news to disaster story telling. Based on this report, perhaps it would be more accurate to file TIME on the fiction rack at bookstores and newsstands.
That headline Science or strategy? Researchers call for transparency over the Anthropocene rejection ย refers to the fallout from March 2024, when the Anthropocene as a formal geological epoch was voted down, and to a long- running critique coming out of the Max Planck Society.
Researchers aligned with Max Planck argue that without published criteria, open peer review of the vote, and inclusion of social scientists and humanists, we can’t tell the difference, and that opacity undermines trust.
There is the new paper, Schรคfer et al. 2026 in Earth’s Future: “Science or Strategy? The Rejection of the Anthropocene Epoch Demands Transparency”
It comes from researchers linked to the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Jena. It doesn’t argue to relitigate the stratigraphy. It argues the process of the rejection itself was opaque.
AI generated by Meta
That headline Science or strategy? Researchers call for transparency over the Anthropocene rejection refers to the fallout from March 2024, when the Anthropocene as a formal geological epoch was voted down, and to a long- running critique coming out of the Max Planck Society.
For almost 15 years the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) worked to put the “age of humans” on the official geologic timescale.
They proposed:
Start date: 1952, linked to the global spike of plutonium from nuclear weapons tests
Golden spike location: Crawford Lake, Ontario
Rationale: rapid acceleration of greenhouse gases, biodiversity loss, plastics, concrete, etc. since the 1950s
In March 2024 the proposal was rejected.
The Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy (SQS) voted it down, and on 20 March the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), the final arbiter, announced it was upholding that decision.
Reports described it as a highly contested decision in March 2024, with a 12 to 4 vote to reject.
The debate didn’t end with the vote, it intensified. Two camps of criticism emerged:
1. Scientific critique: Critics argue the plutonium spike itself is not a direct stratigraphic marker of anthropogenic Earth- system change, that the โผ70- year interval is too short for an epoch, and that evidence of human impacts are diachronous in the geological record.
2. Procedural ans strategy critique:Supporters of the AWG said the vote was leaked to media before the AWG was officially informed, violated the 60% supermajority procedures, and flew in the face of evidence presented. That’s where the transparency call comes in.
This is not new for Max Planck.
In 2016, Nicole Boivin, then Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, and colleagues published a Comment in Nature arguing that the soon- to- be- finalized decision was inaccurate and hasty, and that its formalization must be the result of a transparent, broad based, interdisciplinary process.
They explicitly called for the criteria for the formalization to be published and peer reviewed, rather than established in closed meetings, and for at least half the commission to come from anthropology, archaeology, history, sociology, geography and philosophy- not just stratigraphy.
The newer work coming from the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology (MPI- GEA), including Jรผrgen Renn, Georg Schรคfer and colleagues, makes a similar point after the 2024 rejection:
The rejected recognition of an Anthropocene epoch has not ended the Anthropocene debate, rather it underscores that the decisive question is less stratigraphic than political
Their argument:
The Anthropocene should not be reduced to a single GSSP (plutonium line). Human impacts started as “a whisper, became a voice and then a scream”, megafaunal extinctions, fire, agriculture, irrigation, urbanization, thousands of years before 1950.
Focusing only on 1950s markers sustains a narrow, Eurocentric, elite view of industrial society as the only cause.
Geoanthropology needs open epistemic webs that link models, data, and publics, and decision infrastructures that are auditable, hence the call for transparency.
In other words:Was the 2024 rejection a strictly scientific judgment that the evidence doesn’t meet chronostratigraphic rules? Or was it a strategic move to protect the stability of the timescale and avoid a very short, highly political epoch?
Researchers aligned with Max Planck argue that without published criteria, open peer review of the vote, and inclusion of social scientists and humanists, we can’t tell the difference, and that opacity undermines trust.
Even though the epoch was not formalized, the term is alive:
Nature Reviews Earth & Environment now frames the debate as epoch vs. event, epoch (a formal break after the Holocene) vs. event (a cumulative, time- transgressive transformation analogous to the Great Oxidation Event)
Many Earth- system scientists continue to use Holocene vs. Anthropocene informally in planetary boundaries work, regardless of the official timescale.
If you want the original sources, I can pull the 2016 Boivin et al. Nature comment Involve social scientists in defining the Anthropocene and the 2024-2025 Renn et al. MPI- GEA preprint The Decision for the Anthropocene โ Between Activism, Doubt and Responsibility.
Science or Strategy? The Rejection of the Anthropocene Epoch Demands Transparency
There is the new paper, Schรคfer et al. 2026 in Earth’s Future: “Science or Strategy? The Rejection of the Anthropocene Epoch Demands Transparency”
It comes from researchers linked to the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Jena. It doesn’t argue to relitigate the stratigraphy. It argues the process of the rejection itself was opaque.
What happened
In March 2024, the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) upheld the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy’s (SQS) decision to formally reject the Anthropocene Working Group’s (AWG) proposal
Despite the outcome, the AWG continues to publish evidence that the authors say meets established standards, a globally synchronous plutonium signal and 12 depositional environments.
The problem, they say, is not that rejection is impossible, but that the manner of rejection remains unexplained.
What is problematic is the manner in which this rejection occurred.
The scientific basis for rejection therefore remains opaque.
Documented procedural violations they list
1. Violation of SQS chair’s rights: the vote was called against the expressed will of the chair who according to the Statutes is leader of the Subcommission
2. Invalid voting process:
11 of the 16 members who cast votes were ineligible under ICS Rule 9, their terms having exceeded the 12- year limit, leaving eligible members short of quorum
Valid Standard Auxiliary Boundary Stratotypes proposals were excluded from deliberation despite meeting ICS requirements
3. Compromised evaluation: The AWG received no opportunity to respond to comments, including those that revealed misconceptions, or to revise the proposal, counter to ICS procedure that a proposal must receive extended opportunity for open discussion. The matter then passed to a quickly convened ICS meeting from which the SQS Chair was excluded and on to IUGS ratification within days.
4. Suppression of ethics oversight: The IUGS’s own Commission on Geoethics submitted a report in January 2024 concluding the AWG had been unfairly treated and recommending immediate suspension of voting procedures. The Executive Committee ignored it, forwarding the report only after results leaked via the New York Times. That Geoethics report remains publicly inaccessible.
They also cite earlier suppression: at STRATI 2023 in Lille, the AWG’s press conference was withdrawn from the venue and media were instructed not to interview AWG members inside.
And the Geoethics Commission itself was then disestablished on 28 April 2025 with the justification that its objectives do not offer sufficient interest, only reinstated in June 2025 on an interim basis without financial support.
Science or Strategy?
The core question they pose:
Was the AWG proposal rejected on scientific grounds, such as methodological concerns, marker inadequacy, disputes over the timing of the boundary, or did institutional politics and strategic gatekeeping prove decisive?
Until today, neither SQS, ICS, nor IUGS explained the evidentiary threshold by which it was judged inadequate.
What they demand
They explicitly say:
We are not calling for reversal of the IUGS decision, nor seeking to relitigate the stratigraphic evidence… We call for transparency.
Two steps:
1. Full disclosure of relevant documentation, including the IUGS Commission on Geoethics report, SQS voting records, and communications 2. Independent review commissioned by a body independent of the IUGS, such as the International Science Council
Their argument: The Anthropocene concept has long transcended geoscience, archaeology, history, ecology, law, public discourse, and if decisions as consequential as this can be made behind closed doors, geoscience’s capacity to inform society is diminished.
In a recent Earth’s Future article, Skelton and Noone (2025, https://doi.org/10.1029/2024ef005719) crystallized the dilemma facing the geoscientific community: the Anthropocene Working Group’s (AWG) evidentiary case for an Anthropocene epoch is at least as strong as, and in their view stronger than, that for the Holocene. Yet a substantive scientific debate cannot proceed until the reasons for the rejection of the AWG’s proposal to formalize the Anthropocene as a geological epoch are made transparent. Often framed as a question of stratigraphic markers and boundary criteria, the Anthropocene controversy now turns on a more fundamental issue: whether current institutional practices for establishing geological time units meet the transparency and procedural standards expected in times of heavy public reliance on Earth-system expertise. Drawing on surfaced communications, public statements, independent reporting and publicly available documentation, we identify unresolved procedural irregularities in the evaluation of the AWG proposal, including questions about voter eligibility and quorum, restricted access to key documents, and the handling of an IUGS-commissioned geoethics report. These matters have not been addressed in a systematic or public way. We argue that clarifying the basis of the decisionโscientific or otherwiseโis essential to preserve trust in stratigraphic governance and, by extension, in the institutions that underpin global environmental knowledge. We therefore call for full disclosure of the relevant documentation and an independent procedural review to ensure that decisions about Geological Time Scale remain credible and legitimate in the context of rapid planetary change.
โMany 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.โ โ New York Times
โMany 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.โ โ New York Times (below)
Brad Plumer, a โa Times reporter who covers technology and policy efforts to address global warming,โ recently explained (September 23, 2026) the โenergy dominanceโ position of the Trump Administration. โThe Former Fracking Executive Selling Trumpโs โEnergy Dominanceโ Visionโ began with the subtitle: โEnergy Secretary Chris Wright is pitching a future of fossil fuel abundance. Itโs not always an easy sell while war drags on and oil prices surge.
A fair article like this would have incensed the late Joe โhead explodingโ Romm. But the bully is gone, so others of less stature are left to fuss (see the reader comment below).
The Article
Quotations from the Plumer article follow:
โโฆ Energy Secretary Chris Wright brought a sunny message to Houston last week at a gathering of energy ministers from the G20 nations. The Trump administration, he said, was ushering in an era of energy abundance by expanding oil and gas supplies in places like Alaska and Venezuela.โ
โMr. Wright acknowledged some tension, though he insisted it was temporary. โEveryoneโs frustrated with higher energy prices,โ he said of the mood at the meeting. โBut Iโve not met one person whoโs comfortable with a nuclear-armed Iran. So everyone gets what weโre doing and this is a critically important mission. It creates dislocations in the short term. But the only answer to short-term dislocations is the energy abundance agenda.โโ
โWhereas Mr. Trump speaks bluntly about energy โ chanting โdrill, baby, drill,โ calling wind turbines ugly, or claiming that global warming is a hoax โ Mr. Wright gives his arguments an intellectual gloss. He cites figures on how solar panels underperform during winter storms. Or he argues that global warming is not as big a problem as energy poverty, which he says can only be alleviated with more oil, gas and coal, even if that means more planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions.โ
โAdministration allies say that has made Mr. Wright invaluable. โHe has been one of the most consequential picks for energy secretary Iโve seen,โ said Thomas J. Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, a research group that promotes fossil fuels. โHeโs very experienced, brings a lot of substance, and he articulates President Trumpโs vision clearly.โโ
โโฆ Ben Dietderich, an Energy Department spokesman, said in a statement: โSecretary Wright doesnโt have preferred energy sources. He just believes in being honest about math and energy security. Unfortunately, many in the climate lobby donโt like that. The Department is proud to have ended energy subtraction policies that lead to higher prices, less energy security and human impoverishment.โโ
โ[Wright] argued that people in developing countries still lacked enough energy to enjoy a decent standard of living and that renewables couldnโt replace oil, gas and coal to provide that power.โ
โโAt the height of this era when everyone was saying energy policy should just be about climate, Chris Wright was one of the few C.E.O.s that ran oil and gas firms who clearly and vocally spoke out,โ said Arjun Murti, a partner at the energy research firm Veriten.
Mr. Wright also had a flair for the dramatic. He once drank fracking fluid on video to show it was safe. In 2021, he rented billboards around Denver to heckle The North Face after the company declined to work with an oil firm.
โMr. Wright quickly transformed the department. Out were programs to develop novel technologies to fight climate change, like green hydrogen or low-emissions steel. Instead, federal funds went to help utilities finance gas plants, nuclear reactors and transmission lines or upgrade older coal plants, which officials say are essential for meeting rising electricity demand. Mr. Wright also lifted a Biden-era pause on expanding exports of liquefied natural gas, now the nationโs fastest-growing export, and has pressured Europe to ease rules on methane, a potent greenhouse gas, saying they could hurt U.S. exports.โ
โโHe brought a whole new attitude to the agency,โ said Scott Segal, an energy lobbyist at Bracewell. โItโs all about how do we produce enough energy to support A.I. and economic growth.โโ
โMr. Wright, who often criticizes wind and solar for not running at all hours, has cut renewable energy programs and renamed the National Renewable Energy Laboratory as the National Laboratory of the Rockies. While experts agree that the variability of wind and solar poses real challenges, many say it goes too far to call the sources โworthless.โ Texas gets roughly one-third of its power from renewables and has kept costs low.โ
โMr. Wrightโs supporters say he has helped steer the country away from what they saw as the Biden administrationโs unrealistic plans to rapidly phase out fossil fuels. Some say the debate is shifting in his direction. 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.โ
โโThereโs been a real shift in how investors and others now talk about energy,โ said Travis Fisher, a director of energy and environmental studies at the libertarian Cato Institute who worked with Mr. Wright to organize the agencyโs climate report. โClimate has become a lot less salient.โโ
โMr. Wright, for his part, says fossil fuels are too useful to recede anytime soon. โWe will never, ever come remotely close to running out of hydrocarbons, which means you need better technology and innovations to eventually eat into their market share,โ Mr. Wright said at a Cato event in May. He said he was excited about recent breakthroughs in areas like fusion. But, he added, โthe biggest innovations the rest of my lifetime in energy are almost certainly going to be in oil, gas, and coal, because they are what matter.โโ
Romm-like Complaint
A comment from โbl in Rochesterโ was featured in the Times comment section. โItโs appalling to give wright an unchallenged forum to spew out his denialist propaganda,โ he began. โCovering [Chris Wrightโs] speech as here, or his โinterviewโ at the climate forum, does just that.โ Continuing:
Heโs conducting a full out war on renewable energy sources and technology using false reasoning, no rigorous scientific argumentation, and manipulative, cherry picking economic analyses that only โanswerโ the irrelevant questions he chooses to ask to justify his policy choices. This is socially destructive, and will be suicidal if not stopped in the near term.
He offers no coherent reply to the increasing climate instability. He carelessly dismisses the data, and provides vapid bromides to the evident dangers with fantastical assertions while ignoring the very real costs that will be incurred. Still he remains unchallenged in public.
He chooses the present with no concern for the future. That is not leadership. It is profit protection for one energy industry.
This is doubly damaging because all sorts of roadblocks have been imposed to block renewables. He therefore condemns generations to suffer horribly from such unhinged policy insanity.
The fact that no immediate follow up rebuttal by a climatologist is allowed makes this demagoguery even more vile and sickening. Indeed his โinterviewโ with this paper was with a journalist not a scientist, and produced a predictable, unchallenged stream of idiocy without addressing at all the reality of climate change incurred damage,
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