Day: January 21, 2025

The Origin of The Los Angeles Wildfires

My group and scientists from the University of Albany are now studying the meteorology of the LA wildfires earlier this month and have significant early results. At the American Meteorological Society meeting last week, I attended many wildfire meteorology sessions and talked to several colleagues who have actively studied such events. The LA fires were a topic of considerable discussion.

From The Cliff Mass Weather Blog

By CliffMass

My group and scientists from the University of Albany are now studying the meteorology of the LA wildfires earlier this month and have significant early results.  At the American Meteorological Society meeting last week, I attended many wildfire meteorology sessions and talked to several colleagues who have actively studied such events. The LA fires were a topic of considerable discussion.

We have a good idea of what happened:  an extreme/unusual Santa Ana event associated with severe downslope winds.   In this blog, I will show you some early simulations and explain why this event occurred.  

I will also describe why climate change did not play a significant role.

As I will explain below, this is not only a Santa Ana event, but an unusual one, with extreme winds descending to lower elevations.  Some lower-elevation stations, such as Burbank, experienced their strongest wind gusts on record.  Model simulations suggest the development of what is known as a high-amplitude mountain wave leading to a downslope windstorm event.

Santa Ana 101

Santa Ana’s are associated with strong northeasterly (from the north to east) winds over southern California.  These strong winds are accompanied by very low relative humidity and are very favorable for southern CA wildfires.   

The typical large-scale weather pattern associated with Santa Anas includes a large high-pressure area over the Great Basin, with the strongest events also having a low center to the southwest (see below). Such a pattern results in strong northeasterly winds approaching the mountains of southern CA.

The observed sea level pressure pattern at 4 PM January 7 (below) showed many of these elements, with the low to the south being particularly strong (warm colors indicate above-normal pressure, cool colors show below-normal pressures).

This pattern produced extreme, perhaps unprecedented, northeasterly winds approaching the region in the lower atmosphere.  To illustrate,  the color shading in the map below shows wind differences from normal at 925 hPa (about 2500 ft above sea level) at 10 PM Tuesday (January 7) evening.  The light gray indicates very unusual winds (more than six standard deviations from normal).  The wind direction and speed at some points are also shown.

This was not your normal Santa Ana.

High-Resolution Simulations

To understand what happened,  UW Research Scientist David Ovens, a member of my research group, ran a very high-resolution forecast/simulation of the event using the WRF model, with a grid spacing of 1.3 km (this is very high resolution).

Let me show you a surface wind gust forecast (32 hours into the prediction) for 12 AM on Wednesday, January 8.   The areas of the Palisade and Eaton fires (the two biggest ones) are shown by red outlines.   

Extreme winds (with gusts exceeding 70 knots, 81 mph) were forecast over and downwind of the San Gabriel Mountains.  HUGE threat.    Lesser, but still strong winds (50-60 mph gusts) are noted in the Palisades area extending to the west and south.   

To understand what is going on, it is useful to plot vertical cross-sections through the fire areas to show the 3-D atmospheric structure.   Below is a cross-section (at 8 PM Tuesday) through the Eaton fire; a section that crosses the San Gabriel Mountains.  The shading shows sustained winds in knots, the x-axis is the horizontal distance and the y-axis is height in pressure (700 is about 10,000 ft)

Wow.    Very strong acceleration of the air as it descends the southern slopes of the San Gabriels, with the strongest winds near Altadena, where the fire went crazy.  This was a very powerful downslope windstorm with a highly amplified mountain wave pattern.

Another cross section, this time going through the Palisades fire at 10 AM on Wed. January 8, is shown below.   Very strong winds to the lee (south) of both the interior mountains and Santa Monica mountains to the south (left side of the figure).

These and earlier simulations by the UW WRF model and NOAA/NWS models (such as the HRRR, High Resolution Rapid Refresh) consistently forecast the extreme downslope winds DAYS in advance.

It was also clear that there were unusually large amounts of dried “fuels” ready to burn.  The fuel load was particularly high after TWO unusually wet winters (2022-2023, 2023-2024).  A dry start of winter ensured massive amounts of fuels were ready to burn. 

This was clearly a situation of extraordinary extreme wildfire danger.  That is why I blogged a strong warning the day before.  Why the National Weather Service did the same.  LA officials should have know a severe threat was in place.

All that was needed was an ignition source.  For the deadly and large Eaton Fire near Pasadena, it appears that a problematic electrical transmission tower was the origin of the fire.

For the Palisades inferno, it is either some smoldering embers from a New Year’s Eve fireworks blaze or the failure of some aged powerlines found north of Skull Rock.   Perhaps, arson is another possibility.  Several fire experts I talked to at the AMS wildfire meeting thought the powerlines were the most probable cause, but a definitive evaluation is not yet available.

What is clear is that LA did not shut off the power to the region even AFTER the fire was initiated and that only limited fire-fighting resources were in place before the fires began.  Not good.

Bottom Line:   A very skillfully predicted Santa Ana event with record-breaking winds hit LA earlier this month. Two wet winters resulted in unusually high levels of dried fuels. Human ignitions initiated the fires.

Influence of Global Warming

There are several media outlets and climate activists that are suggesting that LA fires were the result of global warming or significantly enhanced by human-caused warming.  

These claims are contrary to the best science, which indicates minimal impacts of human-caused warming.  

Such claims undermine the importance of key societal failures, from not shutting off power and fire-hardening homes to not having sufficient fire-fighting capabilities or adequate warnings and evacuation protocols.

Key reasons why global warming is not an important factor include:

1.  There is no evidence that global warming increases Santa Ana winds.  In fact, there are strong physical reasons (with supporting scientific literature) that global warming WEAKENS Santa Ana winds.

2.  The available fuels were unusually abundant because the two previous years have been much wetter than normal.  There is no evidence this is caused by global warming.  And there is no long-term trend for wetter winters, which would be evident if this was a climate issue.

3.  The immediately prior months were drier than normal.  This is not predicted by global warming projections and there is no historical trend to drier early winters which would occur if climate was a cause (see plot below of Los Angeles precipitation for Oct. 1-January 6 ).

3.  There are some outrageous claims that the LA fires are the result of increasing “weather whiplash” due to climate change.  This “whiplash” theory is unsupported by observations, such as the plot shown above.

I am particularly troubled by the media pushing weather/climate theories that are untrue.  A prime example is the unsupported claim that the Lahaina fire was associated with the passage of a hurricane to the south.   This was proven to be false.

New Study: Globally, 30% Of Modern Forests Have Not Warmed…50% Of Treelines Have Not Advanced

An interesting observation found in the body of a new study (Pederson et al., 2025) is that 30% of the globe’s forests have not even warmed in the modern era (1900s-present), and just 50% of the globe’s forests have not advanced upslope. This would appear to challenge claims of global-scale warming.

(A) Location of the ice patch (TOL) with the mid-Holocene whitebark pine stand relative to the modern treeline site (TAL). The map inset shows t
approximate location of the study site (purple circle) within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE; green polygon) (Basemaps from Natural Earth and Google
Earth courtesy of Maxar Technologies). (B) Aerial image showing the ice patch and ice-patch margin where the whitebark pine trees were sampled (red polygon)
(photo by Joe McConnell, captured 6 Sep 2021). (C) The sampled subfossil whitebark pine trees along the margin of the TOL ice patch (photo by Daniel Stahle).
(D) Panoramic view of the forefield of the ice patch showing the exposed ice surface from extensive melt during the 2024 ablation season (photo by Gregory
Downloaded from https://www.pnas.org by 198.203.28.123 on January 21, 2025 from IP address 198.203.28.123.
Pederson, captured 8 Sep 2024)

From NoTrickZone

By Kenneth Richard 

Scientists presumably intending to report unusual modern warming in response to anthropogenic activities actually indicate all or nearly all modern warming and treeline advances at a Rocky Mountain ice patch site occurred from the 1910s to the 1940s.

An interesting observation found in the body of a new study (Pederson et al., 2025) is that 30% of the globe’s forests have not even warmed in the modern era (1900s-present), and just 50% of the globe’s forests have not advanced upslope. This would appear to challenge claims of global-scale warming.

“Variations in local conditions likely explain why recent warming documented at approximately 70% of treelines globally only resulted in ~50% exhibiting upslope advances.”

The study documents a millennia-scale tree line and temperature record from a high-elevation site (>3,000 m above sea level) in the USA’s Rocky Mountains (Yellowstone region).

A melting ice patch reveals a pine forest grew at this elevation, which is ~180 m above today’s tree line limit, approximately 6,500 to 4,200 years ago. Higher tree lines are indicative of warmer Holocene temperatures. Volcanically induced cooling after 4,200 years ago led to the decline in tree line elevation to modern levels in the Late Holocene.

The authors point out that the 21st century warming in this region has now equaled the warm-season temperatures of the Mid-Holocene.

Interestingly, though, the observed (instrumental) and reconstructed modern warming trends shown in the paper indicate all or nearly all accomplished in the decades between the 1910s and 1940s. The modern treeline advance was also achieved by the 1940s.

This would appear to indicate there has been no obvious net warming trend or net tree line advance since the 1940s…despite the abrupt increase in greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning after 1945.

Image Source: Pederson et al., 2025

,pederson-et-al-2024-dynamic-treeline-and-cryosphere-response-to-pronounced-mid-holocene-climatic-variability-in-the-usHerunterladen

Report: How Did The Biden Administration Do On Solving “Climate Change”?

We are now in the last hours of the Biden Administration. Today the Bidenauts complete four full years in office. And as we all know, their number one priority from the day they took office was to address what they called the “climate crisis” (or sometimes, the “profound climate crisis”). Famously, after lavishly promising on the campaign trail to address and solve the crisis, newly-installed President Biden then issued multiple Executive Orders on the subject in his early days in office, most notably this one from January 27, 2021.

From The Manhattan Contrarian

 By Francis Menton

We are now in the last hours of the Biden Administration. Today the Bidenauts complete four full years in office. And as we all know, their number one priority from the day they took office was to address what they called the “climate crisis” (or sometimes, the “profound climate crisis”). Famously, after lavishly promising on the campaign trail to address and solve the crisis, newly installed President Biden then issued multiple Executive Orders on the subject in his early days in office, most notably this one from January 27, 2021. He promised an “all of government” approach, with every department and agency explicitly tasked to make addressing the climate crisis central to their mission. In the following years, Biden proposed and then pushed through Congress legislation containing hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of subsidies and tax benefits for so-called “renewable energy,” said to be the solution to the climate crisis through replacing carbon-emitting fossil fuels with clean and green wind and solar substitutes.

To remind you of the level of the promises that were made, consider the preamble of that January 2021 EO, which had the title “Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad”:

The United States and the world face a profound climate crisis.  We have a narrow moment to pursue action at home and abroad in order to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of that crisis and to seize the opportunity that tackling climate change presents.  Domestic action must go hand in hand with United States international leadership, aimed at significantly enhancing global action.  Together, we must listen to science and meet the moment.

With Biden now leaving office, this is an appropriate moment to take a look at exactly what “progress” has been made toward the promised reductions in emissions. The answer is, any emissions reductions have been so tiny as to be almost imperceptible.

In the big picture, whatever emission reduction have been achieved have mostly resulted from substitution of natural gas for coal in electricity generation. This substitution would likely have occurred by natural market processes without any of the government subsidies and credits for wind and solar power.

To help us in our review, the federal Energy Information Administration (EIA) puts out monthly data on energy production and consumption in the U.S. These data have been updated through September 2024. The EIA data on “primary energy” can be found at this link, and the data on electricity generation and consumption at this link.

Primary Energy

The term “primary energy” refers to all energy used in the economy in all sectors — not just electricity, but also transportation (cars, trucks, trains, planes), industry, agriculture, buildings, and everything else. In other words, this is the full picture.

Go to Table 1.1 at the primary energy link for the “Primary Energy Overview.” Here we find that in 2020 — the last year of the prior Trump administration — the U.S. consumed a total of 88,872 quadrillion Btus of primary energy, of which 73,169 QBtus from fossil fuels, 8,251 QBtus from nuclear, and 7,290 QBtus from “renewable energy.” (Note that the “renewable” category is not just wind and solar but also includes things like biomass and geothermal.). Anyway, doing some simple division, that would make 82.3% from fossil fuels, 9.3% from nuclear, and 8.3% from renewables.

The last full year of data are for 2023. Total primary energy consumption was 93,691 QBtus, of which 77,271 QBtus came from fossil fuels, 8,099 QBtus from nuclear, and 8,256 from renewables. The percentages are then 82.5% from fossil fuels, 8.6% from nuclear, and 8.8% from renewables. (Percentages may not add up to exactly 100% due to rounding.). The percent from fossil fuels actually increased slightly from 2020.

Only nine months of data are available for 2024, but those show little change in relative shares: 70,345 QBtus total primary energy consumption, of which 57,662 from fossil fuels, 6,168 QBtus from nuclear, and 6,478 QBtus from renewables. Thus 82.0% from fossil fuels, 8.8% from nuclear, and 9.2% from renewables.

With all the endless hype about the climate crisis and the hundreds of billions of dollars of federal largesse going into forcing an “energy transition,” would you ever have believed that these numbers would have moved so negligibly?

Electricity generation

The data on electricity generation by source are found in Table 7.2a at the electricity data link above. This time the data are not so helpfully grouped as in the last table, so some addition is necessary to get useful categories for our purposes. Fossil fuels are broken down into coal, oil, natural gas, and “other fossil fuels.” “Renewables” include not just solar and wind, but also “hydro,” and “wood, waste, and geothermal” (WWG), which are larger categories than you might think.

For 2020, the total generation is 4,009-terawatt hours, of which the fossil fuel categories add to 2,429 TWh, nuclear is 790 TWh, and the renewables total the remaining 790 TWh. But of the renewables, wind is 338 TWh, solar is 89 TWh, hydro is 280 TWh (net of some losses on pumped storage), and the remaining WWG renewables come to 70 TWh. So, the percentages are 60.6% fossil fuels, 19.7% nuclear, 7.0% hydro, 1.7% WWG, 8.4% wind, and 2.2% solar.

Fast forward to 2023, and we find 4,183 TWh of total generation, of which 2509 TWh came from fossil fuels, 774 TWh from nuclear, 239 from hydro, 64 TWh from WWG, 166 TWh from solar, and 421 from wind. So now the percentages are 60.0% fossil fuels, 18.5% nuclear, 5.7% hydro, 10.0% from wind, 4.0% from solar, 1.5% from WWG.

Again, could you have imagined that the needle could possibly have moved so insignificantly? With all the vast subsidies and investments thrown at wind and solar, their percentage of the mix has just gone from 10.6% to 14% in three years, while fossil fuels have gone down from 60.6% to 60.0%, less than a 1% change.

For the first nine months of 2024, fossil fuels generated 59.5% of electricity, while wind generated 10.1% and solar generated 5.2%. Despite the billions upon billions of taxpayer subsidies, they creep upwards at an almost imperceptible pace.

Emissions

And has all the money lavished on buildout of wind and solar generators had any noticeable impact on carbon emissions? The two EIA pages linked above don’t have information on emissions, but here is another page with some useful information on that subject, titled “U.S. Energy-Related Carbon Dioxide Emissions, 2023.” Excerpt:

CO2 emissions from the electric power sector declined by 7% (115 MMmt) in 2023, making up 85% of net energy-related CO2 emissions reductions observed over the year. The reduction was due to both a slight decrease in electricity demand, which fell by around 1% in 2023, and a significant decrease in coal-fired electricity generation caused by reduced coal-fired generating capacity prompted by competition with other generation sources. Electric power generation from coal fell by 19%, or 155 terawatt hours (TWh), in 2023. Most of this generation was displaced by natural gas which increased by 7% (113 TWh) and by solar which increased by 14% (21 TWh). Because coal-fired generation emits more CO2 per kilowatthour than natural gas when combusted, replacing coal-fired with natural gas-fired generation reduces CO2 emissions overall.

Thus by far most of the retired coal generation was replaced by natural gas, and a small percentage by solar.

In summary, in four years the Biden administration made almost no progress in reducing “emissions,” other than a small number of reductions that came from substituting natural gas for coal in the production of electricity. That substitution came about through market forces (i.e., low natural gas prices) and was not even the subject of the vast energy transition subsidies made available by the government. Although renewables made some small inroads in electricity production, the increase in their share in primary energy production over the four Biden years was barely noticeable (less than 1%).

The attempt to transition our energy system via command from central planners has been one of the greatest wastes of taxpayer funds ever perpetrated by the government. It cannot be ended soon enough.

Scapegoating Climate to Hide Callous Government Malfeasance

Abject failures from Biden, Newsom, LAFD and others can no longer be ignored

From Watts Up With That?

Abject failures from Biden, Newsom, LAFD and others can no longer be ignored

Paul Driessen

Wildfires near Los Angeles have left Pacific Palisades looking like Dresden after the WWII fire-bombings. Over 12,000 homes, schools and businesses have been incinerated, dozens of people have died, at least 70,000 have been left homeless, and fires still rage.

AccuWeather estimates that just two of the fires will destroy $135-150 billion in property!

It’s a doubly horrific tragedy, because most of the death and devastation could have been prevented. 

California has 33,000,000 acres of federal, state and private forestland – equivalent to Wisconsin. As the state’s population expanded, forests and wildlife increasingly merged with human habitats. And yet federal and state land managers – compelled by ideology, activists, legislators and judges – have steadfastly refused to permit timber cutting, tree thinning or brush removal, or take other actions that would reduce the likelihood of conflagrations.

So many trees are so jammed together now that they’re starved for space, water, nutrients and sunlight. Many are diseased. They are skinny matchsticks, primed to erupt in flames. Some 36,000,000 trees died just in 2022, across just 8% of these forestlands. But even dead and diseased trees are rarely removed.

Rainy fall and winter months stimulate tree, brush and grass growth. Parched summers dry everything out. Extended dry periods leave all this fuel ready to ignite for more months.

Lightning, sparks from cars or power lines, campfires and arsonists set areas aflame. Dry Santa Ana winds (40-70 mph, with gusts of 120-150 mph) whip fires into infernos. Depleted, defunded fire departments often arrive long after they could extinguish fires in their infancy.

The conflagrations generate still more powerful winds that carry embers, branches, even small trees thousands of feet – often into communities that are ill-prepared to cope.

This barely begins the litany of California government failures that help cause repeated fire calamities. However, state and local politicians adroitly avoid responsibility.

Their most common excuse is manmade climate change. They even have a new fear-inducing term: hydroclimate whiplash! Fossil-fuel-driven climate change supposedly brought two exceptionally wet winters, spurring unprecedented plant growth – and then caused unprecedented arid conditions and previously unheard-of Santa Ana winds that made these infernos unpredictable but inevitable.

Calling the massive, repeated government failures “incompetence” is too generous. Deliberate, callous, destructive malfeasance is more apt. Criminal may be appropriate.

Governor Gavin Newsom wants a special session to discuss spending $25-50 million to “Trump-proof” state policies. He wants to use a new $10-billion “climate bond” to reduce farm and ranch greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, improve “equitable access to nature,” build more parks in “disadvantaged communities,” upgrade ports to handle deepwater offshore wind projects, and more.

California is still pouring billions into EV subsidies, its “clean” energy transition, and the $100 billion “bullet train to nowhere.” It’s spending more billions supporting “sanctuary” status for illegal immigrants, maintaining gender and DEI programs, and ministering to America’s largest number of homeless people – which will now include 70,000+ who’ve lost everything to the 2025 wildfires.

One wonders whether they’ll treat these now-homeless taxpayers as well as they have illegal populations.

Legislated restrictions on how companies may conduct fire-risk assessments and what rates they can charge for homeowners insurance in high-fire-risk areas have caused insurers to leave the state or stop issuing new policies. Hundreds of thousands of families are now uninsured, underinsured or dependent on the state’s FAIR Plan, which has only $385 million in reserves.

Meanwhile, California devoted only $2.6 billion to “forest and wildfire resilience” across all state-managed forestlands, including Topanga State Park, where the fires started, right next to what once was Pacific Palisades – versus $14.7 billion for EVs and “clean renewable energy.”

With memories of the horrific 2018 Paradise (Camp) fire still causing nightmares, Mayor Karen Bass cut $17.6 million from the Los Angeles Fire Department budget, fired 100 firefighters who didn’t get Covid vaccines, and was partying at an embassy reception in Ghana as the fires erupted

LA Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley (salary: $654,000) has spent millions on DEI programs and hiring more women, gays and minorities. Deputy/Diversity Chief Kristine Larson (salary: $307,000) says victims want to see emergency responders that “look like” them, and if she isn’t strong enough to carry your husband out of a fire, he “got himself in the wrong place.”

They then failed to keep extra firefighters and firetrucks on duty as winds picked up just before the first forest fires were spotted – apparently to avoid paying overtime. That meant the LAFD couldn’t get there before fires roared out of control.

Exhausted firefighters trying to save multi-million-dollar homes in Palisades ran out of water. A major reason was that LA Water and Power Department CEO Janisse Quiñones (salary: $750,000) had the 117-million-gallon Santa Ynez Reservoir drained to repair cracks in its base. A full reservoir would have replenished huge storage tanks that feed and pressurize local fire hydrants.

Quiñones has said her “number one” priority is equity and social justice. Does that explain why the reservoir was drained in February 2024; no contractor was hired until November 2024; and even then no workers, equipment or materials were in place for 24/7 repairs?

Just as callously incompetent, why was there no plan (or no action taken) to utilize fireboats, tugboats, barges and other vessels from Long Beach Harbor and the San Diego Navy Base? Many are equipped with water storage, pumps, hoses and nozzles. They could spray seawater directly on coastal homes or run hoses ashore to connect to fire hydrant systems.

Some salt would remain in soils and kill some plants. However, the choice should be easy. Lose some prized vegetation to lingering salts – or have prized vegetation, homes, priceless heirlooms and artworks, and everything else incinerated by raging infernos. Homeowners never got to make that choice.

The incineration of these forests and communities released far more greenhouse gases than all the state’s now-shuttered coal- and gas-fired power plants would have over many decades.

Further complicating matters, the fires sent ash and pollutants into skies and left toxic chemicals behind – from plastics, paints, batteries, solvents and other materials in homes, buildings and vehicles. They’ve contaminated waters and soils, which could result in long cleanup and rebuilding delays.

Governor Newsom says he wants to expedite rebuilding. But LA health officials say debris removal and reconstruction are prohibited until licensed officials have carefully examined sites for toxics – dangerous or barely detectable levels? New building codes for fire resistance? Or homeowner demands for them?

Citizens need to discuss all this at town hall meetings, before the next conflagration strikes – inevitably, if proper forest and water management and personnel hiring are not implemented immediately. Put simply, the woke idiots responsible for this rampant destruction and loss of life must be replaced with people who understand their Number One Job is protecting citizens from crime, fires and other natural disasters.

Mr. Newsom also wants an investigation into the loss of fire hydrant water pressure. Californians have good reason to suspect he’s merely trying to find excuses and scapegoats, so that he and his favorite legislators can save their political hides.

Golden Staters need to revamp their political, bureaucratic, policy and woke systems. They need to rely less on government – and more on themselves, the way the Getty Villa and several neighbors did in Malibu, thereby saving homes, treasures and lives. Otherwise, these needless tragedies will be repeated.

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy, environment, climate and human rights issues.

Trump’s Greenland gambit for natural resources in the Arctic

In Episode 478 of District of Conservation, Gabriella has a pre-Trump 2.0 roundup on the conservation and energy tie-ins for Greenland, the L.A. wildfires, and Landman on Paramount+.

From CFACT

By Gabriella Hoffman

“For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.” —President Donald J. Trump

In Episode 478 of District of Conservation, Gabriella has a pre-Trump 2.0 roundup on the conservation and energy tie-ins for Greenland, the L.A. wildfires, and Landman on Paramount+.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

EP 579: BAAJA Blast: Permitting Reform or Bust – District of Conservation

In Episode 579 of District of Conservation, Gabriella discusses the permitting reform bill – aka BAAJA – that is gaining traction in Congress now. The Senate will hold a cloture vote starting at 3:30pm ET in a motion to proceed. Gabriella discusses the status quo without permitting reform, how BAAJA is good for the environment and affordability. Tune in!SHOW NOTESBipartisan Policy Center: BAAJA ExplainerEstimating the US Energy System Impacts of the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act
  1. EP 579: BAAJA Blast: Permitting Reform or Bust
  2. EP 578: Midterms, CO Amendment 83, Disneyland Goes Electric
  3. EP 577: Kaylyn Glenn – Florida Gladeswoman & Conservationist
  4. EP 576: Chiricahua National Park & Energy Security Index
  5. EP 575: Menhaden Madness (ft. Whit Fosburgh, Forage Fish Campaign)

Big banks’ retreat from climate alliance an encouraging step toward dismantling ESG

In clear preparation for President Trump’s second term, six of America’s largest banks – Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo – have made an exodus from the leading woke climate alliance.

From CFACT

By Paul Teller

In clear preparation for President Trump’s second term, six of America’s largest banks – Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo – have made an exodus from the leading woke climate alliance.

The UN-sponsored Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) requires leading global banks to put climate extremism over good business by aligning their investments, lending, and capital market activities with the goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions levels by 2050.

Disguising itself as a philanthropic endeavor essential for the “sustainable finance agenda,” the NZBA functions as an agent of the left’s radical climate agenda. It wrongfully prioritizes virtue-signaling climate boondoggles. Thankfully, data suggests that members have engaged primarily only in noisy financial virtue signaling. Altering investment strategy to advance climatism will hinder economic growth and destroy shareholder value.

These banks should be commended for waking up and walking away from this woke climate pact that does nothing for the environment or the American people. Their withdrawal is a win for the growing pendulum swing against the progressive takeover of American industry under the banner of environmental, social, and governance standards (ESGs).

In the name of “social justice” and “progress,” ESGs wreak havoc on the economy.  ESG subsidizes unreliable energy leading to blackouts, raises costs on American families, and reduces good financial investments, while discouraging innovation in the name of climate alarmism and advancing “social justice.”  These “standards” undermine America’s competitiveness on the world stage, leave us more vulnerable to China and make life more difficult for American families.

The recent whiplash against NZBA’s ESG agenda is having a resounding effect.  BlackRock announced last week that it was pulling out of a similar UN-sponsored climate initiative: the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative. This decision comes in the wake of continued scrutiny around BlackRock’s history of aggressive ESG investment strategies.

The incoming Trump administration is likely to continue amplifying pressure on pro-ESG companies by countering woke ESG practices and supporting antitrust violation investigations of ESG zealots.

For the past two years, several Republican state attorneys general have threatened legal action and opened investigations into ESG-compliant companies. Agreements like the NZBA often require collaboration across different banks, which can limit competition and naturally raise antitrust concerns.

By committing to a net-zero action plan, banks are essentially promising to fully boycott the fossil fuel industry by 2050, which could compromise their duties to investors and customers. In Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton conducted a 2023 review of major US banks under a Texas law prohibiting governmental entities from entering into business with companies boycotting the oil and gas industries. He closed the probe following the banks’ withdrawal from NZBA.

Still, the work has just begun. Undoing the damage will take time. The recent mass withdrawal from the NZBA is encouraging, but the gesture doesn’t necessarily signify total victory over ESG.

Although Bank of America withdrew from the NZBA, it remains publicly committed to the net zero platform and principles. Similarly, Citigroup said that it also remains “committed to reaching net-zero” and announced that while it was pulling out of the NZBA, it will still support the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, NZBA’s parent alliance that Citigroup helped found.

To truly regain trust with American consumers, these banks must demonstrate a renewed commitment to their fiduciary duties to shareholders and depositors. Loans and investments should be made in pursuit of maximizing value rather than forging virtue-signaling global alliances with others’ resources.

Time will tell if these recent moves are simply media stunts to avoid the ire of the incoming President Trump or if a true realignment of principles and ethics is occurring in the financial sector. Either way, this news is a win for economic freedom and prosperity and is yet another step in neutralizing the political correctness and radical wokeism holding corporate America hostage.

This article originally appeared at Real Clear Energy

Left Coast Climate Delusion Ends in Flames

Amid California’s fires, voters wake up from the dream that green pork is a solution.

Satellite images of wildfires burning in Southern California by NBC Staff • Published January 11, 2025

From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. writes in Wall Street Journal End of a Climate Delusion.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Amid California’s fires, voters wake up from the dream that green pork is a solution.

CO2 emitted into the atmosphere is rapidly and, for all practical purposes, uniformly distributed around the planet.

I may be stating the obvious, but it needs to be pointed out. Voters and even political leaders are surprisingly poorly informed on this point. Emissions cuts in California don’t have any significant effect on California’s climate. They also have no global effect. California’s cuts are too small relative to the global whole; they also are largely illusory.

Emitting industries leave the state. They don’t stop emitting. If California imports Canadian hydro to charge its electric vehicles, consumers elsewhere have to burn more coal and gas. If Californians drive EVs, more gasoline is free to be burned by others, releasing more CO2 that influences climate change in California and everywhere else.

Green-energy subsidies do not reduce emissions. This will be news to millions of California voters. It contradicts a central tenet of state policy. It isn’t news to the actual enactors of these subsidies. A National Research Council study sponsored by congressional Democrats in 2008 concluded that such handouts were a “poor tool for reducing greenhouse gases” and called for carbon taxes instead.

Unfortunately, the incoming Obama administration quickly discovered it favored climate taxes only when Republicans were in charge. Backers would later engage in flagrant lying to promote Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, knowingly citing bogus predictions that its trillion-dollar spending profusion would reduce emissions.

A 2019 University of Oregon study had already revealed the empirical truth: Green energy doesn’t replace fossil fuels, it enables more energy consumption overall. That same year the EPA calculated that the potential emissions savings from subsidizing electric vehicles had been offset five times over by the pickup truck and SUV boom Team Obama facilitated to assure the success of its auto bailout.

American Association for the Advancement of Science study finds that of 1,500 “climate” policies announced around the world, a mere 63, or 4%, produce any reduction in emissions.

Last year, the premier journal Science put a nail in the question: 96% of policies supported worldwide as “reducing” emissions failed to do so, consisting mostly of handouts to green-energy interests.

And yet certain Journal readers still assail me with the epithet “denier.” They confuse my criticism of Democratic hypocrisy with my imagined views on climate science. As I’ve written back to many, “Don’t think politicians haven’t figured this out about you. That’s why they can give us unsustainable corporate welfare boondoggles and call it climate policy.”

A CNN moderator Saturday urged viewers to vote in an online poll on whether the California disaster should be blamed on climate change or poor leadership. Notice the non sequitur: as if climate change is an excuse for not acting against fire risk.

By all means, let politicians proclaim a “climate crisis” or any other rhetorical flourish if it helps mobilize support for public actions that actually serve a useful purpose. But a prerevolutionary situation has been building in California for two decades, starting with the Third World blackouts in late 2000 not because of any shortage of power but because of large helpings of political cowardice.

A decision in 2019 authorized yet more Third World blackouts instead of reasonably shielding utilities from lawsuit risk over fires their power lines might be accused of contributing to. One result, predictably, has been a proliferation of backyard generators, which increase fire risk.

Californians are stuck adapting in the ways left open to them. Since 2017, half a million have fled Los Angeles County.

Two social technologies might help but the state has been intent on denying itself their advantages. One is a functioning insurance market. If you can’t afford the insurance, you can’t afford the house. Get ready, instead, for a torrent of federal and state money to help residents, some of them wealthy, rebuild in high-risk fire zones.

The other is a functioning market in water. Five gallons to produce a walnut probably isn’t tenable under any realistic system of water pricing. If water were properly valued, municipalities would also rapidly discover the logic of building aquifers to capture seasonal runoff. A thousand things would change if water were priced to flow to its most highly valued uses.

Here’s another concept: Climate change can exist and yet be an insignificant variable.

In Southern California’s Mediterranean climate, anytime 100-mile-an-hour winds start blowing embers toward densely packed housing developments, a conflagration is certain. The only answer then is to have the manpower and resources ready to put fires out as quickly as they start.

I’ve written repeatedly about climate and energy policies in the Western world being a colossal example of “sophisticated state failure,” in which attempts to address complex problems yield only a succession of boondoggles and economic crises. If California voters don’t wise up now, they never will.

Open Letter to Los Angeles Times Owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong

I am writing to you, scientist-to-scientist, to address a chronic problem with the American press and the Los Angeles Times: The use of weakly credentialed writers to analyze important topics of scientific relevance.

From Watts Up With That?

Excerpted from Legal Insurrection

Leslie Eastman

Dear Dr. Soon-Shiong:

I am writing to you, scientist-to-scientist, to address a chronic problem with the American press and the Los Angeles Times: The use of weakly credentialed writers to analyze important topics of scientific relevance.

Perhaps if the journalists you hired weren’t climate cultists and racialists who wanted to “get Trump”, one of America’s Great Cities wouldn’t be burning..,potentially from arson started by terrorists or foreign street gangs. A healthy country needs a healthy press.…

— Leslie Eastman ☥ (@Mutnodjmet) January 10, 2025

One great example is the time a social justice extremist, Sammy Roth, was allowed to publish a “scientific” piece on air pollution in the Los Angeles area…. linking it to racism.

With respect, you have social justice extremists covering “science”. You need to get people with scientific backgrounds willing to debate the data. Example: LA Times Makes Racist Claims that White Drivers are ‘Polluting the Air’ of ‘People of Color’” https://t.co/OPHkUrRXon

— Leslie Eastman ☥ (@Mutnodjmet) January 17, 2025

Roth was your paper’s “Energy Reporter“.

There is a lot of misinformation to unpack in this gem, so I will start by noting that this is a prime example of ideological capture of the sciences through “science” writers who do not have traditional science-based backgrounds.

A quick review of Roth’s LinkedIn profile shows he graduated from Columbia University with a degree in . . . Sustainable Development.

I majored in Sustainable Development and minored in American Studies, graduating cum laude. My coursework included environmental law, urban studies, energy development, geographic information systems and environmental economics. I reported and edited for the Columbia Daily Spectator, and I worked on water conservation projects for the Columbia Aquanauts, an interdisciplinary water club.

Without a stronger background in questioning assertions and challenging hypotheses, certain elements are not considered. For example, are the patterns of freeway use perhaps more driven by socioeconomic factors rather than race?

The Los Angeles Times, under your ownership, has not permitted reasonable debate nor allowed the publication of information that runs counter to the preferred political narrative on climate and energy.

Good public policy must be based on solid, reliable information. The public has not received full information on climate, what impacts it, subjects involving climatology, energy efficiency, or any other science-related topic that has a significant impact on regulations.

I assert that the ideological capture of the sciences is a contributing factor to the historic fires that have hit the Greater Los Angeles area. I think if you reflect on my hypothesis, you will agree.

I would like to offer you one solution: diversify your staff by including alternative scientific perspectives. For example, you can confer with the CO2 Coalition, who can connect you with serious and experienced people who can do accurate analysis.

You can reach out to people such as geologist and climate expert Dr. Matthew M. Wielicki for guidance.

You can make the same data look very different. pic.twitter.com/n9oTBYVn5q

— Dr. Matthew M. Wielicki (@MatthewWielicki) January 17, 2025

There are scores of other talented scientists mocked or derided for being “tools of fossil fuels” by those who would like to make sure their misinformation is the only information accessible to the public. The louder the complaints, the more effective that researcher tends to be. If you would like a list of other examples, contact me.

One last thought, as we look forward to Inauguration Day 2024. When he was leaving office, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned:

“Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

Dr. Soon-Shiong: Please free your publication from its ideological capture. It’s better for Los Angeles. It’s better for California. It’s better for the nation.

With respect,

Leslie Eastman, MSc., CHMM, SDSRP…. wife, mother, and Californian.

NESO In Wonderland

As part of their Clean Power 2030 report, NESO did some modelling of what generation might look like in 2030.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

As part of their Clean Power 2030 report, NESO did some modelling of what generation might look like in 2030.

It covered a 7-day period in each season, based on increased renewable capacity and higher demand:

https://www.neso.energy/document/346781/download

The virtual disappearance of weather-dependent power for days in winter should scare everybody.

The only way NESO could square the circle was to fill that gap with unabated gas. Their database shows that we would need as much as 27 GW of gas power, an amount that we could not even cobble together last week when we were close to blackouts.

Even then we would still need nearly 7 GW of flexibility, of which battery storage would be able to supply at most 2 GW for a short time. The rest would come from Demand Supply Response.

NESO naively believe that the public will willingly stop using electricity for hours at a time when the wind stops blowing. The reality is that rolling blackouts will be inevitable- enforced demand reduction, you might say!

Overall NESO are banking on 11.7 GW of DSR in 2030, but 5.4 GW of this is smart charging of EVs and V2G. In other words, they are hoping drivers charge up at night, switching demand away from peak time.

However, as they state in their assumptions, charging at off peak is already built into their peak demand models. If it was not, peak demand would be even higher than the 62 GW they forecast, so it cannot be counted twice.

In reality all they have is 4.7 GW of DSR for Residential and Industry, on top of what is already there now.

Surprisingly even in Spring there will be massive shortfalls of power, with up to 19 GW of gas power required and 12 GW of Flex.

NESO’s numbers simply do not stack up.

And it all begs the question of what happens when those gas plants start shutting down, whether by design or old age.

Surprise! The North Atlantic Current is Stable

Another nail in the coffin of climate models? A study published in Nature suggests there is no evidence for a decline in AMOC over the last 60 years.

From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

Another nail in the coffin of climate models? A study published in Nature suggests there is no evidence for a decline in AMOC over the last 60 years.

AMOC study: Critical ocean current has not declined in the last 60 years

…

In the Atlantic Ocean, a system of connected currents – the AMOC – moves water throughout the world’s oceans powered by a combination of winds and ocean density. It not only distributes the ocean’s heat, moisture, and nutrients, but regulates the Earth’s climate and weather too.

As the climate is continuously changing and the atmosphere is warming, many scientists fear that fresh water from melting polar ice sheets could significantly disrupt – or even collapse – the AMOC. While a decline of the AMOC would have grave consequences, a collapse would be truly catastrophic, as Oceanographic reported back in October 2024.

As studies about the AMOC’s long term future are still uncertain, a team of scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) took a closer look at the past to help inform the AMOC’s likely future.

In a new paper published in Nature Communications, scientists made a surprising announcement: The AMOC has not declined in the last 60 years, indicating that it is currently more stable than expected.

“Our paper says that the Atlantic overturning has not declined yet,” Nicholas P. Foukal, study author, adjunct scientist in Physical Oceanography at WHOI and assistant professor at the University of Georgia, said. “That doesn’t say anything about its future, but it doesn’t appear the anticipated changes have occurred yet.”

…Read more:

 https://oceanographicmagazine.com/news/new-study-argues-amoc-has-not-declined-in-the-last-60-years/

The abstract of the study;

Atlantic overturning inferred from air-seaheatfluxes indicates no decline sincethe 1960s

Jens Terhaar1,4,5, Linus Vogt 1,2 & Nicholas P. Foukal 1,3

Received: 2 July 2024
Accepted: 6 December 2024
Published online: 15 January 2025

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is crucial for globalocean carbon and heat uptake, and controls the climate around the NorthAtlantic. Despite its importance, quantifying the AMOC’s past changes andassessing its vulnerability to climate change remains highly uncertain.Understanding past AMOC changes has relied on proxies, most notably seasurface temperature anomalies over the subpolar North Atlantic. Here, we use24 Earth System Models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison ProjectPhase 6 (CMIP6) to demonstrate that these temperature anomalies cannotrobustly reconstruct the AMOC. Instead, wefind that air-sea heatfluxanomalies north of any given latitude in the North Atlantic between 26.5°N and50°N are tightly linked to the AMOC anomaly at that latitude on decadal andcentennial timescales. On these timescales, air-sea heatflux anomalies arestrongly linked to AMOC-driven northward heatflux anomalies through theconservation of energy. On annual timescales, however, air-sea heatfluxanomalies are mostly altered by atmospheric variability and less by AMOCanomalies. Based on the here identified relationship and observation-based estimates of the past air-sea heatflux in the North Atlantic from reanalysis products, the decadal averaged AMOC at 26.5°N has not weakened from 1963 to 2017 although substantial variability exists at all latitudes.Read more: 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-55297-5.epdf

Michael Mann appears to be a fan of imminent AMOC collapse theories;

Michael Mann and Stefan Rahmstorf claim the Gulf Stream is slowing due to Greenland ice melt, except reality says otherwise

I know it will be a surprise to all of you that a climate analysis promoted by Michael Mann has bitten the dust, though to be fair the study authors emphasise past performance is not a reliable guide for the future. Perhaps Mann can give us a revised set of dates for this particular climate apocalypse.