Day: February 24, 2025

Climate Fact-Check January 2025 Edition

Editor’s note: This summary serves as a fact check on the most egregious false claim about climate change made in the media in January 2025.

From ClimateRealism

By Steve Milloy

Guest Post by: The Competitive Enterprise Institute, The Heartland Institute, the Energy & Environmental Legal Institute, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, and the International Climate Science Coalition, and Truth in Energy and Climate.

Editor’s note: This summary serves as a fact check on the most egregious false claim about climate change made in the media in January 2025. 

Counter-Narrative Reality vs. Counter-Reality Narrative

It was a busy January keeping track of President Trump’s first steps toward dismantling
of the federal government’s Climate Leviathan. It was also a very cold January and that’s
what this edition of Climate Fact Check will cover.

Per the relatively unmanipulated NASA satellite data, January 2025 is estimated to have witnessed a substantial drop of 0.34°C from last January with respect to the made-up metric of “average global temperature.” This is despite that atmospheric carbon dioxide increased from about 422 parts per million (ppm) in January 2024 to 426 parts per million in January 2025. That 4 ppm increase in carbon dioxide is worth about 78 billion tons of emissions. Therefore, 78 billion more tons of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere resulted in a January that was 0.34°C cooler than the previous January. February is typically the coldest average month in the Northern Hemisphere. January 2025 was cooler than February 2016 and about the same as January 2016 and February 1998, hundreds of billions of tons of CO2 and a decade of “warming,” ago.

Faced with the counter-narrative reality of the NASA satellite data, the desperate climate hoax machine produced a counter-reality narrative, claiming that January was the hottest ever as in this Associated Press report.

The Associated Press story is based on a claim from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service which estimated that January 2025 was slightly warmer than January 2024.

Who do you believe? Keeping in mind that there is no such physical place with “average global temperature” and that the “metric” is just a guesstimate invented for the climate hoax, the NASA satellite data is likely more credible. The NASA satellite data is an estimate based on one type of data – satellite measurements of atmospheric brightness. In contrast, the Copernicus estimates are a black box mélange of surface temperature data going back to 1940 and European satellite data. That surface temperature data can be wildly inaccurate and biased upward due to the urban heat island effect compromising temperature station readings as it is in the US. How the surface data actually get merged with the satellite data is also a troubling mystery. We’re going with the NASA satellite data’s counter-narrative as a better gauge of reality.

We will close out this month by noting that President Trump has by Executive order instructed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the White House Office of Management and Budget to begin reconsidering the EPA’s infamous 2009 “endangerment finding,” which determined carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases harm the public health and welfare. The endangerment finding is the linchpin of virtually all federal government activity on climate change. We look forward to it being repealed.

Until next month, enjoy these and other great climate fact checks at:

ClimateRealism.com

WattsUpWithThat.com

New French Nuclear Fusion Record – 22 Minutes

No doubt nuclear fusion is just 20 years away, just like last time…

From Watts Up With That?

Essay by  Eric Worrall

No doubt nuclear fusion is just 20 years away, just like last time…

New Record: Reactor Crosses ‘Crucial Milestone’ in Achieving Nuclear Fusion

TECH 22 February 2025

French scientists on Tuesday announced that they had reached a “crucial milestone” in the long road towards  nuclear fusion by managing to maintain raging-hot plasma for a record 22 minutes.

…

The WEST tokamak machine in southern France managed to maintain plasma for 1,337 seconds on February 12, France’s Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) said in a statement.

This “smashed” the previous record set in China last month by 25 percent, said the CEA, which runs the tokamak machine.

…

The goal is to prepare the ground for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) being built in France, she added.

…

It had been scheduled to go online this year, but repeated setbacks, delays and spiralling costs have postponed operations until at least 2033.

…Read more:

 https://www.sciencealert.com/new-record-reactor-crosses-crucial-milestone-in-achieving-nuclear-fusion

What is missing from this French announcement is how long that plasma would have to burn to produce a true return on energy.

The big problem with fusion plasmas, aside from stability, is something heated to millions of degrees really wants to radiate its heat. ITER is an attempt to keep the plasma hot by making the plasma really big – taking advantage of the improved surface area to volume ratio of larger objects. Heat generation is governed by volume, while heat radiation is governed by temperature and surface area.

There is also a rarely mentioned problem that the radiation from fusion plasmas tends to destroy its containment vessel. The radiation is so intense a sustained plasma, even if contained, would cause mechanical damage to the containment vessel, leading to rapid structural failure. Solving that may require exotic self healing ceramic alloys or technologies not yet invented.

One government at least is not allowing such obstacles to dent their optimism. They are so confident, in 2023 they started construction on the first commercial British fusion reactor, promising local voters the fusion reactor would be providing jobs and economic prosperity by 2040.

Climate Obsessed British Politicians are Embracing Fantasy Energy Solutions

I’m sure construction of a commercial nuclear fusion reactor isn’t just a cynical ploy to win votes from people politicians have no intention of helping. I mean, British politicians wouldn’t do that, would they?

US House Targets Biden Climate Rules to Cancel

House Republican leadership outlined a number of Former President Joe Biden ’s climate regulations that it will seek to overturn through a special legislative process in the coming weeks.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise on Thursday released a list of the previous administration ‘s climate and energy regulations that Republicans will aim to reverse through the Congressional Review Act (CRA).

From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

Maydeen Merino reports at Washington Times House leadership lays out target list of Biden climate rules to cancel.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

House Republican leadership outlined a number of Former President Joe Biden ’s climate regulations that it will seek to overturn through a special legislative process in the coming weeks.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise on Thursday released a list of the previous administration ‘s climate and energy regulations that Republicans will aim to reverse through the Congressional Review Act (CRA).

The CRA allows Congress to bypass the filibuster and take a simple majority vote in the House and Senate to overturn recently implemented rules. The process allows the vote to come to the floor in an expedited fashion, forcing all members to go on the record with their votes.

If Congress votes to undo a rule,
the agency cannot propose a similar regulation.

Scalise listed 10 regulations Republicans will look to undo, with the majority being climate related.

California Clean Air Act Waiver

At the top of the list is the California Clean Air Act Waiver granted by the Environmental Protection Agency, which allows the state to implement stricter vehicle emission standards than federal requirements. California has required all new car sales to be zero-emissions by 2035.  A number of states follow California’s auto emission standards. Republicans have vocally opposed California’s standards as a ban on gas vehicles, and Trump has promised to reverse the waiver.  The waiver has “resulted in higher vehicle prices for consumers, increased costs and manufacturing complexities for automakers, and a more complicated regulatory environment,” Scalise said in a press release .

Waste Emissions Charge

Another prominent target is the Waste Emissions Charge for Petroleum and Natural Gas Systems, which was implemented as part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act passed by Democrats and signed by Biden that included hundreds of billions of dollars in funding for clean energy projects. With the charge, the EPA imposed a fee on oil and gas facilities that exceed specific methane emissions thresholds. “The fee is a pass-through cost to consumers that will raise prices, reduce domestic energy production, and increase reliance on foreign energy sources,” Scalise said.

Standards for Gas-fired Water Heaters

Republicans will also look to overturn the Energy Conservation Standards for Consumer Gas-fired Instantaneous Water Heaters, which is a set of rules by the Energy Department requiring a minimum efficiency level for gas-powered tankless water heaters. The GOP said the rule places financial burden on consumers and limits consumer choice.

Energy Conservation-Appliance Standards

The GOP plans to cut the Energy Conservation-Appliance Standards for certification and labeling, by which appliances must meet specific standards to receive a label informing consumers that they are energy-efficient. Scalise noted that the rule slows the introduction of products to market, limits consumer options, and affects the supply chain.

Offshore Drilling Regulations

Other climate-related rules include the Oil and Gas and Sulfur Operations in the Outer Continental Shelf, which is a list of strict regulations on offshore oil drilling in high-pressure and temperature environments. Scalise said the regulations increase the burdens on energy operations and raise costs for consumers.

Rubber Tire Manufacturing Emissions Standards

The national emission standards for hazardous air pollutants for Rubber Tire Manufacturing, which addresses hazardous emissions from the rubber tire manufacturing process, is also targeted to be slashed by the GOP . The rule increases compliance costs for the industry and results in higher prices for consumers, the House majority leader said.

Protection of Marine Archaeological Resources,

Lastly, the GOP will look to overturn the Protection of Marine Archaeological Resources, which requires oil and gas lessees and operators to submit archaeological reports for exploration or development on the Outer Continental Shelf. Scalise said the rule blocks domestic energy production and weakens energy independence.

Listing of Voluntary Carbon Credit Derivative Contracts

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Guidance Regarding the Listing of Voluntary Carbon Credit Derivative Contracts will also be on the GOP chopping block. The rule establishes standards to buy and sell carbon credits to offset emissions. The rule prioritizes “political activism goals like environmental, social, and governance (ESG) and Net Zero…” Scalise said.

Digital Payment and Sales Rules

The House majority leader also included the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s General-Use Digital Consumer Payment Applications rule and The Internal Revenue Service’s Digital Asset Sales rule on the list.

“In addition to these rules, the Leader will be looking at more potential CRAs as we continue to fight to undo the damage done by the Biden Administration,” Scalise added.

Moving Glacially

Gotta say, the endless drumbeat of climate alarmism is pretty boring. The latest salvo is from the Associated Press, with the headline Climate change is shrinking glaciers faster than ever, with 7 trillion tons lost since 2000.”

From Watts Up With That?

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach

Gotta say, the endless drumbeat of climate alarmism is pretty boring. The latest salvo is from the Associated Press, with the headline Climate change is shrinking glaciers faster than ever, with 7 trillion tons lost since 2000.”

Now that sounds like a seriously huge loss. I mean, it is TRILLIONS of tons lost in a quarter century.

Being a suspicious kind of fellow, I went to the underlying study in Nature magazine entitled Community estimate of global glacier mass changes from 2000 to 2023.

And in that study, I find the following:

Glaciers separate from the continental ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica covered a global area of approximately 706,000 km2 around the year 2000, with an estimated total volume of 158,170 ± 41,030 km3.

…

Here we show in an intercomparison exercise that glaciers worldwide lost 273 ± 16 gigatonnes in mass annually from 2000 to 2023.

So, first thing we have to do is convert the figures in cubic kilometers (km3) to metric tons. One cubic meter of glacial ice weighs 0.92 tonnes. One cubic kilometer of ice is 0.92 billion tonnes. So their total glacial ice volume of

158,170 ± 41,030 km3

converts to

146  ± 38 trillion tons

This means that the uncertainty of the estimated volume of glacial ice, not the volume itself but the uncertainty of the volume, is five times the calculated change in the last 23 years.

Doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.

It also means that by the year 2050, IF (and it’s a big if) glacial ice loss continues at the current rate, the glaciers will lose 3.5% to 6.7% of their volume … call me crazy, but I’m not seeing how a POSSIBLE predicted ~ 5% decline in glacier volume by the year 2050 is a big deal.

In closing, here’s your glacier story of the day.

In 1678, in the depths of the Little Ice Age, the good Swiss burghers in the villages of Fiesch and Fieschertal petitioned Pope Innocent XI to halt the advance of the Aletsch Glacier, fearing floods and destruction. The glacier was threatening to choke off the outflow of their lake, which would have caused the permanent inundation of their villages as the ice dam increased the lake level.

So the Pope prayed for the glacier to stop advancing … and miracolo di miracoli, as the world came out of the Little Ice Age, the Aletsch Glacier did stop advancing! Go figure.

Now fast forward to 2009, when glacier retreat due to post Little Ice Age warming was threatening the villagers’ revenue from the 400,000 tourists per year that came to see the Aletsch Glacier. The glacier was retreating by as much as 10 meters per year. YIKES! So they sought Vatican approval to reverse their prayer, asking Pope Benedict XVI to help stop the melting.

And in 2010, the Pope approved their petition.

To date the effect of the revised prayers is unclear … the Aletsch Glacier is still retreating. However, having said that, the Aletsch Glacier is 23,000 meters long. So if it continues losing 10 meters per year, by the year 2050 it will lose 1% of its length. Again, not seeing the huge downside here …

Now, there’s a curious hidden moral to this story. And it is one that has nothing to do with the fickleness of humans, or the warming since the Little Ice Age, or the prayers of the faithful.

Note that the advance of the glacier in 1678 would have meant the total destruction of the towns.

On the other hand, the retreat of the glacier in the 21st Century will only cost them some tourist bucks.

Here’s the moral I take from the story:

At any point in Earth’s geological history, glaciers are either a) advancing or b) retreating.

Given the known dangers and benefits of both advancing and retreating glaciers, I’ll take choice b), thanks, and over the long term, so would the Swiss people in the villages of Fiesch and Fieschertal …

My best to all, hug your kids, call your people, family is everything, vita brevis,

w.

Why do Atmospheric Rivers Occur?

A significant atmospheric river event will occur tomorrow (Sunday) and Monday, with heavy precipitation in the mountains and South Sound.

From The Cliff Mass Weather Blog

By CliffMass

A significant atmospheric river event will occur tomorrow (Sunday) and Monday, with heavy precipitation in the mountains and South Sound.

The latest UW WRF model forecast predicts up to 10 inches in the Cascades, with the southern WA Cascades being hit the hardest (see below).   In contrast, a profound rain shadow will extend from the NE Olympics to Bellingham. 

It is now clear that there will be some serious flooding in some locations. For example, the NOAA/NWS River Forecast Center is forecasting major flooding on the Snoqualmie River near Carnation.   

Want to see something spectacular?   Go to Snoqualmie Falls on Monday.  If you can get there.😁

Atmospheric rivers in our region are associated with plumes of warm, moist air from the south, southwest, and west.

NOAA weather satellites can sense the water vapor, which is very evident in the water vapor image from this morning (below).  A massive plume of water vapor is moving our way.

Numerical weather prediction models, like the UW WRF model, can skillfully forecast such water vapor plumes, which release massive amounts of water as the air is forced to rise by our region’s substantial terrain.

Meteorologists favorite diagnostic for atmospheric rivers is integrated water vapor transport (IVT), which is the amount of water vapor times the wind speed, summed up in the vertical (that is where the integrated comes from).   This quantity is more closely related to the potential for regional rainfall.

The prediction of IVT for Sunday morning is shown below, with the arrows showing both the direction and magnitude of the moisture transport   Large values, but not record-breaking by any means.  

Such moisture plumes are generally warm as well.   In fact, to get large values they HAVE to be warm since the amount of moisture air can hold depends on temperature (warm air can potentially hold more water vapor than cold air).

Atmospheric rivers form in our region when strong southwesterly atmospheric wind currents occur, currents that move large values of water vapor out of the subtropics.

The atmospheric flow pattern that does this is usually characterized by a strong low-pressure area in the Gulf of Alaska and higher pressure west of southern California.

Not surprisingly, this is exactly the pattern forecast for Sunday morning at 10 AM for a level around 5000 ft (below).  With high pressure to the south and low pressure to the northwest, a strong pressure/height change is created, which produces a strong southwesterly flow. 

The interesting thing about atmospheric rivers is that they are like regular rivers in another way…not only does water come into the river at the beginning, but there is a convergence of water vapor from the sides along the way, not unlike the small streams that drain into a river over its entire path.

Tampering With Temperature Records in Netherlands

Temperature tampering in the Netherlands now!

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t Ian Magness

Temperature tampering in the Netherlands now!

The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) routinely applies corrections to historical temperature data, allegedly to improve accuracy. One of the most intriguing weather stations I’ve analyzed is De Bilt in the Netherlands. With records dating back to 1706, it provides a rare glimpse into pre-industrial climate trends—essential for understanding long-term climate behavior.

The thermometers at this station are highly precise, measuring temperatures within ±0.1°C. Historical data archived in 2013 reveals key observations: The warmest recorded months were July 1852, July 1868, and July 2006. From 1706 to 2013, the average annual temperature trend shows a warming rate of 0.33°C per century, with an R² confidence level of 26%. Notably, a cooling period occurred from 1870 to 1960.

However, KNMI’s continuous “corrections” raise serious concerns: 2016 – KNMI homogenized the data, subtracting 0.33°C from all records before 1954, claiming the older pagoda-style thermometer screen provided less sun shielding than the modern Stevenson screen. This adjustment seems counterintuitive. 2020 – Data prior to 1900 was removed. KNMI stated they were “working on correcting the data.” 2023 – The data was re-released, but all records from 1845 to 1904 were “corrected” by subtracting 1°C. 2024 – Another adjustment was made, this time adding 0.5°C to all records before 1728. It also appears they forgot to correct data from 1736 to 1844.

Does anyone verify these changes? I reached out multiple times, requesting details and access to the original daily records, including scanned PDFs of historical logs. My requests were ignored. At this point, it’s difficult not to question the motivations behind these repeated adjustments. Is this about science—or about controlling the narrative?

Here are my slides https://lnkd.in/gcdEmdim

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/eric-keyser-82861111_klimaatdesk-knmi-keeps-adjusting-temperatures-activity-7298774966169124864-uviC?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&rcm=ACoAAAGqxqUB7N7Kim99hm9239JHdFEhy3Csi_Y

Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Pause

When your friends think you wrong and your opponents are saying nice things, a reevaluation of your position might be in order. Did it. It was still correct for the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy to put Virginia’s energy ratepayers first and express concern for the financial harm they might suffer if a wind turbine project gets cancelled. 

From Watts Up With That?

By Steve Haner

When your friends think you wrong and your opponents are saying nice things, a reevaluation of your position might be in order. Did it. It was still correct for the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy to put Virginia’s energy ratepayers first and express concern for the financial harm they might suffer if a wind turbine project gets cancelled. 

Dominion Energy Virginia’s offshore wind project, now with a $10.7 billion price tag (not including decades of profit), is about half complete.  A call to pause and perhaps cancel it was issued by a consortium of wind energy opponents from multiple states.  President Donald Trump’s Executive Order has called for a review of pending projects, but it apparently did not pause Dominion’s and three other projects already under construction. 

The Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy was invited to sign the petition to pause them all and did not.  It then explained the rationale to Virginians, mainly to be sure they fully understood that the stranded costs and other financial impacts of any cancellation could land entirely on them.  Here is the report we made, which also links to the letter sent to Trump’s Department of Interior.

There was a bit of an explosion on the right for us not moving in lockstep, but it was uncalled for. We did not dispute the underpinnings of the petition to Interior, and the complaints about how President Joe Biden’s team gamed the system in favor of wind approvals may be totally valid.  The concerns about harm to marine mammals may be totally valid.  

That was followed by a round of applause from the left, also largely uncalled for.  This article appeared in a publication that appears to be a wind energy booster, delighting in the apparent rift among offshore wind skeptics.  The author lumps the Thomas Jefferson Institute in with Heritage Foundation and Project 2025.   We had no hand in the drafting of that.  Her lumping us in the “all of the above” camp is a major oversimplification, given that often includes pipedreams about hydrogen and carbon capture.

The decision on what to do with a half- or more than half-finished project is an economic call.  Yes, offshore wind is, as I told the reporter (and she didn’t quote me) too much money for too little energy.  But to cancel it now or soon would put the following risks on Dominion’s 2.6 million Virginia customer accounts:

  • The stranded cost of the project to date, about $6 billion as of the end of 2024, plus any cancellation penalties from suppliers and the cost of removing what has been done.
  • Under Virginia’s fantasy-based Virginia Clean Economy Act, that project was set to create about 8 to 10 million annual renewable energy certificates for Dominion to retire.  Cancel it (or should the project just fail, as it might) and the ratepayers will have to pay for that many RECs from elsewhere or pay a “deficiency payment” (a.k.a. alternative compliance cost.)
  • As low as its capacity factor might be, the 2.6-gigawatt project should run well at times.  Dominion is still facing a rising wave of demand because of the data center explosion so the power will have to come from somewhere else.  Again, the Virginia Clean Economy Act precludes the most logical hydrocarbon alternatives.

Well before that letter to the Trump Interior Department started to circulate for signature, the triple whammy facing Dominion’s customers was clear.  Recognizing that, we have no regrets about sending up a rocket to inform people, and to cause the policy makers to move with caution before slamming a population already paying too much for power.  Dominion’s project is the only one owned directly by a utility and thus puts ratepayers at such risk.

While it probably is the correct economic call to finish this first Dominion project (and an analysis could demonstrate otherwise), Dominion has two more planned and both of those were paused for review by the Trump Executive Order.  Those leases are in jeopardy.  Killing them also appears currently to be the best move for Virginia ratepayers. 

About time climate, green energy scams take well-deserved heat

A costly Green New Scam premised upon conflicted special interests of climate pseudoscience science and rent seeking wind/solar industries mutually invoke entirely unwarranted fear and fantasies.

From CFACT

By Larry Bell

A costly Green New Scam premised upon conflicted special interests of climate pseudoscience science and rent seeking wind/solar industries mutually invoke entirely unwarranted fear and fantasies.

Any claim of a consensus that “science is settled” regarding the existence of a dire climate crisis caused by carbon dioxide is a deceptive, destructive, and costly fraud.

A “World Climate Declaration” made public by the non-profit scientific Global Climate Intelligence Group (CLINTEL) endorsed in 2023 by 1,609 informed scientists and professionals – including two Nobel Laureates — asserts the opposite, that here is no such climate emergency consensus.

On top of this, proposals driven by climate alarmism to rapidly transition America away from the more than 80% of energy provided by fossil fuels by sufficiently increasing intermittent wind and solar systems currently producing about 3% combined are additionally delusional, with solar producing less than 1%.

The Wall Street Journal’s Barton Swaim observes that over the past three decades, someone who pigheadedly didn’t embrace the belief that “science was settled” that life on earth faces imminent extinction from “global warming” and, later, “climate change,” was labeled a crank, or worse a “climate denier.”

The latter characterization — an offensive epitaph sometimes hurled against me and many of my writings on the subject — presents an obvious correlation with ignorant disbelievers who’ve denied horrific historical events.

So yes, climate changes, and has been doing so ever since our planet had an atmosphere. Besides, if it didn’t, we wouldn’t need a word for it other than just “weather.”

As Swaim points out, “The possibility that an entire academic discipline, climate science, could have gone badly amiss by groupthink and self-flattery wasn’t thought possible. In many quarters this orthodoxy still reigns unquestioned.”

Fortunately, that circumstance appears to be changing.

As observed in this writer’s previous Feb. 7 column, President Donald Trump’s landslide election offers heaping amounts of evidence, that a majority of Americans have lost patience and charity for woke government policies.

Edicts premised upon unsupported alarmist climate claims and wildly unrealistic green capacity projections that choke energy-driven consumer commodity costs and lifestyles, business and employment opportunities, and national prosperity and security.

All one need do is look at California and New York as painful examples.

California’s Legislative Analyst Office (LAO) recently released a report revealing that the Golden State’s average monthly electricity rates for residential customers have nearly doubled since 2019, a trend negatively influenced by green energy policies.

LAO attributes major contributing factors for these price hikes to “ambitious” greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets and taxpayer-funded energy programs, leading to the nation’s second highest rates following Hawaii.

The California Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) requires that by 2030, 60% of an electricity provider’s portfolio must come from more costly “renewable energy” resources, and legislation signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., in 2022, seeks to require that 85% of the state’s GHGs are reduced to below 1990 levels by 2045.

Making matters worse, Californians are also seeing increased energy costs resulting from programs that are using their tax dollars to build many thousands of charging stations for electric vehicles (EVs), which-in turn, increase electricity demand and shortages.

As consequences, LAO found that, “On average, residential electricity rates in California are close to double those in the rest of the nation.”

Nevertheless, New York is making great progress in competing with California and Hawaii to achieve distinction for the nation’s highest electricity costs.

In attempting to meet a state-wide mandate that 70% of power generation come from renewables (including hydropower from Quebec) by 2030, investor-owned Con Edison, which serves New York City and its suburbs, proposes to hike utility bills by 11.4% on average and 13.3% for gas service.

This will raise average residential electricity bills to about $500 monthly, $154 more than five years ago.

And that vital hydropower from Quebec?

Another transmission line under construction to provide more is costing a whopping $6 billion, four times more than Con Edison’s proposed electricity rate increase this year.

Still, in November the New York Independent System Operator warned of potential power shortages next year if the line isn’t operational by May.

Meanwhile, last spring state regulators cancelled three offshore wind contracts owing to rising interest rates and inflation along with a planned 175-mile-long transmission line to power New York City from gigantic upstate wind and solar farms.

It hasn’t helped that former Gov. Andrew Cuomo mandated a premature shutdown of the Indian Point nuclear plant that generated about a quarter of New York City’s power plus banned shale fracking and vetoed gas pipelines.

These actions will continue to drive up electricity costs since Con Edison says they need more money for infrastructure upgrades to strengthen their power grid as more intermittent renewables come online, particularly at a time of increased electricity demands related to New York’s climate regulations banning gas hookups for new buildings.

There should be no wonder why deep blue New York and California, along with Illinois, led the nation in 2023 population losses.

Ironically, those who are least able to afford these unnecessary financial burdens caused by woefully misguided climate-alarm energy policies are typically the same lowest income ones, including many elderly, who can’t afford relocation expenses . . . the very same populations that virtue-signaling liberals hypocritically purport to care most about.

This article originally appeared at Newsmax

EU Wildfire Trends 2024

Wildfire activity in southern Europe was below average last year, according to the latest data from the EU. The trend is clearly downwards since 1980, contrary to the disinformation spewed by the establishment media.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

Wildfire activity in southern Europe was below average last year, according to the latest data from the EU. The trend is clearly downwards since 1980, contrary to the disinformation spewed by the establishment media.

The BBC’s Matt McGrath, for instance, recently claimed that a warmer world increased the chances of devastating wildfires occurring, while the Guardian’s Damien Carrington also falsely stated that “globally, scientists agree that climate change is increasing the global risk of wildfires starting and spreading”.

Last summer the BBC went into full propaganda mode over some fires in Greece, even though the burnt area was actually below average:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cxng76w24ekt

And in December, a BBC World Service broadcast falsely claimed that a warmer earth was making “deadly fires in Spain and Greece increasingly common”.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2024/51/people-fixing-the-world

The BBC – the place where facts go to die!

Sources

1) Data for 2024 is from Copernicus: 

https://forest-fire.emergency.copernicus.eu/apps/effis.statistics/seasonaltrend

2) Earlier data id from the EEA: 

https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/daviz/burnt-forest-area-in-five-4/#tab-chart_5

and EFFIS:

https://effis.jrc.ec.europa.eu/reports-and-publications/effis-related-publications

What Really Sets the Global Climate State?

What really does set the global climate state? The Million Year Ice Core Project (MYIC) (Follow on BlueSky), has been underway for several years, preparing to drill the oldest continuous ice core record from Antarctica. The project is a major element in the Australian Antarctic Program, led by the Australian Antarctic Division and other national and international collaborators to answer that very question.

From Watts Up With That?

By Kirby Schlaht

What really does set the global climate state? The Million Year Ice Core Project (MYIC) (Follow on BlueSky), has been underway for several years, preparing to drill the oldest continuous ice core record from Antarctica. The project is a major element in the Australian Antarctic Program, led by the Australian Antarctic Division and other national and international collaborators to answer that very question.

Now, in 2025, the Australian Antarctic Division is leading one of the most ambitious and challenging scientific projects undertaken in Antarctica – the quest to drill an ice core containing over a million years of Earth’s climate and atmospheric history. This continuous climate record will help solve a long-standing mystery about the timing and duration of past “ice ages” detected in marine sediment cores (Fig. 11). These sediment cores with their fossilized foraminifera reveal a proxy temperature record that indicates about one million years ago the cycle of “ice ages” shifted from a regular 41,000 year glacial-interglacial period, to a cycle every 120,000 years.

A prevailing theory is that declining atmospheric CO2 levels were the cause of the longer, colder ice expansions. The new million-year ice core record might provide the essential atmospheric gas record to test this theory.

We can see in the 1998 Vostok ice core data from Antarctica (below) that temperature leads the way with CO2 following by hundreds to thousands of years. At its simplest, this indicates that temperature not CO2 drives the climate change. What then drives the temperature change? Some might say “it’s too complicated”. I beg to differ.

Antarctic EPICA Dome C ice core temperature proxy data below is shown with Milankovitch orbital cycle forcing. While much correlation is discernable, it makes sense that higher obliquity increases insolation especially to the polar regions driving warmer temperatures and interglacials while lower obliquity provides less insolation, cooler temperatures and glacial expansion. Now, superimpose the 20k-year precession cycle where the effective obliquity angle could be modified by as much as 1 degree and the result is a confluence of high obliquity, high precession, and high eccentricity providing the insolation changes sufficient to break the cold feedback loops (water vapor and ice-albedo) of the previous glacial expansion period. After a 20k year interglacial, high eccentricity, low obliquity and low precession drive temperatures lower where the cold ice-albedo feedback loop takes hold and catches us in its hundred millennia icy grip.

Do the ice cores extracted from Greenland show the same climate variability and timing as Antarctica? The proxy temperature record below shows us the fine detail of a glacial-interglacial period from Greenland. The previous interglacial, the Eemian, around 120 thousand years ago, progressed to the follow-on glacial expanse period. As eccentricity and obliquity just begin to fall, we see temperature “jumps” (D-O events) in closely packed time regions. These hot blips are probably solar activity driven warm-ups. We can see the short duration of the events and a long cold recovery.  As we approach the midway point of glacial expanse, we see some gaps where no temperature spikes occur. These correspond to low obliquity periods (there are 3 of these during the ice expanse). The periodic solar cycles that gave us the hot events during high obliquity cannot break through the colder low obliquity feedback wall. When high obliquity returns so do the undampened solar spikes.  Continuing on to the confluence of high obliquity, high eccentricity where precession produces a series of significantly hotter northern hemisphere summers when the Earth is near its closest distance to the sun (apogee). This results in breaking the ice-albedo feedback and subsequent deglaciation and a 20k year interglacial period – this is our interglacial called the Holocene. We should not expect the fundamental planetary orbital processes that drive the Ice Age climate oscillation to all of a sudden be rendered ineffectual by a few parts per million of some trace atmospheric gases. To foretell the future of climate change then – in 10k years or so, with eccentricity still high and obliquity going low, precession produces a period where northern hemisphere summers occur near apogee with high eccentricity and low obliquity resulting in those summers getting a little warmer while southern hemisphere summers become significantly colder near perigee resulting in rapid sea ice expansion and the next 100k year glacial expanse period.

With this sampling of both polar regions, and the exceptional resolution from Greenland, we see the same basic climate shifts. During the last 800 thousand years or so, a seeming pattern of climate variability of 20k year warm interglacials followed by 100k year cold glacial periods has persisted. During the glacial expanse we see solar activity driven warming peeking through the high obliquity window with low obliquity shading and damping any solar influence. Great! Seems to explain a lot. Seems pretty clear. Milankovitch cycles and cold feedback loops. Does not explain the Great Shift though. Why did the periodicity of the glacial-interglacial cycle change from 41k years to 120k years around a million years ago (Fig. 11)? The 41k year obliquity cycle seems to predominate in the early Pleistocene glacial-interglacial cycle – for 2 million years. What changed? Further, what had set the earth’s climate to oscillate in the first place? 

The Great Shift

From The Story of Climate Change, I lay out the paradigm shifting ideas we can call the cosmic ray/cloud hypothesis (Svensmark). This cosmic radiation/ionization/cloud formation concept might now be expanded. Accepting the centrality of cosmic ray ionization in cloud modulation, and with observational and mechanistic support, I propose that climate is sensitive to the amount of lower tropospheric ionization caused by high energy Galactic Cosmic Rays (CR). More high energy radiation in the lower atmosphere means more ionization, more aerosols, more and whiter low-level clouds, thus cooler climates. Alternately, less radiation in the lower atmosphere means fewer clouds driving warmer climates. We can call this integrated process the cloud-albedo effect.

The long geologic timescale modulation of Earth’s tropospheric cloud cover and global temperature are driven in a top-down process beginning with high energy galactic radiation variations originating in Earth’s galactic orbit location within the Milky Way spiral structure. This produces low frequency climate responses: 50-million-year Hothouse periods with lower CR flux as we transit an inter-arm space and 100 to 200 million year Icehouse periods with higher CR flux as we cross a Milky Way spiral arm. Our solar system also experiences galactic orbital oscillatory out-of-plane perturbations. The plane polarized galactic cosmic radiation intensity is then further modulated by our in-and-out-of-plane orbital motion. This acts as a secondary driver of higher frequency climate responses: periodic 30-million-year warming-then-cooling-then-warming cycles. This signal is superimposed on the background spiral arm radiation signature.

The galactic radiation intensity sets the baseline temperature from which all other drivers vary. For the last 50 million years of our galactic orbit, we have been transiting the Sagittarius spiral arm. The increasing baseline spiral arm radiation leads us further into the colder chambers of the Icehouse. At the same time, the radiation intensity and temperature have been oscillating up and down in unison with our in-and-out-of-plane motion. We are now fully in-plane with cosmic rays at maximum. This promotes increasing tropospheric cloud-cover which can cool the Earth further. A glacial Ice Age can occur if the spiral arm radiation-driven baseline temperature of the planet falls to a critical minimum upon which our vertical galactic orbital oscillation places us nearly fully in-plane. Now we are vulnerable. Other shorter-term forces such as planetary orbital dynamics, ice-albedo feedback, plate tectonics, volcanism, solar activity, or proximate celestial events could push the Earth into a full-blown glacial Ice Age or “Snowball” scenario. 

Here we are, in the middle of the Pleistocene Ice Age. So far, over the last 3 million years our climate has oscillated between cold and icy glacial climates and warm interglacial climates. The 41k year glacial-interglacial period driven by planetary obliquity dominated the Pleistocene for two million years. One million years ago the glacial-interglacial period switched to the current 120-thousand-year period. What has changed over the last 3 million years? The answer should be obvious, the temperature has changed. A million years ago the global temperature was colder than before and is ultimately colder today. One million years ago we were approaching the galactic plane and the bottom of this Pleistocene cold climate trough. The closer to the bottom the colder we got.  So cold in fact, that high obliquity alone could not break the ice-albedo feedback loop. All three planetary orbital parameters – obliquity, eccentricity, precession – must act together in a 120-thousand-year cycle to melt our icy tomb to finally bask in a high obliquity sun once again – into the next warm interglacial.

Where are we now?

One million years after The Great Switch, here we are now. Our current climate state is warm interglacial. We have passed the interglacial optimum temperature (high obliquity) and are experiencing a continuing cooling as obliquity moves lower toward the next glacial inception point about 10 thousand years from now, where high eccentricity and low obliquity will drive rapid sea ice expansion and the next 100k year glacial period. In a wider view, assuming we are currently at the midpoint of the Pleistocene Ice Age and at the bottom of this current cold climate trough, symmetry suggests that we will experience slowly warming temperatures as we proceed out-of-plane with glacial-interglacial cycles becoming more interglacial dominant until finally dissipating in another 3 million years or so.

Finally

I am not sure that a new extensive Antarctic ice core record would change my thinking when it come to the ultimate drivers of global climate, but it might be enlightening to visualize The Great Switch climate variability from a southern hemisphere perspective through Oxygen-18 isotope temperature proxies from water ice.