Day: March 13, 2025

Government Science Frozen by Credit Card Freeze!

Last month, President Donald Trump’s administration placed a $1 spending limit on most government-issued credit cards that federal employees use to cover travel and work expenses. The impacts are already widely felt.

Credit cards and a debit card were photographed in The Penny Hoarder’s studio in St. Petersburg, Fla., on January 25, 2019. Photo by Chris Zuppa/The Penny Hoarder

From Watts Up With That?

Guest “DOGE, Baby, DOGE!” by David Middleton

Federal Science Hamstrung by DOGE’s Credit Card Spending Limit

The agency froze most spending above $1. Government researchers now struggle to carry out basic functions of their jobs.

By Emily Mullin and Zoë Schiffer, WIRED
03.11.2025

Last month, President Donald Trump’s administration placed a $1 spending limit on most government-issued credit cards that federal employees use to cover travel and work expenses. The impacts are already widely felt.

At the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, scientists aren’t able to order equipment used to repair ships and radars. At the Food and Drug Administration, laboratories are experiencing delays in ordering basic supplies. At the National Park Service, employees are canceling trips to oversee crucial maintenance work. And at the Department of Agriculture and the Federal Aviation Administration, employees worry that mission-critical projects could be stalled. In many cases, employees are already unable to carry out the basic functions of their job.

[…]

The credit card program allows federal workers to bypass the typical procurement process required to buy goods and services. A 2002 report from the Department of Commerce said that, “by avoiding the formal procurement process, GSA estimates the annual savings to be $1.2 billion.” It also enables federal employees to avoid paying sales tax on expenses that the government is exempt from.

[…]

The spending limits reflect Musk’s belief in zero-based budgeting. After he purchased Twitter, he slashed the budget to zero and forced employees to justify every expense. He also froze people’s corporate credit cards.

[…]

Emily Mullin is a staff writer at WIRED, covering biotechnology.

Zoë Schiffer oversees coverage of business and Silicon Valley at WIRED.

Kate Knibbs and Aarian Marshall contributed to this reporting.

UNDARK

I’ve worked in the oil & gas industry since 1981, including a six-year stint as Vice President of Exploration for Company #4, I’ve never had a corporate Mastercard, Visa, American Express or other general purpose credit card. Back in the early days of my career, companies often issued airline and rental car credit cards, specifically for corporate travel. However, for the vast majority of my career, I had to pay for my own travel expenses and then submit an expense report for reimbursement.

This bit here is simply preposterous:

The credit card program allows federal workers to bypass the typical procurement process required to buy goods and services. A 2002 report from the Department of Commerce said that, “by avoiding the formal procurement process, GSA estimates the annual savings to be $1.2 billion.” It also enables federal employees to avoid paying sales tax on expenses that the government is exempt from.

This is from the actual report:

A U.S. government purchase card is an internationally accepted credit card issued by individual
contractors and available to personnel in all federal agencies under a single General Services
Administration (GSA) contract. The purpose of Purchase Card Programs is to minimize the paperwork needed to make, with proper authorization, purchases of up to $25,000. According to GSA, in 2000, the cards were used for more than 23 million transactions worth $12.3 billion. By avoiding the formal procurement process, GSA estimates the annual savings to be $1.2 billion.

Although they provide efficiency and savings to the government, Purchase Card Programs are high-risk because they allow the same individual to order, pay for, and receive goods and services. This offers the potential for fraud and abusive and improper transactions if not carefully monitored.

[…]

A Practical Guide for Reviewing Government Purchase Card Programs

It’s a 23 year old guidebook for reviewing government credit card use. There’s no documentation to support the claimed $1.2 billion in annual savings from “by avoiding the formal procurement process.” In the private sector, it’s very easy to get fired for “avoiding the formal procurement process.” The purpose of a “formal procurement process” is to strictly adhere to budgets.

This CNBC article is from 2014:

Widespread Abuse of Government Charge Cards

Published Tue, May 6 2014

For years, the federal government has struggled to provide sufficient oversight over its government credit card program—and a string of new audits reveals that it is still an ongoing and costly problem.

The whole point of government credit cards is to streamline the federal procurement process—but without proper supervision over what is being purchased—millions of dollars are misused and abused by federal employees.

[…]

The widespread abuse even prompted Congress to pass legislation in 2012 that required federal agencies to review their purchase card programs. New guidelines issued by the Office of Management and Budget even warn that workers caught improperly charging their cards could face dismissal.

Regardless, the problem persists and auditors still say some agencies continue failing to conduct reviews, leaving more money vulnerable to waste and abuse.

[…]

Once again, the competence of government IT systems as well as the managers in charge of spending taxpayer dollars are in question.

—By Brianna Ehley of The Fiscal Times

CNBC

From 2015…

Former DEA Employee Pleads Guilty to Credit Card Fraud Scheme

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

A former Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) employee pleaded guilty today to defrauding the government out of more than $113,000 using fraudulently issued government credit cards, announced Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein of the District of Maryland and Special Agent in Charge Michael P. Tompkins of the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General in Washington, D.C. 

Keenya Meshell Banks, 42, of Upper Marlboro, Maryland, pleaded guilty today before U.S. District Judge Deborah K. Chasanow of the District of Maryland to one count of wire fraud.  A sentencing hearing is scheduled for June 29, 2015.  

According to her plea agreement, Banks was employed by the DEA as a Program Manager, and was responsible for the approval and issuance of government credit cards to DEA employees.  While serving in that role, Banks admitted that she submitted dozens of fake credit card applications to JPMorgan Chase & Co. for fictitious DEA employees, using names and identifying information of individuals who did not work at the DEA.  In at least one instance, however, Banks submitted the identifying information of an actual DEA employee.  Through this scheme, Banks obtained at least 32 fraudulent credit cards, which she then used to withdraw more than $113,000 from ATMs in Maryland and Northern Virginia.  As part of her plea agreement, Banks agreed to forfeit the proceeds she received as a result of the scheme and to pay full restitution. 

The case is being investigated by the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General and is being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Richard B. Evans and Justin Weitz of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas P. Windom of the  District of Maryland.

Updated February 5, 2025

US DOJ

From 2025…

Troops used government cards to pay for casinos, online gaming and Super Bowl parties

One Air Force cardholder took out over $10,000 in cash against their government travel card on 23 trips to a casino. Still, compliance is better than a decade ago.

Matt White

Posted on Jan 27, 2025

Military service members charged at least $500,000 on gambling, drinking, nightclubs and online games to their government travel charge cards in 2023 without triggering alarms among finance officials, an inspector general report found.

The report, “Audit of the DoD Government Travel Charge Card Program: The Visa IntelliLink Compliance Management System” reviewed the effectiveness of the system, known as VICM. The investigation found holes in the watchdog program, which allowed fraud and unauthorized spending to slip past officials. Many were minor, like paying for online gaming apps or drinks on holidays or during the Super Bowl, while others kept up fraudulent charges for months. 

[…]

Task and Purpose

While government credit card abuse and fraud are a problem, the use of the credit cards to avoid “the formal procurement process” is probably much worse.

This isn’t a coincidence:

The spending limits reflect Musk’s belief in zero-based budgeting. After he purchased Twitter, he slashed the budget to zero and forced employees to justify every expense.

Visual Capitalist

Visual Capitalist

BREAKING: EPA Launches Biggest Deregulatory Action in U.S. History

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the agency will undertake 31 historic actions in the greatest and most consequential day of deregulation in U.S. history, to advance President Trump’s Day One executive orders and Power the Great American Comeback. Combined, these announcements represent the most momentous day in the history of the EPA.

From Watts Up With That?

By Anthony Watts

Administrator Zeldin Announces 31 Historic Actions to Power the Great American Comeback (see video below)

WASHINGTON – U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the agency will undertake 31 historic actions in the greatest and most consequential day of deregulation in U.S. history, to advance President Trump’s Day One executive orders and Power the Great American Comeback. Combined, these announcements represent the most momentous day in the history of the EPA. While accomplishing EPA’s core mission of protecting the environment, the agency is committed to fulfilling President Trump’s promise to unleash American energy, lower cost of living for Americans, revitalize the American auto industry, restore the rule of law, and give power back to states to make their own decisions.  

“Today is the greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen. We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more,” said EPA Administrator Zeldin. 

“Alongside President Trump, we are living up to our promises to unleash American energy, lower costs for Americans, revitalize the American auto industry, and work hand-in-hand with our state partners to advance our shared mission,” added EPA Administrator Zeldin.  

These historic actions will roll back trillions in regulatory costs and hidden “taxes” on U.S. families. As a result of these announcements, the cost of living for American families will decrease. It will be more affordable to purchase a car, heat homes, and operate a business. It will be more affordable to bring manufacturing into local communities while individuals widely benefit from the tangible economic impacts. 

These actions will create American jobs, including incredible progress to bring back American auto jobs. The Biden and Obama era regulations being reconsidered have suffocated nearly every single sector of the American economy.  

Today, EPA Administrator Zeldin announced the following actions:  

UNLEASHING AMERICAN ENERGY  

  • Reconsideration of regulations on power plants (Clean Power Plan 2.0) 
  • Reconsideration of regulations throttling the oil and gas industry (OOOO b/c) 
  • Reconsideration of Mercury and Air Toxics Standards that improperly targeted coal-fired power plants (MATS) 
  • Reconsideration of mandatory Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program that imposed significant costs on the American energy supply (GHG Reporting Program) 
  • Reconsideration of limitations, guidelines and standards (ELG) for the Steam Electric Power Generating Industry to ensure low-cost electricity while protecting water resources (Steam Electric ELG) 
  • Reconsideration of wastewater regulations for coal power plants to help unleash American energy (Oil and Gas ELG) 
  • Reconsideration of Biden-Harris Administration Risk Management Program rule that made America’s oil and natural gas refineries and chemical facilities less safe (Risk Management Program Rule) 

LOWERING THE COST OF LIVING FOR AMERICAN FAMILIES 

  • Reconsideration of light-duty, medium-duty, and heavy-duty vehicle regulations that provided the foundation for the Biden-Harris electric vehicle mandate (Car GHG Rules) 
  • Reconsideration of the 2009 Endangerment Finding and regulations and actions that rely on that Finding (Endangerment Finding) 
  • Reconsideration of technology transition rule that forces companies to use certain technologies that increased costs on food at grocery stores and semiconductor manufacturing (Technology Transition Rule) 
  • Reconsideration of Particulate Matter National Ambient Air Quality Standards that shut down opportunities for American manufacturing and small businesses (PM 2.5 NAAQS) 
  • Reconsideration of multiple National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for American energy and manufacturing sectors (NESHAPs) 
  • Restructuring the Regional Haze Program that threatened the supply of affordable energy for American families (Regional Haze) 
  • Overhauling Biden-Harris Administration’s “Social Cost of Carbon” 
  • Redirecting enforcement resources to EPA’s core mission to relieve the economy of unnecessary bureaucratic burdens that drive up costs for American consumers (Enforcement Discretion) 
  • Terminating Biden’s Environmental Justice and DEI arms of the agency (EJ/DEI) 

ADVANCING COOPERATIVE FEDERALISM  

  • Ending so-called “Good Neighbor Plan” which the Biden-Harris Administration used to expand federal rules to more states and sectors beyond the program’s traditional focus and led to the rejection of nearly all State Implementation Plans 
  • Working with states and tribes to resolve massive backlog with State Implementation Plans and Tribal Implementation Plans that the Biden-Harris Administration refused to resolve (SIPs/TIPs) 
  • Reconsideration of exceptional events rulemaking to work with states to prioritize the allowance of prescribed fires within State and Tribal Implementation Plans (Exceptional Events) 
  • Reconstituting Science Advisory Board and Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (SAB/CASAC) 
  • Prioritizing coal ash program to expedite state permit reviews and update coal ash regulations (CCR Rule) 
  • Utilizing enforcement discretion to further North Carolina’s recovery from Hurricane Helene 

Climate Astrologers forecast ‘Global weirding’ and climate whiplash will hit the world’s biggest cities

A new “study” warns us that the most populated cities on Earth have a distinct trend towards, wait for it, wetter or drier weather.  Somehow, 95 of the 100 biggest cities do not have the exact same amount of rain that they had 40 years ago. (The horror). And this is “weird” they say, as if shifting patterns of rain have not been normal for the last four billion years.

From JoNova

By Jo Nova

Shamen and fortune-tellers are back preying on suggestible minds

A new “study” warns us that the most populated cities on Earth have a distinct trend towards, wait for it, wetter or drier weather.  Somehow, 95 of the 100 biggest cities do not have the exact same amount of rain that they had 40 years ago. (The horror). And this is “weird” they say, as if shifting patterns of rain have not been normal for the last four billion years.

The new term this week in Climate Bingo is “Climate Whiplash” — which means a city that has had more droughts and floods lately. It’s just another sort of Global Weirding which was predicted by exactly no models anywhere until after it happened, and sometimes not even then.

The trick here is to study some random permutation in an obscure weather metric over an absurdly short time frame — like for example the moisture surplus/deficit difference between precipitation and evapotranspiration, and voila, we find a “40-year trend”. Given that the Pacific Ocean oscillates on 20 – 30 year cycle, and the Atlantic on a 60 to 80 year one, the world will never run out of 40-year meaningless trends in watery parameters.

Thus paid Blob scientists have come up with another scary headline to justify their grant, and trick a few teenage girls into voting for Big Green Governments that will  give more money to Blob Scientists.

The Guardian, as always parrots the Blob nonsense without so much as 2 seconds of googling “Drought cycles of China” where they could have found out that droughts were worse in the 1960s and 70s just before this study started.

‘Global weirding’: climate whiplash hitting world’s biggest cities, study reveals

Swings between drought and floods striking from Dallas to Shanghai, while Madrid and Cairo are among cities whose climate has flipped

Damian Carrington (Chief of Environmental Propaganda) The Guardian
Wed 12 Mar 2025 11.01 AEDT

Climate whiplash is already hitting major cities around the world, bringing deadly swings between extreme wet and dry weather as the climate crisis intensifies, a report has revealed.

Dozens more cities, including Lucknow, Madrid and Riyadh have suffered a climate “flip” in the last 20 years, switching from dry to wet extremes, or vice versa. The report analysed the 100 most populous cities, plus 12 selected ones, and found that 95% of them showed a distinct trend towards wetter or drier weather.

The shamen and fortune tellers are notorious for ambiguous projections, and it’s right there in the press release. Climate change can look like any change at all, and any change  could be climate change:

Professor Katerina Michaelides, Lead Scientist from University of Bristol, said: “The findings from our study illustrate just how differently and dramatically climate change is expressing around the globe – there is no one-size-fits-all.”

Everything is changing and none of it’s predictable. These forecasts come with excuses built in:

“Our study shows that climate change is dramatically different around the world,” said Prof Katerina Michaelides, at the University of Bristol, UK. Her co-author, Prof Michael Singer at Cardiff University, described the pattern as “global weirding”. “Most places we looked at are changing in some way, but in ways that are not always predictable,” Singer said.

All told, 17 cities are apparently suffering Climate Whiplash, though they were not important enough to list in the Guardian or the press release. Possibly because the full list included  Canberra, Chicago, and Melbourne, where millions of Guardian readers live — who might realize they are not being whipped.

The eye candy graph definitely looks jagged and scary:

The Guardian (of The Blob)

But in the long run, these are bumps of nothing. For example, here’s the last 700 years of recharge rates in one part of China where rain has come and gone. Curiously, there are 200 year long cycles in groundwater recharge rates in China that seem to vary with cycles on the Sun.

R.K. Tiwari1,* and Rekapalli Rajesh2 (2014)  Imprint of long-term solar signal in groundwater recharge fluctuation rates from North West China. Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1002/2014GL060204

Warn the children that the Global Weirding lot are just government marketers wearing labcoats. They fish for random 40-year fluctuations that no one predicted. It ain’t science.

POST NOTE: See this is the tragedy of one-sided government funded science. The people writing these junk studies up probably think they are doing a decent job, they just don’t realize how vacuous this is because there is never any criticism of green-promo-science. They’ve never attended a conference where someone talked about long term drought cycles, they don’t know there are 10,000 proxies that show continuous variation in every climate parameter.  If they had been reeled back in a few times as honours students, they wouldn’t grow up to be scientists making these baby mistakes.

REFERENCE

Water and climate: Rising risks for urban populations, Cardiff University, 12 March 2025 in Climate change, published by WaterAid.

Pushback Against EU World-wide ESG Rules

As Bloomberg reported, EU is attempting to force climate risk and ESG reporting on the whole world, not just its member nations.  

From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

As Bloomberg reported, EU is attempting to force climate risk and ESG reporting on the whole world, not just its member nations.  

As trans-Atlantic relations grow increasingly fraught, Europe’s ESG regulations are becoming yet another flashpoint that threatens to sour ties.

The American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union (AmCham EU) says proposed revisions to the bloc’s environmental, social and governance rules don’t adequately protect US interests. The complaint is part of a growing US response to Europe’s ESG framework. Republican lawmakers call the rules “hostile” and warn that America’s jurisdictional sovereignty is at stake, while Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said he’s willing to consider “trade tools” to retaliate.

The European Commission proposed changes last week that would rein in the scope of two major ESG laws: the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. However, big international companies with business in the EU would still have to comply.

The upshot is that non-EU companies risk being ensnared by the bloc’s ESG rules, even for products that aren’t sold in the EU, said Kim Watts, senior policy manager for AmCham EU, whose members include Ford Motor Co., Exxon Mobil Corp. and Amazon.com Inc.

AmCham is worried that the EU “is going too far on extraterritoriality,” she said in an interview.

It’s a complaint that’s being backed up in even stronger terms by GOP members of Congress. In a letter sent shortly after the European Commission published its proposed revisions to the bloc’s ESG rules, the US lawmakers wrote to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, warning of the “profound” implications of Europe’s due diligence directive for US businesses.

The lawmakers stated: “CSDDD imposes stringent due diligence requirements on in-scope companies, mandating the evaluation of supply chains to identify, mitigate, and eliminate human rights and environmental abuses as defined by United Nations (UN) and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) principles.

“Furthermore, US firms will face increased litigation risks and potential enforcement actions from EU member states, with penalties under the Directive reaching up to 5% of a company’s global turnover.

“However, these principles have not been ratified by Congress, raising concerns about the legitimacy of EU enforcement against US companies based on these principles. Additionally, small businesses that supply larger companies will also be affected, even if their operations are solely within the US compliance efforts will require significant resource allocation, diverting funds away from critical areas such as research and development, talent acquisition, and investment.

,csddd-letter-to-sec-bessentHerunterladen

BREAKING: Judge sanctions Michael E. Mann for “Bad-Faith Trial Misconduct” in Mann v. Free Speech:

“The record plainly shows the deliberate and knowing misconduct of Dr. Mann’s counsel in eliciting false testimony from Dr. Mann and misrepresenting his grant funding.”

From Watts Up With That?

From Steve Milloy’s X account

“The record plainly shows the deliberate and knowing misconduct of Dr. Mann’s counsel in eliciting false testimony from Dr. Mann and misrepresenting his grant funding.”

,15104Herunterladen

https://x.com/JunkScience/status/1899860587800051990

Ryan Maue writes more comprehensively on X

Update: bad faith. Here, the Court finds, by clear and convincing evidence, that Dr. Mann, through Mr. Fontaine and Mr. Williams, acted in bad faith when they presented erroneous evidence and made false representations to the jury and the Court regarding damages stemming from loss of grant funding.

Yikes!💀

The plaintiff and his lawyers knowingly mislead the court with erroneous information, and “Dr. Mann knowingly participated in the falsehood, endeavoring to make the strongest case possible even if it required using erroneous and misleading information.”

https://twitter.com/RyanMaue/status/1899864622129414348/photo/1

“Setting aside questions of credibility or even perjury …” ORDERED that Plaintiff Michael E. Mann, Ph.D., is SANCTIONED for bad-faith trial misconduct relating to his use of Exhibit 517A, Exhibit 116, and Exhibit 117, and his counsel’s misrepresentations concerning the same

https://x.com/RyanMaue/status/1899866725316788314

Shoal of fish, or herding cats? African energy

The U.S. Government has officially discontinued a program in Africa to generate renewable energy in the interests of the environment. The program was originally initiated by President Obama in 2013, and the idea was to produce 30 000 MW of renewable energy, for underserved communities.

From CFACT

By Kelvin Kemm

The U.S. Government has officially discontinued a program in Africa to generate renewable energy in the interests of the environment. The program was originally initiated by President Obama in 2013, and the idea was to produce 30 000 MW of renewable energy, for underserved communities.

Such programs always sound so good when they are announced, but any major government initiative, which is operationally run by a government, invariably leads to all sorts of effects and complexities which were not adequately anticipated at the start.

The whole concept of natural market forces is built on the idea that there is a natural free market in which there is a constant push and pull, and readjustment of interaction, which takes place. This interplay results in a constant self-correcting tumble of actions, striving for the intended goal, much like a shoal of fish pursuing its food source. In contrast, a government project is more like herding cats, where each element is pursuing its own objective, like local political objectives, macro political objectives, personal income from some aspect not directed at the end goal, compounded by the lack of a central reporting line of command.

In a major government top-down exercise, most of the stabilizing interaction of a free market is lost, leading to spin-offs that were not intended.

This Obama initiative was named Power Africa and launched via USAID. The U.S. government committed $7 billion, and furthermore the African Development Bank proposed an additional $3 billion.

This initiative involved a number of African governments such as Kenya, Ghana, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania, and more, plus private sector partners. Can you see the trouble looming at that stage? That much influence over an array of governments, dealing with private companies. Think about it. But in 2015 the Obama administration intensified its efforts and mobilised over $20 billion in private sector commitments.

Think about that. The private sector does not donate such money. They are interested in profit. They have shareholders to report to. That means that they draw their profit from the various projects in the various African countries.

Some progress was made. A total of 600 MW was supplied by GE at the Amandi and Bridge power plants in Ghana. In Tanzania 672.26 MW of electricity generation was provided. Then the project stalled for obscure reasons.

In Nigeria, Power Africa, with USAID, arranged a $75,000,000 Technical Assistance programme. But no electricity seems to have been produced by the project.

Remember, all this effort was to improve the environment, by forcing renewable energy into African regions.

In 2019 a report by the U.S. Inspector General identified major shortcomings in the accuracy of the results presented. It showed that achievements had been overstated, since much which was reported as, ‘achieved’ had not actually materialize.

A report of 10.6 million new ‘electricity connections’ by 2017 was nearly 80% composed of distributing handheld solar lanterns.

This type of American aid is frequently seen as something either completely misreading the requirement, but even as an insult to local intelligence.

Much of this type of US-African involvement is not doing the image of the US any good at all. Africans should not be patronized, and should not be told what is good for them, by someone who has no idea of the true local circumstances.

Then, when one assesses the actual implementation, the question arises; ‘ Does this help the environment?’

The family, which has been given a solar lantern, are still going to be cooking dinner with a wood or dung fire, if they do not have electricity, as 600 million Africans don’t. They will still cut down trees to get the firewood. So, targeting energy-provision for an environmental concern, in a thrust such as Power Africa, is not really achieving either of these objectives. Supplying a small amount of lighting at night is not altering the cooking habits, or any regular daytime routine of the target population. So, the target of CO2 reduction is not happening.

When the U.S. wishes to help African countries, it is laudable, but Power Africa was not the correct approach. Rather ask the actual people of Africa what they feel they need. A prescription to an externally imposed plan does not usually work.

This article originally appeared at Real Clear Energy

Amazonian Rainforest Obliterated To Make Way For COP30

As any level-headed sceptic knows, a great deal of climate change activism is about posturing and virtue-signalling. No surprise then that part of an Amazonian rainforest has been obliterated to accommodate the upcoming COP30 summit.

The Daily Sceptic

By Sallust

As any level-headed sceptic knows, a great deal of climate change activism is about posturing and virtue-signalling. No surprise then that part of an Amazonian rainforest has been obliterated to accommodate the upcoming COP30 summit. The BBC has the story (so it must be true):

A new four-lane highway cutting through tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest is being built for the COP30 climate summit in the Brazilian city of Belém.

It aims to ease traffic to the city, which will host more than 50,000 people – including world leaders – at the conference in November.

The state government touts the highway’s “sustainable” credentials, but some locals and conservationists are outraged at the environmental impact.

The Amazon plays a vital role in absorbing carbon for the world and providing biodiversity, and many say this deforestation contradicts the very purpose of a climate summit.

Along the partially built road, lush rainforest towers on either side – a reminder of what was once there. Logs are piled high in the cleared land which stretches more than 13km (eight miles) through the rainforest into Belém.

Diggers and machines carve through the forest floor, paving over wetland to surface the road which will cut through a protected area.

Berry harvests have been destroyed with no compensation to the farmers. Wildlife has been disrupted too:

The road leaves two disconnected areas of protected forest. Scientists are concerned it will fragment the ecosystem and disrupt the movement of wildlife.

Prof Silvia Sardinha is a wildlife vet and researcher at a university animal hospital that overlooks the site of the new highway.

She and her team rehabilitate wild animals with injuries, predominantly caused by humans or vehicles.

Once healed, they release them back into the wild – something she says will be harder if there is a highway on their doorstep:

“From the moment of deforestation, there is a loss.

“We are going to lose an area to release these animals back into the wild, the natural environment of these species,” she said.

“Land animals will no longer be able to cross to the other side too, reducing the areas where they can live and breed.”

Needless to say, the underlying reason for this gratuitous destruction is political self-interest:

The Brazilian President and Environment Minister say this will be a historic summit because it is “a COP in the Amazon, not a COP about the Amazon”.

The President says the meeting will provide an opportunity to focus on the needs of the Amazon, show the forest to the world, and present what the federal Government has done to protect it.

Worth reading in full.

Meanwhile back in Britain, Britain’s eco-warrior Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, the tireless advocate of Net Zero at any price, is putting his money where his mouth is with his own brand of virtue-signalling.

According to the Telegraph, Mr Miliband has installed a heat pump in his north London home.

In 2023 his house was awarded an Energy Performance Certificate of grade D. A year later, with a heat pump installed:

The green heating system lowered the home’s carbon emission from 12 tonnes to 4.5 tonnes, but the property’s energy rating only rose to a C grade as a result.

Chris Norris, of the National Residential Landlords Association, said he was unsurprised a heat pump had “little impact” on Mr Miliband’s EPC.

He said: “At present, the metrics used are focused on cost of heating, and gas is significantly cheaper per unit than electricity.

“It is perfectly possible, as things stand, for an EPC score to deteriorate if switching from gas to electricity as the primary heating fuel. Changing this is one of the policies being consulted on by the Government.”

It seems two companies were involved in assessing the properly. Bizarrely:

Furthermore, the recorded floorspace of Mr Miliband’s property was assessed as being 252 square metres – 30 square metres less than had been recorded in the previous assessment only a year before.

There’s an explanation:

The assessor responsible for the new grade is a former hypnotherapist who retrained to be an assessor five years ago. He told the Telegraph that the training took “only around a week” to complete.

He said: “A lot of the time it’s low-paid – estate agents just use you. We’re the lowest of the low, really. EPCs don’t have a very good reputation.”

Dr Toby Gledhill, who led a PhD study into the flaws in EPCs, said of the Energy Minister’s assessments: “The floor area has shrunk quite substantially, by more than 10% between these two EPCs which are only a year apart.

“The smaller floor area means a reduced volume of space to heat, which leads to greater economy and this is reflected in the improved energy rating of the more recent EPC.”

In other words, the new EPC achieved a (slightly) higher grade because of the reduced heating requirements, not because of the heat pump.

The solution would appear to be simple: shut off as many rooms as possible in your home and see your EPC skyrocket. Then you can open them up again after the inspector has gone and save yourself the cost of a heat pump.

Or perhaps the Government could employ more hypnotherapists to encourage people to install more heat pumps?

Also worth reading in full.

Celestial Driver for Middle Miocene Cooling?

Approximately 34 million years ago (mya), during the Early Oligocene Epoch, the Earth entered its current “icehouse” climate mode, with ice sheets covering Antarctica. After warming up again towards the end of the Oligocene, Earth’s climate began a long cooling trend, punctuated by a brief warm period during the Late to Middle Miocene Epoch.

From Watts Up With That?

Guest “Surfing the Radcliffe Wave” by David Middleton

Approximately 34 million years ago (mya), during the Early Oligocene Epoch, the Earth entered its current “icehouse” climate mode, with ice sheets covering Antarctica. After warming up again towards the end of the Oligocene, Earth’s climate began a long cooling trend, punctuated by a brief warm period during the Late to Middle Miocene Epoch.

Figure 1. Cenozoic Era climate reconstruction rom Zachos et al., 2001 (older is toward the bottom).

The Middle Miocene Climatic Optimum (MMCO) was an anomalous warm interval from ~17 to ~14 mya. The incorrect assumption that CO2 is the climate change “control knob” has led to many attempts to link the MMCO to the CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions related to the Columbia River Basalt Group (CRBG) eruptions. The CBRG eruptions do appear to be coeval with the MMCO…

Flood basalts, the largest volcanic events in Earth history, are thought to drive global environmental change because they can emit large volumes of CO2 and SO2 over short geologic time scales. Eruption of the Columbia River Basalt Group (CRBG) has been linked to elevated atmospheric CO2 and global warming during the mid-Miocene climate optimum (MMCO) ~16 million years (Ma) ago. However, a causative relationship between volcanism and warming remains speculative, as the timing and tempo of CRBG eruptions is not well known. We use U-Pb geochronology on zircon-bearing volcanic ash beds intercalated within the basalt stratigraphy to build a high-resolution CRBG eruption record. Our data set shows that more than 95% of the CRBG erupted between 16.7 and 15.9 Ma, twice as fast as previous estimates. By suggesting a recalibration of the geomagnetic polarity time scale, these data indicate that the onset of flood volcanism is nearly contemporaneous with that of the MMCO.Kashbohm & Schoene (2018)

These flood basalt eruptions certainly would have emitted a lot of CO2, other volcanic gasses and sulfate aerosols. However, the CO2 outgassing was probably only a fraction of what would have been required to explain the MMCO.

Armstrong McKay et al., 2014 estimated that the main phase of the CRBG eruptions, along with “cryptic degassing” of country rock, etc., emitted 4,090 to 5,670 billion tons of carbon over a 900,000 period. This only works out to 5-6 million tonnes of carbon per year… That’s an order of magnitude less than a rounding error. Our current 10 billion tonnes per year is only equivalent to 3% of the total annual sources in the Earth’s carbon budget. Self et al., 2005 found that CO2 emissions from flood basalt eruptions were insignificant relative to the mass of CO2 in the atmosphere and unlikely to have played a significant role in past episodes of “global warming.” Although they did note that the sulfur gas emissions and sulfate aerosols may truly have been unprecedented. However, these would have had a cooling effect on the climate.

Furthermore, there is little evidence of significantly elevated atmospheric CO2 associated with the CRBG.

Figure 2. Miocene atmospheric CO2 (older is toward the left).

Neither the MMCO nor the subsequent cooling, leading the growth of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS), appear to be driven by changes in atmospheric CO2.

There is no evidence for either high pCO2 during the late early Miocene climatic optimum or a sharp pCO2 decrease associated with EAIS growth.Pagani et al., 1999

While the cause of the MMCO remains somewhat of a mystery (probably tectonically driven changes in oceanic circulation), the cause of the subsequent cooling (AKA Middle Miocene Climate Transition or MMCT) may have now been identified.

Our Solar System Crossed ‘Radcliffe Wave’ during Miocene Epoch, Astronomers Say

Feb 25, 2025 by Natali Anderson

As our Solar System orbits the Milky Way, it encounters various environments, including dense regions of the interstellar medium. These encounters can expose parts of the Solar System to the interstellar medium, while also increasing the flow of interstellar dust into the Solar System and Earth’s atmosphere. The discovery of new Galactic structures, such as the 9,000-light-year-long Radcliffe wave, raises the question of whether the Sun has encountered any of them. According to new research, the Solar System’s trajectory intersected the Radcliffe wave in the Orion star-forming region between 15 and 12 million years ago (Miocene epoch). Notably, this period coincides with the Middle Miocene climate transition on Earth, providing an interdisciplinary link with paleoclimatology.

[…]

The Radcliffe wave is a narrow sinusoidal gas structure, which comprises many known star-forming cloud complexes, such as CMa, Orion, Taurus, Perseus, Cepheus, North America Nebula, and Cygnus.

This gas structure, with an estimated mass of 3 million solar masses, appears to coherently oscillate like a traveling wave and it is thought to be part of the Milky Way’s spiral structure.

“Imagine it like a ship sailing through varying conditions at sea,” said Dr. Efrem Maconi, a doctoral student at the University of Vienna.

“Our Sun encountered a region of higher gas density as it passed through the Radcliffe wave in the Orion constellation.”

[…]

Sci.News

The paper, Maconi et al., 2025, was recently published in the open access journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. The authors were very careful to not draw sweeping conclusions, however the correlation between our solar system’s Radcliffe Wave transit and the MMCT is very interesting.

Figure 3. Miocene climate reconstruction from Zachos et al., 2001 (older is toward the left).

Here are the Miocene temperature and CO2 reconstructions plotted together:

Figure 4. Miocene temperatures and atmospheric CO2 (older is toward the left).

The Radcliffe Wave transit certainly appears to be more likely to have influenced the MMCT than a decline in atmospheric CO2. The notion of celestial climate drivers is not new. The concept is similar to that proposed by Nir Shaviv and Jan Veizer in their 2003 GSA Today paper.

Atmospheric levels of CO2 are commonly assumed to be the main driver of global climate. Independently, empirical evidence suggests that the galactic cosmic ray flux (CRF) is linked to climate variability. Both drivers are presently discussed in the context of daily to millennial variations. To the extent that they actually exist, they should also operate over geological time scales. Here we analyse the reconstructed low-latitude sea surface temperature over the Phanerozoic (past 545 Myr) and compare it with the variable CRF reaching the Earth and with the reconstructed partial pressure of atmospheric CO2 (pCO2). We find that at least 66% of the variance in the reconstructed temperature trend can be attributed to CRF variations arising from solar system passages through the spiral arms of the galaxy, an observation that enables us to estimate the CRF/temperature relationship. Assuming that the entire residual variance in temperature is due solely to the CO2 greenhouse effect, or that one of the reconstructed Phanerozoic pCO2 trends is validated, we can place an upper limit to the long-term “equilibrium” warming effect of CO2, one which is potentially lower than that based on general circulation models (GCMs).

Shaviv & Veizer, 2003

After incorporating their “celestial driver” model, Shaviv & Veizer estimated that the maximum equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) was 1.9 ºC per doubling of atmospheric CO2, with a most likely value of 0.5 ºC per doubling. Unknown celestial climate drivers may be the reason that ECS estimates derived from paleoclimatology data are nearly twice that of those derived from contemporaneous instrumental data.

The Radcliffe Wave was only recently discovered (2019), even though it is relatively close (~400 light years) to the current position of our solar system. It was an “unknown unknown” potential climate change driver before the publication of Maconi et al., 2025.

How many other “unknown unknowns” are out there?

Figure 5. You only find what you’re looking for. (JC at the National Press Club)

References

Armstrong McKay, David, Toby Tyrrell, Paul A. Wilson, & Gavin Foster. (2014). “Estimating the impact of the cryptic degassing of Large Igneous Provinces: A mid-Miocene case-study”. Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 403. 254–262. 10.1016/j.epsl.2014.06.040. Special thanks to David Armstrong McKay for kindly sending me a copy of his paper.

Kasbohm, Jennifer, and Blair Schoene. “Rapid Eruption of the Columbia River Flood Basalt and Correlation with the Mid-Miocene Climate Optimum.” Science Advances, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1 Sept. 2018, advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/9/eaat8223.

Maconi, E., J. Alves, C. Swiggum, S. Ratzenböck, J. Großschedl, P. Köhler, N. Miret-Roig, S. Meingast, R. Konietzka, C. Zucker, A. Goodman, M. Lombardi, G. Knorr, G. Lohmann, J. C. Forbes, A. Burkert and M. Opher. “The Solar System’s passage through the Radcliffe wave during the middle Miocene”. A&A, 694 (2025) A167 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202452061

Pagani, Mark, Michael Arthur & Katherine Freeman. (1999). “Miocene evolution of atmospheric carbon dioxide”. Paleoceanography. 14. 273-292. 10.1029/1999PA900006.

Royer, D.L., et al. 2006.  “Tertiary Paleobotanical Atmospheric CO2 Reconstruction. IGBP PAGES/World Data Center for Paleoclimatology”  Data Contribution Series # 2006-021. NOAA/NCDC Paleoclimatology Program, Boulder CO, USA.

Self, Stephen & Thordarson, Thorvaldur & Widdowson, Mike. (2005). “Gas Fluxes from Flood Basalt Eruptions”. Elements. 1. 10.2113/gselements.1.5.283.

Shaviv, N.J. and Veizer, J. (2003) “Celestial Driver of Phanerozoic Climate?”. GSA Today, 4-10.
https://doi.org/10.1130/1052-5173(2003)013<0004:CDOPC>2.0.CO;2

Tripati, A.K., C.D. Roberts, and R.A. Eagle. 2009.  “Coupling of CO2 and Ice Sheet Stability Over Major Climate Transitions of the Last 20 Million Years”.  Science, Vol. 326, pp. 1394 1397, 4 December 2009.  DOI: 10.1126/science.1178296

Zachos, J. C., Pagani, M., Sloan, L. C., Thomas, E. & Billups, K. “Trends, rhythms, and aberrations in global climate 65 Ma to present”. Science 292, 686–-693 (2001).

Roger Pielke on NOAA Staff Cuts

The Telegraph, however, don’t mention the fact that there are 12,000 staff at NOAA, so a cut of 800 is hardly “torn apart”.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

From the Telegraph:

The US government’s weather agency has been dismantled by the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) after it was accused of peddling “misinformation”.

Hundreds of weather forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were fired last week as part of Donald Trump’s plans to slash the federal workforce.

In total, at least 800 civil servants are thought to have lost their jobs, including meteorologists, radar specialists and crews of hurricane hunters, who fly aircraft into storms to help forecasters, according to CBS.

The job cuts have triggered protests at the agency’s headquarters in Maryland, with some scientists and lawmakers warning that removing staff involved in predicting natural disasters will “endanger American lives going forward”.

Prof Roger Pielke, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who focuses on the politicisation of science, said that the agency is “reaping the whirlwind” for “cutting corners on science”.

“By not upholding the highest standards of scientific integrity, we’ve opened the door to politicians meddling,” he said.

Read the full story here.

The Telegraph, however, don’t mention the fact that there are 12,000 staff at NOAA, so a cut of 800 is hardly “torn apart”. Moreover, as I wrote last week, the 800 are all probationary workers, so are hardly vital to operations.

As with our Met Office, there are huge swathes of the NOAA operation who are surplus to the basic functioning of the organisation – not least those whose job is to push the climate agenda.

Time to save the “Wild West” from wind

Gabriella Hoffman, a senior policy analyst at CFACT who serves as the program’s host, travels to Wyoming … again. This time, she’s investigating why an oil and gas producing state like Wyoming has brought into questionable projects that advance costly wind and solar energy.

CFACT

By Craig Rucker

A new episode of our “wildly” popular video series Conservation Nation was posted this morning.

Gabriella Hoffman, a senior policy analyst at CFACT who serves as the program’s host, travels to Wyoming … again. This time, she’s investigating why an oil and gas producing state like Wyoming has brought into questionable projects that advance costly wind and solar energy.

As CFACT supporters know, wind energy is the second least reliable electricity source on the market. Per the Department of Energy, it has one of the lowest capacity factor rates of all energy sources – functioning for a mere 35% of the year. Additionally, these “renewable” structures are very land-intensive and weather dependent. They are hardly “green” or environmentally-friendly.

Gabriella spoke to members of the Albany County Conservancy, a local conservation group, about the economic and environmental threats that 20+ proposed projects pose to southern Wyoming, and in particular on golden eagles.

“None of the electricity will be consumed in Wyoming,” said John Davis, a member of Albany County Conservancy. “The wind turbines, though they seem to be spinning lazily as you drive by, they’re really going over 100 miles an hour, and as raptors fly and look down, many of them have been caught up in wind turbines and chopped up.”

Since this episode was filmed, President Trump issued a moratorium on wind projects to assess the trade offs of these unreliable, harmful projects.

This is an episode you don’t want to miss. Watch Episode 20 of Conservation Nation today!