Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
From the Weather is Not Climate unless we say it is department and the University of Reading, comes this press release about an inane study that tries to link tree rings and severe weather, while ignoring warning fatigue.
From the Weather is Not Climate unless we say it is department and the University of Reading, comes this press release about an inane study that tries to link tree rings and severe weather, while ignoring warning fatigue.
How to stop being surprised by extreme weather – study
Helping communities predict extreme weather events that have never been recorded in modern history is the focus of a new study published in Nature Communications.
A team from the Climate Adaptation Services Foundation, the University of Reading and other international institutions has brought together methods to see beyond the limitations of conventional weather records, which typically only cover the past century.
The study reveals how, for example, nature’s own archives – like tree rings – combined with forgotten historical documents can unlock centuries of climate data that modern instruments have missed.
Lead author Timo Kelder said: “We’ve been limited by thinking extreme weather is only as bad as what we’ve measured since weather stations were invented. But our research shows we can use weather models to look back hundreds or even thousands of years to discover what’s truly possible in our climate system.”
A toolkit for scientists and practitioners
The researchers identified four approaches that together create a more complete picture of possible extreme weather:
● Analysing conventional records
● Studying historical and natural archives like tree rings
● Creating “what-if” scenarios based on past events
● Using climate models to simulate physically possible extremes
Tree rings proved especially valuable, with each ring preserving a year’s worth of climate history. Researchers used these natural time capsules to reconstruct 850 years of drought patterns in northwestern China, revealing extreme events that would have been invisible in modern records.
The team also highlighted forgotten weather extremes by digging through historical archives. They found that June 1846 in Durham, UK was significantly hotter than any modern June temperature. Similarly, September 1774 in Oxford was wetter than any month recorded in the 250 years since.
Adapt, adapt, adapt
The study emphasises that with these methods to anticipate the unseen, communities can better prepare for unprecedented weather. The methods can support three layers of preparation:
● Improved early warning systems
● Upgraded infrastructure
● Transformative social changes to reduce vulnerability
The researchers conclude that by breaking free from the constraints of limited modern records, we can finally stop being surprised by “unprecedented” weather events.
Dorothy Heinrich, co-author at the University of Reading, said : “Unprecedented weather doesn’t just break records—it breaks communities, infrastructure, and lives. When the unimaginable happens, being unprepared is a disaster waiting to unfold. But science can help us to imagine the unimaginable, to uncover these risks, and prepare. Our future depends on how quickly and thoroughly we adapt today.”
We see unprecedented weather causing widespread impacts across the world. In this perspective, we provide an overview of methods that help anticipate unprecedented weather hazards that can contribute to stop being surprised. We then discuss disaster management and climate adaptation practices, their gaps, and how the methods to anticipate unprecedented weather may help build resilience. We stimulate thinking about transformative adaptation as a foundation for long-term resilience to unprecedented weather, supported by incremental adaptation through upgrading existing infrastructure, and reactive adaptation through short-term early action and disaster response. Because in the end, we should take responsibility to build resilience rather than being surprised by unprecedented weather.
For decades, Greenpeace activists have used the legal system, “direct action,” vandalism, and even violence against energy companies and workers. Well, the tables have turned BIG TIME. A North Dakota jury decided this week that Greenpeace must pay oil company Energy Transfer a staggering $667 million for inciting protests, encouraging violence, and damaging the company’s reputation. Before the verdict, Greenpeace USA said such a decision would bankrupt the organization and drive it to extinction. Well, Greenpeace are the dinosaurs, and that case is their asteroid.
For decades, Greenpeace activists have used the legal system, “direct action,” vandalism, and even violence against energy companies and workers. Well, the tables have turned BIG TIME. A North Dakota jury decided this week that Greenpeace must pay oil company Energy Transfer a staggering $667 million for inciting protests, encouraging violence, and damaging the company’s reputation. Before the verdict, Greenpeace USA said such a decision would bankrupt the organization and drive it to extinction. Well, Greenpeace are the dinosaurs, and that case is their asteroid.
The Heartland Institute’s Anthony Watts, Sterling Burnett, Linnea Lueken, and Jim Lakely will discuss this staggering decision — rare moment when radical environmental activists are held accountable for their disruptive and destructive actions.
We will also cover some of the Crazy Climate News of the Week, which includes the FBI opening criminal fraud investigations against those involved in the Biden EPA’s climate grift, while an Obama-appointed judge has delayed the clawback of the $20 billion in grants because there is “no evidence” of fraud. There’s also more bad news for unreliable wind power, Tesla vandalism continues unabated, and we’ve learned the Biden administration buried a report by its own Department of Energy that would have undermined its unilateral banning of natural gas exports.
Join us LIVE at 1 p.m. ET for Episode 150 of The Climate Realism show, and we will answer your questions in the chat.
El Nino is a phenomenon in the climate system that happens once every four or five years. Heat builds up in the equatorial Pacific to the west of Indonesia and so on. Then when enough of it builds up it surges across the Pacific and changes the currents and the winds. As it surges toward South America it was discovered and named in the 19th century. It is well understood at this point that the phenomenon has nothing to do with CO2.
The best context for understanding decadal temperature changes comes from the world’s sea surface temperatures (SST), for several reasons:
The ocean covers 71% of the globe and drives average temperatures.
SSTs have a constant water content, (unlike air temperatures), so give a better reading of heat content variations.
A major El Nino was the dominant climate feature in recent years.
HadSST is generally regarded as the best of the global SST data sets, and so the temperature story here comes from that source. Previously I used HadSST3 for these reports, but Hadley Centre has made HadSST4 the priority, and v.3 will no longer be updated. HadSST4 is the same as v.3, except that the older data from ship water intake was re-estimated to be generally lower temperatures than shown in v.3. The effect is that v.4 has lower average anomalies for the baseline period 1961-1990, thereby showing higher current anomalies than v.3. This analysis concerns more recent time periods and depends on very similar differentials as those from v.3 despite higher absolute anomaly values in v.4. More on what distinguishes HadSST3 and 4 from other SST products at the end. The user guide for HadSST4 is here.
Note: When doing monthly updates of HadSST4, it’s typical that values for the previous month or two will appear with slight adjustments. However, this time there were scores of changed values scattered throughout the set and all values since 1979. Strangely, the new values were in text format, so I needed to convert them to values in the spreadsheets. Comparing the new and old datasets showed that the changes were mostly in the third decimal, and mostly negative (i.e. the adjusted value lower than the previous one.) Overall, the global average anomaly since 1980 was lower by 0.01C. The charts and analysis below are produced from the current data.
The Current Context
The chart below shows SST monthly anomalies as reported in HadSST3 starting in 2015 through February 2025. A global cooling pattern is seen clearly in the Tropics since its peak in 2016, joined by NH and SH cycling downward since 2016, followed by rising temperatures in 2023 and 2024.
Note that in 2015-2016 the Tropics and SH peaked in between two summer NH spikes. That pattern repeated in 2019-2020 with a lesser Tropics peak and SH bump, but with higher NH spikes. By end of 2020, cooler SSTs in all regions took the Global anomaly well below the mean for this period. A small warming was driven by NH summer peaks in 2021-22, but offset by cooling in SH and the tropics, By January 2023 the global anomaly was again below the mean.
Then in 2023-24 came an event resembling 2015-16 with a Tropical spike and two NH spikes alongside, all higher than 2015-16. There was also a coinciding rise in SH, and the Global anomaly was pulled up to 1.1°C last year, ~0.3° higher than the 2015 peak. Then NH started down autumn 2023, followed by Tropics and SH descending 2024 to the present. After 10 months of cooling in SH and the Tropics, the Global anomaly came back down, led by NH cooling the last 4 months from its peak in August. It’s now about 0.1C higher than the average for this period. Note that the Tropical anomaly has cooled from 1.28C in 2024/01 to 0.72C as of 2025/2.
Comment:
The climatists have seized on this unusual warming as proof their Zero Carbon agenda is needed, without addressing how impossible it would be for CO2 warming the air to raise ocean temperatures. It is the ocean that warms the air, not the other way around. Recently Steven Koonin had this to say about the phonomenon confirmed in the graph above:
El Nino is a phenomenon in the climate system that happens once every four or five years. Heat builds up in the equatorial Pacific to the west of Indonesia and so on. Then when enough of it builds up it surges across the Pacific and changes the currents and the winds. As it surges toward South America it was discovered and named in the 19th century. It is well understood at this point that the phenomenon has nothing to do with CO2.
Now people talk about changes in that phenomena as a result of CO2 but it’s there in the climate system already and when it happens it influences weather all over the world. We feel it when it gets rainier in Southern California for example. So, for the last 3 years we have been in the opposite of an El Nino, a La Nina, part of the reason people think the West Coast has been in drought.
It has now shifted in the last months to an El Nino condition that warms the globe and is thought to contribute to this Spike we have seen. But there are other contributions as well. One of the most surprising ones is that back in January of 2022 an enormous underwater volcano went off in Tonga and it put up a lot of water vapor into the upper atmosphere. It increased the upper atmosphere of water vapor by about 10 percent, and that’s a warming effect, and it may be that is contributing to why the spike is so high.
A longer view of SSTs
The graph below is noisy, but the density is needed to see the seasonal patterns in the oceanic fluctuations. Previous posts focused on the rise and fall of the last El Nino starting in 2015. This post adds a longer view, encompassing the significant 1998 El Nino and since. The color schemes are retained for Global, Tropics, NH and SH anomalies. Despite the longer time frame, I have kept the monthly data (rather than yearly averages) because of interesting shifts between January and July.
The graph above is noisy, but the density is needed to see the seasonal patterns in the oceanic fluctuations. Previous posts focused on the rise and fall of the last El Nino starting in 2015. This post adds a longer view, encompassing the significant 1998 El Nino and since. The color schemes are retained for Global, Tropics, NH and SH anomalies. Despite the longer time frame, I have kept the monthly data (rather than yearly averages) because of interesting shifts between January and July. 1995 is a reasonable (ENSO neutral) starting point prior to the first El Nino.
The sharp Tropical rise peaking in 1998 is dominant in the record, starting Jan. ’97 to pull up SSTs uniformly before returning to the same level Jan. ’99. There were strong cool periods before and after the 1998 El Nino event. Then SSTs in all regions returned to the mean in 2001-2.
SSTS fluctuate around the mean until 2007, when another, smaller ENSO event occurs. There is cooling 2007-8, a lower peak warming in 2009-10, following by cooling in 2011-12. Again SSTs are average 2013-14.
Now a different pattern appears. The Tropics cooled sharply to Jan 11, then rise steadily for 4 years to Jan 15, at which point the most recent major El Nino takes off. But this time in contrast to ’97-’99, the Northern Hemisphere produces peaks every summer pulling up the Global average. In fact, these NH peaks appear every July starting in 2003, growing stronger to produce 3 massive highs in 2014, 15 and 16. NH July 2017 was only slightly lower, and a fifth NH peak still lower in Sept. 2018.
The highest summer NH peaks came in 2019 and 2020, only this time the Tropics and SH were offsetting rather adding to the warming. (Note: these are high anomalies on top of the highest absolute temps in the NH.) Since 2014 SH has played a moderating role, offsetting the NH warming pulses. After September 2020 temps dropped off down until February 2021. In 2021-22 there were again summer NH spikes, but in 2022 moderated first by cooling Tropics and SH SSTs, then in October to January 2023 by deeper cooling in NH and Tropics.
Then in 2023 the Tropics flipped from below to well above average, while NH produced a summer peak extending into September higher than any previous year. Despite El Nino driving the Tropics January 2024 anomaly higher than 1998 and 2016 peaks, following months cooled in all regions, and the Tropics continued cooling in April, May and June along with SH dropping. After July and August NH warming again pulled the global anomaly higher, September through January 2025 resumed cooling in all regions, with a slight upward bump in February 2025.
What to make of all this? The patterns suggest that in addition to El Ninos in the Pacific driving the Tropic SSTs, something else is going on in the NH. The obvious culprit is the North Atlantic, since I have seen this sort of pulsing before. After reading some papers by David Dilley, I confirmed his observation of Atlantic pulses into the Arctic every 8 to 10 years.
Contemporary AMO Observations
Through January 2023 I depended on the Kaplan AMO Index (not smoothed, not detrended) for N. Atlantic observations. But it is no longer being updated, and NOAA says they don’t know its future. So, I find that ERSSTv5 AMO dataset has current data. It differs from Kaplan, which reported average absolute temps measured in N. Atlantic. “ERSST5 AMO follows Trenberth and Shea (2006) proposal to use the NA region EQ-60°N, 0°-80°W and subtract the global rise of SST 60°S-60°N to obtain a measure of the internal variability, arguing that the effect of external forcing on the North Atlantic should be similar to the effect on the other oceans.” So, the values represent SST anomaly differences between the N. Atlantic and the Global Ocean.
The chart above confirms what Kaplan also showed. As August is the hottest month for the N. Atlantic, its variability, high and low, drives the annual results for this basin. Note also the peaks in 2010, lows after 2014, and a rise in 2021. Then in 2023 the peak was holding at 1.4C before declining. An annual chart below is informative:
Note the difference between blue/green years, beige/brown, and purple/red years. 2010, 2021, 2022 all peaked strongly in August or September. 1998 and 2007 were mildly warm. 2016 and 2018 were matching or cooler than the global average. 2023 started out slightly warm, then rose steadily to an extraordinary peak in July. August to October were only slightly lower, but by December cooled by ~0.4C.
Then in 2024 the AMO anomaly started higher than any previous year, then leveled off for two months declining slightly into April. Remarkably, May showed an upward leap putting this on a higher track than 2023, and rising slightly higher in June. In July, August and September 2024 the anomaly declined, and despite a small rise in October, ended close to where it began. Now 2025 is starting much lower than the previous year.
The pattern suggests the ocean may be demonstrating a stairstep pattern like that we have also seen in HadCRUT4.
The purple line is the average anomaly 1980-1996 inclusive, value 0.17. The orange line the average 1980-2024, value 0.38, also for the period 1997-2012. The red line is 2013-2024, value 0.67. As noted above, these rising stages are driven by the combined warming in the Tropics and NH, including both Pacific and Atlantic basins.
The oceans are driving the warming this century. SSTs took a step up with the 1998 El Nino and have stayed there with help from the North Atlantic, and more recently the Pacific northern “Blob.” The ocean surfaces are releasing a lot of energy, warming the air, but eventually will have a cooling effect. The decline after 1937 was rapid by comparison, so one wonders: How long can the oceans keep this up? And is the sun adding forcing to this process?
Footnote: Why Rely on HadSST4
HadSST is distinguished from other SST products because HadCRU (Hadley Climatic Research Unit) does not engage in SST interpolation, i.e. infilling estimated anomalies into grid cells lacking sufficient sampling in a given month. From reading the documentation and from queries to Met Office, this is their procedure.
HadSST4 imports data from gridcells containing ocean, excluding land cells. From past records, they have calculated daily and monthly average readings for each grid cell for the period 1961 to 1990. Those temperatures form the baseline from which anomalies are calculated.
In a given month, each gridcell with sufficient sampling is averaged for the month and then the baseline value for that cell and that month is subtracted, resulting in the monthly anomaly for that cell. All cells with monthly anomalies are averaged to produce global, hemispheric and tropical anomalies for the month, based on the cells in those locations. For example, Tropics averages include ocean grid cells lying between latitudes 20N and 20S.
Gridcells lacking sufficient sampling that month are left out of the averaging, and the uncertainty from such missing data is estimated. IMO that is more reasonable than inventing data to infill. And it seems that the Global Drifter Array displayed in the top image is providing more uniform coverage of the oceans than in the past.
USS Pearl Harbor deploys Global Drifter Buoys in Pacific Ocean
Energy Secretary plots £225m transformation of Grangemouth into bioethanol plant.
Scotland’s last remaining oil refinery could be used to turn pine trees into petrol under a £225m taxpayer-funded plan proposed by Ed Miliband.
Under the scheme, timber harvested in Scotland would be taken to the site of the Grangemouth refinery to be “fermented” into bioethanol for blending into fuel or used to produce chemicals and cosmetics.
Grangemouth is scheduled to be shut down this summer by owners including Sir Jim Ratcliffe, a move expected to trigger the loss of 500 jobs at the plant and an estimated 2,500 more in related industries.
The scale of losses has sparked a political crisis with Sir Keir Starmer and Mr Miliband, the Energy Secretary, last month pledging £200m to find new “low carbon” uses for the site, with the Scottish Government committing a further £25m.
Various other schemes have been considered, such as turning waste plastics into packaging material or producing aviation fuel from waste fats (even though Scotland does not use enough frying oil to support such a plant so it would also rely on oil imported from countries such as China.!)
But the universal reaction has been scornful, to put it mildly.
Sharon Graham for instane, the Unite union general secretary, said the study was created “as a fig leaf to justify its act of industrial vandalism of shutting the refinery and axing jobs”.
And as Michelle Thomson, the SNP MSP who represents Grangemouth in the Scottish Parliament, added:
“For my constituents in Grangemouth there cannot be certainty nor optimism. The best they can hope for is jam tomorrow, and certainly not bread and butter today.”
Instead of wasting north of £200 million, here’s a better idea – open up the North Sea for drilling again and drop the ban on petrol cars. Then we might be able to open Grangemouth up again as an oil refinery!
For two decades, the public has been bombarded with dire warnings of an impending climate-induced agricultural apocalypse. The claim is that a climate warmed excessively by the carbon dioxide emissions of human activity will ravage the food supply and plunge humanity into famine and chaos.
For two decades, the public has been bombarded with dire warnings of an impending climate-induced agricultural apocalypse. The claim is that a climate warmed excessively by the carbon dioxide emissions of human activity will ravage the food supply and plunge humanity into famine and chaos.
For many reasons, none of this ever-made sense. Now, a new study published in Scientific Reports has turned this narrative of catastrophe on its head, revealing that a global temperature rise of even 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) would not reduce crop yields—and might even increase harvests.
The paper, written by economist Ross McKitrick, dismantles a key pillar of the Biden Administration’s always-suspect upward revision of the “social cost of carbon”—a metric used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to quantify the supposed economic damage of carbon dioxide emissions. The fivefold increase of the social cost of carbon—from $51 per ton of carbon dioxide to more than $250—was based partly on the assumption that warming would devastate agriculture.
The new findings aren’t just a minor correction to the scientific record; they are a reversal of dangerous conclusions drawn from sloppy—perhaps even fraudulent—analyses. Everything we’ve been told about climate change and food security is wrong.
How did the EPA arrive at a social cost of carbon that equates with mass starvation?
In 2014, a widely cited meta-analysis of crop-model studies claimed that a warming climate would slash global crop yields, an assertion that fed into subsequent models that influenced the Biden EPA’s social cost of carbon hike.
That original dataset, however, was flawed—crippled by missing variables. Of its 1,722 records, nearly half lacked critical data, such as changes in CO2 concentrations, leaving only 862 usable entries. This incomplete picture painted a grim outlook of crop yields declining with only modest warming.
McKitrick, undeterred by what had become climate orthodoxy, dug deeper. By revisiting the source material, he recovered 360 additional records, bringing the total to 1,222—about a 40% increase in usable data.
The additional information showed “positive average output gains for all crop types across the warming scenarios even up to 5 degrees Celsius”—a temperature jump far beyond warming predictions of the U.N.’s International Panel on Climate Change. This isn’t cherry-picking; it’s what happens when the full scope of evidence is examined.
“If over the next 100-200 years, yields of all crop types increase, it does not stand to reason that a global trade model could generate global welfare reductions,” writes McKitrick in his concluding remarks.
McKitrick’s findings, grounded in a more comprehensive dataset, suggest the doomsday assumption was built on sand. Far from heralding a collapse, the data show crop yields at least holding steady and even improving with significant warming.
Moreover, plants are not too frail for a warming world. They’re built to thrive in the contemporary temperatures of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Most crops fall into two categories: C3 and C4 plants, so named to reflect their different photosynthetic processes. C3 crops, such as wheat, rice, and soybeans, flourish in elevated CO2 conditions characteristic of the 21st century.
Carbon dioxide is food to plants, necessary for the process of photosynthesis—a process where oxygen is a byproduct.
Higher levels of CO2 act like a supercharger, boosting photosynthesis and water-use efficiency. Studies have long shown that CO2 enrichment in greenhouses can increase C3 yields by 20% to 40%. C4 crops—like corn and sorghum—are less responsive to CO2 but do well in hotter, drier conditions.
In summary, if crop yields don’t crash—if they hold steady or grow—the rationale for a sky-high social cost of carbon disappears.
The McKitrick study is consistent with an extensive historical record that documents human flourishing during earlier eras warmer than today. The Minoan Warm Period 3,000 years ago and the Roman Warm Period and Medieval Warm Periods that followed are examples.
Unfortunately, the United Nation’s International Panel on Climate Change—relied on by many as the standard-bearer for information on climate change—favors adherence to climate dogma over rigorous scientific inquiry. It often ignores cutting-edge findings like McKitrick’s.
So where do we go from here?
First, the social cost of carbon calculation needs a reset. A realistic assessment would show that carbon dioxide is a benefit, not a pollutant, and that increasing CO2 adds to global productivity rather than imposes costs on society.
The EPA must revisit its numbers, stripping out inflated agricultural damages and grounding its estimates in all the data available. It is time to look at the facts, trust the real science, and end the irrational governmental messaging that feeds climate hysteria.
This commentary was first published at The Daily Signal on March 16, 2025.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India.
Proof that the climate agenda was never really about climate.
From the Telegraph:
Global warming and sustainability ‘should form a more central part of school lessons’ says equalities think tank.
Climate change can be used to teach children about race, a national curriculum review has been told.
Global warming should be used to allow teachers and pupils to “explore conversations about race”, according to the Runnymede Trust.
The race equality think tank told a review into the curriculum commissioned by Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, that such discussions would allow pupils to discuss more openly the impact of race on them and its relationship to “wider society”.
One aspect of the trust’s recommendations is thought to be aimed at encouraging teachers to throw light on the unequal impact of climate change on different groups in society, such as in developing countries.
Its recommendation states: “Subjects such as English and history, as well as discussions of climate change in science, should offer students the opportunity to explore conversations surrounding race and its relationship to wider society, as opposed to stifling students and teachers in the expression of opinion surrounding these themes.”
The “existential crisis” climate narrative is in meltdown. Houston solar leader John Berger has resigned, his 12-year-old company (Sunnova) positioned for bankruptcy. Other solar and wind stocks are tanking, and offshore wind is out of play. Battery and EV firms are regular restructuring news.
“Tomlinson is angry and sarcastic. His worldview is losing intellectually, politically, and business-wise. Is it time for him to retire and happily live off his spouse’s (ill-gotten) renewable energy riches?”
The “existential crisis” climate narrative is in meltdown. Houston solar leader John Berger has resigned, his 12-year-old company (Sunnova) positioned for bankruptcy. Other solar and wind stocks are tanking, and offshore wind is out of play. Battery and EV firms are regular restructuring news.
Climate activists find themselves out of taxpayer monies. The U.S. Department of Energy, Department of Interior, and Environmental Protection Agency are implementing President Trump’s “none-of-government” climate policy, reversing Podesta-Biden-Harris climate alarmism and the budget-busting Inflation Reduction Act.
But there is one fossil-fuel-despising business editorialist who is wed to the Climate Industrial Complex, not to mention a multi-millionaire renewables executive (thanks to your tax money). His name is Chris Tomlinson, whose climate take is so severe that he has written such statements in the New York Times-like Houston Chronicle, as:
We fundamentally have to transform our economy in ways that are unimaginable to people who are over 40. We have to cooperate, innovate and compromise, and most of all, we have to set aside our pride. (here)
Looming over the industry and the congress is the question of the long-term viability of fossil fuels as climate change becomes a greater threat to humanity. (here)
The industry’s most talented propagandists will offer advice on burnishing petroleum’s image as resentment toward fossil fuels grows. (here)
“[Oil companies] don’t want to discuss winding down their industry, even if that is the only sustainable and efficient future for the planet.” (here)
“No wonder so many Texans refuse to acknowledge climate change; the planet’s fate relies on transforming not only our economy but our culture…. It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that climate change might come to a screeching halt if all humans switched to electric transportation and a vegetarian diet by 2030.” (here).
A lot of Texans consider an affordable steak dinner and a big pickup truck God-given rights…. We will pay for our profligacy one way or another, either by changing our sources of protein and energy or dooming future generations to worsening weather and natural disasters. (here)
Tomlinson is quite an outlier–and without a conscience to report fairly on the exaggerations of climate science and failures of political energies.
President Donald Trump’s Cabinet secretaries speaking in Houston at the world’s top energy conference made oil and gas executives look like left wing climate activists by comparison as CEOs struggled to adapt to another swing of the political pendulum.
Comment: The oil and gas industry was bullied, bruised, and bribed by Podesta-Biden-Harris, but rent-seeking and greenwashing are not winning strategies now. Consumers and taxpayers can rejoice!
Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s triumphal speech, awkwardly delivered to the friendliest of audiences, proved the Trump administration’s policies are extreme, even from the fossil fuel industry’s perspective. Attendees seemed almost embarrassed for him….
Comment: What a trashy mischaracterization! Other reports of the talk did not mention a flawed delivery or incoherent content. Yes, the remnants of the Climate Industrial Complex at CERA were stunned. But for the real entrepreneurs, the free market capitalists (versus the political capitalists), the DOE secretary’s talk was triumphal.
Almost every CEO speaking at CERAWeek by S&P Global reiterated their commitment to slowing climate change. They asked for a “durable policy” that did not require them to rewrite business plans every four years.
Comment: It is called rent-seeking and greenwashing. Didn’t you know this?
The CEO of Saudi Aramco, whose speeches typically have a Darth Vader vibe, felt positively progressive in his dedication to fighting climate change. “This has to be about delivering real results,” Amin Nasser said. “Let me be absolutely clear: this does not mean stepping back from our global climate ambitions. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions must still get the highest possible priority. That means prioritizing technologies that drive efficiency, lower energy use, and further reduce greenhouse gas emissions from conventional energy.”
Comment: Saudi Aramco should privatize its oil and gas wealth to reward citizens, not a Kingdom hierarchy. If only Tomlinson thought about incentives and wealth democratization in this regard. And the same for Mexico, whose mineral wealth has been kept from the people to maintain a political elite (see the proposal of Guillermo Yeatts here).
As the de facto leader of OPEC, Saudi Arabia’s policies carry weight. The kingdom is focused on creating new technologies that capture carbon emissions so the world can keep using oil and natural gas. Climate activists may denounce this strategy, and economists may question its affordability, but at least Nasser acknowledges the need to fight climate change.
Comment: The leader of a centrally planned, autocratic State can afford to greenwash and try to get some good international diplomacy at the same time. There is little altruistic about this, as Tomlinson admits elsewhere. And watch OPEC members deemphasize uneconomic ventures in the new environment.
Wright, Burgum and Trump never talk about reducing emissions; their policies would increase them, thereby speeding up global warming. Burgum argued that the artificial intelligence arms race with China was a bigger problem than overheating the planet.
Comment: Check your alarmist premises, Chris! If only you would question high-sensitivity climate models that make carbon dioxide a political pollutant. CO2 is not a pollutant, and CO2 enrichment is a positive externality.
Wright insisted climate change was simply the price of doing business. “The Trump administration will treat climate change from what it is (sic), a global physical phenomenon that is a side effect of building the modern world,” Wright said. “Responses to climate change bring their own set of trade-offs. The Trump administration will end the Biden administration’s irrational quasi-religious policies on climate change.”
Comment: Correct! Speaking Truth to the Climate Industrial Complex. The Church of Climate, resting on naive Deep Ecology notions, needed this takedown.
Wright and [Interior Secretary Doug] Burgum] went long on criticizing the previous administration, but were short on what they would do to stop rising greenhouse gas emissions. They said the Trump administration’s priority is only to produce more energy.
Comment: Were you listening? Climate mitigation is a fool’s errand and budget buster. The emphasis is on adaptation to and resiliency against weather extremes, which goes far beyond exaggerated ‘climate change’.
My colleagues and I had joked before CERAWeek that we should tally how many times executives would say “drill, baby, drill”….
Comment: Your press colleagues? From the New York Times or Inside Climate News? Maybe that is your problem; confirmation bias from hanging around those you agree with, including your spouse (below).
When CERAWeek founder Dan Yergin asked Chevron CEO Mike Wirth what he was looking for from the administration, he answered: “Durability.” “Swaying from one experience to the other is not the right policy approach. In a long-cycle industry like this, we allocate capital that’s out there for decades, and so we really need consistent and durable policy,” Wirth said. “We’ve seen a lot of things done already by the Trump administration, executive actions, which I think are intended to send a signal. The more durable policy will come through the legislative process.”
Comment: Durability? Yes. The legislative process? Politics has failed freedom, consumers, taxpayers. The abhorrent Inflation Reduction Act (note the fraudulent title) failed Democracy too. With a fiscal emergency upon us (check the US Debt Clock here), executive orders are badly needed, with positive legislation to come.
Global oil and gas companies, most of them based in Texas, spent billions to take advantage of President Joe Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act. The IRA promises tax credits for clean energy, including wind, solar, nuclear, hydrogen and geothermal power. It also rewarded companies that capture and sequester carbon.
Comment: A very bad bet by the political capitalists. There is no reason to throw good (taxpayer, investor) money after bad, and reason to welcome this reduction in the federal deficit and national debt.
The Trump administration has promised to repeal the IRA, potentially turning tens of billions of dollars of investments into losses. Houston-based Occidental Petroleum bet big on pulling carbon from the air and using it to pump oil from old wells. CEO Vicki Holub is struggling to rebrand the innovative business to appeal to a White House that does not care about reducing carbon dioxide concentrations. Should she abandon Oxy’s direct air capture work or keep working on it, hoping the next president will restore the tax incentives when the facility comes online in four years?
Comment: Shame on ExxonMobil, shame on Oxy. Never again. They should lose their investments and dare not invest on a government promise in the future.
Trump’s lackeys mistakenly believe they are doing the industry a favor. Serious CEOs know his policies will not last; meanwhile, the rest of the world’s climate regulations remain in effect. Welcome to climate activism, Big Oil, even if it’s only for four years.
Comment: Chris Tomlinson is a lackey for the Climate Industrial Complex, which includes his wife Shalini Ramanathan, who will provide well for her retired journalist who stubbornly and angrily lobbied for a wasteful cause that had no effect on global climate.
Appendix A: A Fair CERA Report
Consider this realisticsummary of CERAWeek 2025 by Jack Schenker, a renewable fuel businessman:
After a few days of deep discussions at CERAWeek, one thing is clear: the energy industry is shifting from ideology to execution. The narrative of an overnight energy transition is fading, replaced by a more pragmatic approach that prioritizes affordability, reliability, and security—with sustainability now following, rather than leading, the conversation.
Here are the biggest takeaways from the past few days:
The Energy Transition Is Stalling—And Realism Is Taking Over
Despite $10 trillion in global investment, the energy transition has not delivered transformative results. CEOs and policymakers are acknowledging that: Intermittent renewables alone won’t meet demand—fossil fuels, nuclear, and natural gas remain essential. Natural gas & LNG are no longer “bridge fuels”—they are the backbone of future energy security. Grid modernization & infrastructure expansion are critical as AI-driven electricity demand surges.
AI and Data Centers Are Driving an Energy Demand Shock
Tech is now a primary force in shaping energy strategy: Google is spending $75B in 2025 on data centers, and hyperscale growth is rewriting electricity demand forecasts. AI workloads are pushing energy demand up 25%+ by 2050, making grid upgrades and new generation sources an urgent priority. Natural gas, nuclear, and renewables must scale rapidly to support this digital revolution.
Oil Isn’t Going Anywhere—The Production Plateau Keeps Moving
Chevron, Exxon, and BP see no near-term peak for oil. Major investments continue in Gulf of Mexico, Guyana, and the Middle East for low-cost, high-return oil projects. Decarbonization efforts are shifting toward efficiency gains rather than reducing output.
Carbon Capture & Hydrogen Face Cost and Policy Uncertainty
CCUS (Carbon Capture, Utilization & Storage) is gaining traction but remains costly. Hydrogen still lacks economic viability due to infrastructure and market limitations. Unstable policies & overregulation are holding back large-scale investment.
Energy Security & Affordability Are Now the Priority
Governments are being challenged on over-regulation and prescriptive energy policies. Permitting reform is now a top industry concern across fossil fuels, renewables, and nuclear. The industry is demanding clear, stable policies that enable investment—without political roadblocks.
The energy industry is no longer debating if fossil fuels will remain part of the mix—it’s now focused on how to balance energy security, affordability, and sustainability…
AI-driven demand, infrastructure bottlenecks, and regulatory uncertainty are the key challenges ahead.
This summary, polite, fair, and free of charge, sure beats Chris Tomlinson, who increasingly is a liability at the Houston Chronicle.
At last week’s CERA Week conference in Houston, the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency Fatih Birol told attendees that “I want to make it clear… there would be a need for investment, especially to address the decline in the existing fields. There is a need for oil and gas upstream investments, full stop.”
At last week’s CERA Week conference in Houston, the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency Fatih Birol told attendees that “I want to make it clear… there would be a need for investment, especially to address the decline in the existing fields. There is a need for oil and gas upstream investments, full stop.”
This is quite the turnaround from the IEA’s astonishing report issued in 2021 entitled ‘Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector‘. It espoused an end to all new investments in oil and gas (let alone coal) from 2021. Mr Birol then stated that: “If governments are serious about the climate crisis, there can be no new investments in oil, gas and coal, from now – from this year.”
Has the leopard changed its spots? And, if so, why?
No More Oil and Gas Needed
The IEA is the OECD’s energy advisory body which was established in the wake of the oil price shock of 1973 to ensure the security of oil supplies and to promote policy cooperation among its members. Its charter includes setting up a collective-action mechanism to respond effectively to potential disruptions in oil supply as well as developing energy-conservation policies. Since its founding in 1974, the IEA emerged as a reliable research institution covering global energy data and trends useful for energy analysts. It quickly became the go-to source for government planners around the world responsible for key national objectives in energy security, affordability and reliability.
Birol had as recently as 2017 urged industry to pump more oil to ensure against future shortages. “Our message to the oil industry here in Houston is invest, invest, invest,” he said at the CERAWeek conference in January that year.
Yet, by the time of its 50th anniversary conference (2024) in Paris, the IEA was well established in its new role as “the world’s shepherd towards a green future from a fossil fuel past”. US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, the Biden administration’s champion for the Green New Deal, said, “Thanks to the genuinely extraordinary job Fatih has been doing, the IEA is now probably the principal arbiter… with respect to our policies.”
The 2021 ‘Net Zero by 2050’ report sealed the IEA’s rapid pivot to being an advocacy organisation devoted to promoting renewable energy at the expense of conventional fossil fuels. The report aligned the IEA with its key budget contributors in the EU Commission and the Biden administration. The IEA’s ‘green pivot’ cost the organisation its credibility as an issuer of objective research such that, by 2022, OPEC stopped using IEA data in its oil market assessments.
The infamous Net Zero 2021 report billed itself as “the world’s first comprehensive study of how to transition to a Net Zero energy system by 2050 while ensuring stable and affordable energy supplies, providing universal energy access and enabling robust economic growth”. Its roadmap, the report claims, sets out “a cost effective and economically productive pathway” to a “resilient energy economy dominated by renewables like solar and wind instead of fossil fuels”.
To its detractors, the report constituted an exercise in magical thinking, calling for the replacement of the world’s vast and complex energy system — built over two centuries of cumulative industrial development and currently supplying over 80% of its primary energy supply – within three decades. Some industry practitioners were more blunt, with the Saudi oil minister calling the report a sequel to La La Land.
A forensic analysis by the Energy Policy Research Foundation found the report’s optimistic expectations on wind and solar displacing fossil fuels to be illusory. Once the cost of new transmission lines connecting remote renewable power sites to demand centres are added to those of integrating intermittent sources with backup dispatchable power, massive new mining capacity for critical minerals and expensive new battery storage, the financial case for Net Zero ceases to be credible. The report’s forecasts for new innovations and technologies that are not proven to be commercially viable are overly optimistic. Out of the IEA’s own database of over 500 listed individual clean energy technologies at various stages of ‘readiness’, only 29 technologies (less than 6%) have achieved some level of commercial competitiveness.
The EPRF analysis concludes that “the IEA has made many questionable assumptions and milestones for ‘Net Zero Emissions’ about Government policies, energy and carbon prices, behavioural changes, economic growth and technology maturity”. Forsaking its previous role as an authoritative source of analytical energy research to become an advocacy group for Net Zero, the IEA “has allowed itself to be used as a tool for climate extremism, has misled policymakers and has endangered the world’s economy and Western security, all while forsaking the purpose for which it was created”, says Rupert Darwall in his foreword to the EPRF report.
The IEA’s Turnaround at CERA Week
What is one to make of Fatih Birol’s remarkable turnaround at last week’s CERA conference in Houston, where he called for more investments in oil and gas? Was Mr Birol finally coming round to the views held by practitioners in the field such as the US Energy Secretary Chris Wright, previously CEO of Liberty Energy, and Amin Nasser, CEO of Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company?
In his keynote speech to the conference, Mr Wright articulated President Trump’s energy agenda in no uncertain terms:
The Trump administration will end the Biden administration’s irrational quasi-religious policies on climate change that imposed endless sacrifices on our citizens. … Our focus will be steadfast on the American people and our allies abroad. … Roughly one billion people live lives remotely recognisable to us in this room. …This lifestyle requires an average of 13 barrels of oil per person per year. What about the other seven billion people? They want what we have. The other seven billion people on average consume only three barrels of oil per person per year versus our 13. Africans average less than one barrel. We need more energy. Lots more energy. That much should be obvious. …We are unabashedly pursuing a policy of more American energy production and infrastructure, not less. Our goal is to re-industrialise America, not de-industrialise America.
In his speech to the CERA conference, Mr Nasser was typically and equally blunt in his assessment of the state of affairs in global energy.
New sources add to the energy mix and complement existing sources. They do not replace them. That is why the current strategy of prematurely switching to immature alternatives has been so self-destructive. … New sources cannot even meet the growth in demand, while the proven sources needed to fill the gap are demonised and discarded. It is a fast-track to dystopia, not utopia. In short, the net result of $10 trillion over two decades is to basically stand still and consume record quantities of coal. … Not exactly mission accomplished! In fact, there is more chance of Elvis speaking next than the current plan working! And a wave of public dissatisfaction with transition reality is crashing over countries, companies and consumers alike.
Mr Birol’s turnaround on oil and gas was commented on in the OPEC press room as follows:
Aside from the risk of whiplash that such severe yo-yoing between positions could cause, a serious point needs to be stressed. … Agencies that recognise the responsibility that comes from offering analysis of the long-term perspectives of the industry should not be shifting positions or mixing messages and narratives every couple of years on this matter, particularly ones that were founded to ensure the security of oil supplies.
Elections Have Consequences
Perhaps Mr Birol is not so much impressed by objective analysis of the past two decades of wasted spending on intermittent and unreliable renewable energy technologies as he is of the changed circumstances under the Trump administration. It was already apparent during Mr Trump’s election campaign that the IEA would face pressures for a change in direction if he won. Mario Loyola, a former Trump environmental adviser, said in an interview in Le Monde in October last year that: “The US should definitely come up with a strategy to replace the leadership at the IEA.”
At the IEA’s 50th anniversary conference in Paris, Mr Birol publicly denied the notion that the organisation’s focus would change if Mr Trump was elected President, saying that: “The economic and technology dynamics, the policy dynamics are very strong, I believe the clean energy transition will continue to move fast whoever the next President is.” Climate zealots – from Ed Miliband, the UK’s Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, to John Kerry, President Biden’s Special Envoy for Climate – have been sold on the thesis of the irreversibility of the energy transition.
It remains to be seen if Mr Birol is a climate zealot or simply the piper who will play his current master’s tune. Either way, elections matter and President Trump’s ‘energy dominance‘ agenda will have consequences for Mr Birol and the IEA. It cannot be soon enough for the billions of people adversely affected by the ‘Net Zero’ climate change policies foisted by the luxury beliefs of the ruling elites in the developed West over these past two decades.
Dr Tilak K. Doshi is the Daily Sceptic‘s Energy Editor. He is an economist, a member of the CO2 Coalition and a former contributor to Forbes.Follow him on Substack andX.
‘President Trump bringing back coal is the epitome of making American energy independent and dominant again.’
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Location: Juliette, Georgia.
Legend: Steam and smoke rise from the cooling towers and chimneys of a power plant.
‘President Trump bringing back coal is the epitome of making American energy independent and dominant again.’
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL (March 18, 2025) – In a post on Truth Social Monday evening, President Trump said he is authorizing his administration to “immediately begin producing energy with beautiful, clean coal.” This would be a reversal of Biden administration policies, which instituted new rules and regulations with the goal of phasing out coal power entirely in the United States.
The Biden-era rules mandated coal plants cut or capture 90 percent of its carbon dioxide emissions by 2032, a standard too expensive or impractical to meet. Biden also committed the United States to the so-called “Powering Past Coal Alliance,” which had the goal of banning all coal-fired power plants and banned new coal mining leases on federal land.
The following statements from climate and energy experts at The Heartland Institute may be used for attribution. For more comments, refer to the contact information below. To book a Heartland guest on your program, please contact Director of Communications Jim Lakely at media@heartland.org and (cell) 312/731-9364.
“Coal and natural gas are by far the most abundant and affordable energy sources. Utilizing anything else foolishly places our economy at a disadvantage to other nations and needlessly raises energy costs for American households. Coal and natural gas do not require the large-scale killing of birds and bats and dolphins and whales like solar and wind power, and they do not require clear-cutting forests and destroying ecosystems en masse. Coal and natural gas don’t require the mining of rare earth metals and the rampant toxic waste that comes with solar panels and wind turbines. President Trump is doing the right thing for America.”
“Coal was the dominant source of electricity generation for most of the 20th century for a reason. Engineers knew it could generate electricity reliably, and economists and the public knew it was relatively cheap. Coal’s decline has, not coincidentally, been accompanied by ever-rising energy prices and ever more unreliable electric power. It was always foolish to pray to the gods of wind and solar in the hopes they would keep our refrigerators, lights, and climate control systems working.”
“President Trump bringing back coal is the epitome of making American energy independent and dominant again. Our bank balances will also be better off because of this move.”
“Coal power plants have long provided reliable, affordable energy, fueling economic growth and industrial development. Unlike wind and solar, coal plants generate consistent baseload power, ensuring grid stability without dependence on weather conditions. Modern clean-coal technologies significantly reduce emissions, making them more environmentally viable. Additionally, coal remains abundant and domestically available, reducing reliance on foreign energy sources.”
“The push for intermittent renewables has led to rising electricity costs and grid instability, issues coal can help resolve. As energy demand surges, abandoning coal is impractical. Instead, investing in cleaner coal technology can ensure energy security, economic growth, and a balanced energy mix that doesn’t sacrifice reliability for political agendas.”
The Heartland Institute is a national nonprofit organization founded in 1984 and headquartered in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. For more information, visit our website or call 312/377-4000.
Photo: Miami Fort Generating Station – a coal fired power plant on the Ohio river near Cincinnati OH. Stacks are venting steam/water vapor, not smoke. Photo by Anthony Watts.
The Energy Transition Is Stalling—And Realism Is Taking Over
Intermittent renewables alone won’t meet demand—fossil fuels, nuclear, and natural gas remain essential.
AI and Data Centers Are Driving an Energy Demand Shock
Google is spending $75B in 2025 on data centers, and hyperscale growth is rewriting electricity demand forecasts.
Oil Isn’t Going Anywhere—The Production Plateau Keeps Moving
Chevron, Exxon, and BP see no near-term peak for oil.
Carbon Capture & Hydrogen Face Cost and Policy Uncertainty
CCUS (Carbon Capture, Utilization & Storage) is gaining traction but remains costly.
Energy Security & Affordability Are Now the Priority
Governments are being challenged on over-regulation and prescriptive energy policies.
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