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.
Despite all the caterwauling about “it is always hotter” and “it is the end of snow” and all the other Climate Crazy pronouncements, NASA says the United States had an anomalously cold January 2025.
They ‘measured’ the temperatures from space, of course.
Here’s the graphic:
Let me remind you that it is Summer in the Southern Hemisphere and Winter in the Northern. Eastern Europe and the Ukraine, along with Alaska and much of Canada, were gratefully less cold than usual – downunder, Australia is having a warmer summer.
Note the usual biasing by using red colors to indicate positive values implying that they are HOT. A good example of this is: Fairbanks, Alaska is shown in boiling hot deep deep red:
“In Fairbanks, Alaska, the average temperature for January 2025 was 6.27°F (14.6°F above normal).”
For those not quick at math, that is -14.3 C or 25 degrees F below freezing.
and for the continental United States (excerpted and with approximate Fahrenheit degrees added to the scale):
We see the West Coast was a degree or two warmer than the 2002-2024 average and that there were warmish January days in Wisconsin/Iowa/ Minnesota (which sends its thanks to the Weather Gods). The US ‘Deep South’ had very cold nights.
Otherwise, for most of the United States, both days and nights were cooler than usual, at least since the turn of the century.
And that’s the temperature-measured-from-space news.
# # # # #
Author’s Comment:
My area is shown in white, meaning lacking “sufficient confidence to assert there is an anomaly”. That should give inquisitive minds a clue that these are not actually measurements or anomalies of measurements. They are statistical animals of some type, which require ‘confidence’ at a 95% level.
The source for this news is here. NASA performs some grand statistical gymnastics to give us (not particularly informative) graphic maps of “Increase (red) and decrease (blue) in the frequency of occurrence of the warmest 10% of temperatures in the recent month.” The same is done for coldest 10%. All this is the service of pushing “extreme weather” memes. Their “extreme weather” is, as any weatherman knows, just weather.
The Associated Press (AP) recently published an article, titled “From Deluges To Drought, Climate Change Speeds Up Water Cycle, Triggers More Extreme Weather.” The article is false. Evidence clearly indicates that no changes in extreme weather trends are found in the data and, as such, no changes can be tied to climate change.
“Scientists have warned for decades that rising global temperatures would juice the water cycle, leading to more intense storms, worse droughts, and more chaotic shifts between the two,” says the AP’s article. This tired trope assumes climate change drives individual weather events, a point factually refuted repeatedly in rebuttals at Climate Realism.
Examining actual data blows down the AP’s extreme weather “juicing” fantasy faster than a house of cards in a windstorm.
Let’s start with floods. For example, the Climate Realism piece “No, Reuters, Climate Change Is Not Increasing the Impact of Floods”, cites NOAA’s historical flood records to prove these events have ebbed and flowed naturally for centuries—long before SUVs roamed the earth.
But it doesn’t stop there. The AP’s obsession with a “juiced” water cycle glosses over natural climate drivers like El Niño and La Niña, which have dictated weather swings for millennia.
“ENSO variability has been a persistent feature of the tropical Pacific climate system throughout the Holocene,” state the authors of the study. They link these cycles to significant weather swings, such as flips from wetter to drier conditions.
The Seattle Times uncritically republished the AP article. What about the Pacific Northwest’s wet-to-dry cycles affecting Seattle? Historical records—detailed in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2011, titled “Drought variability in the Pacific Northwest from a 6,000-yr lake sediment record,” analyzed a sediment core from Castor Lake in Washington to reconstruct 6,000 years of deluge/drought history in the Pacific Northwest. It found that wet and dry cycles have fluctuated naturally over millennia, with some dry periods lasting decades, driven largely by natural climate patterns like El Niño/La Niña.
Getting back to the AP’s article, it also claims:
Oceans absorb most of the planet’s extra heat. That causes the water to expand and ice to melt at the poles, raising sea levels. The warmer water also provides fuel for larger hurricanes and cyclones that can dump massive amounts of water in a short time.
Those claims are easily refuted. Data presented in Climate at a Glance: Hurricanes demonstrates definitively that global cyclone activity has remained stable, with no climate change fingerprint to be found. Also, Sea levels have been naturally and gradually rising long before “climate change” was ever a twinkle in the eye of the media.
“Thanks to improved early warnings and disaster management, the number of deaths decreased almost three-fold,” reported the WMO.
Above the AP’s article, next to a donate button, is the statement: “AP SETS THE STANDARD FOR POLITICAL REPORTING. SUPPORT INDEPENDENT, FACT-BASED JOURNALISM.”
Yet the evidence is clear that while the AP is hyping claims of a ‘juiced” water cycle based on unsubstantiated, vague experts claims, the agency ignored government studies and peer reviewed reports that undermine such a conclusion. For example. NASA’s Global Precipitation Climatology Project, examined global precipitation trends and determined that current variability is well within historical norm; no water cycle juicing is in evidence. Also, Climate Realism has published dozens of articles citing real-world data which demonstrate that neither wildfire nor hurricane nor tornado trends are worsening at all, much less worsening in response to purported climate change, here, here, and here, for example.
“Fact based?” Hardly, since the agency routinely, as its “reporters” did in this story, ignores mountains of easily found data that undermine claims the world faces a climate crisis. Shame on the Associated Press for this journalistic malpractice.
The Fourth Estate is supposed to inform, not indoctrinate. In this story, the AP gets an “F” for false reporting.
Abrupt, dramatic climate changes happen naturally. Scientists find Sahara went from green to parched in just a matter of decades.
Symbol image generated by Grok AI.
The claim that human emissions are causing the climate to change dramatically and abruptly is used to instill fear among the population. Without human emissions, the climate would still change, but much more calmly and gradually, so they like to have us believe.
But anyone who has studied climate history knows that climate change tends happen abruptly, often over the course of just a few decades.
One example is the Sahara, which wasn’t always a desert. Trees and grasslands dominated the landscape from roughly 10,000 years ago to 5,000 years ago, scientists reported in a paper published in 2013. “Then, abruptly, the climate changed, and north Africa began to dry out.”
The study published in Science says it all took just a few hundred years.
According to the authors: “Our analysis suggests that the termination of the African Humid Period in the Horn of Africa occurred within centuries, underscoring the non-linearity of the region’s hydroclimate.”
The Saharan shift is thought to have been initially triggered by more sunlight falling on Earth’s northern hemisphere, as Earth’s cyclic orientation toward the sun changed. It had nothing to do with CO2 emissions and human activities. It was all natural.
Man has an impact, but the real change is still very much natural and is still very poorly understood today. Performing weather-alteration rituals won’t make Mother Nature tamer.
Many apologies, but I couldn’t help noticing that your carbon is leaking.
“Analysis: UK emissions fall 3.6% in 2024 as coal use drops to lowest since 1666” Carbon Briefs said a couple of weeks ago, while tooting their kazoos. The records were tumbling. Not only was coal use the lowest since 1666, but also, the UK emitted less CO2 than any year since 1872.
That the last coal-fired power station had closed was trumpeted, or kazoo’d, and excuses were made for the closure of the Port Talbot blast furnace:
“…it is not at all clear that the UK steel sector would have fared differently – or that the Port Talbot blast furnaces would have remained open – in the absence of climate policy.”
Sure. That’s why Tata commissioned a new blast furnace at Kalinganagar, bringing the site’s capacity up to 8 million tonnes per year. It’s going to be India’s largest, and “a key enabler of socio-economic development in the region.” Meanwhile, all we are is ashes.
But I didn’t come here to talk about that. Rather, I wanted to make a note about Net Zero, and how it is the wrong benchmark if we are supposed to be measuring the UK’s contribution to global CO2 emissions. [Parameters are Capitalised below.]
How so? Well, the target of Net Zero is for Net Zero Territorial Emissions. This number consists of emissions that we produce, in manufacturing, heating and transport etc in the UK, and includes exports. Thus:
Territorial Emissions = emissions created & consumed here + emissions created here & exported
The parameter missing, when it comes to measuring the UK’s total contribution to CO2 emissions, is:
Emissions created elsewhere and consumed here
This lacuna gives rise to many ways to move emissions off-book. Mr. Drax emits over 10 million tonnes of CO2 per year, as reported here. But those emissions count against the countries that cut down their forests to feed him, not against us. So, if we want to save another 10 million tonnes of emissions… all we need to do is open another wood-pellet burning monster, call her Mrs. Drax, and hopefully find unscrupulous countries willing to destroy their forests in order to massage our Net Zero spreadsheet.
All those Chinese EVs that are floating across to us? The emissions associated with them counts against China’s ledger. The solar panels? Ditto. We can get a lot closer to Net Zero if we just stop making cars altogether, and stop making solar panels…
…what’s that? We don’t make solar panels?
I wonder why.
OK, so what should we be measuring? Not Territorial Emissions, but Consumption Emissions.
Consumption Emissions = emissions created & consumed here + emissions created elsewhere and imported here
Note that this number is net of any emissions that we export. Thus, if we build a Transit Van…
We don’t build Transits any more. They moved production to Turkey ten years ago.
… OK, but pretend that we did, and then exported the van to, say, Turkey – the associated emissions would not count on our books.
Our Consumption Emissions would equal our Territorial Emissions if exports and imports of emissions were exactly in balance. But we know, without even looking at the numbers, that we import more emissions than we export, right? In other words, while Carbon Briefs can kazoo about how our emissions are the lowest since 1872, they are glossing over the obvious point that we import far more than we did back then; other people make our stuff now. In fact, it’s fair to say that we were net exporters of emissions in 1872, just as we are net importers of emissions now. Those exported emissions would not have been on the Victorians’ books, even if they had bothered to compile carbon dioxide accounts.
Just how different are the two measures, when it comes to the UK?
I was getting to that. The ONS produces statistics that include Consumption Emissions. But as the accounting for the embodied emissions in far-flung places is Quite Hard, the stats come with a three-year lag. That means the most recent stats I can find for this date to 2021.
In 2021, our Territorial Emissions were 421 Mt CO2e. That’s the number against which Net Zero is to be judged; it has to reach Zero by 2050.
In 2021, our Consumption Emissions were 705 Mt CO2e. That’s the number that measures our actual impact on global CO2 emissions. This number does not have to reach anything by 2050; it can stay at 705 Mt, if we like.
Data: ONS at link given
The yellow area shows Imported Emissions. The other three strips DO NOT add up to Territorial Emissions. That’s because Territorial Emissions includes our Exported Emissions, which are not shown here.
The difference between Consumption Emissions and Territorial Emissions is 284 Mt CO2e, and it is worth remembering that 284 Mt is the net of Imported – Exported Emissions. In other words, we Imported 284 Mt CO2e more than we Exported in 2021.
Luckily, because the ONS figures include the emissions embedded in Imports, we can also calculate how much we exported.
In 2021, Imported Emissions (yellow stripe in the figure above) were 381 Mt CO2e, and as the net was 284, we can calculate that our Exported Emissions were (381 – 284) = 97 Mt CO2e. Quite a trade imbalance, I’m sure you’ll agree.
If you glance sideways at two numbers: Consumption Emissions of 721 Mt CO2e and Imported Emissions of 381 Mt CO2e, you will notice that the Imported Emissions are now more than half of our Consumption Emissions. This proportion will inexorably rise; by 2050, if we hit Net Zero then, ALL of our emissions will be imported.
The next figure shows the UK’s Consumption Emissions as before. As before, it shows the amount attributable to imports. The remainder is relabelled as Territorial Emissions after exports. I think this shows more clearly that Imported Emissions have not really changed at all, while emissions produced and consumed here have gone down markedly.
Data: ONS, same place
The final figure shows how Territorial Emissions are going down much faster than Consumption Emissions. On the trajectories shown, the UK will hit Net Zero in 2050 all right, as far as Territorial Emissions is concerned. But we will still be importing c. 400 Mt CO2e, which will be on the books of other countries. That’s more than the UK’s 2024 Territorial Emissions that Carbon Briefs are kazooing about (371 Mt).
Data: ONS again
CONCLUSION
In 2021, and for the first time, Imported Emissions (381 Mt) accounted for more than half of the UK’s Consumption Emissions (705 Mt). The UK’s Territorial Emissions (421 Mt in 2021) have dropped substantially, and it is these against which Net Zero must be judged. But Territorial Emissions do not truly represent the UK’s impact on the atmosphere; Consumption Emissions do.
Using Territorial Emissions as the stat of choice enables net importers, like the UK, to gloss over what is really going on, by hiding their carbon footprints off book. People of the UK will still be responsible for lots of emissions long after we reach the hallowed Net Zero, if we ever do.
CAVEAT
Should our trading partners reduce their carbon intensity, then a smaller amount of CO2 will be imported. Similarly, the UK can reduce its exports of CO2 in two ways: one, by exporting less; two, by reducing the carbon intensity of production.
There are few modern rituals more spiritually affirming than standing at the checkout counter, gazing into the cashier’s eyes, and declaring, “No bag, thanks. I brought my own.” It’s a moment of environmental piety—a reusable tote pressed reverently to the chest, cotton fibers woven with the smugness of 149 plastic bags not used (but, as it turns out, probably still made). The problem is that like all good sermons, the gospel of the grocery bag is riddled with contradictions, caveats, and a whole lot of carbon.
There are few modern rituals more spiritually affirming than standing at the checkout counter, gazing into the cashier’s eyes, and declaring, “No bag, thanks. I brought my own.” It’s a moment of environmental piety—a reusable tote pressed reverently to the chest, cotton fibers woven with the smugness of 149 plastic bags not used (but, as it turns out, probably still made). The problem is that like all good sermons, the gospel of the grocery bag is riddled with contradictions, caveats, and a whole lot of carbon.
The New York Times, ever ready to preach the faith of “climate responsibility,” recently published a piece titled “What Shopping Bags Should I Use?” It’s a fascinating read, not because it provides clarity, but because it demonstrates just how convoluted eco-virtue has become. Spoiler alert: you can’t win. But you can feel like you’re winning, and maybe that’s the point.
Let’s start with the usual demon in the pews: plastic. Plastic bags, we are told, are the spawn of fossil fuels, and as such, must be banished. Their recycling rate is a dismal 10%, and their afterlife often involves floating past a turtle’s nose or breaking into confetti-sized microplastics that haunt us for centuries. But here’s the twist—according to not one but two studies cited by the article (from Britain’s Environment Agency and Denmark’s Environmental Protection Agency), those unholy plastic bags actually have the smallest environmental footprint of the lot when judged by greenhouse gas emissions.
So how did they become public enemy number one? Simple. They look bad. They’re flimsy, crinkly, and associated with other people who don’t bring their own bags to Trader Joe’s.
Then there’s paper—renewable, biodegradable, and about as sturdy as wet tissue paper and prone to tearing dramatically halfway across the parking lot, right as your oat milk makes a break for it. Surely this is the sanctified option? Not quite. Paper bags, according to the same British study, need to be reused three times to match the global warming impact of a single plastic bag. Which, for anyone who’s ever had a soggy-bottomed paper bag explode in the rain, is optimistic bordering on delusional.
Still, paper has better PR. Its recycling rate is 43%—respectable, though still meaning most paper bags end up decomposing into methane and carbon dioxide in landfills. Methane, for those keeping theological score, is one of the top demons in the pantheon of greenhouse gases. That’s right: while plastic might just sit there, paper actively farts its way through the afterlife.
And then we arrive at the high priests of environmental virtue: the reusable totes. These cotton-clad chalices of consumer conscience are everywhere—handed out at conferences, weddings, political rallies, yoga studios. Each one whispers, “You’re a good person.” But the truth, as always, is inconvenient. The British study concluded a cotton tote needs to be reused 131 times to match a plastic bag. The Danish study said 149. And that’s assuming you ever use them more than once, instead of stuffing them into the growing pile of canvas guilt under your sink.
This begs the question: are we really trying to save the planet, or just auditioning for sainthood?
Dr. Samantha MacBride of Baruch College offers a clue. She notes that plastic bags “perpetuate the fossil fuel industry,” and that “system needs to retract if we’re going to have a future.” Ah, there it is. The issue isn’t just emissions or landfill space. It’s symbolism. Plastic is original sin. Paper is purgatory. And totes—well, they’re your chance at salvation, provided you repent and reuse until your shoulder gives out.
Even the article’s “bottom line” is a masterclass in hedging. “Experts agree that reusing [your bag] as many times as possible is key.” So, after thousands of words, we arrive at a tautology: reuse the thing you have, unless you have too many of them, in which case, feel bad. But also, don’t use plastic. And try not to kill trees. And maybe learn to sew your own bags from discarded hemp curtains sourced locally from your grandmother’s attic.
Virtue signaling, it turns out, is a full-time job.
But perhaps this is the real story here—not the science, which is flimsy and contradictory—but the performance. Climate consumerism doesn’t demand outcomes; it demands gestures. It doesn’t care if your tote has the carbon footprint of a coal train, so long as you mean well. It’s not about solving problems; it’s about demonstrating allegiance.
Because if the numbers mattered, we’d be mass-producing low-density polyethylene bags and setting up efficient return-reuse programs. But that would be practical, and practicality doesn’t trend on Instagram.
In the end, we are left with a strange theological message: the road to environmental heaven is paved with good intentions, reinforced stitching, and a sturdy sense of self-righteousness. And if you can’t save the Earth, at least make sure your bag says you tried.
Stay tuned for the next sermon: compostable dog poop bags—divine miracle or methane-spewing indulgence?
President Donald Trump’s administration is set to end funding to GAVI, the global vaccine partnership co-founded by Bill Gates, as part of the cancellation of more than 5,300 USAID programmes.
President Donald Trump’s administration is set to end funding to GAVI, the global vaccine partnership co-founded by Bill Gates, as part of the cancellation of more than 5,300 USAID programmes. The Telegraph has more. (Trigger warning: the report is from the Telegraph ‘s Gates-funded Global Health Security team!)
The United States is poised to stop funding Gavi, a major global vaccine partnership credited with saving the lives of millions of children.
President Donald Trump’s administration also plans to dramatically scale back its support for work to combat malaria but will continue to fund some grants for drugs that treat HIV and tuberculosis, as well as provide food aid to countries hit by wars and natural disasters.
The decisions, first reported by the New York Times, were included in a spreadsheet sent to Congress on Monday night by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which listed the projects that will continue – and those that won’t – after the expiry of Trump’s 90-day freeze on foreign aid.
The 281-page document reveals what little will be left of USAID, the organisation that, since the 1960s, has led US efforts to alleviate poverty, disease and humanitarian crises.
In all, more than 5,300 programmes are to be axed as part of Trump’s plan to align overseas spending with his ‘America First’ approach. Among them is funding for the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, which monitors diseases like bird flu that have the potential to jump from animals to people.
Confirming the decisions, the US State Department, which now runs USAID, said: “Each award terminated was reviewed individually for alignment with agency and administration priorities, and terminations were executed where Secretary [Marco] Rubio determined the award was inconsistent with the national interest or agency policy priorities.”
Only 898 of USAID’s awards will continue, according to the documents. But it remains unclear whether the Trump’s administration will actually be able to unilaterally cancel everything it plans to – many of its attempts to cut funds already allocated by Congress are currently being challenged in court.
Though many in the global health sector could see it coming after Trump froze almost all US foreign aid on taking office, the decision to end support for Gavi, which is believed to have saved the lives of 19 million children since it was established 25 years ago, has rattled many.
The US has historically been among Gavi’s biggest donors, contributing around 13% of its annual budget. The grant terminated by the Trump administration was worth $2.6 billion and was intended to last until 2030, the New York Times reported.
GAVI is a central player in the global pandemic preparedness industry that orbits around the WHO, and which has been a handy money machine for Gates in recent years. Here’s Professor David Livermore’s explanation of how it works:
To understand, look first at where the WHO’s money comes from. For the two years of 2024-25 the biggest contributors to a budget of $6.83 billion are: the USA ($958 million), Gates Foundation ($689 million), GAVI ($500 million), European Commission ($412 million) and Germany ($324 million). The UK is in seventh place at $216 million and China eighth at $203 million. GAVI is the Global Alliance for Vaccination and Immunisation. Its own funding, for 2021-25 inclusive, was $21.6 billion, including $4.98 billion from the USA, $2.64 billion from the UK, $2.18 billion from Germany and $1.81 billion from Gates.
Note that GAVI has pockets as deep as the WHO, that Gates accounts for 8-10% of each one’s income and that GAVI cross-funds the WHO. Together Gates and GAVI provide 18% of the WHO’s budget. GAVI’s role is to buy vaccines and to distribute them. It usually sets its own priorities, which we’ll examine some other day. The present issue comes when the WHO declares a pandemic. GAVI then moves to funding the relevant vaccines. During Covid it co-led, with the WHO and CEPI, the COVAX effort. This delivered shots – principally AstraZeneca’s – to developing countries.
CEPI, in turn, is the Centre for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovation. For 2022-26 it has contributions and pledges worth $2.1 billion, mostly from governments, but including $155 million from Gates. It’s more blue sky than the WHO and GAVI and has a ‘moonshot’ objective of allowing progression from ‘pandemic recognised’ to a vaccine in 100 days. You’ll only achieve that with mRNA technology, arming lipid nanoparticles with a new payload and pretending that prior experience, with different payloads, establishes safety. This is nonsense, of course. Luo’s recent work confirms that mRNA vaccines go all over the body, and that the response of cardiac endothelial cells in particular varied with the mRNA payload and its protein product. More simply, it’s impossible to garner long-term safety and efficacy data in a 100-day development cycle.
Now to the Gates Foundation itself. Besides co-supporting WHO, GAVI and CEPI, Gates invests in pharma start-ups, including BioNTech. Moderna is a previous investee. It also trades these holdings, making a 15-fold profit on sales of BioNTech stock during the pandemic. Microsoft itself had a good pandemic, increasing Gates’s wealth by $7.5 billion.
It is possible to draw a circle of virtue. First, the WHO recognises a threat. Next, aided by CEPI, Gates’s investee companies swiftly develop a vaccine. GAVI delivers this, even to the poorest villager. Humanity is saved. The proceeds flow to the BMGF foundation and fund better health for all – the WHO’s raison d’être. The sun is shining, the wind soft and who could object, except a churl? Bill asserted that, pre- pandemic, he’d invested $10 billion in global health organisations, bringing public health and economic benefits worth $200 billion. I’ve friends in healthcare who’d concur, though some seek grants and may be biased.
A darker view can also be taken. The WHO can be nudged into over-reaction, as with calling Mpox as an ‘Emergency’. The Pandemic Treaty, if ratified, will hugely strengthen its powers. Any consequent lockdowns would be brief, we’d be told, for CEPI will shortly be along with its 100-day vaccine. Once this is delivered, money will flow from taxpayers, via GAVI, to the manufacturer, likely a Gates investee.
Gates, GAVI and CEPI will benefit from the WHO declaring epidemics and pandemics, and Gates, paying around 10% of the NGOs’ budgets, has leverage. One of RFK’s charges is that, even outside pandemics, Gates has pushed the WHO disproportionately towards vaccines compared with basic public heath interventions such as clean water.
Big Tech, too, will benefit whenever a pandemic is declared, as in the Covid lockdowns. The Microsoft cash cow will grow fatter still. Western legacy media, bribed with Gates’s money for ‘Global Health Security Supplements‘ will look the other way, exclusively berating Tedros and the CCP. In short, a perfect rentier model for extracting money from the taxpayer has been created under the guise of philanthropy, with scrutiny deflected.
Proclaiming ‘the death of the Green New Scam,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has committed his agency to “driving a dagger through climate-change religion and ushering in America’s Golden Age.”
Proclaiming ‘the death of the Green New Scam,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has committed his agency to “driving a dagger through climate-change religion and ushering in America’s Golden Age.”
In a sweeping March 12 announcement, Zeldin called for “reconsidering” (meaning, in most cases, revoking) 31 EPA rules and regulations, most of which were imposed by the Biden and Obama administrations to combat human-caused climate change. Breaking with elite opinion on the necessity of sacrificing for the sake of the planet, Zeldin wrote in the Wall Street Journal that, because of his actions, “the cost of living for American families will decrease, and essentials such as buying a car, heating your home, and operating a business will become more affordable.”
Instead of having EPA hew to its traditional role as the nation’s most potent and feared regulatory agency, Zeldin is seeking to make EPA a partner in the Trump administration’s quest for American energy dominance. The green policies facing a partial or complete rollback by Zeldin’s team are among the most controversial measures adopted under Biden and Obama.
On the chopping block is the Biden-era de facto EV mandate, which uses stringent tailpipe emissions standards to force automakers to phase out gasoline-powered vehicles by 2030 in favor of battery-powered cars and trucks. Also in the crosshairs is the Biden administration’s April 2024 “Clean Power Plan 2.0,” which severely limits greenhouse-gas emissions from coal- and natural-gas-fired power plants by 2032. Rigorous requirements for reporting greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and manufacturing facilities are also targeted by Zeldin’s actions, as are all Biden-era regulations hobbling oil and natural gas production in the U.S.
However, the most significant impact will be the Trump/Zeldin challenge to EPA’s 2009 Endangerment Finding. In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Massachusetts v. EPA, ruled that EPA had the authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. Seeing an opening to extend the agency’s writ into nearly every nook and cranny in the nation’s economy, Obama officials at EPA issued the Endangerment Finding two years later. It declared six greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide and methane, as hazardous to public health, unleashing an onslaught of regulations targeting the energy, transportation, construction, and other sectors. By overhauling the Endangerment Finding, Zeldin is striking against what he called “the holy grail of climate change religion.”
Overturning the climate policies made possible by the Endangerment Finding will not occur overnight. It will require an arduous administrative process that will take up much of Trump’s remaining time in office. Environmental groups, recognizing the threat Zeldin’s move poses to their agenda of ridding the world of fossil fuels, will sue the agency and can count on the support of a slew of blue-state attorneys general.
But the legal landscape for challenging Zeldin may not be as hospitable as it once was. Two recent Supreme Court decisions, West Virginia v. EPA (2022) and Roper Bright Enterprises v.Raimondo (2024), have sharply curtailed federal agencies’ power to issue regulations without specific congressional authorization. In its West Virginiadecision, the high court ruled that EPA lacked the authority to enact the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, which sought to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from existing coal-fired power plants. The similarity between that ruling and Zeldin’s initiatives does not bode well for green plaintiffs.
Furthermore, lawsuits opposing Zeldin’s revoking of the Endangerment Finding run the risk of the issue landing at the Supreme Court, which could reverse its 2007 ruling in Massachusetts v.EPA, citing a lack of congressional authority to regulate CO2 and other greenhouse gases.
Zeldin’s actions are not taking place in a vacuum. Not only has Trump withdrawn the U.S. from the December 2015 Paris Climate Agreement and blocked American officials from participating in U.N.-sponsored climate panels, but once-green elements in the private sector are turning over a new leaf. Once at the forefront of the green energy transition, oil giant BP told investors in early March that its “optimism for a fast transition was misplaced” and that the company would be shifting billions of dollars in investments from green energy to fossil fuels,” the Washington Postreported.
Confronted by soaring demand for reliable electricity to power AI in data centers, Silicon Valley and New York investment firms have second thoughts about parting with fossil fuels. BlackRock’s Larry Fink, until recently an ardent proponent of renewable energy, is singing a different tune. “We have to think about power and energy in a pragmatic way,” he recently told a high-powered energy meeting in Houston, the Post reported. “Let’s pause for a second. First, gas will play a major role in the U.S. for tens of years. Maybe 50 years.”
The vaunted green transition runs headlong into a rapidly changing business, legal, and political climate.
When the US sends money, show a little thanks. Leaders, like Bangladesh’s interim ruler Muhammad Yunus, would do wise to take note.
Just this past February, Trump detailed how a two-person outfit in Bangladesh had, incredulously, received $29 million from USAID. In response, Yunus’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs shot back and dismissed Trump’s claim as “not true.”
In fairness, Yunus is a newcomer to politics on the global stage. In January – when Trump returned to the White House for his second term as President – a student-led uprising had, five months before, installed Yunus as Bangladesh’s new leader after a violent end to the 15-year rule of the country’s former Prime Minister.
A darling of the liberal elite, Yunus is a softly spoken, previously apolitical, grandfatherly and quickly aging banker. He won a Nobel Prize in 2006, joined Nelson Mandela and his group of global ‘Elders’ in 2007, and rose to prominence on the adoration of progressive intelligentsia, earning a Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama along the way.
Recognizing his elite connections may now work to hinder rather than help, Yunus offered feeble congratulations following Trump’s monumental comeback. He has since continued to endear himself to the administration via continued overtures to Elon Musk whose telecommunication company Starlink, he has eagerly invited to set up in Bangladesh.
Just how successful Yunus will be in earning the goodwill of Trump’s administration is up for debate. If his history is any indication however, he faces a steep uphill battle.
A longtime friend and ally of both Bill and Hillary Clinton, Yunus first met the Clintons back when Bill was Governor of Arkansas. Over the years, the threesome’s relationship blossomed under an extremely lucrative ‘quid pro quo’ dynamic.
For one, the Clintons got to parade Yunus around as the pinnacle of moral and philanthropic excellence (despite the high interest rates Yunus’s micro-finance bank foists on the poor, often without their knowledge) to their rich pals.
In return, Yunus used the funds donated to his Grameen Bank enterprise to funnel somewhere between $125,000 and $300,000 back to the Clinton Global Initiative.
By way of thanks, Hillary seems to have used her position as Secretary of State to advocate for $164.2 million of USAID taxpayer funds to be sent directly to Yunus’s enterprises. The pair were drawn even closer together when, in 2011 Yunus ran afoul of Hasina; he called Hillary for help and she sent her aids scurrying to find ways to support him.
And, as Yunus’s local and international reputation grew (he describes that the first time he made a loan to local villagers, they “looked at me as if I was an angel from heaven”) he became an ideal ally for the Clintons’ foundation’s work which sought to address issues like “economic opportunity and growth” for the world’s poor. And their support for Yunus did not end there.
But not one to forget a favor, indeed Yunus used the funds donated to his Grameen Bank enterprise back to the Clinton Foundation in advance of Hillary’s 2016 presidential campaign, snubbing Trump.
To add insult to injury, Yunus gave a public speech where he described Trump’s first win as an “eclipse” which brought on a depression.
To Trump though, Yunus is known simply as “the microfinance guy from Dhaka” who “donated to see me lose”.
Most disturbing however, are Yunus’s links to serial and unrepentant child sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.
While direct links to Epstein cannot be confirmed, Yunus claims Isabel Maxwell among his advisors, sister of Epstein conspirator and manipulator extraordinaire Ghislaine Maxwell.
It’s alarming to think that had a connection between Yunus and Epstein been facilitated, just what Yunus would have asked for – certainly money, perhaps more.
When the people of Bangladesh first took to the streets in June 2024, it was students and young people who were at the helm of the movement. They were demanding an end to nepotism and the introduction of real democracy.
Seven months later, Bangladesh has been left stagnant, with an interim government led by a couple of geriatric financiers with deep links to Democratic shills in the US, none of whom seem to know what they’re doing.
The economy is facing greater instability than ever before and whilst Yunus may hope for positive relations with the new leader of the free world to help alleviate his problems at home, Trump would be wise to see things differently.
Climate alarmism is a tired way to get what you want—not unlike a kid throwing a tantrum in the cereal aisle. Except begging for Froot Loops, the panicking alarmists—backed by ENGOs desperate to push their mandates through—demand more bureaucracy, heavier regulations, and political energy “solutions” that serve their agenda, not the public.
“Politicians and ENGOs gaslight the public into believing Alaska has a magic thermostat that can stop erosion, reverse damage to fisheries, and fix every other contestable issue—as long as they scream ‘CLIMATE CHANGE’!”
Climate alarmism is a tired way to get what you want—not unlike a kid throwing a tantrum in the cereal aisle. Except begging for Froot Loops, the panicking alarmists—backed by ENGOs desperate to push their mandates through—demand more bureaucracy, heavier regulations, and political energy “solutions” that serve their agenda, not the public.
Never mind that these schemes do little to actually “save the planet.” They’re really about forcing costly policies, expanding government control, and driving up energy prices, all while making people poorer for their warped vision of the future.
Here in Alaska, the opportunity is to ‘read the room’ and dial back climate exaggeration and forced energy transformation. Not so looking at Senate Bill 120, introduced this month by Senator Elvi Gray-Jackson, beginning with its 25-word title:
An Act establishing the Alaska Climate Change Emergency Response Commission; and relating to the powers and duties of the Alaska Climate Change Emergency Response Commission.
This bill begins by first adding a section of uncodified law proclaiming that the legislature finds that “a state of emergency exists because of the threat climate change poses on communities in the state, the state economy, traditional ways of life, fish and game populations, and natural ecosystems.”
While legislators do have the power to shape policy, they do not have the authority to declare an emergency—but that hasn’t stopped them from making dramatic proclamations they lack the legal power to enforce, hoping the theatrics will be enough to push their agenda forward.
The bill establishes a new 15-member commission under the governor, ensuring representation from municipal leaders across the state. The commission consists of six state departmental representatives serving by virtue of office and nine municipal representatives.
It will be the goal of the commission to advance diverse energy options, adaptive infrastructure, and CO₂ reduction strategies; as well as monitoring climate impacts. The commission will work in harmony with rural and tribal organizations through grant writing and assistance programs.
Trying to regulate CO₂ in a state that contributes less than 0.1% globally is like banning spoons to stop obesity—completely missing the point, utterly ineffective, and guaranteed to impress only the most clueless. Yet, politicians and ENGOs gaslight the public into believing Alaska has a magic thermostat that can stop erosion, reverse damage to fisheries caused by destructive fishing practices (such as trawl), and fix every other issue happening outside—as long as they hit the easy button and scream “CLIMATE CHANGE!”
It’s the ultimate political cheat code: slap the label on any complex issue, ignore the real causes (or solutions), and pretend that more regulations, more bureaucracy, and more taxpayer money will magically control nature itself.
The Real Problem
The real unprecedented threat facing Alaskans isn’t climate change. It’s a rogue, unchecked legislature that is acting like squirrels on crack, scrambling to codify every last remnant of the Green New Deal before the political winds shift. Even with the Trump administration working overtime to dismantle the bureaucratic insanity, the Democrats, all Independents and even some Republicans legislators in Alaska are in full-blown panic mode, rushing to lock in radical climate policies while they still can.
To make matters worse, rabid climate alarmist groups such as the Alaska Venture Fund, Earthjustice, and the Alaska Center will be given a clear advantage in shaping new climate policies going forward. This is an especially troubling prospect given that Earthjustice’s stated goal is to “end the extraction and burning of fossil fuels”.
Senate Bill 120 gives the commission the power to “consult and cooperate with” “public or private persons, organizations, and groups” that are “interested in, affected by, or concerned with climate change effects and response.” That’s insane. It’s the green lobby’s dream come true—an unelected commission with the power to rubber-stamp whatever radical policies special interest groups demand, all under the guise of an “emergency.”
This isn’t policymaking, it’s outsourcing Alaska’s future to the loudest, most politically connected voices in the climate-industrial complex. It is as if Harris/Waltz beat Trump/Vance, and John Podesta’s shock troops were ensconced in Fairbanks.
Governor Dunleavy Must Reject
After two rounds of public testimony and overwhelming written testimony in opposition, the fate of SB 120 hangs in the balance. With continuing evidence of climate exaggeration (here), and the rest of the country (if not world) going in the opposite direction, will Alaska’s legislature respect the people or a climate elite?
And if the bill does pass, will Governor Dunleavy veto this blatant attempt to enshrine climate hysteria into state law? Such would be a far more rational choice than cementing his legacy as part of the climate cult, allowing bureaucrats to seize even more power under the guise of an “emergency” they have no authority to declare.
Conclusion
“It does not take a majority to prevail,” wrote the father of the American Revolution, Samuel Adams, in 1775, “but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.” These words define the opportunity to repel energy statism in Alaska today.
As President Trump works with the Republican-controlled Congress to pass his big, beautiful tax bill, it is exposing some ugly truths about the policy conviction of certain GOP members.
As President Trump works with the Republican-controlled Congress to pass his big, beautiful tax bill, it is exposing some ugly truths about the policy conviction of certain GOP members.
Extending the lower tax brackets of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) was already a challenge due to the razor-thin GOP margin in the House and the federal government’s unique budget math, which mandates spending cuts to offset the estimated $4.5 trillion “cost” of not raising tax rates over the next decade.
Complicating matters, several Republican Congressman from high-tax states have been publicly agitating since election day for the repeal of the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap included in the TCJA, which would mean additional pay-fors must be found.
Now, a new fault line has developed with many of these same SALT Republicans over the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the deceptively named and structured climate legislation signed into law by President Biden.
In a public letter sent to the Chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee on March 9th, 21 Republican House members warned against repealing or reforming “current energy tax credits” as part of the reconciliation process. The letter does not mention the IRA by name, which is not surprising since no Republican—including the gang of 21 now defending it—voted in favor of the partisan climate law back in 2022.
In fact, Andrew Garbarino (NY-02), the ringleader of the breakaway Republican group, stated at the time of the IRA’s passage: “This bill is bad for Long Islanders and bad for the American people. Shame on Congressional Democrats for forcing through this irresponsible legislation to score a political win at the expense of American taxpayers.”
But that was before the free federal money started flowing.
Based on data compiled by E2, a climate advocacy group, approximately 62% of the $131 billions of clean energy projects announced since the passage of the IRA in August 2022 are located in Republican districts, along with the lion’s share of IRA energy tax credits and other subsidies dispensed to date. This is why 21 GOP members are now circling the wagons to protect the law ex post.
Making matters worse, many of the clean energy projects now being defended by these Republican guards have not moved past the approval phase or even broken ground on construction, including many greenlighted prior to the passage of the IRA. Moreover, the list of corporate sponsors includes large public U.S. companies (such as Dominion Resources and General Motors) and foreign owners, neither of which need or deserve U.S. government handouts.
In the latter case, Representative Nick LaLota (NY-01) is now going to the mattresses for a $3.8 billion offshore Long Island wind project backed by Orsted, the Danish developer that recently walked away from two offshore New Jersey wind farms after not receiving all the financial subsidies that it demanded from the Garden State.
From a spending perspective, any latter-day Republican support for the IRA is wholly indefensible given what we now know about the workings of the controversial climate law. The headline number of $369 billion in IRA clean energy spending over ten years was highly misleading. The actual figure is much higher because of the national emissions test used to sunset the law’s myriad tax credits, which effectively creates an open-ended liability for the federal government.
Recent studies by both the Breakthrough Institute and the Cato Institute have estimated the true budgetary cost of the IRA at close to $1 trillion in its first decade and upwards of $4.7 trillion by the year 2050. Basically, the IRA is a ticking fiscal time bomb for the U.S. government.
Apart from being fiscally irresponsible, promoting the continued subsidization of wind, solar and battery storage projects only abets bad energy policy at the state level. Contrary to the Republican group’s claim, cutting clean energy tax credits will not “increase utility bills the very next day.” Rather, it will do the opposite. It will help to lower energy and electricity costs for American consumers by reversing ill-conceived net-zero grid targets in blue states such as California, New Jersey and New York.
And for all the rationalization that these Republican dissenters represent swing districts and, therefore, must strike a bipartisan pose, the majority of the 21 won their current seats by five percentage points or more in November 2024. This fact should help to steel up their collective spine for making the right legislative call to repeal all the IRA’s energy tax credits with immediate effect.
The sausage-making aspect of making law is never a pretty sight, especially when unprincipled Republicans try to use green pork to clog up the machinery works.
Mr. Tice is a senior fellow at the National Center for Energy Analytics and author of “The Race to Zero: How ESG Investing Will Crater the Global Financial System.”
This article was originally published by RealClearPolicy and made available via RealClearWire.
You must be logged in to post a comment.