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.
This is not supposed to be happening, according to the climate models.
Symbol image: NASA
While the headlines relentlessly holler about “exploding global warming” and “dramatic melting” of the polar caps, the South Pole is telling a starkly different story.
On October 15, the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station registered an astonishing temperature of minus 61.3 degrees Celsius and it isn’t even winter there. It’s springtime and temperatures should be on the rise.
Coldest October since 1981
According to Report 24, the numbers are clear: It was the coldest October measured at the station since 1981.
This extreme cold is not an isolated event. As the article points out, even CNN reported in 2021 that the continent had experienced its coldest winter since records began.
The data from stations like Amundsen-Scott, Vostok, and Dome C show that instead of a linear, CO₂-driven heating trend, the South Pole is dominated by naturally occurring, extreme temperature fluctuations, including pronounced cold snaps.
Natural factors dominate
This directly contradicts the dominant narrative that “extreme heat is the new normal” and challenges the core assumption that the trace gas CO₂ is the overwhelming, all-determining factor in our climate system. Climatological mechanisms like stratospheric waves, polar vortex stability, and cloud cover appear to be the actual drivers of weather events.
Even growing colder
For decades, we’ve been told that polar regions would experience the strongest warming. Yet, the Antarctic region has stubbornly resisted, in some parts even growing colder.
The Report 24 article argues that this recurring cold record is a “nail in the coffin of the CO₂ dogma.” If carbon dioxide were truly the dominant climate control knob, such an extreme, decades-long cold minimum shouldn’t be happening.
The underlying models—like the IPCC forecasts from the 1990s—have systematically overestimated temperature trends. When faced with such real-world deviations, one must ask: are the climate models flawed, or is the CO₂-centric theory of climate incomplete?
For those politicians and policymakers who are basing sweeping, economy-altering decisions on the idea that the “science is settled,” the stubborn cold of the South Pole presents a critical challenge that can no longer be ignored.
Despite the fact that spring is currently turning into summer at the South Pole, temperatures have dropped to their lowest levels in the past 40 years. 🥶 On October 15, 2025, the Amundsen–Scott Station at the geographic South Pole recorded a temperature of –61.3 °C at 07:00… pic.twitter.com/tQAMD6uBTO
After strong decreases from the 2015 El Niño and the 2022 Tonga eruption, Antarctic sea ice continues to recover. Its extent in September was 0.5 million km² higher than last year and 0.75 million higher than in 2023. Models cannot explain this recovery.https://t.co/HxnYTGXIHMpic.twitter.com/YcJewcWzqF
The NASA GRACE satellite, "indicates that between 2002 and 2020, Antarctica shed approximately 150 gigatons of ice per year." That sounds like a lot but let's compare that to the total amount of ice in Antarctica, which is 25,000,000 gigatons. So, at the current pace, it will… pic.twitter.com/82Ss8ZkdMO
— Dr. Matthew M. Wielicki (@MatthewWielicki) March 12, 2025
Millions of Americans were horrified when Charlie Kirk was murdered in cold blood. Then came an even bigger shock: large numbers of people celebrated his death and danced on his grave.
Millions of Americans were horrified when Charlie Kirk was murdered in cold blood. Then came an even bigger shock: large numbers of people celebrated his death and danced on his grave.
Sickening as it is, this shouldn’t surprise anyone. The left has long harbored — or at least tolerated — an anti-human streak, and nowhere is it more visible than in its radical environmental wing.
Left-wing misanthropy rears its ugly head when it comes to issues like abortion, euthanasia, and criticizing the traditional family. But radical environmentalism carries the same core belief: human beings are the problem. If we just had fewer human beings doing less, the idea goes, the world would be a better place.
Radical environmentalists preach the gospel of demographic decline, arguing that having fewer children cuts carbon more than a lifetime of bike riding and composting. Some environmentalists made the not-so-subtle point that thanks to the death and lockdowns of COVID-19, “nature is healing.” One recent study found that environmental activists, consumed by their mission, often tend to “manipulate and deceive others” and demonstrate “callousness” and “lack of empathy.” When saving the planet is the goal, who has time for people’s feelings?
The logic is clear: humans are the problem. Not the behavior of industry or the pace of innovation — but people themselves.
Of course, that doesn’t mean environmental activists have their fingers on a trigger. Thinking the world would be better off with fewer people doesn’t make one a killer. But a movement that treats human beings as the enemy breeds a mindset where life itself can be dismissed, devalued, or even cheered when lost.
How do you get so many people celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk? You get it in a movement that finds an environmental bright side to a deadly pandemic, that sees people as problems to be overcome, and that holds up abortion as a win for the earth. To too many, life becomes unwelcome when, in their opinion, that life starts causing more harm than good.
The result of this line of thinking brought to its logical conclusion is the despicable display recently put on by prominent University of Pennsylvania Professor Michael Mann.
Despite being one of the most prominent climate “experts” with a perch in the lofty heights of the Ivy League, Mann callously wrote after Kirk’s assassination that “the white on white violence has gotten out of hand” and retweeted a post calling Kirk “the head of Trump’s Hitler Youth.”
Yet Mann isn’t just morally reckless; he’s factually wrong. A review of 1,500 climate policies found that his preferred approach of top-down government regulation fails, while free-market solutions actually reduce carbon emissions. President Trump’s pro-energy policies and embrace of cleaner natural gas helped cut carbon emissions to the lowest level in 25 years in his first term. President Trump is also laser-focused on holding China accountable for its economic practices. China is the world’s foremost polluter, yet this appears to be an “inconvenient truth” for environmentalists on the left.
Sadly, the activists on the environmental left seem immune to the facts. Or, maybe, they just haven’t heard them.
Radical environmentalists like Michael Mann are organizing, teaching, and shaping the next generation in ways that are anti-human, anti-freedom, and anti-Western. Thus far, they’ve done so unopposed. But conservatives can’t continue to cede this battlefield.
If we want to effectively combat left-wing misanthropy, we must engage in the climate debate — and we must offer a hopeful counterpoint to the left’s dark narratives, wherever they take hold.
No matter what many of the left seem to believe, people aren’t the problem. In fact, if Charlie Kirk’s life proved anything, it’s that even one person can change the world for the better.
The latest entry in the pantheon of techno-utopian space fantasies is Reflect Orbital, a startup that proposes to launch 4,000 space mirrors by 2030 to beam sunlight onto solar farms at night, grow crops after dark, and even replace urban streetlights. According to the article from NextBigFuture, the company has already raised $20 million in venture funding and boasts a $1.2 million SBIR grant. Their plan: deploy lightweight Mylar mirrors, each about 54 meters in diameter, into a sun-synchronous orbit around 600 kilometers above Earth, reflecting sunlight onto targeted areas on the ground.
The latest entry in the pantheon of techno-utopian space fantasies is Reflect Orbital, a startup that proposes to launch 4,000 space mirrors by 2030 to beam sunlight onto solar farms at night, grow crops after dark, and even replace urban streetlights. According to the article from NextBigFuture, the company has already raised $20 million in venture funding and boasts a $1.2 million SBIR grant. Their plan: deploy lightweight Mylar mirrors, each about 54 meters in diameter, into a sun-synchronous orbit around 600 kilometers above Earth, reflecting sunlight onto targeted areas on the ground.
On paper, it sounds like a Bond villain’s dream mixed with Silicon Valley marketing — “solar energy at night, no infrastructure needed.” But a closer look at the physics and economics reveals this as more of a speculative curiosity than a viable energy solution. If anything, it reflects not sunlight but the bright glare of investor enthusiasm for ideas that defy basic arithmetic.
Let’s start with the hard numbers. At that 600 km altitude, each mirror would illuminate a spot roughly 6 kilometers across — an area of about 28 square kilometers. The reflected light intensity from a 54-meter mirror would be just 0.04 watts per square meter, roughly 30,000 times dimmer than midday sunlight and only about twice as bright as a full moon. That’s the first red flag: a single mirror doesn’t even make for decent reading light.
To achieve any useful boost for a solar farm, the company would have to concentrate thousands of mirrors on one spot. The article estimates 5,000 mirrors would yield about 200 W/m², or around 15–20% of normal daylight intensity — barely enough to get photovoltaic panels to function at a fraction of their efficiency. But to sustain that continuously, it would require over 1,000 handoffs per hour, since each mirror would sweep past the target area for only a few minutes. The coordination challenges alone would make air traffic control look like child’s play.
From a physics standpoint, the idea borders on self-parody. The solar flux at Earth’s orbit is about 1,360 W/m² but spreading that energy over a 28 km² patch from a 54-meter reflector results in a faint shimmer, not a sunbeam. To achieve full sunlight intensity on the ground, the company would need mirrors 9 kilometers in diameter — a structural and economic absurdity. The thin films available today can handle maybe 150–200 meters in practical deployment, orders of magnitude smaller than what physics demands.
Even ignoring physics, the economics collapse under their own weight. The article bluntly notes that for a 1 GW solar farm, battery storage outperforms mirrors economically at roughly $0.05/kWh versus $0.10+/kWh for mirrored illumination. And that’s before factoring in launch costs, mirror degradation, and orbital maintenance. To maintain 4,000 active satellites, Reflect Orbital would face continuous replacement cycles and escalating debris risks. The idea that this could compete with terrestrial solutions like batteries or grid interconnection is, frankly, wishful thinking.
Then comes the environmental irony. The company markets its project as a green solution, but as the NextBigFuture readers quickly point out, the unintended consequences would be profound. One commenter warns: “It’s like these people are hellbent on destroying the night sky… every species of animal with circadian rhythms [would] get wrecked”. Another astutely notes the absurdity of trying to fight global warming by increasing the amount of sunlight hitting Earth’s surface: “Spending time and resources in that direction seems insane”.
Indeed, that paradox deserves attention. If one accepts the mainstream climate narrative — that a mere 0.1% change in Earth’s radiation balance drives measurable warming — then adding hundreds of square kilometers of reflected sunlight to the night side of the planet is an environmental experiment of questionable wisdom. The night sky would never be truly dark again, and the project could introduce a new form of light pollution on a planetary scale, something astronomers already battle due to satellite constellations like Starlink.
From a systems perspective, Reflect Orbital suffers from what can only be called the Silicon Valley Space Syndrome: the belief that any physical constraint can be overcome by clever branding and enough venture capital. The startup’s goal to expand from 4,000 mirrors to 250,000 units in the long term is so detached from economic reality that it reads more like a pitch deck fantasy than a technical roadmap. The mirrors might each weigh only 16 kilograms, but launching a quarter million of them, even at a bargain rate of $2,000/kg, implies hundreds of billions in deployment costs. Yet the founders claim they can solve nighttime solar generation with $20 million. That’s not optimism — that’s marketing theater.
The broader issue here is not merely the implausibility of the project but the recurring pattern of investor credulity. Concepts like space-based solar reflection have circulated for decades, from Soviet-era experiments to China’s 2018 proposal to light up Chengdu at eight times the brightness of the full moon. Each time, they generate headlines, attract funding, and quietly fade once the math catches up. Yet the persistence of such schemes underscores how little due diligence some investors perform when “climate tech” is attached to a press release.
In the end, Reflect Orbital is a perfect case study in how technological enthusiasm can outpace thermodynamic reality. The company’s physics doesn’t check out; its economics don’t close; and its environmental logic contradicts its stated goals. If built, it would likely contribute more to orbital clutter and light pollution than to the world’s energy supply. But as an investment story, it shines brightly — at least until investors realize that the illumination on offer is about as useful as moonlight for growing crops.
Reflect Orbital’s plan to light up the night sky might succeed — just not in the way it intends. It will illuminate the widening gap between technological imagination and physical possibility, and the even wider gap between venture capital dreams and economic sense. Like a mirror catching sunlight, it dazzles briefly — before fading into the cold dark of space.
It was just a couple of weeks ago — October 3 to be precise — that I reported that the long-running “net zero” political consensus in the UK was finally “crumbling.” In the intervening two-plus weeks, the slow crumbling has turned into a rapid collapse.
It was just a couple of weeks ago — October 3 to be precise — that I reported that the long-running “net zero” political consensus in the UK was finally “crumbling.” In the intervening two-plus weeks, the slow crumbling has turned into a rapid collapse.
The biggest roadblock for opponents of a green energy transition in the UK has been that the Conservative Party, which should have been the natural home of opposition to net zero, has instead long (and foolishly) allied itself with the net zero cause. In June 2019, the Conservatives (under Prime Minister Theresa May) put through an ambitious amendment to enhance the net zero targets of the 2008 Climate Act and then proceeded to a general election that December where they won a substantial majority of 365 seats (in a parliament of 650). In subsequent years, a parliamentary faction in the House of Commons called the Net Zero Scrutiny Group struggled to get to about 50 or so Conservative members, who were far outnumbered by the opposing faction of the same party called the Conservative Environment Network. The UK voters had surely demonstrated their climate virtue.
But unfortunately things did not work out quite as they had anticipated. Energy bills accelerated until, as reported in the Telegraph on September 30 and then here on October 3, UK electricity bills have become the highest in the world. De-industrialization has set in and worsened. Britain’s last primary blast furnace steel works at Port Talbot closed in September 2024. A final rolling mill at Scunthorpe, now under Chinese ownership, threatened to close earlier this year until the government intervened. Similar reports of factory closures come regularly from all energy-intensive industries.
On October 6, immediately after my prior post, the Conservatives held a party conference in Manchester. One of the speakers was Claire Coutinho, the Shadow Energy Secretary. Her speech was an incredible breath of fresh air and marked a dramatic u-turn from prior Conservative energy policy. The title was “Energy Is Prosperity.” Some excerpts:
In the last few decades, we’ve lost sight of a simple truth. Energy is a good thing. Conservatives know that great eras of British growth and prosperity happen when we have an abundance of cheap, reliable energy. . . . [E]nergy is not just part of the economy. It is the economy. It feeds into the costs of every business, every journey, every loaf of bread. . . . That’s why right now, the cost of energy is one of the biggest problems we have. It’s a stealth tax that is making us all poorer. And it’s killing our industry.
The Conservatives have finally figured out that the net zero agenda is a program to make the people poorer in sacrifice to the climate religion. More from Coutinho’s speech:
[H]ere’s the problem with the Left – they’re infected with a poverty mindset. They believe that Britain has a duty to make itself poorer on the altar of Net Zero. And they think that ordinary people should be the servants of their climate targets. So, take air conditioning. In America, nearly every single home has air con. Here in Britain? Just 5%. But Sadiq Khan’s London Plan effectively bans air con in all new homes – why? Because it uses too much energy. Rather than people fitting into the Government’s policy on energy, I believe a Conservative energy policy should serve the needs of the people.
Maybe I’m crazy, but I suspect that opposition to a program of intentional impoverishment of the people ought to be an electoral winner. The Labour Party and its Energy Minister, Ed Miliband, continue even now to claim that building more wind turbines will make electricity cheaper. But that claim is based on pretending that huge costs of intermittency, backup, storage, and transmission don’t exist. It has taken a long time for the reality of those costs to become clear, but the truth is now out.
Most notable was the revelation that the gas supply margin this winter is the lowest in years and down by 34 per cent over last year, a change [National Gas] attributes to the dwindling supply of gas being extracted from the North Sea. . . . 1960s-vintage power plants were brought online on command to cover tight margins several times in recent winters. Yet they have now all powered down for good, cut off from the national grid and are being demolished. Indeed, just days before today’s announcement of potential “tight days”, fresh footage of some of the final coal-powered power stations in the UK being dramatically dynamited was published.
I’m not going to predict that Britain will definitely experience major blackouts this winter. But the risk is far higher than it was just a few years ago, and that risk will continue to increase in coming years, until Britain can get itself to build more dispatchable generation, which in anything less than 15 years means natural gas or coal.
And it is not just the Shadow Energy Minister who has caught on. In today’s New York Post there is an op-ed by Kemi Badenoch, the new Conservative Party leader and prospective PM should the Conservatives win the next election. (It is not obvious that they will do so, since the next election could be years away, and another party called Reform UK — also net zero opponents — leads both Labour and the Conservatives in the polls.). Ms. Badenoch’s op-ed covers multiple topics, including immigration and the Middle East as well as energy. Here are some things she has to say on the topic of energy:
[A] place I agree with this White House is on energy. Cheap energy is the foundation of a growing economy. No serious politician can talk about putting money in people’s pockets if they’re also doing things that make energy bills more expensive. . . . [I]n Britain, Labour ministers are so obsessed with chasing net-zero targets that they’re making life harder for ordinary families. . . . We’re sitting on North Sea oil and gas, yet the government refuses to grant new licenses. We’re now in the crazy position of importing gas from our near-neighbors Norway, who are getting stuck into those same oil fields in the North Sea.
The Conservatives came close to destroying the party by joining the Left’s net zero crusade. The current u-turn may or may not be enough to save the party. However, adding the Conservatives’ position in the polls to that of Reform UK would indicate that opposition to net zero is now close to if not an absolute majority electoral position. That represents an enormous swing in a few short years.
Jusper Machogu from Kisii, Kenya, discusses significant progress in his community, including the introduction of electricity, clean water access, and LPG for cooking. Despite obstacles such as local political interference and limited internet infrastructure, his initiatives aim to improve living standards for many families. Jusper also reflects on his experiences dealing with international perceptions and the potential for future development in Africa.
Jusper Machogu from Kisii, Kenya, discusses significant progress in his community, including the introduction of electricity, clean water access, and LPG for cooking. Despite obstacles such as local political interference and limited internet infrastructure, his initiatives aim to improve living standards for many families. Jusper also reflects on his experiences dealing with international perceptions and the potential for future development in Africa.
00:00 Introduction and Welcome Back 00:38 Community Improvements and Achievements 01:19 Challenges and Solutions in Water Access 03:25 Electrification Efforts and Impact 05:04 Personal Contributions and Skills 06:05 Media Misrepresentation and Fundraising Issues 10:43 Travel Challenges and Experiences 14:43 Internet and Technology in Kenya 24:56 Appliances and Daily Life in the Community 28:41 Navigating Local Transportation in Kenya 29:23 The Rise of Online Education 31:32 The Role of the Internet in Daily Life 33:16 Family and Community Support 35:30 Climate Change and Political Views 39:07 International Exposure and Networking 42:36 Challenges in African Conferences 48:29 Political Aspirations and Community Work 54:13 Future Plans and Final Thoughts
Approximately 75% of the increase in the global ocean heat content must be NATURAL OR attributed to an increase in solar forcing.
The manifestation of what is commonly referred to as “global warming” is predominantly (93%) depicted as an increase in ocean heat content (OHC). Only 1% is indicated by an increase in surface air temperatures. Rising OHC is the parameter of modern warming.
According to Levitus et al. (2012) the 1955-2010 temperature increase corresponding to the rise in OHC amounts to just 0.09°C in the 0-2000 m layer.
A new study calls attention to the abrupt warming and cooling OHC trends since 1955 in this dataset that cannot be attributed to linearly-rising CO2 emissions.
The OHC changes manifest short-term “periods with a very strong +0.8 W/m² (1970-1980) as well as a very strong negative -0.7 W/m² radiation imbalance (1963-1970). But also, a period with an almost perfect radiation balance (1980-1990).”
In contrast, the increase in forcing from the gradual rise in CO2 is wholly inconsistent with these dramatic decadal-scale fluctuations.
“[T]he almost constant forcing rate from GHGs [greenhouse gases] cannot have triggered these abrupt radiation imbalance shifts [and therefore] the dramatic radiation balance shifts must have been triggered by natural events.”
It is estimated that ¾ of the rising ocean heat content (OHC) trend since 1955 must be natural, or due to the “rising solar input” associated with the decline in cloud (and aerosol) albedo. In sum, rising CO2 “cannot explain the observed [OHC] trends.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.