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.
If you have a block of steel and you put it outside in the sun, then ceteris paribus, the more sunshine it is absorbing on a constant basis, the warmer it becomes.
However, with the Earthโs climate, things are never that simple. In parts of the world, the more radiation the surface receives, the cooler it becomes.
If you have a block of steel and you put it outside in the sun, then ceteris paribus, the more sunshine it is absorbing on a constant basis, the warmer it becomes.
However, with the Earthโs climate, things are never that simple. In parts of the world, the more radiation the surface receives, the cooler it becomes. Counterintuitive, I know, but facts is facts. Figure 1 shows where that is happening.
Figure 1. Correlation of surface absorption of all radiation (shortwave and longwave) with surface temperature.
Over most of the world, the correlation is positive, meaning that when absorbed radiation goes up, the surface temperature goes up, just as happens with a block of steel.
However, the outlined blue areas show a negative correlation between temperature and absorbed radiation. In those areas, when total radiation increases, the temperature actually goes down.
Say what? How does this happen?
It happens because the blue areas mark the โIntertropical Convergence Zoneโ (ITCZ). This the the home to thousands and thousands of thunderstorms. These thunderstorms are mobile refrigeration systems operating on the exact same principle as your home refrigerator, as described below.
Refrigerators operate on a simple cycle. A โworking fluidโ, which is water in the case of a thunderstorm, evaporates in one location, cooling it down. Then the working fluid is transferred as a gas to a separate location, where it is condensed back into a liquid. Then the liquid is moved back to the first location and the cycle continues. Figure 2 shows this process.
Figure 2. How a thunderstorm acts as a refrigerator.
In addition, there are a few things that thunderstorms do that refrigerators canโt do.
First, they are a dual-fuel refrigeration cycle. Theyโre driven by low-density air rising in a column. Initially, this low-density air is created by the sun, which heats the surface, expanding the air above it and causing it to rise and form the thunderstorm.
However, once the storm is established, it kicks up strong winds around the base. Evaporation rises roughly linearly with wind speed, so this greatly increases evaporation.
Hereโs the key. Counterintuitively, water vapor is lighter than air. H2O has an atomic weight of 18. Air has an atomic weight of 29, being mostly a mix of O2 with a weight of 32 and N2 with a weight of 28. So water is only ~ 2/3 the weight of air. As a result, more evaporation gives more low-density air to fuel the thunderstorm, making it stronger. Dual-fuel.
Another factor increasing evaporation is that the thunderstorm strips the water out of the air, so the descending air around the thunderstorm is dry. This dry air can pick up more water, again increasing evaporation.
A further cooling occurs because the rain is falling from several thousand feet up in the air, where itโs much cooler. The falling rain is below the surface temperature, further lowering the surface temperature.
In addition, because the descending dry air between the thunderstorms has little of the main radiatively active gas, water vapor, this allows the surface radiation to cool faster via increased radiation into space.
This dual-fuel multi-modal-cooling nature of the thunderstorm is critical because it means that the thunderstorm can continue to exist despite cooling the surface down below the temperature necessary for the thunderstorm to emerge. Itโs not just simple linear feedback reducing warming. Instead, it actively cools the surface to a lower temperature. Thermoregulation.
And that is how in the tropical oceans, the surface temperature can be dropping despite increasing total radiation absorbed by the surface.
Hereโs another view of it. This is a scatterplot showing the relationship between total surface absorbed radiation and temperature.
Figure 3. Scatterplot showing the relationship between surface temperature and surface total absorbed radiation (shortwave plus longwave).
Clearly, the warmer it gets, the less each additional absorbed W/m2 increases the temperature. And at the top right, despite increasing power absorbed by the surface, the temperature is dropping โฆ
We can look at this another way, by comparing how warm the surface would be if there were no surface sensible and latent heat loss to the atmosphere. Figure 4 shows that relationship.
Figure 4. Scatterplot showing the relationship between surface temperature and surface total absorbed radiation (shortwave plus longwave). The scatterplot (blue dots and yellow LOWESS smooth line) are the same data as in Figure 3. The red line shows the expected S/B temperature for that amount of absorbed radiation.
There are a couple things of note in Figure 4.
First, at the bottom left of the graph, the Antarctic plateau is warmer than weโd expect. This is a result of the advection of heat from the tropics to the poles.
Next, the warmer it gets, the larger a percentage of sensible and latent (evaporative) heat is lost from the surface, leaving the surface temperature (yellow line) increasingly cooler than the theoretical S/B temperature (red line). This is strong negative feedback.
Finally, at the far right, to the right of the dotted line, the absorbed power is still increasing at a good clip โฆ but the temperature is decreasing. This is not just negative feedback โ it is active thermoregulation.
People keep saying that the climate is just โsimple physicsโ. But as in this example, where absorbed radiation goes up while temperature goes down โฆ in climate, few things are โsimple physicsโ.
My rule of thumb?
In climate, everything is connected to everything else, which in turn is connected to everything else โฆ except when it isnโt.
My best regards to all,
w.
You Know The Drill: I ask that when you comment, you quote the exact words you are discussing. I can defend my words. I canโt defend your understanding of my words.
As California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom traveled to Brazil touting his failed energy agenda in mid-November, the reality back home is unavoidable: because of his policies, Californians are paying some of the highest gas and electricity prices in the nation.
San Pablo Bay Pipeline risks closure while California refineries lose capacity
As California Democratic Gov.ย Gavin Newsomย traveled to Brazil touting his failed energy agenda in mid-November, the reality back home is unavoidable: because of his policies, Californians are paying some of the highest gas and electricity prices in the nation. Fox News has the story.
We are being crushed by the Newsom energy affordability crisis โ and itโs crippling our national security.ย
Since 2018, more than 360 energy companies have left California due to the stateโs debilitating regulations and new oil drilling permits have fallen by 95% since Newsom assumed office in 2019.
As a result,ย California has producedย nearly 128,000 fewer barrels of oil per day over the past five years โ despite holding the fifth-largest petroleum reserves in the country.
The undeniable consequence of Newsomโs refusal to support domestic production is a greater reliance on foreign oil.ย
In 1982, less than 6% of Californiaโs crude oil came from outside the United States.
Today, according to Newsomโs own California Energy Commission, that number has skyrocketed to over 60%. Brazil now accounts for 20% of our imported supply and 21% comes from Iraq.
By early 2026, the state is projected to lose nearly 20% of its remaining refining capacity, and without urgent action, blackouts, price spikes and fuel shortages will become the new normal โ not only for Californians, but for millions across the West Coast who depend on our energy supply.
This drastically impacts the viability of Californiaโs pipelines, most of which require 90,000 barrels a day in production to remain financially solvent and operational. However, due to shortages, they are barely operating at 50,000 barrels a day, causing $2 million in losses a month for operators.
Currently, Crimson Midstream, the operator of Californiaโs largest crude oil pipeline network, cannot sustain its operations because of Sacramentoโs ineptness.
ย California Democratsโ war on domestic energy productionย has created so much uncertainty that the San Pablo Bay Pipeline is now at risk of shutting down in the new year โ further destabilizing Californiaโs fragile energy supply chain and jeopardizing refinery capacity already hanging by a thread.ย
These disastrous policies have created a manmade shortage of fuel, increasing prices at the pump exponentially for working families and leading to more gasoline imports.
This will likely force California to purchase refined gasoline from oil reserves off its coast, making the state pay a higher price to buy back its own supplies.ย
But unaffordable prices arenโt the only consequence of Newsomโs war on oil. His created crisis is also undermining our military readiness.
California is home to dozens of U.S. military installations in the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.
The brave men and women who serve at our bases are capable of deploying anywhere in the world within a handful of hours, but only if they have the fuel, they need to accomplish their mission.ย
Military aviation fuels are highly specialized and of the highest grades, which Californiaโs refineries are equipped to process.
In 2024,ย Californiaโs military installationsย consumed approximately 10 million gallons of gasoline. With the two most recent refinery closures, jet fuel production is estimated to decrease by at least 600,000 gallons a day. ย
No amount of Newsomโs strategic, political headlines can hide the threat his policies pose to our national security.
The Autumn Budget is usually the largest fiscal event of the year, laying out the Governmentโs taxation and spending priorities in the coming year. Chancellor Rachel Reeves will deliver her second Budget at around lunchtime on November 26th, after Prime Ministerโs Questions. The economic backdrop to this Budget is dire to say the least.
The Autumn Budget is usually the largest fiscal event of the year, laying out the Governmentโs taxation and spending priorities in the coming year. Chancellorย Rachel Reevesย will deliver her secondย Budgetย at around lunchtime on November 26th, after Prime Ministerโs Questions. The economic backdrop to this Budget is dire to say the least.
Labour promised in its โChangeโ manifesto last year to โkickstartโ the economy in order to โsecure the highest sustained growth in the G7 โ with good jobs and productivity growth in every part of the country, making everyone, not just a few, better offโ. However, a senior Cabinet Minister admitted Britain is facing a โgrowth emergencyโ ahead of the Chancellorโs Budget. Earlier this year, a leak revealed the broad trajectory of the Office for Budget Responsibilityโs (OBR) upcoming growth forecasts, which were due to be published alongside Chancellor Rachel Reevesโs second Budget.
The leaked information indicates that the OBR has downgraded its growth projections for the UK economy from 2026 to the end of the current Parliament in 2029, its most pessimistic economic growth forecasts in 15 years. Britainโs growth potentially will be as low as 0.1% in some years, significantly worse than the previously forecast peak of 1.9% for 2026. Ms Reeves is expected to raise taxes to fund an expected ยฃ20 to ยฃ30 billion hit to the public finances from the OBRโs weaker growth outlook and higher debt costs.
Experts and business leaders warn that proposed Budget measures, such as a mansion tax and bank levy, could further hinder economic growth. Ed Al-Hussainy, an interest rate strategist at Columbia Threadneedle, an asset manager, said: โThe biggest obstacle the Labour Government has is, first and foremost, growth. Itโs had the bad luck of not being in a high-growth environment, and whatever policy levers that itโs pulled over the last 12 months havenโt worked.โ
So, modest as prospects are for the next few years, they are now worse. Yet, the Government has overseen the countryโs highest borrowing costs since 1998. The yield on 30-year Government bonds (gilts) hit 5.723% in September 2025, marking a 27-year high and surpassing previous peaks from earlier in the year. This surge reflects growing investor concerns over the UKโs fiscal outlook, economic stagnation and the Governmentโs ability to manage its debt. The situation has intensified pressure on the Chancellor to consider tax increases and spending cuts in the upcoming Budget as she faces disgruntled voters, rebellious members of her own political party and anxious bond investors.
How to Return to Growth
Against this horror-show backdrop, there are moments in a nationโs life when a book appears with almost perfect timeliness โ a work that seems to speak directly into the storm gathering overhead. Jon Moynihanโs Return to Growth is such a book. Published in two dense, forensic volumes, it arrives just as the new Labour Government prepares to unveil its first Budget this week under a stagnant economy and an anxious public bracing for yet more taxes, more regulations and more sermonising from the state. If the UK is indeed, as many analysts increasingly warn, hurtling toward an IMF-style reckoning โ a โdoom loopโ where soaring debt service costs feed a falling currency which in turn feeds yet higher borrowing costs โ Moynihanโs two volumes may prove to be the most important diagnostic manual and treatment plan available to any leader willing (and more importantly, able) to avert national decline.
Moynihan is too modest by half. Though he insists he is not an economist, he displays in these pages a keener analytical mind, a broader historical grasp and a deeper practical sense than most professors of economics in Britainโs universities. A businessman, venture capitalist and consultant by background, unencumbered by academic groupthink, he slices cleanly through the muddled orthodoxies that have trapped the UK and wider Western Europe in decades of low growth, over-regulation, bloated government, moral panics and fashionable ideologies. His thesis is simple, devastating and urgently needed: Britain โ once one of the worldโs greatest engines of prosperity โ has allowed itself to drift into the torpor of social democracy, where high taxes, high public spending and a suffocating regulatory state have crushed dynamism, productivity and growth.
As the Budget looms and the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reevesโ โRachel from Accountsโ, as some wryly call her โ prepares to lean further into the very policies that caused the problem, Moynihanโs book is essential reading for any leader hoping to rescue Britain from its accelerating descent.
The Argument: Why Growth Matters โ and Why Weโve Lost It
Moynihan structures Volume I around three pillars: the size of government, the rate of taxation and the quantity of regulation. These are not abstract economic variables. For Moynihan, they constitute the very architecture of national prosperity or decline. Across Europe, where the social-democratic model has ossified into dogma, the results are clear: barely any growth per capita for two decades, rising welfare commitments and failing public services. These are not steady-state economies. They are โbarely ticking overโ, unable to generate the surpluses required to sustain the very welfare state voters cling to. The system is, in his words, unstable and unsustainable.
The grounding for this analysis is laid out starkly in Moynihanโs first chapters. Economic growth, he argues, is not merely an instrumental good โ it is a moral imperative. The idea that affluent societies can flirt with โdegrowthโ, one of the more esoteric imports of luxury-belief elites, is savaged with statistical precision and moral clarity. Degrowth will not save the planet. In a zero-sum society, where anyone becoming richer can only be based on someone else becoming poor, it would condemn billions to shorter lives, greater disease and deeper poverty. The past two centuries of rising lifespans, falling infant mortality, dramatic expansions in material comfort and human flourishing โ none of this was produced by central plans, socialist regimes or government โindustrial strategiesโ. It was the outcome of private enterprise, competitive markets and innovation unfettered by dirigiste political fantasies. Governmentโs role in this remarkable ascent was simple: it got out of the way.
Yet Britain, like much of Europe, has forgotten this lesson. Wagnerโs Law โ that public expenditure grows inexorably as societies grow wealthier โ has combined with political incentives to produce a state swollen well beyond its productive capacity.
Politicians purchase short-term popularity with long-term unaffordable commitments, leaving future governments to pick up the bill. Moynihan points out the brutal arithmetic: as public debt rises, servicing it consumes an ever-greater share of national output. Britain is among the most indebted of developed nations, spending over ยฃ100 billion a year simply to stay afloat. The UKโs debt-to-GDP ratio is now hovering near 100% โ a level unthinkable two decades ago.
Against this background, Moynihan introduces core concepts that any first-year economics student should know but most politicians pretend do not exist: the Laffer Curve, the growth-destroying dynamics of over-taxation; the deadweight loss of regulation; and the devastating consequences of debt compounding over time. Taxes and regulations do not simply reduce growth at the margin โ they can smother entire sectors, drive investment offshore and hollow out the entrepreneurial energy of a nation. Britainโs creeping descent into this condition is now unmistakable.
What Really Kills Growth: The Regulatory Hydra
Of Moynihanโs three villains โ big government, high taxes, excessive regulation โ it is the third he reserves his sharpest criticism for. Excessive regulation, he writes, is โwhat really kills growthโ because it destroys not only present output but future possibilities.
The chapters on regulation are among the most powerful in the entire two-volume work. Here Moynihan synthesises themes as disparate as Net Zero, DEI ideology, ESG compliance, planning constraints, housing distortions, moral panics over mental health and climate change, and the metastasis of bureaucracy. What unites these trends is the relentless shift of power from ordinary citizens and businesses to regulators, quangos, civil service activist-bureaucrats and ideological networks.
Net Zero, for instance, has grown into โa festering mass of regulation, regulatory evasion, subsidy seeking and dodgy claims of successโ. Londonโs Mayor Sadiq Khan โ chair of the C40 network โ emerges as a central symbol of this overreach, promoting policies that would choke off economic growth by restricting transport, mandating lifestyle changes and imposing severe limits on travel, clothing consumption, meat and housing. The C40 vision, in Moynihanโs telling, is nothing less than an agenda of enforced austerity disguised as planetary virtue.
The same dynamic emerges with DEI and ESG. Moynihan recounts with mordant humour the disastrous McKinsey report that purported to prove that diversity produces superior corporate performance โ a study later debunked as unreproducible and empirically flimsy. But such evidence scarcely matters. Corporate HR departments have embraced DEI with the fervour of a state religion, consuming managerial time, institutional focus and financial resources โ all to pursue ideological goals that undermine meritocracy, chill free speech and distract from the only purpose of business: to serve customers.
These are not small matters. Such regulatory overreach clogs the arteries of economic life. When house-builders must navigate habitats regulations protecting bats while mass immigration inflates demand for new homes; when landlords are harassed for failing to meet impossible Net Zero requirements; when the City of London โ once an engine of global finance โ is paralysed by anti-fraud regulations that produce little reduction in fraud, one begins to see the cumulative effect Moynihan warns of. Britain is turning into a high-cost, low-growth, bureaucrat-dominated economy.
None of this is incidental. All of it is political.
Europeโs Fatal Conceit โ and Britainโs Addiction to Planning
Moynihan frames his critique in a deeper philosophical and political context in Volume II. The Western world, he argues, has succumbed to what Friedrich von Hayek famously termed the fatal conceit โ the belief that wise technocrats can manage complex economic and social systems from the centre. Whether dressed in the language of industrial policy, environmental planning, social-justice objectives or โstrategic sectorsโ, the conceit remains the same: government knows best. Reality repeatedly proves otherwise.
The UKโs ongoing delusion that Net Zero-driven central planning will deliver prosperity is the most glaring example. Britain, uniquely in the developed world, has legislated itself into an energy trap where its own abundant onshore and offshore gas reserves lie unused while it imports gas from the US and Qatar at multiples of domestic cost. Nuclear power โ the cleanest, densest, most reliable source of energy known to man โ is regulated to the point of paralysis, with new reactors costing four to five times what they cost in South Korea or the UAE. The result? Soaring electricity prices, energy-intensive industries shutting down, blackouts looming and vast wealth transfers from households to subsidised renewables (wind, solar and batteries).
Meanwhile, China โ the worldโs industrial superpower โ approves the building of two coal plants a week and continues to dominate solar and wind energy supply chains. Yet Britain blithely continues punishing itself in deference to a global virtue-signalling contest it cannot possibly win.
Immigration, Education, Planning โ The Structural Roadblocks
Appendix A of Volume I offers one of Moynihanโs most candid interventions: his brief discussion of education, immigration and planning. Here he notes problems so entrenched that no government of the past 30 years has dared to confront them.
Teachersโ unions have captured the education sector, ensuring that reforms serve their interests rather than those of children. Mass immigration โ which the OBR insists is always an economic good โ is revealed as a fiscal and infrastructural burden given the UKโs high-welfare model. Moynihan is clear: the gross inflow matters more than net migration. Highly skilled, high-earning Britons are leaving, replaced by low-skilled dependants drawn to generous social benefits. A country cannot grow when its most productive citizens depart and its least productive arrive.
Planning is the final disaster. From housing constraints to bans on drilling, Britain has wrapped itself in environmental protections and NIMBY dogmas that strangle economic dynamism.
To implement any of the reforms he recommends, Moynihan argues, the UK would have to leave the European Convention on Human Rights and rewrite its equalities legislation. The likelihood of this under the present Labour Government is, in his view, vanishingly low.
A Blueprint for Renewal โ If We Can Escape Our Doom Loop
The final chapters of Volume II lay out Moynihanโs practical programme for recovery. It is both radical in its implications and refreshingly simple in its execution:
Shrink the state
Cut taxes
Slash regulation
โLet free markets thrive, let free trade flourish and let sound money prevailโ
Restore the sanctity of contract, competition and price signals
This is not a call for libertarian utopia. It is a call for normalcy. It is a call for Britain to rediscover the source of its past greatness โ the conditions that, for two centuries, made it the richest nation on Earth.
But Moynihan ends on a sober note. He doubts that any British government will adopt these measures absent a genuine crisis. The political culture has drifted too far towards state-dependency, bureaucratic interests and Left-wing moral panics. The media, universities and quangos tilt overwhelmingly towards bigger government and more regulation. A Thatcher-style renaissance may require something akin to the late-1970s โ a moment when the collapse becomes too large to ignore. Bond markets are watching nervously, with 30-year borrowing costs now at their highest levels since 1998, as already noted.
Some suggest that the collapse of sterling followed by an IMF-led bailout may be that moment. If so, the next leader of Britain would do well to emulate Margaret Thatcherโs famous act โ slamming Hayekโs Constitution of Liberty on the Cabinet table and declaring, โThis is what we believe.โ
Except this time, Hayek will not be enough. If Hayek provides the theory, Moynihan provides the operating manual. Any leader seeking to steer Britain out of its doom loop must have Return to Growth at his or her elbow.
Jon Moynihan has written what is arguably the most detailed, clear-eyed and practically grounded analysis of Britainโs economic malaise in decades. His two-volume Return to Growth is a sweeping indictment of the social-democratic model and a masterclass in applied political economy. It is written not by an academic priesthood member but by an astute outsider who sees clearly what insiders have forgotten: that prosperity is created by individuals, not governments; that innovation thrives under freedom, not central planning; and that enduring national strength requires humility, restraint and trust in markets โ not hubris, bureaucracy and moral crusades.
As Britain enters what may prove to be the most consequential period since the 1970s, the timing of Moynihanโs intervention could not be more critical. That the Labour Government will hear him is doubtful. Whether the British public will, when the crisis bites, is another matter entirely.
One hopes that when the reckoning comes โ as it surely must โ there will be a leader prepared to take up Moynihanโs blueprint and chart the way back to growth.
Dr Tilak K. Doshi is the Daily Scepticโs Energy Editor. He is an economist, a member of the CO2 Coalition and a former contributor to Forbes. Follow him on Substack and X.
What We Should Be Grateful For in Climate, Energy, Living Standards, and Human Prosperity
Every year, as the cranberry sauce congeals and the football game drones on in the background, weโre told to โreflect on what really matters.โ Fair enough. But rarely does anyone suggest reflecting on something far more fundamental to our modern existence: the extraordinary environmental stability, energy abundance, and human progress that underpin every comfort we enjoy today.
Instead, we hear about apocalyptic tipping points, โunlivableโ futures, and the suggestion that your Thanksgiving turkey may soon be illegal unless itโs raised on insect protein and good intentions. But beneath the noise, the data tell a very different storyโone worth genuine gratitude.
Below is an extended reflectionโyes, a long one, the length youโd expect from meโcovering the things we should be thankful for when it comes to climate, energy, standard of living, and human prosperity, backed by evidence, historical perspective, and just enough wit to keep things digestible.
1. A Climate System Far More Stable Than Advertised
If you rely on headlines alone, youโd assume we live in a constant state of environmental emergency. Oceans rising by the minute. Storms โunprecedentedโ (a word the press now uses like saltโwhether needed or not). Temperatures marching upward in perfect lockstep with the worst-case models.
But the real climate story is slower, more nuanced, andโdare I sayโreassuring.
The Climate Isnโt SpiralingโItโs Drifting Gradually
What does long-term data actually show?
Warming has occurred, yesโbut at a rate far below the early alarmist projections.
Long-term historical reconstructions tell us that modern temperature variability is well within the bounds of natural swings.
Records of past warm periodsโthe Medieval Warm Period, Roman Warm Period, and Holocene Climate Optimumโremind us that warmth has historically been aย goodย thing for human flourishing.
In other words, the Earth isnโt teetering on the edge of catastrophe. Itโs behaving like it always has: with variability shaped by solar cycles, ocean currents, volcanic activity, and yes, human influenceโbut not in the runaway fashion so often claimed.
Climate/Weather Related Deaths Have Plummeted
This is one of the most underreported achievements in human history.
Roger Pielke Jr. and others (Lomborg, seen below) have shown that climate-related deaths (drought, flood, storms, heat, cold) have declined by over 95% since the early 20th century.
Why?
Not because the weather got nicer. Because we got better.
Better forecasting. Better infrastructure. Better emergency response. Better sanitation. Better agriculture. Human progressโnot atmospheric COโโis the dominant climate factor in human survival.
COโ: Not a Demon, But a Fertilizer If you want something to genuinely be thankful for, look to the data from NASA: the Earth has greened dramatically over the last 30+ years, with increased vegetation equivalent to adding a new continent of green growth.
This isnโt conjectureโitโs satellite imaging.
Plants love COโ. They perform better with more of it. Farmers know this. Botanists know this. In fact, commercial greenhouses pump COโ into their structures to enhance growth.
The irony is stunning: The same molecule that activists call pollution is also fueling global agricultural success. For example, global wheat yield:
2. Energy Abundance: The Real Foundation of Modern Life
Itโs fashionable in political circles to talk about โending fossil fuels,โ usually from people speaking into microphones, under lights, in air-conditioned roomsโall powered by fossil fuels.
But hereโs the truth:
We owe modern civilization to abundant, affordable energy.
Hospitals. Refrigeration. Data centers. Clean water. Manufacturing. Transport. Heating. None of these work without reliable, dense energy sources.
Fossil Fuels Still Provide 80% of Global Energy for a Reason
Theyโre:
Energy-dense
Affordable
Transportable
Available on demand
Scalable to billions of people
Intermittent sourcesโwind and solarโsimply cannot replace them without massive backup, land use, and expensive infrastructure.
Natural Gas Has Done More for Emissions Reductions Than Policy
This is the part climate activists hate to discuss.
Thanks to advances in natural gas production, the U.S. has:
Lowered COโ emissions more than any country in the past two decades
Reduced air pollution dramatically
Improved energy reliability
Not through regulation. Not through subsidies. But through market-driven innovation.
Nuclear Power: The Neglected Hero
Nuclear energy remains:
The most reliable low-emission energy source
The smallest land-footprint electricity source
Capable of running 24/7 for decades
Safer than almost any major industry when judged by mortality data
If energy policies were guided by evidence rather than ideology, nuclear plants would be popping up like Dollar General stores.
3. Standard of Living: Better Than Any Time in Human History
Itโs easy to forget this, because modern comforts are so normal we barely notice them.
But step back and look at the big picture.
We live in an era of unprecedented human well-being.
Consider:
Life expectancy at global all-time highs
Infant mortality at all-time lows
Access to clean water and sanitation for billions
Food production levels unimaginable a century ago
Air quality in developed nations dramatically cleaner than in the 1970s
Much of this progress is directly tied to energy availability and technological advancementsโnot climate policy.
Weather Matters Less Than Ever
Modern infrastructure shields us from the elements. Air conditioning saves millions from heat deaths. Heating saves millions from cold-related mortality (which still far exceeds heat deaths globally). Weather that once posed daily threats is now a manageable inconvenience thanks to better detection and warning systems.
To put it humorously: Your ancestors worried about freezing to death. You worry about whether your phone will survive a drop in the pool.
Thatโs progress.
4. Human Prosperity: The Real Miracle Worth Celebrating
We often take prosperity for granted because it arrived gradually. But zoom out, and the past 150 years represent a transformation unlike anything in human history.
Billions Have Escaped Extreme Poverty
According to the World Bank, global extreme poverty has fallen from 90% in 1820 to under 10% today, despite the worldโs population skyrocketing.
That improvement was not fueled by solar panels and carbon taxes. It was powered by affordable energy, industrialization, and economic freedom.
Agricultural Productivity Has Soared
Thanks to:
Mechanization Fertilizers Irrigation Crop science COโ fertilization The world produces more food, more reliably, and with less labor than ever before.
This is how weโve fed billions without turning the planet into farmland.
Freedom of Mobility, Trade, and Information Energy makes everything mobile:
Goods People Medicine Ideas You canโt operate a global medical supply chain on a wind turbine. You canโt run international commerce on battery-powered cargo shipsโat least not for the next several decades.
Energy is the circulatory system of global prosperity.
The Human Spirit: Innovation Over Fear If thereโs one thing history proves, itโs this:
Humans are far better at solving problems than predicting catastrophes. Predictions of environmental doom have failed for over 50 years:
Mass famine by the 1980s โIce-free Arctic by 2013โ Peak oil The end of snow Cities underwater by 2020 Hurricanes getting worse These predictions werenโt ignoredโthey were wrong. Meanwhile, real progress came from innovation:
Better forecasting and warnings Better infrastructure Better agricultural methods Better energy systems Better scientific understanding We have every reason to believe human ingenuity will continue to outpace environmental risks, especially if policy doesnโt get in the way.
Thanks most of all for: Prosperity Grounded in Reality This Thanksgiving, rather than giving thanks for โclimate actionโ or โnet-zero commitmentsโโpolitical slogans with poor track recordsโwe should express gratitude for things that are real, measurable, and historically unprecedented:
A remarkably stable climate Lower climate-related mortality A greener planet Abundant affordable energy Technological resilience Unmatched living standards Unprecedented global prosperity Human innovation that consistently outperforms doom predictions These are not talking points. These are facts grounded in data, history, and observation.
And theyโre worth celebratingโbecause theyโre the foundation of everything we enjoy today, from the food on our Thanksgiving tables to the warmth in our homes, to the freedom to question the prevailing narratives.
And, I would be remiss if I did not say thank you to all of you, the readers and supporters of WUWT. This coming year, weโll hit 20 years in November 2026. WUWT has outlived and outperformed every other website about climate during that time. Not one can come close to the longevity, the reach, the number of publications, or the views that we have.
So, thank you dear readers. May your day be blessed with warmth, thankfulness, joy, abundance and good cheer.
Camels and beavers that evolved in ancient forests in the Far North were perfectly adapted for our world today
Modern camels descend from giant High Arctic camels that lived in Canadaโs North before the Ice Age. (Global Mechanic/Courtesy of Handful of Films)
By Niobe Thompson, director of Frozen in Time
When you think of the Canadian High Arctic today, visions of frozen tundra, icefields and polar bears probably come to mind. But rewind the clock a little over two million years to before the last ice age, and that Northern tundra was a lush and vibrant forest paradise. It was also home to some surprising animal life, including one large mammal we now associate with scorching deserts: camels.
In Frozen in Time, a documentary from The Nature of Things,paleobiologist Natalia Rybczynski describes how a head injury in 2011 changed the way she had to live. It also gave her time to think about many fossils she and her team at the Canadian Museum of Nature have uncovered of the animals that once roamed the Far North.
A remarkable discovery
The Pliocene Epoch, spanning from 2.5 to 5 million years ago, was the warm period before the last ice age began. The Pliocene was the last time Earthโs atmosphere contained the same concentration of carbon dioxide that we see today: over 400 parts per million.
At the time,ย temperatures in the High Arctic were also about 22 C higher than today,ย Rybczynski says in the documentary โ a climate muchย like we see in modern boreal forest in Canada.ย As a result, the Arctic was covered in birch, larch, pine and even cedar trees, blanketing the landscapeย all the way to the northern shores of Ellesmere Island and Greenland.
These dense forests were home to many of the animals we now associate with the Pliocene, such asย mammoths and mastodons, but alsoย those found in modern boreal habitats:ย beavers, bears, geese, horses and caribou.
From 2006 to 2009, a research team led by the Canadian Museum of Nature discovered 30 camel fragments on Ellesmere Island in Nunavut. Scientists dated the remains to 3.5 million years, the mid-Pliocene Epoch, a global warm phase when the region was cloaked in boreal forest. Collagen fingerprinting, a cutting-edge science pioneered at the University of Manchester in England, confirmed that the bones belonged to a camelid.
And in 2013, a team of scientists led by Rybczynski announced a remarkable discovery. At the site of anย ancient Pliocene river on Ellesmere Islandย called Fyles Leaf Beds, they uncoveredย fragments of a leg bone belonging to a 3.5-million-year-old camel.ย The findย made headlinesย around the world and suggested that modern camels descended from a High Arctic ancestor.
Evolved in the Arctic, perfect for the desert
High Arctic camels were giant versions of modern camels, and they evolved in a forest world unlike any we know today. Because they lived close to the North Pole, the sun would disappear for nearly half the year, before shining down for nearly 24 hours a day during the polar summer.
Many of the features of the camel that help them survive in deserts today may have originated as adaptations to this punishing environment, Rybczynski says in Frozen in Time.
Their hump โ a specialized fat deposit โ would have helped them through long, cold winters. Camels have excellent night vision, handy when it is dark for almost half the year. And their wide feet that work so well in sand today would have been perfect in snow 3.5 million years ago.
The desert camel, the habits of beavers, bear hibernation, fall colours โ all features of the natural world today that may have evolved in the weird Arctic forest world that came to an end with the encroaching glaciers of the last ice age.
โFor me, itโs hard to stop imagining all those natural features of our environment, all passed down from a hotter past when forests could grow in the Arctic,โ Rybczynski says in the documentary.
โIn so many ways, the lost forests of the High Arctic were kind of like a Garden of Eden โ the cradle of our boreal forest ecosystem today.โ
FOUR years ago in Glasgow, Alok Sharma burst into tears when delegates at COP26 refused to agree to the phasing out of coal. Four years on, little has changed.
โซ But where are the clowns? Send in the clowns Donโt bothะตr, theyโre herะต โซ
FOUR years ago in Glasgow, Alok Sharma burst into tears when delegates at COP26 refused to agree to the phasing out of coal. Four years on, little has changed.
As I predicted before COP30 began, a last-minute agreement was struck, which ended up satisfying nobody, following threatened walkouts and tantrums.
A minority of countries, led by the UK and the EU, wanted the agreement to include a legally binding roadmap on how and when the world would transition away from fossil fuels โ something that the world had committed to in principle at COP28. Such a roadmap would put meat on the bones of what had been no more than a vague promise to do something at some stage in the future.
A majority of countries opposed the UKโs plan, which had been strenuously argued by Ed Miliband. Although fingers were pointed at the Arab oil states, it was China and India, supported by many Asian and African nations, whose economies depend on fossil fuels and who need them to improve the lot of their people, that kiboshed the idea.
The UK and EU, along with a small handful of Latin American countries and Pacific Islands, even sent a letter to the COP President, threatening to block any agreement that did not include a firm commitment to phase out fossil fuels. But it was all to no avail, as the COP presidency simply ignored their demands and offered them a โtake it or leave itโ choice instead. In humiliating fashion, the UK and EU had to back down.
The final deal made no mention of a roadmap or even included stronger language about phasing out fossil fuels. The only mention was a passing โacknowledgementโ of the transition already agreed at COP28. Miliband had to suck it up, pathetically claiming that the meeting was a โstep forwardโ. He did not mention the two steps back!
One of the takeaways of Belem has been the eclipse of Europe as a force in world politics. No longer does the rest of the world pay attention to anything pipsqueaks like Miliband and Wopke Hoekstra, the EU Climate Commissioner, have to say. After all, why should any developing nation be denied cheap, abundant fossil fuel energy on the say-so of those two? In truth, this was the COP when pious platitudes met cold harsh reality. And cold harsh reality won.
While rich Western countries are still determined to pursue Net Zero regardless of the cost and damage entailed, the rest of the world long ago worked out that fossil fuels are an essential, not a luxury.
The other main topic of discussion was money. Once again, poorer countries went away empty-handed, despite a meaningless agreement to triple climate adaptation funds from the existing level of around ยฃ35billion a year. I say meaningless, because this will still have to be funded out of the same ยฃ259billion fund promised for 2035 at last yearโs COP29.
Miliband and the EU were doubly disappointed that their attempts to get China and the Arabs, still unbelievably classed as โdevelopingโ nations, to pay their fair share fell on deaf ears. Maybe Miliband might get Rachel from Accounts to explain where she will get the money to pay for all this aid.
There was even little in the agreement about stopping deforestation, despite this being close to Brazilian President Lulaโs heart.
But never mind! As the BBCโs Georgina Rannard was thrilled to announce, COP30 did pass a new โGender Action Planโ. So thatโs all right then!
What was the point of it all? Some 50,000 flew into Belem to attend the conference, including more than 200 from Britain. Thousands more came to protest outside the centre. The BBC even sent 16 staff, who wandered around with their usual sense of self-importance. Huge swathes of rainforest were destroyed to build new roads.
And all for what?
Since the heady days of Paris ten years ago, emissions have continued to climb. Despite successive COP talking shops, the world is no nearer to cutting emissions in the foreseeable future, never mind phasing them out completely.
COP30 clings to the mantra of limiting warming to 1.5C from Little Ice Age levels, maintaining the fallacy that it is still โwithin reachโ. That always was an impossible mirage; indeed, we have already got close to 1.5C without any detrimental effects whatsoever.
As the BBC put it, โone observer said theyโd never seen so many people so underwhelmed by so little progress at a COPโ.
Thanksgiving 2025 brings something America hasnโt seen much of in recent years: lower prices.
According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, the cost of a classic Thanksgiving dinner for ten people dropped about 5% this year, landing at $55.18. After years of grocery-store sticker shock, thatโs welcome relief. And it stands in sharp contrast to 2022, when the same meal hit a record high of more than $64.05, the most expensive Thanksgiving in history.
Food prices donโt rise or fall in a vacuum. Energy is baked into every step of the supply chain โ the fertilizer, the transportation, the processing, and the packaging. When energy costs drop, families feel it. And when energy costs spike, families feel that even more. Thatโs why Thanksgiving affordability is a story about more than turkey prices โ itโs a story about American energy dominance.
Look at the gas pump. Theย national average gasoline priceย in November during the Biden years has hovered around $3.47 per gallon, compared to $2.68 during President Trumpโs time in office. That difference is real money for families traveling for the holidays, and it shapes the cost of everything on the table. More affordable energy means more affordable food โ itโs that simple.
And hereโs the part the left hopes you forget when Thanksgiving dinner hit its record in 2022, not a single Democrat feigning outrage about โaffordabilityโ today said a word. When gas prices shattered records and families were getting crushed at the pump, eco-leftists were buying silence in bulk. The same politicians who now pretend to champion kitchen-table economics didnโt care when American families were actually feeling the pain.
They claim to love the word โaffordabilityโ now, but while they are pretending to care, they might want to look in their own backyards because state-level green mandates and fuel standards still punish consumers unevenly.
Using AAAโs state averages, the five most expensive states for gas are all blue. The five cheapest are all solid-red.
When you look at where gas is most and least affordable, thereโs a Grand Canyon-level divide. In states where the eco-leftโs mandates and fuel standards dominate โ California, Hawaii, Washington, and Oregon โ drivers are paying the highest prices in America, averaging about $4.19 per gallon. But in states that embrace American energy instead of punishing it โ places like Oklahoma, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arkansas โ the average price is $2.63 per gallon. You donโt have to be a political expert to see that there is a premium charge for filling up in states that embrace the green agenda.
Thatโs a $1.56 per-gallon penalty for living under eco-left energy policy. Itโs not ideology โ itโs math. And it means a family driving a few hundred miles for Thanksgiving in California is paying dramatically more than a family traveling the same distance in Oklahoma or Mississippi.
So as we gather this year, we have a lot to be thankful for. We live in the greatest country in the world. The Thanksgiving meal is cheaper. Travel is more affordable. And Americaโs energy workers continue to prove that when politicians get out of the way, the result is lower costs, stronger supply, and more green in our wallets.
This Thanksgiving, the green agenda lost โ and American families won.
Larry Behrens is an energy expert and the Communications Director for Power The Future. He has appeared on Fox News, ZeroHedge, and NewsMax speaking in defense of American energy workers. You can follow him on X/Twitter @larrybehrens
This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.
A poster called Camus quotes from and links to a 3-minute video by Professor Bret Weinstein, who links climate activism to the sexual revolution, itself propelled by the availability of birth control & abortion.
I donโt usually post about a tweet, but this one was particularly striking.
A poster called Camus quotes from and links to a 3-minute video by Professor Bret Weinstein, who links climate activism to the sexual revolution, itself propelled by the availability of birth control & abortion. (Click on โShow moreโ for Camusโs excellent summary of Bret Weinsteinโs thesis):
Bret Weinstein just said something that wonโt leave my head: For the first time in 300,000 years of human evolution, we removed the cost from the single biggest reward nature ever invented โ sex and pair-bonding.
For those who (like me) are allergic to videos, I transcribe the relevant part of Weinsteinโs thesis:
What I think has happened is [โฆ] the sexual revolution creates the opportunity to get one off the most profound rewards, in fact the most profound reward that the universe has ever produced as far as we know, without having to invest very much work at all. By making sex common, it totally altered the way people viewed the number of years they had to live. They could afford to put off child-rearing. It could be distant in the future, which left all of these young people with all of this energy, who might well not have been involved in movements if they were struggling to raise a familyโฆ What people do is that they take the energy, the seriousness of purpose that they would ordinarily be directed into managing a marriage and the role of being a parent and they put it into something.
And Heather has pointed out that this is especially powerful with young women, who seem to take on causes, and they defend them like a mother defending her child. Thatโs a very powerful force.ย And the point is, if the idea is, well, climate change is a threat, and your role here on earth is to make sure that that threat is addressed, and you put the mama bear energy into climate change work, well, you know, thatโs pretty frightening, especially if climate change isnโt the threat that itโs been made out to be. You have a large number of mama bears doing this ferocious work, and thereโs a question about what it even is..
Wikipedia notes that she & her husband took their university to court and won damages for failing to โprotect its employees from repeated provocative and corrosive verbal and written hostility based on race, as well as threats of physical violence,โ and that they refused to be vaccinated against Covid and took Ivermectin โ obvious crimes against humanity to all right (Wiki) minded people.
Wiki also points out bad reviews of her book (in the Guardian and elsewhere) which claim that the book โfaltered when the authors claim expertise beyond their own fields such as in matters related to politics.โ
There is no acknowledged academic field which studies the origins of the madness of climate hysteria. Weโre all amateurs, so we can all join in the discussion. But, as youโll know from Andy Westโs book โThe Grip of Culture โ the Social Psychology of Climate Change Catastrophism,โ
You must be logged in to post a comment.