Day: December 19, 2025

Al Jazeera is Wrong, Climate Change Is Not Responsible for Indonesian Flooding

Al Jazeera blames climate change for recent deadly flooding in Indonesia, in a post titled “Indonesia counts human cost as more climate change warnings sounded.” There is no justification for blaming climate change for recent flooding, as there is no long-term trend in precipitation there. In fact, despite the title, Al Jazeera actually spends little time on the climate angle. Rather, the article describes land use and development as a major driver of recent floods.

Close-up of falling water droplets creating a curtain of water against a blue background.

From ClimateRealism

By Linnea Lueken

Al Jazeera blames climate change for recent deadly flooding in Indonesia, in a post titled “Indonesia counts human cost as more climate change warnings sounded.” There is no justification for blaming climate change for recent flooding, as there is no long-term trend in precipitation there. In fact, despite the title, Al Jazeera actually spends little time on the climate angle. Rather, the article describes land use and development as a major driver of recent floods.

The subtitle of the post reads “Indonesia reports 1,000 dead and close to 1 million displaced from rains, as a report points at the threat posed by climate change and ecosystem decline across Asia.” Aside from the subtitle, the article only once mentions climate change when it says the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has issued a report warning that “the impact of climate change on Asia’s water systems poses a risk to billions.”

No more detail is given in the article, in what is clearly a halfhearted attempt to link climate change to Indonesia’s recent extreme flooding. Perhaps it is to drive readership and divert attention from the true human causes for the devastation, which are almost entirely local in origin.

While it is true that the modest warming of the past century-plus has also been accompanied by more precipitation on average in some parts of the world, it is not true that it directly leads to increased flooding. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change admits that it has “low confidence” in even the sign of any trend towards more or less flooding. In fact, other factors, some discussed by Al Jazeera, have a more direct connection to recent flooding than modest changes in precipitation.

Long term precipitation data for Indonesia from the World Bank Group show that, while recent years have seen elevated annual precipitation, it’s not part of a long term sustained upward trend. Older data are spotty, but the 1960s through the 1990s had lower rainfall, with the lowest sustained point in the early 1990s. Since then, precipitation in the region has slowly recovered. Recent years are high, but not dramatically so, and not higher than in the past when carbon dioxide levels were lower. (See figure below)

Graph showing the observed time series of annual precipitation in Indonesia from 1901 to 2024, with blue lines indicating annual mean precipitation and a smoothed curve representing five-year trends.

As discussed in this previous Climate Realism post about recent flooding in Southeast Asia, the region has annual and decadal fluctuations in its monsoon season that are completely natural. The entire region has always been extremely flood prone as part of the natural large regional tropical climate.

Early in the Al Jazeera article, the outlet admits as much, pointing out that Indonesia’s rainy season “frequently brings severe flooding.” They do not claim that this is historically unusual.

However, the article gets interesting when it emphasizes multiple times that “rapid deforestation, unregulated development, and degraded river basins have increased the risks” of flooding. Failures to fund important infrastructure projects, like water, flood, and sewage management, are also blamed, as is “conversion of land to other uses.”

Rice is a staple crop in Indonesia because the region can rely on pooling water and a lot of rain, which means it is naturally prone to flooding. When land that was once used to grow rice is paved over, there is no longer anywhere for the water to go, except down the new streets and into homes and businesses. This is a major problem for cities, towns, and villages located in river basins and flood prone areas, not just in Indonesia but everywhere in the world.

Deforestation contributes to the damage caused when it rains hard too. Because tree roots that once held the soil and loose rock in place on the mountainsides of Indonesia are removed, when it rains a lot, the mountainside will come down into the valleys where people build their homes and towns as a deadly landslide. Again, this will have a larger impact on flooding than a slight increase in annual precipitation. It’s also something that can be fixed.

It is also important to note that Jakarta is particularly prone to flooding because it is in a river delta, already below sea level, and has been experiencing severe land subsidence from groundwater removal that has been excessive due to an explosion in illegal wells.

Al Jazeera tried to cram a climate narrative into a story about poor infrastructure, poor land use planning, and government mismanagement of infrastructure funding, but the narrative doesn’t work. The story provides no evidence that climate change is responsible for this year’s flooding because there is none. Indonesia’s rainfall history is similar to what it has been for centuries, with little relative change in recent decades as the planet has slightly warmed.

Scammers Are Gonna Scam, Regardless

Here’s one example among hundreds. California’s CO2 “Cap And Trade” program, recently renamed the “Cap-And-Invest” program, is now primarily a multi‑billion‑dollar revenue machine whose costs land squarely on consumers while delivering meaningless reductions in greenhouse gases. Politicians, not the planet, are the clear winners.

A digital illustration depicting a confident man in a suit gesturing with one hand, alongside an image of a modern high-speed train on railway tracks, set against a blue sky with clouds.

From Watts Up With That?

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach (@weschenbach on X, my own blog at Skating Under The Ice)

Folks ask why I describe climate alarmism as a “grift”, a lovely English word meaning a swindle. I describe it that way because it’s making people rich while accomplishing nothing.

Here’s one example among hundreds. California’s CO2 “Cap And Trade” program, recently renamed the “Cap-And-Invest” program, is now primarily a multi‑billion‑dollar revenue machine whose costs land squarely on consumers while delivering meaningless reductions in greenhouse gases. Politicians, not the planet, are the clear winners.

Let’s start with the sticker price that no one voted on. The program is pulling in about $5 billion a year in auction revenue, with roughly $33 billion raised since inception. That money does not appear out of thin air; it is baked into the price of everything covered entities sell, with gasoline being the most obvious example.

It’s estimated that about 30 cents per gallon in cap‑and‑trade costs is embedded in California gasoline pump prices, roughly consistent with the California Air Resources Board’s own estimate of about 27 cents per gallon for the cap‑and‑trade component. California consumes on the order of 13–14 billion gallons of gasoline per year, so that 30‑cent skim works out to something like $4 billion per year transferred from motorists’ pockets to Sacramento without a line item on the tax bill. That is before counting similar pass‑through costs in diesel, electricity, concrete, and industrial products.

So what does all that pain at the pump buy in terms of carbon dioxide? The governor’s office and CARB boast that the ~ $33 billion in cap‑and‑trade proceeds have funded projects claimed to cut emissions equivalent to taking 1.3 million gasoline cars off the road. Using a standard figure of about 4.6 metric tons of CO₂ per year per typical passenger vehicle, that “cars off the road” metric translates to on the order of 6 million metric tons of CO₂ avoided per year if those reductions are durable and additional.

However, California’s cap‑and‑trade program covers roughly three‑quarters of state greenhouse gas emissions, and total state emissions have fallen about 14 percent since the program began, largely due to other policies like the renewable portfolio standard and vehicle efficiency rules. A federal review estimates that projects funded by cap-and-trade auction proceeds account for roughly 110 million metric tonnes of CO₂‑equivalent reductions cumulatively.

WOW! Over a hundred million tonnes of CO2, that must be a lot, right? So, how much difference has that made in the real world?

For that, we need a few facts. First, current CO2 levels are about 420 ppmv (parts per million by volume).

Next, for each 17,355 million metric tonnes of CO2 emitted, the atmospheric CO2 goes up by 1 ppmv (part per million by volume). This means that for the $33 billion dollars taken out of my and other California taxpayers’ wallets, the atmospheric CO2 level is lower by 110/17,400 = 0.006 ppmv … six thousandths of one part per million of CO2.

Be still, my beating heart …

And IF the IPCC is correct (which is a very big if), that would have reduced the current temperature by log2(420.006 / 420) * 3 = 0.00006°C …

Seriously. Californians have spent $33 billion dollars to reduce the temperature by not a tenth of a degree, not by a hundredth or a thousandth of a degree, not even by a ten-thousandth of a degree, but by less than a ten-thousandth of a degree.

And before you claim that we are “leading by example” and that the world will follow, most countries are not that stupid. At that rate, to reduce the world’s temperature by 1°C (again, IF the IPCC is correct) would cost $533 TRILLION dollars, a number so large it defies comprehension. It’s more than a hundred years of all the annual US Federal Tax revenue.

For. One. Degree. Of. Cooling.

So clearly, this has NOTHING to do with the climate.

Meanwhile, the spending priorities tell you what the real game is. The renamed “cap‑and‑invest” scheme locks in a billion dollars a year for the “railroad to nowhere”, Governor Newsom’s doomed high‑speed rail project, regardless of how many years it stays an expensive hole in the Central Valley.

Even the High‑Speed Rail Authority’s own projections concede that, if the system were ever fully completed, it would shave automobile emissions by only about 1 percent, while construction itself adds emissions up front. In other words, no emissions gain at all.

This insane boondoggle was sold as a San Francisco to LA high-speed train costing $33 billion. Now it’s been cut back to a Modesto to Bakersfield line for $40 billion or so. Despite billions spent already, there hasn’t been a full mile of track laid.

Aerial view comparing two sections of an unfinished high-speed rail project, showing extensive concrete structures and surrounding agricultural land.

And if you don’t know where Modesto is … neither do most Californians. However, like nearly all the cities in Democrat-destroyed California, Modesto and Bakersfield need lots of things.

Sadly … a high-speed rail link connecting the two is not one of them.

Add to that, $1.25 billion shifted to wildfire suppression to ease pressure on a deficit‑ridden general fund, plus another $1 billion put into a legislative “discretionary” pot—that is, money that our corrupt Democrat leadership can steer to whatever pet projects or political deals they fancy. Those three buckets alone consume most of the annual auction take while having no measurable effect on atmospheric CO2 levels.

The Legislative Analyst’s Office, not exactly a bomb‑throwing outfit, dryly notes that cap‑and‑trade (now cap‑and‑invest) revenues “can continue to be viewed as akin to tax revenues and be legally available to expend for any purpose.” Translate the bureaucratese and you get this:

Cap‑and‑trade has become a backdoor tax on energy, largely invisible to voters, that can be spent on any damn thing the governor and legislative leadership wish, no matter how useless or corrupt.

Politically, that is a dream scam—billions per year off‑budget in the colloquial sense, routed to high‑profile projects, deficit patches, and discretionary slush, all defended under the halo of “climate action.” From the standpoint of the average Californian buying gasoline, electricity, or manufactured goods, it is a classic heads‑they‑win, tails‑you‑pay arrangement: higher prices now, no meaningful change in emissions, and a guaranteed windfall of flexible cash for the political class in Sacramento.

And tragically, the people getting hit the hardest by this backdoor tax on energy are the poor. It’s a regressive tax that hits the poor the hardest of all.

The Cruelest Tax Of All

And that, dear friends, is just one of the multitude of ways that politicians and alarmist scientists are lining their pockets by scaring you about the climate, and all the while shafting the poor.

The good news? People are coming to their senses and noticing that of the trillions spent on “climate”, the overwhelming majority goes to politicians and their friends, NGOs, meaningless feel-good “green” initiatives, and alarmist scientists.

The bad news? The scammers are going to scam until they’ve pried the very last possible dollar out of your wallet.

I repeat my proposal that ANY climate-related expenses by the government should be forced to reveal to the public how much they will theoretically reduce the temperature. If you asked California taxpayers, “Should we spend $33 billion to reduce global temperatures by 0.00006°C?”, I can tell you what the answer would be …

My very best to all on a foggy December morning,

w.

Clarity Alert: When you comment, please quote the exact words you are discussing. It avoids endless misunderstandings.

CRAZY CLIMATE NEWS OF 2025 – The Climate Realism Show #186

In our last episode of 2025, The Heartland Institute’s Jim Lakely, Anthony Watts, Sterling Burnett, and Linnea Lueken will share their picks for the craziest and most-significant stories in climate and energy this year. And, as usual, we will answer as many audience questions as we can.

Graphic promoting The Climate Realism Show episode #186, featuring fiery and stormy visuals representing climate news of 2025.

Logo of The Heartland Institute featuring a green leaf and American flag elements.

The Heartland Institute


A year of crazy climate news comes to a close as Christmas and New Year’s approaches. What were the craziest of 2025? You’ll have to tune in to find out.
In our last episode of 2025, The Heartland Institute’s Jim Lakely, Anthony Watts, Sterling Burnett, and Linnea Lueken will share their picks for the craziest and most-significant stories in climate and energy this year. And, as usual, we will answer as many audience questions as we can.

Join us LIVE at 1 p.m. ET on YouTube, Rumble, X, and Facebook.

Visit our sponsor, Advisor Metals: https://climaterealismshow.com/metals

Why Waste Money on a Climate Health Forecasting Tool, Yale, When Climate Related Health Issues Are Declining?

A recent post at Yale Climate Connections (YCC) titled “Climate change is boosting health care costs” discusses a new online forecasting tool that tells employers extreme weather is getting worse due to climate change and will impact health more and thus raise insurance costs in the future. This is false. Extreme weather is not worsening, and weather and temperature related fatalities are in long term decline. So, it is reasonable to assume injuries are also not rising.

A dramatic landscape featuring a swirling tornado, dark storm clouds, lightning strikes, and a rocky formation, with splashes of water and fire indicative of extreme weather conditions.

From ClimateRealism

By Linnea Lueken

A webpage headline stating 'Climate change is boosting health care costs' with the word 'NONSENSE' prominently displayed across the image.

A recent post at Yale Climate Connections (YCC) titled “Climate change is boosting health care costs” discusses a new online forecasting tool that tells employers extreme weather is getting worse due to climate change and will impact health more and thus raise insurance costs in the future. This is false. Extreme weather is not worsening, and weather and temperature related fatalities are in long term decline. So, it is reasonable to assume injuries are also not rising.

YCC begins by making the false observation that “[c]limate disasters like hurricanes and heat waves can send people to the hospital with problems ranging from injuries to heat stroke,” which “can lead to unexpected medical bills for families – and rising costs for employers who help pay for their employees’ health insurance.”

Since hurricanes, tornados, floods, and heatwaves are natural weather events, not a sign of climate change, there is no such thing as a “climate disaster.” YCC is confusing weather events with climate, which is a statistical observation of a region’s weather pattern over time. Only a long-term trend in worsening extreme weather events could suggest climate change is playing a role in such events, but no such trend is discernable in the data. Otherwise, this statement is not controversial, since any extreme weather event can cause injuries, which can lead to medical bills and higher insurance costs. If that was all this post was about it would hardly be worth critiquing, but YCC continues with some misinformation.

The post is basically an advertisement for an online tool that purports to calculate and predict climate change-caused increases in health care costs, developed by an HR firm called Mercer and the National Commission on Climate and Workforce Health. YCC reports that the tool “shows companies how extreme heat, poor air quality, floods, and hurricanes could increase the cost of their employees’ health care over the next decade,” claiming that climate change is worsening those weather conditions and making them more hazardous for people.

This is false. The weather conditions discussed are not getting worse, which means they are not causing more harm to people by that metric.

It is true that health insurance is becoming more expensive, but that is an economic issue, not a climate issue.

We have good data for hurricanes, for example, which show they are not more frequent, nor more extreme, as discussed in dozens of Climate Realism posts. Over the decades, however, more people have moved to locations where hurricanes are relatively common, which leads to building more homes and infrastructure in these hurricane-prone areas. As such, when a hurricane strikes, more people are at risk of injury unless they take precautions, and more buildings are there to be destroyed. After a weather disaster, hospitalizations and lingering health effects do increase, especially for people left to the elements by the disaster. But again, hurricanes are not worsening. So, demographic shifts, not climate, are to blame for higher costs.

Extreme heat is not getting worse, the worst heatwaves on record occurred in the 1930s, (See figure below) and the average temperature anomaly data from the U.S. Climate Reference Network doesn’t show any trend towards worse extremes.

A graph showing the percentage of very hot days in the contiguous U.S. from 1895 to 2023, with different colors representing days above 95°F and 100°F.

Also, data clearly show that deaths from non-optimum temperatures have declined significantly over the past century amid, and partly due to, modest warming. In fact, cold temperatures kill far more people than hot temperatures each year.

Flooding is likewise not getting worse or more common, despite media claims. Annual costs of flooding have declined over time despite the fact that more infrastructure now exists in flood zones.

Air quality in the United States is the best it has been in more than a hundred years. The EPA reports that “air quality based on concentrations of the common pollutants has improved nationally since 1980.” Air quality is not a climate change issue, unless you link it to wildfires. But wildfires are not getting worse, which means smoke from them isn’t hurting more people either.

On top of all of this, the elephant in the room is the fact that deaths from extreme weather are significantly down, by more than 99 percent, over the past century of climate change. (See figure below) While a dead person does not need health insurance, this fact should also indicate the amount of general injuries and sickness from extreme weather are also declining.

Graph illustrating the decline in climate-related deaths from 1920 to 2021, showing a significant decrease in global deaths per decade due to floods, droughts, storms, wildfires, and extreme temperatures.

If, however, governments were to ban the use of fossil fuels and their byproducts, one would see a sharp sustained rise in the number of deaths due to weather and malnutrition. This is because fossil fuel-powered infrastructure, and all the products made with them, including medical technologies, are responsible for the improvement in quality of life for people around the world.

YCC should be embarrassed for shilling for this questionable, expensive, program. Just because it has the word “climate” in the title doesn’t mean it is useful to anyone. I suspect that the tool will not be especially accurate when compared to products that take more than the weather into account. Only Mercer and the National Commission on Climate and Workforce Health who sell the tool, and the insurance companies who will charge higher premiums blaming climate change rather than their own desire for larger profits and fewer justified payouts, will benefit from this tool. Those trying to purchase health, home, or business insurance will be harmed by higher rates or by being unable to obtain/afford coverage.

Sea ice conditions continued to favour Arctic marine life in 2025

Increased primary productivity in the Arctic generated by reduced summer sea ice has continued into 2025, according to NOAA’s annual Arctic Report Card published yesterday, which means Arctic seals and whales, walrus, and polar bears will continue to flourish.

Infographic illustrating the Arctic food chain, highlighting the relationship between polar bears, seals, fish, and phytoplankton in a changing sea ice environment.

From The polarbearscience

Increased primary productivity in the Arctic generated by reduced summer sea ice has continued into 2025, according to NOAA’s annual Arctic Report Card published yesterday, which means Arctic seals and whales, walrus, and polar bears will continue to flourish.

A close-up of a polar bear standing on an ice floe in a cold, Arctic environment.

Don’t look for that take-home in the legacy media, since they will all focus on the bits of the report that feed a doom-mongering narrative.

September sea ice extent has continued to stall, rather than plummet as predicted (Table 1: eleventh lowest average September extent since 1979; 4.75 mkm2), although they don’t come out and say so. NSIDC has stopped producing monthly sea ice reports due to budget cuts in late September 2025.

From the Report Card highlights [my bold]:

  • From 2003 to 2025, phytoplankton productivity spiked by 80% in the Eurasian Arctic, 34% in the Barents Sea, and 27% in Hudson Bay.
  • Plankton productivity in 2025 was higher than the 2003-22 average in eight of nine regions assessed across the Arctic.

And from the report on primary productivity itself:

All regions, except for the Amerasian Arctic (the combined Chukchi Sea, Beaufort Sea, and Canadian Archipelago), continue to exhibit positive trends in ocean primary productivity during 2003-25, with the largest percent changes in the Eurasian Arctic (+80.2%), Barents Sea (+33.8%), and Hudson Bay (+27.1%).

I’ve explained previously how and why this works: less summer ice = more plankton, which means more food for all marine life.

Illustration depicting the Arctic food chain featuring polar bears, seals, fish, and plankton, highlighting the impact of sea ice changes on marine life.

This explains why the catastrophic decline in polar bear numbers predicted in 2007 never happened.

Book cover titled 'The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened' by Susan J. Crockford, featuring illustrations of polar bears and an image showing Arctic sea ice reduction with a note about polar bear population stability.

PS. If you haven’t already, check out my new wolf attack thriller, DON’T RUN. There’s probably still time to order and get a before-Christmas delivery.

The Wind Energy Paradox: “Why More Wind Turbines Don’t Always Mean More Power”

The Munich-based daily Merkur is finally reporting on something that’s us skeptics have been pointing out some 20 years: Wind turbines always either produce too little or too much and are thus uneconomical and unreliable.

A landscape featuring wind turbines behind several houses, with trees and open fields in the foreground.

From NoTrickZone

By P Gosselin

The Munich-based daily Merkur is finally reporting on something that’s us skeptics have been pointing out some 20 years: Wind turbines always either produce too little or too much and are thus uneconomical and unreliable.

A landscape featuring several wind turbines on a cloudy day, with a small village and a field in the foreground.
Image: Vernunftkraft.de

In a recent insightful interview with Merkur.de, Prof. Dr. Sigismund Kobe, a renowned physicist from the TU Dresden, explains a phenomenon he calls the “Transition to Renewable Energy Paradox.”

His warning is clear: adding more wind power to the grid might soon yield diminishing returns—or none at all.

Zero times two is still zero

The fundamental problem, according to Prof. Kobe, lies in the nature of weather-dependent energy. Wind power does not scale linearly in a way that guarantees supply. During a lull, when there is no wind, it doesn’t matter if you have 30,000 or 60,000 turbines. The output remains zero. Doubling the capacity does nothing to solve the problem of “Dunkelflaute” (dark doldrums).

Conversely, under windy weather, the existing turbines often produce much more electricity than the grid can handle. Adding even more turbines during these periods only increases the surplus that cannot be used, leading to forced shutdowns.

Building “useless” capacity

Kobe argues that Germany is rapidly approaching a “saturation point.” Data shows that while the installed capacity (the theoretical maximum) of wind power has grown significantly, the actual amount of electricity fed into the grid hasn’t kept pace.

We are essentially building “useless” capacity that only produces power when we already have too much of it, while failing to provide any power when we actually need it.

Economic fallout: paying for nothing

This paradox isn’t just a physical problem; it’s an expensive economic one.

  1. Redispatch Costs: When the grid is overloaded, grid operators must pay wind farm owners to turn their turbines off. Consumers end up paying for electricity that was never produced.
  2. Double Infrastructure: Because wind is unreliable, Germany must maintain a completely separate fleet of “backup” power plants (mostly gas-fired) to jump in when the wind stops. This means paying for two parallel energy systems.

Can Storage Save Us?

The standard counter-argument is that we simply need better batteries or hydrogen storage. However, Prof. Kobe remains skeptical. He points out that the sheer scale of storage required to bridge weeks of low wind is technically and financially astronomical. The efficiency losses involved in converting electricity to hydrogen and back again make the resulting power incredibly expensive.

Prof. Kobe’s message is a reality check for policymakers. He argues that the current strategy of simply “expanding at all costs” is hitting a physical wall. Without a breakthrough in massive, affordable storage, adding more wind turbines won’t stabilize the grid—it might just make it more volatile and expensive.

Prof. em. Dr. rer. nat. habil. Sigismund Kobe is a distinguished German physicist and a long-standing academic at the Technical University of Dresden (TU Dresden). Born in 1940, he has dedicated his career to theoretical physics, with a specific focus on the behavior of complex systems.

Wind turbine eagle-kill secrecy may soon end

A new lawsuit could finally end the secrecy surrounding wind turbines killing eagles. Wyoming’s Albany County Conservancy (ACC) is suing the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) for failing to provide the mandatory eagle kill reports for three big wind facilities.

A woman wearing a pink beanie is holding a large eagle while standing in front of wind turbines under a blue sky with clouds.

From CFACT

By David Wojick

A new lawsuit could finally end the secrecy surrounding wind turbines killing eagles. Wyoming’s Albany County Conservancy (ACC) is suing the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) for failing to provide the mandatory eagle kill reports for three big wind facilities.

This is a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case. ACC made a proper FOIA request. Five

months later FWS said they had over a thousand responsive document, but ACC could only see a small fraction.

Since ACC is after total kills this fraction is useless. Moreover the reason FWS gave for withholding most of the kill records looks to be invalid. So ACC is asking the Court to require FWS to cough up the kills.

The introduction to ACC’s Complaint is very clear so rather than tell you what it says, here it is:

“1. This is an action under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA or the Act), 5 U.S.C. § 552, seeking to compel Defendants U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to comply with their statutory obligation to disclose nonexempt information concerning the mortality and injury of legally protected eagles at three major wind energy projects located in Carbon County, Wyoming.

Understanding the ecological impacts of the emerging and rapidly proliferating wind energy sector is imperative to Plaintiff Albany County Conservancy, which strives to protect the rugged Western landscapes of Wyoming and the sensitive wildlife that call it home. Disclosure of the requested information is particularly warranted here since it concerns the otherwise illegal take of iconic, federally protected species—Bald and Golden eagles—and because collecting this information is a necessary condition of the permits that exempt these energy projects from incidental take liability under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act (BGEPA), 16 U.S.C. §§ 668-668d.

2. Plaintiff Albany County Conservancy (the Conservancy) submitted its FOIA request on October 11, 2024. Defendants issued a final response on March 17, 2025, releasing only 256 pages while simultaneously withholding 910 pages in full under FOIA Exemption 4 without adequate justification, foreseeable-harm analysis, record description, or the segregability review required by law.

3. Defendants also failed to disclose entire categories of records—including mortality reports, correspondence, and known eagle-take incident submissions—despite Plaintiff’s knowledge that such records exist within FWS’s possession.

4. Defendants’ obfuscation and the lack of any coherent justification for withholding this information strongly suggests that Defendants have something to hide. It may well be that eagle mortality stemming from these projects is far outpacing predictions, or FWS may be asleep at the switch. Either way, under FOIA, the public has a right to know. This is especially true where there may be recurring violations of federal wildlife law (i.e., BGEPA).”

The FOIA exemption that FWS cites is for confidential business information. No doubt the wind facilities do not want the public know how many eagle deaths they are reporting but that does not make it confidential business information. Thus the suit looks promising.

I have written at length about the absurd Federal secrecy that surrounds wind turbines killing eagles. See my report “Time for FWS to Stop Wind Power Eagle-Kill Permits” here.

ACC has a compelling reason for wanting this kill data. There was an elaborate Wyoming tagging study that found wind turbines killing more Golden Eagles than all other human causes combined.

That finding is very different from the assumptions made in the FWS eagle-kill permitting program. FWS has ignored this dynamite finding. Thus the requested kill data might call the entire national permitting program into question.

Stay tuned to CFACT to see how this vital litigation proceeds.

A new lawsuit could finally end the secrecy surrounding wind turbines killing eagles. Wyoming’s Albany County Conservancy (ACC) is suing the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) for failing to provide the mandatory eagle kill reports for three big wind facilities.

This is a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case. ACC made a proper FOIA request. Five

months later FWS said they had over a thousand responsive document but ACC could only see a small fraction.

Since ACC is after total kills this fraction is useless. Moreover the reason FWS gave for withholding most of the kill records looks to be invalid. So ACC is asking the Court to require FWS to cough up the kills.

The introduction to ACC’s Complaint is very clear so rather than tell you what it says, here it is:

“1. This is an action under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA or the Act), 5 U.S.C. § 552, seeking to compel Defendants U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to comply with their statutory obligation to disclose nonexempt information concerning the mortality and injury of legally protected eagles at three major wind energy projects located in Carbon County, Wyoming.

Understanding the ecological impacts of the emerging and rapidly proliferating wind energy sector is imperative to Plaintiff Albany County Conservancy, which strives to protect the rugged Western landscapes of Wyoming and the sensitive wildlife that call it home. Disclosure of the requested information is particularly warranted here since it concerns the otherwise illegal take of iconic, federally protected species—Bald and Golden eagles—and because collecting this information is a necessary condition of the permits that exempt these energy projects from incidental take liability under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act (BGEPA), 16 U.S.C. §§ 668-668d.

2. Plaintiff Albany County Conservancy (the Conservancy) submitted its FOIA request on October 11, 2024. Defendants issued a final response on March 17, 2025, releasing only 256 pages while simultaneously withholding 910 pages in full under FOIA Exemption 4 without adequate justification, foreseeable-harm analysis, record description, or the segregability review required by law.

3. Defendants also failed to disclose entire categories of records—including mortality reports, correspondence, and known eagle-take incident submissions—despite Plaintiff’s knowledge that such records exist within FWS’s possession.

4. Defendants’ obfuscation and the lack of any coherent justification for withholding this information strongly suggests that Defendants have something to hide. It may well be that eagle mortality stemming from these projects is far outpacing predictions, or FWS may be asleep at the switch. Either way, under FOIA, the public has a right to know. This is especially true where there may be recurring violations of federal wildlife law (i.e., BGEPA).”

The FOIA exemption that FWS cites is for confidential business information. No doubt the wind facilities do not want the public know how many eagle deaths they are reporting but that does not make it confidential business information. Thus the suit looks promising.

I have written at length about the absurd Federal secrecy that surrounds wind turbines killing eagles. See my report “Time for FWS to Stop Wind Power Eagle-Kill Permits” here.

ACC has a compelling reason for wanting this kill data. There was an elaborate Wyoming tagging study that found wind turbines killing more Golden Eagles than all other human causes combined.

That finding is very different from the assumptions made in the FWS eagle-kill permitting program. FWS has ignored this dynamite finding. Thus the requested kill data might call the entire national permitting program into question.

Stay tuned to CFACT to see how this vital litigation proceeds.

Asia Is Going Nuclear and the United States Should Help

Asia is the fastest growing region for nuclear energy production, and the most consequential for major-power competition.

A truck transporting a large cylindrical container on a highway, with power lines and a sunset in the background.

From Watts Up With That?

By David Santoro

Asia is the fastest growing region for nuclear energy production, and the most consequential for major-power competition.

If the United States wants to shape nuclear standards, supply chains, and strategic alignments to its liking and gain markets, it must engage Asia now before China and Russia lock in dominance. Doing so isn’t just smart energy policy; it’s a strategic necessity.

Asia is driving nearly all global nuclear expansion. Some 80-85% of all reactors under construction worldwide are in the region, and most of the reactors built in the past decade were Asian projects. Demand is rising in long-established markets: China, India, Russia, South Korea, and Japan. But countries in South and Southeast Asia are also considering going nuclear, and some have taken steps in that direction, such as Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

Four motivations are powering this nuclear renaissance. First, soaring electricity needs due to the increased electrification of transport, heating, and industry, the rise of data centers, artificial intelligence, crypto mining, and population growth and urbanization. Over half of global electricity demand comes from Asia today, and an additional 85% is expected through 2030, so Asian countries see nuclear power as a solution to such needs.

Second, Asian countries, notably newcomers, want to take advantage of small modular reactors, microreactors, and advanced reactors. These new technologies offer considerable benefits: lower capital cost and investment risk than traditional nuclear power plants, greater grid flexibility, adaptability, and resilience, and enhanced safety and security features.

Third, Asian countries believe that nuclear power can help them transition towards a greener economy in the context of rapid climate change. That’s because nuclear power provides reliable, zero-carbon baseload and can work in tandem with other forms of (renewable) energy.

Fourth, Asian countries want energy options that enhance their autonomy. Given rising geopolitical tensions, many seek to reduce vulnerabilities, such as potential disruptions in energy supplies caused by a U.S.-China crisis or conflict, and they see nuclear power useful in this regard.

The result is that nuclear power is becoming a domain of competition between the United States and China, but also with Russia, another major U.S. rival and longtime heavyweight in the nuclear industry. There is competition for nuclear exports, setting nuclear technology standards and governance principles, and exerting broader civil nuclear influence in Asia and beyond.

The administration of Donald Trump is well-aware of these dynamics, and its renewed commitment to nuclear power helps position the United States for success.

Unveiled last May, Trump’s policy emphasizes rapid expansion of domestic nuclear capacity, fast-track licensing, development of advanced reactors, microreactors, and small modular reactors, and rebuilding the U.S. nuclear industrial base. It also stresses the role of nuclear power for energy independence and in national security applications, from defense infrastructure to space systems.

These measures provide a foundation for U.S. engagement of Asia, as a robust U.S. nuclear industry is a prerequisite for influence. By strengthening its domestic nuclear sector, the United States can offer competitive exports, provide reliable fuel, and shape nuclear norms in emerging markets.

The Trump administration has already signed agreements to foster nuclear cooperation with several regional countries. In October, for example, it signed two with Singapore to work on feasibility, research and development, and capacity-building related to new nuclear technologies.

There are challenges, however. The Trump administration focuses on domestic deployment, licensing, and innovation but less on competitive export financing, regional fuel-supply partnerships, and engagement of regional allies and potential clients. It thus risks ceding influence on China and Russia, which push state-backed projects that come with financing, turnkey construction, and supply-chain assurances. Moreover, the administration has yet to integrate safeguards, workforce development, and industrial partnerships into a coherent regional strategy.

So, to capitalize fully on the Asian nuclear boom, the Trump administration should adapt its approach. As a first step, it should ensure that U.S. firms have access to government-backed loans, export-credit guarantees, and insurance to compete with the low-cost, state-financed Chinese and Russian offers.

The administration should also build a nuclear fuel consortium with its closest allies¾Japan, South Korea, and Australia. That consortium should include joint enrichment facilities, long-term fuel contracts, and coordinated uranium supply chains, presenting Asian countries with alternatives to Chinese or Russian proposals. Offering “take-back” options of spent nuclear fuel (or high-level waste) would be judicious given current Russian dominance in this area.

Another step should be providing integrated small-modular-reactor and microreactor packages. U.S. exports should go beyond reactor hardware and include training, maintenance, safety oversight, and long-term operational support, ensuring reliability and building local trust.

Moreover, the administration should go beyond engaging regional countries bilaterally. It should coordinate and leverage its ties with Japan, South Korea, and India and engage Southeast Asian countries using both bilateral and multilateral tracks to form greater cohesion among its partners. U.S. nuclear diplomacy should also be paired with clear nonproliferation requirements, and export approvals should be streamlined with international safeguards.

Finally, the administration should form partnerships with Asian countries to train nuclear engineers and operators, and ensure that nuclear deals highlight ancillary benefits, such as grid resilience, energy security, and support for high-energy applications, be it semiconductor fabrication, artificial intelligence clusters, and space operations.

Taken together, these steps will help the Trump administration transform nuclear power from a domestic priority into a strategic lever, shaping Asia in a way that advances U.S. interests for decades to come.

Dr. David Santoro is President and CEO of the Honolulu-based Pacific Forum.

This article was originally published by RealClearDefense and made available via RealClearWire.