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.
The collapse of the Paris Agreement and the unmasking of the net zero illusion were never hard to predict for anyone with a shred of intellectual honesty. It didn’t take a fancy research title or an advanced degree. The writing was carved deep into the stone of energy reality, which no press release, no activist lobby and no billionaire-backed foundation could erase.
The collapse of the Paris Agreement and the unmasking of the net zero illusion were never hard to predict for anyone with a shred of intellectual honesty. It didn’t take a fancy research title or an advanced degree. The writing was carved deep into the stone of energy reality, which no press release, no activist lobby and no billionaire-backed foundation could erase.
Most nations – particularly those early in building their futures – offered only empty nods to climate targets. Their participation was a transparent quest for political leverage. The climate crusade survived by hijacking the political class, manipulating data through compliant scientists, and converting media empires into megaphones of fear.
Bill Gates stepped away from the frontlines of climate alarmism in a recent essay timed for the United Nations’ COP30, an annual gathering of jet-setting moralists. Gates admits – as supported by the recent U.S. Department of Energy report on carbon dioxide – that the world will not collapse because of climate change.
He has called for a shift in focus to more immediate needs. Gates says that “we will still rely on fossil fuels for decades,” that “no single technology can decarbonize the global economy,” and that “the pace of change will be slow.” He’s reacting to the wreckage of ideology from its collision with the laws of physics.
In recent New York election campaigns, some of the Green New Deal’s most famous apostles, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders, saw their climate gospel sidelined, no longer commanding the stage. Voters heard more about housing, jobs, and public safety than decarbonization, offshore wind or carbon credits.
These are signposts of a larger movement underway, both in the United States and abroad.
In the U.K.’s North Sea and off the U.S. East Coast, massive wind projects are being canceled. Green steel is struggling to compete with fossil fuel-based conventional steel. Oil companies, after spending years and billions of dollars on “green” branding and virtue signaling, are quietly backtracking on ambitious climate goals.
In 2025, Argentina shocked global institutions by withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. President Javier Milei declared that his nation would no longer “kneel before climate bureaucrats.” China continues its rapid construction of coal-fired power plants, adding more coal capacity than the rest of the world combined. India’s coal consumption is at an all-time high, and the government is aggressively auctioning new blocks of coal.
Developing economies in Asia and South America know survival requires coal, oil and natural gas. African leaders seek to tap their continent’s reserves of hydrocarbons to power economic development.
The fragile structure of global decarbonization depended on financing from its chief patron, the United States. When that flow of dollars ceased with the incoming Trump administration, the fading of an already decrepit climate narrative accelerated. What remains now is to utterly unmask the 21st century’s most malignant fraud and to educate a generation propagandized in public schools and woke universities.
The truth has emerged bit by bit. We were told that wildfires were unprecedented, yet historical data show fire frequency has declined globally. We were told the Arctic would be ice-free, yet it remains frozen. We were told of a “climate-driven” food crisis, while the mild warming and increased CO2 – a vital plant food – have contributed to global greening and record crop harvests. The food supply is more secure, not less.
The gap between alarmist predictions and observed reality is no longer possible to hide. Scientists deliberately misled the public with cherry-picked data, tortured computer models until they produced the “correct” scary result and labeled any natural weather event as “proof” of climate change. What masqueraded as “consensus” was nothing more than a cartel of profiteers feeding on public guilt and taxpayer money.
This was not good-faith scientific inquiry but rather a narrative designed to frighten, to control consumer choices and to justify a massive political and economic reorganization. Much of the public, sensing this dishonesty, no longer listens. The authority of the climate “experts” has been damaged, perhaps irrevocably. Their incessant cries of “wolf” failed to produce the climate beast.
The climate cult declared war on the very engines that lifted humanity from hunger and hardship. Its legacy is economic vandalism and moral decay. The spell is breaking, and what’s emerging from the rubble is not despair, but liberation — a long-awaited return of reason to a world held hostage by fear.
This commentary was first published by The Hillon December 9, 2025.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India.
Today we are facing an unprecedented opportunity to shape America’s economic future. We can reshore American manufacturing, take the lead on an AI revolution and establish a foundation for the most robust and secure economy our nation has ever seen – but we have to be able to fuel that future. We must leverage America’s core competitive advantage – our vast domestic energy supplies – and commit to building essential energy infrastructure to meet this substantive demand growth.
Today we are facing an unprecedented opportunity to shape America’s economic future. We can reshore American manufacturing, take the lead on an AI revolution and establish a foundation for the most robust and secure economy our nation has ever seen – but we have to be able to fuel that future. We must leverage America’s core competitive advantage – our vast domestic energy supplies – and commit to building essential energy infrastructure to meet this substantive demand growth.
Factions that stand in the way of new energy infrastructure don’t have their facts straight. It is a false narrative to argue that new investments in pipes and transmission will impose prohibitive costs on customers. Simply put, building new infrastructure will keep energy affordable and reliable, which is what families and businesses expect and deserve; but we must move past the dysfunctional permitting system that is standing in our way.
In 1930, we built the Empire State Building in 410 days. Today, the permitting process to build such a project would take years, maybe even decades, and impose insurmountable costs.
How did we get to this self-inflicted impasse? American infrastructure suffers from a byzantine permitting process that imposes unnecessary and detrimental delays and a legal system that bogs down challenges to new projects for years in court. Recently, both Congress and the Supreme Court have had to step in to greenlight badly needed infrastructure. Until we implement real permitting reform at every level, we are our own worst enemy.
The key to unlocking the opportunities of Americas economic future in the long term relies on our ability to expand pipeline and storage infrastructure without getting tied up in endless litigation and duplicative environmental reviews. Smart and modern regulation at the state and local level coupled with federal permitting reform can make infrastructure expansion not only achievable, but affordable for all Americans.
As the President and CEO of America’s largest natural gas trade association, I can proudly say that our industry is already working with regulators and policy makers to help ensure customers and communities get the affordable and reliable natural gas they want and expect.
There is good news – America has an abundant supply of energy – with more than 100 years of domestic natural gas – and an energy industry eager to invest to underpin this economic revolution while maintaining reliability and affordability. And for those who caution about the environmental impact of increasing energy consumption there is more good news: none of this need to come at the expense of reducing emissions. In fact, it is quite the opposite – the natural gas industry has reduced emissions by 70% since 1990 while delivering more natural gas to a growing customer base every year.
The consequences of not reforming this cumbersome permitting process are borne by working class Americans. In regions of our country where government policies have prevented investment in new pipeline infrastructure, families are paying higher utility rates compared to their neighbors. Much of New England relies on natural gas imports rather than available gas from as little as 100 miles away and at a price that can be between two and five times what other Americans face. That defies common sense and practicality.
Facts matter in this debate, and the fact is natural gas is the most affordable source of energy in the United States and is expected to remain significantly more affordable than other fuel for at least the next 30 years. As a result, the industry adds one new customer every minute of every day and 21,000 businesses to the natural gas system each year.
Without question, access to natural gas makes a massive difference for household budgets. An average family saves $1,132 in annual energy bills compared to its all-electric home. The data clearly shows this advantage for natural gas is heightened in colder regions. Overcoming current infrastructure bottlenecks to expand our state-of-the-art infrastructure to our communities and engines of growth offer huge payoff for our economy and for families alike.
From state regulators to federal legislators, it is of the utmost importance that policymakers act boldly to allow the American energy industry to build, innovate and expand. Congress must pass meaningful and durable permitting reform including limiting the ability of unaffected entities from launching baseless legal challenges against any and all projects.
Energy in all forms will benefit from modernizing the arcane permitting process – from renewable energy to geothermal to natural gas – we all stand together to meet our nation’s most critical challenge and strategic opportunity. Failure is not an option unless we fail to change.
Permitting reform will empower the economy and get the heavy hand of bureaucracy out of the way. With Congress, we can drive economic progress for this country, secure affordable energy for homeowners and businesses and win the race for a competitive economic advantage. If we streamline our outdated permitting processes, we can provide a brighter future for American families, safeguard our national security, lower costs for American households and build our economy of the future. Imagine that.
Germany’s economic future looks uncertain, with forecasts suggesting up to 15 years of stagnation. The Ifo Institute warns that without significant structural reforms and an increase in workforce potential, Germany’s growth could flatline by the end of the decade and even become negative in the 2030s.
Germany has been often described as the “sick man of Europe” again, and some economists warning of a “lost decade” or risks of deindustrialization in energy-intensive sectors.
Germany’s economic future looks uncertain, with forecasts suggesting up to 15 years of stagnation. The Ifo Institute warns that without significant structural reforms and an increase in workforce potential, Germany’s growth could flatline by the end of the decade and even become negative in the 2030s.
Germany has been often described as the “sick man of Europe” again, and some economists warning of a “lost decade” or risks of deindustrialization in energy-intensive sectors.
More and more forecasts indicate that Germany could face up to 15 years of permanent stagnation. The change of course of the economic institutes is remarkable, because their earlier assessments were long considered too optimistic and had to be regularly revised downwards, which caused them to noticeably lose confidence. Now the warnings are much sharper because the institutions themselves no longer believe in a quick recovery. They point to a persistent weak growth that is structurally burdening Germany as a business location, while a deep-rooted reform backlog increases the risks of a deepening economic crisis. This brings an economic standstill of over a decade and a half closer, which goes far beyond an economic weak phase and is associated with a considerable loss of prosperity (faz: 11.12.25).
Permanent stagnation over 15 years becomes realistic for Germany
The assessments of the economic researchers are unusually clear. The Ifo Institute has not only lowered its growth expectations for the coming years but also reassessed its long-term potential. Ifo head of economic forecasting Timo Wollmershäuser says: “If we don’t get structural reforms and no growth in the workforce, then potential growth will shrink to zero by the end of the decade and tip into negative territory in the 1930s.” This would make permanent stagnation the new normal, which would be historically unprecedented.
This would have concrete consequences for the population, because per capita incomes would hardly increase. At the same time, the number of pensioners is growing, which is why Wollmershäuser emphasizes: “The ticking bomb is the social system.” Without economic dynamism, pensions, care and health come under considerable financial pressure, while political leeway becomes narrower.
Reform backlog deepens Germany’s economic crisis for years
A central obstacle remains the reform backlog, which has been consolidating for years. Companies criticize complex procedures, long approval times and high site costs. These factors are exacerbating the economic crisis in Germany, even if it is not abrupt but gradual. Many companies are reluctant to invest or prefer alternatives abroad because they do not see any reliable framework conditions in this country.
Economists are also critical of current policy measures. Consumption-oriented relief causes high costs, but hardly creates any additional added value. As a result, the weak growth remains, while the political stalemate delays key decisions. For Germany as a business location, this means a gradual loss of attractiveness.
Permanent stagnation burdens growth and social systems in the long term
The long-term effects of permanent stagnation extend far beyond economic cycles. It is already evident today that government spending alone does not create sustainable dynamics. According to the Council of Economic Experts, even extensive debt programs provide only limited impetus. The economic imbalance remains because productivity and private investment are not increasing sufficiently.
The situation is particularly critical for the social security systems. Rising expenditures meet stagnating revenues, widening funding gaps. In a phase of low momentum, there is a lack of the buffer to cushion demographic burdens, which further exacerbates the economic crisis in Germany.
Weak growth and demographics are weighing on Germany as a business location
Demographic change is further exacerbating the structural problems. In the coming years, millions of people will leave the labour market, while the number of people in employment will fall. This development exacerbates the weak growth because there is a shortage of skilled workers and innovation processes are slowing down. At the same time, the reform backlog will become more difficult to resolve politically, as the social acceptance of far-reaching changes decreases.
Economic researchers are therefore calling for clear incentives for longer working lives and a targeted strengthening of innovations. New ideas must be turned into marketable products more quickly in order to make Germany more competitive again as a business location. Without this step, there is a risk that the low momentum will become entrenched.
Trust decides whether Germany loses 15 years as a business location
Whether Germany manages to reverse the economic trend depends largely on confidence in its ability to reform. At present, this confidence has been tarnished because political conflicts and contradictory signals are unsettling investors. If the reform backlog persists, the permanent stagnation could become entrenched for many years. However, if a credible change of course succeeds, there are still chances of new momentum.
The coming years will therefore decide whether Germany will enter a long phase of low development or whether the economic crisis can be overcome. There is a lot at stake for politics, business and society.
Climate advocates have embraced the idea of a climate-fueled insurance crisis as it neatly ties together the hyping of extreme weather and alleged financial consequences for ordinary people. The oft-cited remedy to the claimed crisis is, of course, to be found in energy policy: “The only long-term solution to preserve an insurable future is to transition from fossil fuels and other greenhouse-gas-emitting industries.”
We’ve all seen the headlines — such as the below — loudly proclaiming that due to climate change the insurance industry is in crisis, and even that total economic collapse may soon follow. For instance, since 2019, the New York Times, one of the primary champions of this narrative, has published more than 1,250 articles on climate change and insurance.
Climate advocates have embraced the idea of a climate-fueled insurance crisis as it neatly ties together the hyping of extreme weather and alleged financial consequences for ordinary people. The oft-cited remedy to the claimed crisis is, of course, to be found in energy policy: “The only long-term solution to preserve an insurable future is to transition from fossil fuels and other greenhouse-gas-emitting industries.”
However, it is not just climate advocates promoting the notion that climate change is fundamentally threatening the insurance industry. A climate-risk industrial complex has emerged in this space and a lot of money is being made by a lot of people. The virtuous veneer of climate advocacy serves to discourage scrutiny and accountability.
In this series, I take a deep dive into the “crisis,” its origins, its politics, and its tenuous relationship with actual climate science.1 Today, I kick things off by sharing three fundamental, and perhaps surprising, facts that go a long way to explaining why insurance prices have increased and who benefits:
Property/casualty insurance is raking in record profits;
Insurance underwriting returns vary year-to-year but show no trend;
“Climate” risk assessments are unreliable and a cause of higher insurance prices.
Grab a cup of coffee, settle in, and let’s go . . .
Property/casualty insurance is raking in record profits
This year is shaping up to be an extremely profitable year for the property/casualty (P/C) insurance industry. In a report covering the first six months of 2025, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) shares the good news (emphasis added):
Despite heavy catastrophe losses, including the costliest wildfires on record, the U.S. Property & Casualty (P&C) industry recorded its best mid-year underwriting gain in nearly 20 years.
In the second half of 2025, returns got even better for the P/C industry. According to a new report from S&P Market Intelligence, as reported by Carrier Management (emphases added):
For U.S. P/C insurers, it just doesn’t get any better than this. . . With a combined ratio of 89.1 for third-quarter 2025, the U.S. property/casualty insurance industry had its best quarter in at least a quarter of a century—and maybe longer, S&P Market Intelligence said.
Taking a longer view, the extremely profitable 2025 follows significant industry profitability in 2023 and 2024, according to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), as shown in the figure below.
Strong premium growth, driven largely by rate increases, coupled with abating economic inflation . . . Net income nearly doubled compared to last year, attributed to the underwriting profit and healthy investment returns.
Below, I’ll pick up the issue of rate increases and explore one big reason why they have occurred.
If there is a P/C insurance crisis, it may be in figuring out how to explain its impressive returns at the same time that the climate lobby is telling everyone that the industry is collapsing.
Insurance underwriting returns vary year-to-year but show no trend
The P/C industry makes money primarily in two ways — underwriting of insurance policies and investment income. Typically, insurance companies seek to break even, or lose little, on insurance underwriting and earn profits on investment income.
Warren Buffet, in his 2009 letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, explained concisely how the P/C industry works:
Our property-casualty (P/C) insurance business has been the engine behind Berkshire’s growth and will continue to be. It has worked wonders for us. We carry our P/C companies on our books at $15.5 billion more than their net tangible assets, an amount lodged in our “Goodwill” account. These companies, however, are worth far more than their carrying value– and the following look at the economic model of the P/C industry will tell you why.
Insurers receive premiums upfront and pay claims later. In extreme cases, such as those arising from certain workers’ compensation accidents, payments can stretch over decades. This collect-now, pay-later model leaves us holding large sums– money we call “float”– that will eventually go to others. Meanwhile, we get to invest this float for Berkshire’s benefit. Though individual policies and claims come and go, the amount of float we hold remains remarkably stable in relation to premium volume. Consequently, as our business grows, so does our float.
If premiums exceed the total of expenses and eventual losses, we register an underwriting profit that adds to the investment income produced from the float. This combination allows us to enjoy the use of free money– and, better yet, get paid for holding it. Alas, the hope of this happy result attracts intense competition, so vigorous in most years as to cause the P/C industry as a whole to operate at a significant underwriting loss. This loss, in effect, is what the industry pays to hold its float. Usually this cost is fairly low, but in some catastrophe-ridden years the cost from underwriting losses more than eats up the income derived from use of float.
The figure below, using data from the Insurance Information Institute, shows the underwriting performance of the P/C industry from 2004 to 2024.
The time series shows lots of ups and downs, but no trend — by design, as Buffet explained. There are certainly no signs of an underwriting crisis, much less indications of a coming collapse. The P/C industry looks both well-managed and healthy.
“Climate” risk assessments are unreliable and a cause of higher insurance prices
If profits are high and underwriting is steady, then what then accounts for increasing insurance prices — which, as of the end of 2024, increased 29 consecutive quarters in a row (above)?
A big part of the answer is Climate Change. But not how you might think.
Carney argued that the insurance industry was at risk due to changes in the climatology of extreme events that were not properly understood by experts in the industry:
[T]here are some estimates that currently modelled losses could be undervalued by as much as 50% if recent weather trends were to prove representative of the new normal. . . Such developments have the potential to shift the balance between premiums and claims significantly, and render currently lucrative business non-viable.
Coincident with Carney’s 2015 speech, the Bank of England released a report on the impacts of climate change on the insurance industry, and noted that conventional catastrophe modeling did not effectively consider a changing climate. The Bank of England kicked off a longstanding campaign to convince people that extreme weather events were changing dramatically in the near term.
Subsequently, in 2019, the Bank of England required firms to assess their “climate risks.” This guidance was updated last week. In (a coordinated) parallel effort, national and international organizations focused on “climate risk” to the financial sector started multiplying — such as the Climate Financial Risk Forum and the Network for Greening the Financial System.
The climate-risk industry was born circa 2019.
There is an incredible story to be told here (and Jessica Weinkle is the go-to expert), but for today, the key takeaways are that (a) the notion of “climate risk” to finance, including insurance, led to the creation of a “climate risk” industry, and (b) within this industry, a new family of risk assessment vendors emerged, promising to satisfy the new demands for climate risk disclosure and risk modeling.
As this [“climate risk”] was a new discipline for most financial firms, many turned to third party providers (“vendors”) to help them with different areas of expertise. There are now many physical risk data vendors, which offer a variety of services to financial institutions. While vendor offerings often sound alike — providing projections of how physical risk could evolve for locations across a range of risks and climate scenarios — they can differ significantly in terms of features, approach, or suitability for specific needs, and the underlying models that these providers use differ in methodology and assumptions.
GARP just published an incredibly important study that assessed how 13 different “climate risk” vendors modeled physical risk and risk of loss across 100 individual structures around the world.2
The results are shocking — given how they are used in industry but should not be surprising — given what we know about modeling.
There is absolutely no consensus across vendors about “climate risk” in terms of either physical risks or risks of loss.
The figure below shows, for 100 different properties around the world, the differences in modeled 200-year flood risk across the 13 vendors, as reflected in modeled flood heights. The maximum difference among the properties across vendors is about 12 meters and the median difference is about 2.7 meters — These are huge differences.
In terms of risk of loss, the models have an even greater spread. The figure below shows that for a modeled 200-year flood, 10 properties are modeled by at least one vendor to have total losses (100%) while another vendor models the same properties to have no losses, under the exact same event. The median difference between minimum and maximum modeled loss ratio is 30% — Another huge number.3
Insurance pricing does not scale linearly with increasing modeled loss ratios. Consider that the difference between a modeled 10% loss ratio and a 40% loss ratio (i.e., the 30% median difference across vendors from above) might result in a 10x increase in insurance rates. Risk adverse insurers have incentives to price at the most extreme modeled loss.
Model inaccuracies, uncertainties, spread, and ambiguity are features not flaws when it comes to making money. “Climate risk” modeling has resulted in a financial windfall not just for the newly created climate analytics industry, but also for insurers and reinsurers who have seen the envelope of modeled losses expand. The need for new models, of questionable fidelity, are necessary to satisfy industry guidance and government regulators.
The net result has been a seemingly scientific justification for increasing insurance rates.4
There are of course real changes in physical risk, exposure, and vulnerability as well as the regulatory and political contexts within which the P/C industry must operate. The discipline of catastrophe modeling has long integrated these factors to assess risks. As insurance policies and reinsurance contracts are typically implemented on a one-year basis, and thus well-positioned to incorporate changing perceptions of risk, this series will explore why a new “climate risk” assessment industry was even needed in the first place.
What about that “climate risk”? THB readers will be very familiar with the science of extreme events and climate change, which, as reported here, happens to be consistent with both the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and those in the legacy catastrophe modeling community.
One of those modeling firms, Verisk, gets the last word for today:
We estimate about 1% of year-on-year increases in AAL [Average Annual Loss] are attributable to climate change. Such small shifts can easily get lost behind other sources of systematic loss increase discussed in this report, such as inflation and exposure growth. The random volatility from internal climate variability also dwarfs the small positive climate change signal.
National Public Radio (NPR) recently published an article titled “Orange rivers and melting glaciers: federal report shows rapid change in the Arctic.” Simultaneously, CBS News published “Arctic temperatures increasing at over double the global rate since 2006, NOAA report says,” while NBC News published “Arctic is again the hottest it’s been in 125 years, with record-low sea ice, NOAA report says.” All three articles promote the claim that the Arctic is warming faster than the average rate of warming for the Earth as a whole, presenting this as clear evidence of accelerating human-caused climate change with far-reaching consequences.
The articles cite the National Atmospheric and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Arctic Report Card and lean heavily on the phrase “since 2006,” with CBS explicitly stating that Arctic temperatures have increased at more than double the global rate over that period, while NPR frames recent observations as proof of rapid, unprecedented change. But trends “since 2006” do not meet the most basic standard for defining climate. By long-standing convention, climate trends are evaluated over 30-year periods to filter out short-term variability. A roughly 19-year window on Arctic temperature is not a climate dataset; it is a snapshot. Presenting such a short interval as definitive evidence of long-term Arctic warming is a textbook example of confusing short-term patterns with durable trends.
NBC News claimed that the “Arctic is again the hottest it’s been in 125 years” but never mentions that historic temperature data for the entire Arctic region is relatively sparse and inconsistent over the past 125 years. Also, if the Arctic was as warm as now 125 years ago and more, human climate change couldn’t have been the cause and may not be the cause for the short-term warming trend the region is currently experiencing.
The problems with these kinds of reports are compounded by the Arctic’s uniquely sparse and inconsistent observational record. Reliable, continuous surface temperature measurements across much of the Arctic are relatively recent, with large areas lacking high-quality long-term data prior to the satellite era. As the Climate at a Glance analysis “Arctic Sea Ice” explains, the Arctic climate system is strongly influenced by natural variability, including ocean circulation patterns and atmospheric oscillations, which can drive multi-decadal warming and cooling phases independent of any long-term trend. Further, it notes that satellite data show summer minimum sea ice has not decreased at all since 2007, and has stabilized after a temporary low in 2012, seen in Figure 1 below.
Figure 1. Shows satellite derived summer minimum Arctic Sea ice extent values from 1979 to 2023, with dashed line showing the linear trend. The added trend line in red shows no change in summer minimum extent since 2007. Image source: NSIDC. Red trend line from 2007 and trend line examples under the title added by A. Watts
This is important because many claims pin other Arctic environmental changes on Arctic sea ice trends.
When you combine short records with a region known for large natural swings, it becomes impossible to say with confidence whether a post-2006 warming rate reflects a persistent climate signal or a temporary phase.
Climate at a Glance further notes that Arctic sea ice, glaciers, and temperatures have all exhibited substantial variability over historical and paleoclimate timescales, long before industrial-era CO₂ emissions. Periods such as the early twentieth century saw pronounced Arctic temperature increases comparable, in relative terms, to more recent decades. Without consistent, high-quality measurements extending well beyond the modern satellite era, claims of unprecedented warming rest on shaky ground.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (AR6,) is far more cautious than the media coverage suggests. IPCC AR6 acknowledges Arctic warming as a feature in models and observations, but it also emphasizes uncertainties tied to data coverage, internal variability, and the relatively short observational record in polar regions. That nuance is missing from both NPR and CBS, which instead present recent conditions as if they settle the question.
Climate Realism has repeatedly addressed this issue, documenting how media outlets cherry-pick short timeframes to manufacture a sense of crisis. A simple review of Climate Realism’s Arctic coverage shows multiple examples where “fastest warming” or “record heat” claims collapse once longer records or broader context are considered. The pattern is familiar: select a recent starting point near a cool baseline, measure to a warm endpoint, and declare a dramatic trend—while ignoring earlier warm periods and the role of natural variability. In 2022, another “Arctic Report Card” media response was thoroughly debunked in CNBC and Other Media Outlets Miss the Mark Regarding NOAA’s Misleading ‘Arctic Report Card.’
In their recent scary reporting, NPR, CBS, and NBC all gloss over the fact that the Arctic is one of the most climatically dynamic regions on Earth. Sea ice extent, snow cover, and surface temperatures respond strongly to shifting winds, ocean heat transport, and cloud cover. These processes can amplify short-term warming just as easily as they can produce abrupt cooling. Treating such behavior as proof of a one-way, accelerating climate crisis oversimplifies a complex system.
By framing a sub-30-year slice of Arctic data as definitive evidence of a climate change induced crisis, without acknowledging the severe limitations of historical observations in the region, NPR, CBS, and NBC grossly mislead their audiences. The claim that the Arctic has been warming “at over double the global rate since 2006” may be mathematically true for that chosen interval, but it does not establish that a long-term climate driven warming trend exists. At best, it describes a short-term pattern whose significance remains uncertain.
This is not careful climate reporting; it is narrative-driven alarmism. Readers and viewers deserve to know that “since 2006” is not established as a climate change trend, that Arctic records are short and sparse, and that natural variability looms large in the far north, with proxy evidence suggesting the Arctic has been as warm with lower levels of ice coverage for extended periods multiple times. Without that critical context, these stories exaggerate certainty of a human cause and overstate what science can actually tell us about the Arctic.
Experts have warned that the world’s ability to feed itself is under threat from the “chaos” of extreme weather caused by climate change.
Crop yields have increased enormously over the past few decades. But early warning signs have arrived as crop yield rates flatline, prompting warnings of efficiency hitting its limits and the impacts of climate change taking effect.
At first glance trends seem positive. Farming methods have become more and more efficient over the last 80 years.
However, multiple projections suggest that climate change will soon have key crops plateauing, then sliding down again. The chart shows how crop yields could fall over the rest of the century under a high-emissions scenario.
The effects of climate change are predicted to reduce the yields of all of these key crops. This modelling only takes into account forecasts for climate change and income growth, and does not account for other factors that may limit this effect or boost yields, such as technological innovations or land use changes.
Meanwhile, the world’s population is expected to grow by a further 2 billion by the end of the century.
…
More than 600 million people worldwide are projected to face food insecurity – or worse – by 2030. Increasingly erratic climates will only make the situation worse unless action is taken.
Climate change threatens global food systems1, but the extent to which adaptation will reduce losses remains unknown and controversial2. Even within the well-studied context of US agriculture, some analyses argue that adaptation will be widespread and climate damages small3,4, whereas others conclude that adaptation will be limited and losses severe5,6. Scenario-based analyses indicate that adaptation should have notable consequences on global agricultural productivity7,8,9, but there has been no systematic study of how extensively real-world producers actually adapt at the global scale. Here we empirically estimate the impact of global producer adaptations using longitudinal data on six staple crops spanning 12,658 regions, capturing two-thirds of global crop calories. We estimate that global production declines 5.5 × 1014 kcal annually per 1 °C global mean surface temperature (GMST) rise (120 kcal per person per day or 4.4% of recommended consumption per 1 °C; P < 0.001). We project that adaptation and income growth alleviate 23% of global losses in 2050 and 34% at the end of the century (6% and 12%, respectively; moderate-emissions scenario), but substantial residual losses remain for all staples except rice. In contrast to analyses of other outcomes that project the greatest damages to the global poor10,11, we find that global impacts are dominated by losses to modern-day breadbaskets with favourable climates and limited present adaptation, although losses in low-income regions losses are also substantial. These results indicate a scale of innovation, cropland expansion or further adaptation that might be necessary to ensure food security in a changing climate.
The lack of allowance for adaption cited by the Guardian authors has a substantial impact on outcomes. The following is a graph from the study above, indicating that even using the pessimistic assumptions of climate alarmists, yields of some crops such as rice might significantly rise, once adaption such as land use changes and CO2 fertilisation are taken into consideration, though the study still predicts a 17.6% drop in per capita calorie consumption, even when adaption is taken into consideration.
Fig. 3: Global impact of climate change on staple crops. From: Impacts of climate change on global agriculture accounting for adaptation
Food is insensitive to temperature, because humans are smart. In Bundaberg, near where I live, farmers grow Maine potatoes, even though subtropical Bundaberg (average temperature 72F) is far warmer than Maine (average temperature 45-46F). The farmers defeat scorching hot Bundaberg Summer weather by planting the potatoes in Fall. The potatoes have no problem growing through our mild winters, and are ready for harvest in Spring, before the arrival of our intense Summer heat.
I am so fed up with end of food articles which ignore obvious responses to warmer weather, such as planting different crops, or adjusting sowing times. And not including error bars in the Guardian graph at the top of this article in my opinion adds even more unnecessary alarm to the pessimistic study on which the Guardian article is based.
The Southern Ocean (60-70°S) and Antarctica (south of 60°S) were warmer in the late 1970s and early 1980s than in recent decades (Vihma and Uotila, 2016, Ma et al., 2025).
These regional temperature anomalies do not align with linearly rising CO2 emissions.
The Department of the Interior announced today that it is pausing—effective immediately—the leases for all large-scale offshore wind projects under construction in the United States due to national security risks identified by the Department of War in recently completed classified reports. This pause will give the Department, along with the Department of War and other relevant government agencies, time to work with leaseholders and state partners to assess the possibility of mitigating the national security risks posed by these projects.
WASHINGTON – The Department of the Interior announced today that it is pausing—effective immediately—the leases for all large-scale offshore wind projects under construction in the United States due to national security risks identified by the Department of War in recently completed classified reports. This pause will give the Department, along with the Department of War and other relevant government agencies, time to work with leaseholders and state partners to assess the possibility of mitigating the national security risks posed by these projects.
“The prime duty of the United States government is to protect the American people,” saidSecretary of the Interior Doug Burgum. “Today’s action addresses emerging national security risks, including the rapid evolution of the relevant adversary technologies, and the vulnerabilities created by large-scale offshore wind projects with proximity near our east coast population centers. The Trump administration will always prioritize the security of the American people.”
The following leases are paused:
Vineyard Wind 1 (OCS-A 0501)
Revolution Wind (OCS-A 0486)
CVOW – Commercial (OCS-A 0483)
Sunrise Wind (OCS-A 0487)
Empire Wind 1 (OCS-A 0512)
As for the national security risks inherent to large-scale offshore wind projects, unclassified reports from the U.S. Government have long found that the movement of massive turbine blades and the highly reflective towers create radar interference called “clutter.” The clutter caused by offshore wind projects obscures legitimate moving targets and generates false targets in the vicinity of the wind projects.
The Department of Energy in a 2024 report stated that a radar’s threshold for false alarm detection can be increased to reduce some clutter, but an increased detection threshold could cause the radar to “miss actual targets.”
Today’s action ensures that national security risks posed by offshore wind projects are appropriately addressed and that the United States government retains its ability to effectively defend the American people.
As I reported earlier this week, the EU has now formally abandoned its 2035 ban on the sale of new petrol/diesel cars.
Instead, there will be a requirement to reduce vehicle emissions by 90% from 2021 levels. It seems a lot, but is it really?
As I reported earlier this week, the EU has now formally abandoned its 2035 ban on the sale of new petrol/diesel cars.
Instead, there will be a requirement to reduce vehicle emissions by 90% from 2021 levels. It seems a lot, but is it really?
The 2021 baseline for passenger cars was approximately 110 g CO2/km, so the 2035 target will be around 11kg. But currently, manufacturers have already managed to cut to 93.6 g.
Undoubtedly this change of plan will be a massive boost for hybrid cars.
The Volkswagen Golf hybrid is said to emit 25 g/km, compared to 115 g/km for the diesel. Large scale rollout of plug-in hybrids will therefore take manufacturers much closer to their 2035 targets.
Obviously there will still be increased sales of EVs, which will help close the difference.
There is also the exploitation of e-fuels, synthetic or made from waste oil, which will also presumably be classified as “carbon free”.
Above all this change of policy will allow the European motor industry to escape the bullet and carry on making ICE cars indefinitely.
It is not insignificant that the Telegraph article reported:
“Michael Lohscheller, the chief executive of Swedish EV manufacturer Polestar, added: “Moving from a clear 10pc zero-emissions target to 90pc may seem small, but if we backtrack now, we won’t just hurt the climate. We’ll hurt Europe’s ability to compete.”
The big losers will be Chinese EV makers like Polestar!
There is one more huge hole in the EU logic.
The fuel consumption and emissions for all hybrid cars assumes a mix of battery and engine use. The Golf hybrid’s battery only has a range of 88 miles – more like 50 in practice. Many drivers won’t necessarily have to ability to charge at home.
The likely result is that many will simply carry on using hybrids as if they were bog-standard petrol cars. They will run wholly on petrol, which will emit just as much CO2 as the petrol version does!
Officially, hybrids will count as low emission. In practice, they will not reduce emissions one jot.
When the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai volcano erupted in January 2022, it immediately posed a problem—not merely scientific, but institutional. The eruption was the most explosive in the satellite era, injected an unprecedented quantity of water vapor into the stratosphere, and did so with a chemical signature unlike the canonical climate-cooling eruptions of the late twentieth century.
When the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai volcano erupted in January 2022, it immediately posed a problem—not merely scientific, but institutional. The eruption was the most explosive in the satellite era, injected an unprecedented quantity of water vapor into the stratosphere, and did so with a chemical signature unlike the canonical climate-cooling eruptions of the late twentieth century. It was followed, inconveniently, by a pronounced surge in global surface temperatures. The timing alone guaranteed scrutiny. What mattered was how that scrutiny would be framed.
The resulting assessment report is vast, meticulous, and technically competent. It documents the eruption and its atmospheric aftermath in extraordinary detail, particularly in its observational chapters. Satellite measurements are cross-validated, transport pathways mapped, and instrumental uncertainties repeatedly acknowledged. The early sections read as careful empirical science, and much of the observational synthesis is genuinely valuable.
But the report is not merely descriptive. From its opening highlights onward, it signals a specific destination.
“The record-high global surface temperatures in 2023/2024 were not due to the Hunga eruption.”
That sentence appears in the Highlights section, not buried in the discussion, and not framed as provisional. It is one of the few categorical statements in the entire summary. Its placement matters. In a scientific inquiry, conclusions typically emerge from analysis. In this document, the conclusion precedes it.
The report then devotes hundreds of pages to ensuring that this statement remains unthreatened.
To be clear, the authors do not deny that Hunga was extraordinary. On the contrary, they emphasize repeatedly that the eruption was unique in the observational record.
“The stratospheric hydration caused by the eruption was unprecedented in magnitude, altitude, and duration in the satellite record.”
That admission alone makes the subsequent dismissal of surface relevance nontrivial. Water vapor is not an exotic or speculative climate agent; it is the dominant greenhouse gas. An unprecedented perturbation at climatically sensitive altitudes is, at minimum, a legitimate explanatory candidate.
The report quantifies that perturbation carefully.
“Hunga injected an exceptional amount of water into the stratosphere, causing a ~10% (~150 Tg) increase in the global stratospheric water vapour burden.”
This is not a rounding error. Yet from this point forward, the analytical burden shifts. The question ceases to be what such an injection might plausibly do and becomes how its effects can be shown to dissipate, fragment, or sink below detectability.
Radiative forcing estimates are produced. The report arrives at a net top-of-atmosphere forcing of roughly −0.4 W/m² over the first two years, dominated by short-lived aerosol effects and partially offset by water vapor. From this, a small surface temperature response is inferred, followed immediately by a critical concession.
“As a consequence of the negative TOA RF, the Hunga eruption is estimated to have decreased global surface air temperature by about 0.05 K during 2022–2023; due to larger interannual variability, this temperature change cannot be observed.”
This sentence does more work than the report seems to recognize. An effect that cannot be observed, cannot be separated from noise, and cannot be detected empirically is not a finding; it is a boundary. It defines what must be ignored.
The report repeatedly emphasizes this indistinguishability.
“Surface climate impacts of the eruption… are relatively small and not distinguishable from the background internal variability of the Earth system.”
Internal variability thus becomes a one-way gate. It is sufficient to dismiss Hunga’s influence, but it is not subjected to the same analytical pressure as an explanatory mechanism in its own right. Variability explains by default; Hunga must explain beyond reasonable doubt.
This asymmetry is reinforced through modeling. The report leans heavily on global chemistry–climate models, repeatedly stressing their importance.
“Models are critical tools to elucidate the detailed chemical, radiative, and dynamical impacts on the Earth system from volcanic events, especially in the context of interannual variability.”
Yet these same models are acknowledged to diverge in key respects.
“Models differ in their simulations of Hunga aerosol microphysical properties, indicating that simulating aerosol microphysics remains a challenge for model development.”
Differences in aerosol growth rates, sedimentation, cross-equatorial transport, and decay times are treated as technical hurdles rather than epistemic warnings. Model spread does not weaken conclusions; it merely motivates more modeling.
When transport-driven ozone anomalies are discussed, the report concedes limits to causal attribution.
“The extent to which transport anomalies were causally connected to the eruption is not clear.”
This admission is quietly devastating. It acknowledges that large observed anomalies coincided with Hunga but cannot be cleanly attributed to it. Rather than opening the possibility that attribution itself may be structurally weak, the report uses this ambiguity to cordon off surface relevance altogether.
The same pattern recurs in the discussion of circulation effects.
“In the NH, observed stratospheric meteorological conditions following the Hunga eruption were within the range of interannual variability, and model simulations show no consistent circulation response.”
No consistent response becomes synonymous with no meaningful effect. The possibility that the climate system simply lacks the resolution to isolate short-term forcings of this type is never seriously entertained.
Perhaps the most revealing sentence in the entire document appears not in the science chapters but in the forward-looking institutional context.
“Models are critical tools to elucidate the detailed chemical, radiative, and dynamical impacts on the Earth system from volcanic events, especially in the context of interannual variability.”
This is less a methodological statement than a declaration of dependence. Where observations fail to resolve attribution cleanly, models are invoked to close the question.
The report also makes clear that its remit extends beyond pure inquiry.
“This report has aligned closely with… upcoming international assessments.”
That alignment explains much. An open-ended conclusion—that a large, natural, poorly constrained event may have contributed meaningfully to recent warming—would complicate attribution frameworks that depend on trend continuity. Ambiguity was not an acceptable endpoint.
Instead, the hypothesis is exhausted. Not falsified, but procedurally neutralized. Every plausible pathway is examined, attenuated, and shown to fall below detectability thresholds. Uncertainty is acknowledged, but always in ways that weaken the Hunga hypothesis more than its alternatives.
The length of the report is not incidental. A short paper declaring Hunga irrelevant would have invited skepticism. Only a document of this scale—dense with data, models, intercomparisons, and caveats—could plausibly declare the case closed without appearing dismissive. The volume itself functions rhetorically, conveying finality through exhaustion.
None of this requires accusing the authors of misconduct. The report is careful, internally consistent, and often admirably cautious. But caution is not evenly distributed. Skepticism is applied asymmetrically. One explanation is forced to clear a high evidentiary bar; others pass unchallenged.
In that sense, the document reads less like an open scientific inquiry and more like a legal brief. Evidence is marshaled, counterarguments anticipated, uncertainties catalogued, and a verdict delivered early, then defended at length. The goal is not discovery, but closure.
The Hunga Tonga eruption presented an opportunity to examine the limits of short-term climate attribution and to confront how much natural variability remains unresolved. Instead, it became a case study in how institutions respond when nature threatens to intrude on a preferred narrative. The report succeeds on its own terms. Whether those terms serve science—or merely its administrative needs—is the question it never seriously asks.
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