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 Trump administration took a major whack at the climate-industrial complex this week. It’s a fantastic move. But another event this week spotlights the need to do more.
The Trump administration took a major whack at the climate-industrial complex this week. It’s a fantastic move. But another event this week spotlights the need to do more.
White House Office of Management and Budget Chief Russ Vought announced this week that the Trump administration would “be breaking up the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado.” Vought added: “This facility is one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country. A comprehensive review is underway and any vital activities such as weather research will be moved to another entity or location.”
The announcement put climate hoaxers into orbit.
In “Trump officials to dismantle ‘global mothership’ of climate forecasting,” the Washington Post reported: “The announcement drew outrage and concern from scientists and local lawmakers, who said it could imperil the country’s weather and climate forecasting, and appeared to take officials and employees by surprise.” (RELATED: Major Left-Leaning Group Deploys Capitol Hill ‘Climate Deniers’ Watchlist)
“If true, public safety is at risk and science is being attacked,” Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said. “Climate change is real, but the work of NCAR goes far beyond climate science. NCAR delivers data around severe weather events like fires and floods that help our country save lives and property, and prevent devastation for families,” he added.
NCAR “is quite literally our global mothership,” said the Nature Conservancy’s chief scientist. “Dismantling NCAR is like taking a sledgehammer to the keystone holding up our scientific understanding of the planet,” she added.
Beam’em up, Scotty.
While NCAR does valuable research related to weather, its climate-related work is awful. In 1970, NCAR researchers predicted that a new ice age would set in during the first third of the 21st century – i.e., right about now.
In 1979, NCAR climate legend Stephen Schneider predicted that global warming could cause the entire East Coast to be flooded within decades – i.e., right about now.
In 2009, NCAR all-star researcher Kevin Trenberth was caught in the Climategate e-mail scandal admitting to fellow climate hoaxers: “The fact is that we cannot account for the lack of warmth at the moment, and it is a travesty that we can’t.”
The good news is that the weather work NCAR does will continue. But NCAR’s always wrong, if not ridiculous, climate hoax work will be cut.
But as with other Trump administration efforts to terminate the climate hoax, fixing NCAR is not enough. Earlier this week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued its annual “Arctic Report Card,” in which it claimed (as usual) that the Arctic is heating up faster than the rest of the planet. The climate hoax-friendly media outlet, The Guardian, headlined the story as “Arctic endured year of record heat as climate scientists warn of ‘winter being redefined.”
The science problem with NOAA’s report card is that it lacks any historical perspective. We don’t have very good data on the Arctic. The Soviet Union established the first temperature station near the North Pole in 1937. But summer ice melt washed it away. The U.S. didn’t make it to the Arctic until 1952 – in a submarine. The satellite record of the Arctic didn’t begin until 1979, which was the very end of the mid-20th century cooling period and so Arctic ice was at a peak.
It started warming in the 1980s – no one knows why for sure – and Arctic sea ice extent began to shrink. Arctic sea ice extent stopped shrinking in the mid-2000s (despite huge emissions growth) and has never been close to ice-free in the summer as Al Gore predicted it would be by 2014.
Yet NOAA is still sounding the climate alarm. The White House needs to get on top of NOAA and give it the NCAR treatment: Weather, yes. Climate, no.
Steve Milloy is a biostatistician and lawyer. He posts on X at @JunkScience.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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The quietude of looking out the kitchen window on a December morning at a meadow dusted in snow is magical. A deer pauses at the edge of the wood, breath steaming in the cold air, grazing on whatever bits of green poke through the snow. It is a scene replicated on greeting cards and stamped on cookie tins.
The quietude of looking out the kitchen window on a December morning at a meadow dusted in snow is magical. A deer pauses at the edge of the wood, breath steaming in the cold air, grazing on whatever bits of green poke through the snow. It is a scene replicated on greeting cards and stamped on cookie tins.
Part of the magic behind that tableau—from the roast in the oven to the cranberries on a plate, from the pine and hardwoods standing tall outside to the browsing fauna—is a phenomenon the establishment media ignore: CO₂-driven, NASA-acknowledged greening of Earth.
Satellite data from the last four decades confirm a significant increase in vegetation over as much as half the globe. During this period, atmospheric CO₂ increased from about 350 parts per million (ppm) to more than 400 ppm, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels.
It is a gift arriving right on cue to meet a continuous increase in population and demand for food. This basic sustenance allows for all other human endeavors—developments in artificial intelligence, medicine, and more. It is difficult to write computer code on an empty stomach.
Behind this gift of plenty is a process fundamental to all life, starting with plants: Photosynthesis is a mechanism by which plants use CO₂, water, and sunlight to make sugars for food. When atmospheric CO₂ rises—whether from the emissions of human activity or any other source—plants grow faster. A side benefit is that they use water more efficiently, making them more resilient to arid conditions and extending their geographic range.
The degree to which plants respond to more CO₂ varies, but it is always positive. An increase in CO₂ to 800 parts per million (ppm) or so—more than double the current atmospheric concentration—increases yields by 10% to 100%.
In greenhouse farming, carbon dioxide levels are elevated to 1,000 ppm or so to increase the yields of tomatoes and cucumbers by 20% to 40%. Plants, such as corn, sugarcane, and millets, also benefit from higher atmospheric CO₂, whose positive effect on them is even more evident in the presence of drought.
For many, a cold Christmas morning is warmed by coffee, especially festive offerings like peppermint mocha and gingerbread latte. Well, the good news is that even coffee plants are boosted by the rise of CO₂. Studies in Latin America found that elevated carbon dioxide boosted coffee plant photosynthesis and increased yields by 12% to 14%.
People forget that the Little Ice Age—lasting from about 1300 to 1850—brought crop failures and famine to large sections of Europe and Asia. Rivers froze, and growing seasons shrank. Many communities struggled during periods of cold-induced scarcity.
The 20th century delivered the opposite: the longer growing seasons of a modestly warmer climate paired with higher levels of CO₂. This is hardly the making of a catastrophe that some would have us believe. In fact, a 2025 analysis projected changes in global average yields across all crops to be neutral or positive up to 5 degrees Celsius of warming into the future.
Only the Climate Grinches would oppose such a bounty of greening from modern warmth and CO₂ concentrations. These are the characters who have dominated headlines in popular media and policy roundtables in Brussels and Washington. They steal not only the joy of experiencing this natural abundance by spreading false fears but also the prosperity and sovereignty of nations.
Climate Grinches look at a greening planet and see disaster. When NASA announces that Earth has added vegetation equivalent to two American continents, they warn that this cannot last, that benefits are temporary, and that doom still awaits. When farmers report bumper harvests enabled by longer growing seasons and CO₂ fertilization, the Climate Grinches insist that gains are outweighed by unspecified future horrors.
So, this Christmas season, when you gather with your family, look at the spread before you with new eyes. Reject the guilt that climate orthodoxy seeks to place on our shoulders. Modern lifestyles are not destroying the planet. We are basking in a vibrant ecosystem that supports more greenery, more people, and more human potential than at any other time in history.
This commentary was first published by American Greatness on December 8, 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.
What’s New!
The CO2 Coalition has released its second episode of the Climate DebriefPodcast featuring Dr. Bruce Everett. Watch the full video here!
In case you missed it, Dr. William Happer and Dr. Richard Lindzen joined Joe Rogan on his podcast The Joe Rogan Experience.
In the last month there have been many days when solar output dipped below 10 GWh – last Thursday it was just 1.37 GWh. That works out at an average of 57 MW
GB solar capacity is 21 GW, so on Thursday our solar fleet produced at just 0.3% of capacity.
In winter, we use about 900 GWh a day. Miliband wants to triple solar capacity, but three times nothing is still nothing!
No wonder the World Bank says we are the second worst country in the world to install solar farms. Only Ireland was worse!
Never mind that Earth has endured far more warming than today’s world without revisiting the extremes of the ancient past.
Global warming could trigger the next ice age
Earth’s climate control system may cool so hard after warming that it freezes the planet over.
Date:December 21, 2025
Source:University of California – RiversideSummary:Scientists have uncovered a missing feedback in Earth’s carbon cycle that could cause global warming to overshoot into an ice age. As the planet warms, nutrient-rich runoff fuels plankton blooms that bury huge amounts of carbon in the ocean. In low-oxygen conditions, this process can spiral out of control, cooling Earth far beyond its original state. While this won’t save us from modern climate change, it may explain Earth’s most extreme ancient ice ages.
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Why Ancient Ice Ages Were So Extreme
Geological records, however, tell a more dramatic story. Evidence shows that some of Earth’s earliest ice ages were so severe that ice and snow covered nearly the entire planet. According to the researchers, this level of freezing cannot be explained by a climate system that simply fine tunes itself.
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The Role of Oceans, Nutrients, and Plankton
The newly identified factor involves how carbon is buried in the ocean. As atmospheric CO2 rises and temperatures increase, rainfall carries larger amounts of nutrients such as phosphorus into the sea. These nutrients stimulate the growth of plankton, microscopic organisms that absorb carbon dioxide through photosynthesis.
…
In warmer conditions, however, this system changes. Increased plankton growth can reduce oxygen levels in the ocean. With less oxygen available, phosphorus is more likely to be released back into the water instead of being permanently buried. This recycled phosphorus fuels even more plankton growth, whose decay further depletes oxygen and keeps nutrients circulating.
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A Climate System That Can Overshoot
Rather than gently stabilizing Earth’s temperature, this feedback can drive cooling well past its original starting point. In the team’s computer simulations, the effect was strong enough to trigger an ice age.
…
As human activity continues to add CO2 to the atmosphere, the planet is expected to keep warming in the near term. The researchers’ model suggests that a cooling rebound will eventually follow. However, this future cooling is likely to be less extreme because higher oxygen levels reduce the strength of the nutrient feedback in the oceans.
Terrific piece of alarmist writing. After talking about snowball Earth for most of the article, they finally admit near the end that any future ice age overshoot will be less extreme because today’s world has higher oxygen levels in the atmosphere.
But if the current warming trend falters or even flips into a decline, like global temperature declined between 1940 and 1970, see they predicted it. It’s still all our fault.
The following is an episode of the wildly popular “In search of” series, featuring Leonard Nimoy, the actor who played the original Star Trek Doctor Spock.
In Search Of The Coming Ice Age features an impressive lineup of credentialed global cooling scientists, some of whom blamed global cooling on human industrial activity. One of the scientists, Stephen Schneider, who in the In Search Of episode advocated using nuclear reactors to melt the polar ice, shamelessly backflipped into warning people about global warming, which he blamed on human industrial activity. The Wikipedia article on Schneider claims Schneider backflipped in the early 1970s, but if so, why did he appear in the 1978 documentary advocating melting the polar ice caps?
I remembered watching In Search Of The Coming Ice Age as a kid in the late 70s. All the grownups were concerned, there was a lot of ice age alarmism in the media, quotes from concerned scientists, before the show was aired. The adults talked for days after the In Search Of episode aired, about how they would cope with the coming ice age, which everyone expected to happen in the next few decades. Everyone was worried about a how Australia could handle the expected flood of refugees escaping the advancing ice in the Northern Hemisphere, especially refugees from the Soviet Union.
Our memory of the global cooling consensus is likely why anyone my age and older are far more skeptical than younger people. By the 1970s the world had cooled for 30 years, and the year before the In Search Of episode was broadcast, the horror 1977 Blizzard in Buffalo NY which led to the deaths of at least 27 people received worldwide coverage. So why wouldn’t there have been widespread concern about global cooling?
Dubious claims there was no global cooling consensus in the 1970s naturally leads people my age to question other alarmist claims – even more so when some alarmists like the people who wrote the article above start resurrecting global cooling claims.
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.
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.
This November, delegates from nearly 200 countries convened in Brazil for COP30 – where COP stands for “Conference of Parties,” and the number 30 reflects the number of such events since the very first one in Berlin in 1995. Stemming from a UN statute adopted in 1992 and bearing the acronym UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), reaching the 30th edition of COP would be a triumph if its success was measured on diplomatic endurance. But it’s not
This November, delegates from nearly 200 countries convened in Brazil for COP30 – where COP stands for “Conference of Parties,” and the number 30 reflects the number of such events since the very first one in Berlin in 1995. Stemming from a UN statute adopted in 1992 and bearing the acronym UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), reaching the 30th edition of COP would be a triumph if its success was measured on diplomatic endurance. But it’s not, and the conference’s takeaways could have seemingly been predicted before the final gavel – prioritization of the optics of agreeableness over binding, legally meaningful agreements to address the root cause of climate change: the world’s never-ending coal, oil, and gas emissions.
Rather, what the world saw in Belém was the continued widening chaos between the COP World and the Energy World – with the former defined by performative diplomacy and the latter defined by the unrelenting physics of the global economy. What Brazil’s President Lula deemed the “COP of Truth” felt more like another COP of capitulation. The conference effectively signaled that despite the escalating urgency of limiting greenhouse warming, the global reliance on fossil fuels will continue “until further notice.”
It is tempting to pin the outcome of COP30 on the glaring absence of the United States, led by an administration which has pompously relegated the country’s critical role in the fight against climate change both at home and abroad. Look no further than the administration’s recurrent announcements on unleashing American coal and stopping clean energy projects in their tracks. But the outcome of a United States-less COP30 – with lots of rhetoric and pacts but little needle-moving action – was not new, nor partisan. It was emblematic of a world’s unserious approach to the climate policy plans outlined in COP21’s “Paris Accords,” which yielded steadfast, collective commitments to limit the increase in global temperature to under 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Or, yet another fossil fuel fakeout. In 2023, I wrote in the Washington Post in “The great fossil fuel phaseout fakeout” about the Biden administration’s hypocrisy in approving the Alaskan oil-producing Willow Project – projected to yield 180,000 barrels of oil per day for 30 years – even as the U.S. delegation to COP28, headed by Vice President Kamala Harris, joined the majority’s resolve to transition away from fossil fuels. Heaven forbid the Biden administration should use political capital to lead on the global stage for a carbon tax – which meta-analyses find are widely successful in slowing emissions – or on the domestic stage for an increase of the gas tax, also proven effective. These two measures would have required meaningful political will from the leader of the free world but would have successfully incentivized decarbonization around the world and encouraged an actual transition away from fossil fuels, very much critical for the safety and well-being of future humans.
The cost of this fakeout’s inaction is no longer theoretical. The current global temperature is already hovering around 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, with no sign of abating, paralleled by an ever-rising atmospheric carbon concentration, which now stands at a historic high of roughly 430 parts per million. And with these come the never-ending streamers of record-breaking wildfires, heat waves, flooding, hurricanes, and more, all with much of the world’s most vulnerable populations in the crosshairs of sea-level rise. This is a problem that, in the absence of groundbreaking technology, will get much worse before it gets better – if it gets better.
But none of this is surprising. Many delegates leaving Brazil may have felt disappointment, but once again, it was victory for the status quo. It was a confirmation that the world is unwilling to revisit, relitigate, and reimplement the action plan outlined in Paris 10 years ago, despite this plan never being more urgent or paramount for the future of mankind.
And while, of course, the United States’ presence was sorely missed – with COP30’s fossil fuel interests emboldened, allowing them to dig in their heels – it feels almost repetitive to recent COP conferences with the country’s leadership.
Once again, the world stands unmoved by the wrath of climate change. The United States’ chair was empty, but even when full, the drilling continued.
This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.
h/t MGUY; Children’s fingers, toes and noses are so overrated…
Parents raise concerns over heat issues in electric school buses in Lake Shore Central School District
Rob Petree Fri, December 19, 2025 at 8:10 AM GMT+10
ERIE COUNTY, N.Y. (WIVB) — On the heels of a statewide mandate requiring all school bus purchases in New York State be electric by 2027, parents in the Lake Shore Central School District are speaking out, claiming some bus drivers are turning the heat down, or off completely, in an attempt to conserve battery life on their electric school buses.
WIVB News 4 has received several calls from concerned parents in the school district, which covers parts of Angola, Brant, and Derby, regarding their child’s bus trips to and from school, claiming they’re coming in freezing when they get home after getting off the bus.
The kids are coming home saying their bus is freezing cold and the parents are giving them hand warmers.
…
“The bus broke down on route,” explained Chris Lampman, another concerned parent whose son allegedly had to stand outside in the freezing cold as a result. “They deployed a substitute bus, and the bus was more than 30 minutes late. My son stood outside for over 35 minutes waiting for a bus that wasn’t coming. Some of those kids are on there for upwards of a half hour or more while the bus makes its route. There’s no reason that the kids should freeze for all that time.”
…
“My grandson came home from school last week when it was 23 degrees,” Urbino stated. “He said they didn’t have heat. He came in cold, and I told him, I said, ‘isn’t the bus warm?’ And he said ‘no, they can’t put the heat on because it drains the battery.’”
The school district claims elsewhere in the quoted article that policy is to keep the buses warm, and that the buses have enough battery capacity to complete all required routes.
If this claim heating is being switched off is true, the risk to the health of kids is unconscionable. Not everyone is wealthy enough to afford all the warm weather clothes their kids might need. Young kids especially can lose gloves and hats, or forget to put them on. A kid who boards the bus with a cold might have pneumonia by the time they get off.
There is also a risk to the health of the drivers. Sitting still in hard frost temperatures while driving a bus is a potential DVT, frostbite, stroke and heart attack risk.
I don’t blame the drivers – they are likely just doing what they have to, to ensure the kids aren’t exposed too cold for an even longer time while waiting for a replacement bus. But if anything, bad happens, I’m sure the driver will be blamed for violating policy by switching off the heating.
In the aftermath of the UN’s COP30 climate summit in Belem, Brazil, several commentators have claimed that the age of climate alarmism may finally be fraying at the edges. The Wall Street Journal concluded that Europe’s green energy policies slashed emissions but at the cost of crippling the economy. PJ Media’s Rick Moran argues that “the religion of climate alarmism is in decline”. He finds that President Donald Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda and the high-profile defection from the climate alarmist priesthood by Bill Gates has begun to alter the debate over climate change.
In the aftermath of the UN’s COP30 climate summit in Belem, Brazil, several commentators have claimed that the age of climate alarmism may finally be fraying at the edges. The Wall Street Journal concluded that Europe’s green energy policies slashed emissions but at the cost of crippling the economy. PJ Media’s Rick Moran argues that “the religion of climate alarmism is in decline”. He finds that President Donald Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda and the high-profile defection from the climate alarmist priesthood by Bill Gates has begun to alter the debate over climate change.
Peter Savodnik of the Free Press wrote last week that those who questioned the calamity of climate change were treated like pariahs for years but now, “their day of vindication has come”. He cites Bjorn Lomborg, who opined that “I believe we are witnessing a broader, more balanced reassessment of climate change”.
The evidence against climate alarmism is no longer relegated to alternative media. It is visible in electricity bills that have exploded precisely in those countries and states – Germany, Great Britain, California – most exposed to wind and solar absolutism. It became apparent in the great Iberian Peninsula blackout in April, which lasted for hours and led to the deaths of 11 people, a systemwide failure due to insufficient fossil fuels-based synchronous generation and an excessive reliance on inverter-based solar power.
It is evident in Europe’s industrial heartlands, hollowed out by irrational energy policies sold as moral imperatives but delivered as economic self-sabotage. Yet another reminder of Western Europe’s on-going deindustrialisation emerged two days ago, as the Financial Times reported that Volkswagen will stop manufacturing vehicles at its site in Dresden, marking the first time in the carmaker’s 88-year history that it will close production at a site in Germany.
Even in the EU, the epicentre of green utopianism, policymakers have come under pressure from powerful business lobbies to weaken proposed ‘sustainability’ rules as part of a drive to reduce burdens on domestic enterprises. AP reported yesterday that European officials moved to ease their ban on sales of cars with internal combustion engines by 2035, responding to pressure from governments and automakers who argued that the industry needed more flexibility to help achieve EU climate goals.
Climate as Theology
Yet, belief in imminent climate catastrophe remains remarkably resilient among Western elites. Optimism in rationality prevailing may be premature. The Church of Climate, with its high priests and devoted flock, has proven remarkably resilient over decades, weathering empirical assaults and expert rebuttals with the tenacity of a faith unmoored from facts. The question worth asking is no longer whether the alarmists are right — they are not — but why the creed survives so unscathed by evidence, falsification and repeated policy failure. This durability is not rational. It is moral, ideological and ultimately theological.
For many years now, serious scientists and scholars with unimpeachable credentials — William Happer, John Clauser, Judith Curry and many others — have demolished the claim that the climate system is threatened with an imminent apocalypse caused by fossil fuel-based emissions. Steve Koonin’s careful exposition of the data made this plain to any reader willing to separate evidence from rhetoric. And yet these arguments yield no value to the priesthood of climate alarm. The reason is simple: the dispute is not about data. It is about virtue and the seductive promise of meaningfulness.
Climate alarmism long ago ceased to be a scientific hypothesis and became instead a moral identity. Its adherents see themselves as uniquely compassionate, enlightened and willing to ‘care for the planet’ in contrast to the supposedly venal, backward or morally defective climate change deniers. These ‘deniers’, as the inquisitors label them, are not fringe figures but guardians of scientific integrity against a modern Lysenkoism where dissent is heresy.
Climate alarmism serves another powerful purpose. It is the modern expression of what Friedrich Hayek called the “fatal conceit“: the belief that a self-appointed elite, armed with models and moral certainty, can out-think the dispersed intelligence of markets, societies and freely choosing individuals. This conceit is reinforced by what might be called the ‘noble lie‘. Many within the climate establishment openly or tacitly believe that exaggeration is justified — indeed necessary — if it nudges the masses toward ‘correct’ behaviour. If climate change must be overstated, so be it. If uncertainty must be suppressed, that too is a price worth paying. The end — planetary salvation — justifies the means.
Layered into the climate alarmist narrative is yet another dimension of political calculus that aids social-democrat governments in power throughout the West with the significant exception of Trump’s America. The ever-imminent climate catastrophe handily provides politicians with the perfect hobgoblin that elicits among their constituents’ clamorous calls for being led to safety, as H. L. Mencken reminded us in his maxim on practical politics.
Given these potent advantages of having a theology of climate, empirical refutation becomes irrelevant. Data that contradicts the narrative are not debated but delegitimised. Critics are not engaged; they are denounced. Expertise is not weighed; it is moralised. Hence the curious phenomenon of genuine Nobel-calibre physicists being dismissed as ‘deniers’, while political activists and failed politicians – the Bill McKibbens, Al Gores and Michael Manns of the world – are elevated to the status of scientific authorities and prophetic sages.
The Package Deal
But climate alarmism does not travel alone. It is part of a broader ideological package deal — an interlocking set of beliefs that reinforce one another psychologically and politically. The same individual who believes that capitalism is a form of exploitation will tend also to believe that Western industrial society is uniquely destructive. That same person is also likely to believe that markets cannot be trusted to allocate resources and that ‘crises’ — climate, Covid, inequality — require emergency powers of an overweening state. Unsurprisingly, this worldview also aligns neatly with support for Net Zero, ESG, DEI, gender ideology, industrial policy, public health lockdowns and the ever-expanding administrative state.
This ideological coherence is not accidental. It reflects the long influence of identity-based cultural Marxism, which taught generations of Western intellectuals to interpret social and economic phenomena primarily through the lens of power, domination and historical white guilt. In this worldview, the legacy of Western development — from the Age of Exploration onward — is not human flourishing but original sin. Climate change thus becomes the ultimate indictment of modernity itself: proof that prosperity, growth and technological progress were mistakes.
Gad Saad’s notion of suicidal empathy yields insights into the intellectual power of the climatistas among Western intelligentsia. Suicidal empathy refers to a pattern where an individual’s deep compassion for others becomes so extreme that it leads to self-harm, burnout or the undermining of the people they are trying to help. In Saad’s words, it refers to “the inability to implement optimal decisions when our emotional system is tricked into an orgiastic, hyperactive form of empathy, deployed on the wrong targets”. The empathy for ‘people and planet’ that forms the backbone of the climate narrative had led Western policymakers to prioritise abstract moral posturing over concrete human outcomes.
It is this mindset that allows Western elites to congratulate themselves on decarbonisation targets while energy poverty rises, industries flee and living standards stagnate. The victims of these policies — the coal miners, factory workers and rural households — are dismissed as collateral damage or, worse, as morally suspect ‘deplorables’.
The logic of climate alarmism encompasses the familiar phenomenon of Bootleggers and Baptists: the high priests of climate virtue including the juggernaut of lavishly funded environmental NGOs provide the moral cover, while a well-connected cohort of crony capitalists harvest subsidies, mandates and guaranteed returns. Wind and solar developers, ESG financiers and asset-management behemoths such as BlackRock have every incentive to keep the crisis narrative alive. The rhetoric of sacrifice is always for others; the rents are very much for themselves. Climate policy, with its fixation on targets detached from engineering and economics, fits this pattern all too well.
This is why Trump’s challenge to climate orthodoxy was so destabilising. It was not merely a policy shift; it was a moral counter-revolution. By insisting on energy abundance, national interest and economic realism, Trump and his A-team in the energy and environmental patch – Energy Secretary Chris Wright, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum – have punctured the sanctimony of the climate elite. Executive orders can be reversed, but ideas are harder to kill — and that is precisely why the backlash has been so ferocious.
No Time for Complacency
Yet complacency would be a grave mistake. The perceived moral high ground remains firmly occupied by the Church of Climate, and it confers enormous political power. Should Trump’s movement falter — if the midterms deliver a repudiation rather than reinforcement, and if the next Presidential elections are lost by the MAGA movement — the entire edifice of Net Zero dogma could snap back with renewed vengeance. Democrats, buoyed by mainstream media amplification and deep-state entrenchment, would reinstate green mandates, reversing Trump’s gains. The administrative state, the ESG complex and the transnational climate bureaucracy have not gone away. They are waiting in the wings.
The lesson of the past decade is sobering. Empirical truth, by itself, is not enough. Ideas matter, but so do moral narratives, institutional incentives and cultural coherence. Climate alarmism has proven resilient precisely because it is not a theory but a worldview — one that flatters its adherents, rewards its enforcers and immunises itself against doubt.
If there is to be a genuine reckoning, it will require more than cheaper gas or failed wind farms. It will require reclaiming the moral language of human flourishing, exposing the hubris of central planning, and reasserting the primacy of evidence over piety. Until then, the climate apocalypse will remain postponed — but endlessly proclaimed.
Dr Tilak K. Doshi is the Daily Sceptic‘s Energy Editor. He is an economist, a member of the CO2 Coalition and a former contributor to Forbes. Follow him on Substack and X.
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