Day: May 1, 2026

USGS Estimates 900,000 Metric Tons of Economically Recoverable Lithium in Northern Appalachian Pegmatites

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the Appalachian region in the eastern United States contains about 2.3 million metric tons of undiscovered, economically recoverable lithium oxide (Li₂O) in pegmatite deposits. This breaks down to roughly 1.43 million metric tons in the southern Appalachians (concentrated in the Carolinas) and 900,000 metric tons in the northern Appalachians (mainly Maine and New Hampshire).

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the Appalachian region in the eastern United States contains about 2.3 million metric tons of undiscovered, economically recoverable lithium oxide (Li₂O) in pegmatite deposits. This breaks down to roughly 1.43 million metric tons in the southern Appalachians (concentrated in the Carolinas) and 900,000 metric tons in the northern Appalachians (mainly Maine and New Hampshire).

This figure is a median (50% confidence) probabilistic estimate based on geologic maps, geochemical sampling, geophysical data, tectonic history, and grade-and-tonnage models from known pegmatite deposits. There’s a wide range: for the northern region alone, there’s 90% confidence of at least 90,000 metric tons and a 10% chance of up to 7.4 million metric tons. The estimates were then filtered for economic recoverability using current global mining experience and lithium prices.

At 2025 (or last year’s) U.S. import levels, this resource could theoretically replace 328 years of net lithium imports.

The USGS also frames it in practical terms:

  • Enough lithium for batteries in ~130 million electric vehicles.
  • Or 1.6 million grid-scale energy storage batteries.
  • (Other reports mention potential for hundreds of billions of cellphones or laptops.)

The U.S. was once the world’s dominant lithium producer (e.g., historical pegmatite mining at Kings Mountain, North Carolina), but it now imports a large share of its needs—primarily from Australia (mined) with much processing tied to China. This Appalachian potential, alongside other domestic resources like brines in Arkansas, highlights opportunities for greater mineral security amid rising demand for EVs, grid storage, and electronics. USGS Director Ned Mamula emphasized it as a step toward reclaiming U.S. mineral independence through better mapping, permitting reform, responsible mining standards, and workforce development.

The lithium occurs in pegmatites—coarse-grained igneous rocks similar to granite, formed during ancient mountain-building events. These are “hard-rock” deposits, unlike the brine evaporation methods dominant in South America or some U.S. oilfield brines. Hard-rock mining (crushing, processing spodumene, etc.) is more energy- and capital-intensive but can be viable at scale, as seen in Australia and historical U.S. operations. The region has known lithium-rich districts (18 identified), with some overlap to past mining areas.

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Quantitative Mineral Resource Assessment of Lithium Pegmatite Deposits in the Northern Appalachian Orogen, USA

Published: Natural Resources Research (2026)

Authors: Niki E. Wintzer 
Christopher S. Holm-Denoma, 
Jacob E. Poletti, 
Dalton M. McCaffrey, 
Stanley P. Mordensky, 
Erik R. Tharalson & 
Collin Cronkite-Ratcliff 

DOI: 10.1007/s11053-026-10652-9

Provided: United States Geological Survey

Abstract

Lithium demand is projected to increase more than 48 times by 2040 due to electric vehicle production and other energy storage needs. Most lithium production is outside of the USA, thereby increasing supply chain vulnerability. The combined end use importance and heightened supply risk of lithium make this lightest metallic element a critical commodity to the USA. To mitigate this supply risk, the US Geological Survey is actively assessing lithium deposits in the USA. Herein, we detail an assessment for lithium-mineralized pegmatites in the US northern Appalachian Mountains. Permissive tracts were generated by cross-referencing tectonic and geologic maps and mineral occurrence data with mappable criteria derived from generalized and region-specific lithium pegmatite ore deposit models; tracts were then ranked as having high, medium, or low permissibility. Available geophysical and geochemical data were found to be of minimal utility for this deposit type at the scale of the assessment. The number of undiscovered deposits were estimated and integrated into probabilistic simulations, which included an expanded and updated global grade and tonnage model of pegmatite-hosted lithium ore. The estimated total amount of undiscovered resources for the northern Appalachian Orogen has a median value of 1,410,000 metric tons of Li2O when considering moderate correlation across sub-regions. At a confidence level of 90%, a resource of at least 90,000 metric tons of Li2O remains undiscovered, and at a 10% confidence level, a resource of as much as 7,380,000 metric tons Li2O remains undiscovered. After applying an up-to-date economic filter to convert median contained lithium to recoverable material, a correlated total of 900,000 metric tons of Li2O may be economically extractable, equating to enough Li2O to provide the current annual US lithium supply deficit (presently obtained through net imports) for 127 years at 2025 rates of apparent consumption. This period of provision will inevitably shorten with projected increasing consumption rates, emphasizing that further research could be completed to better delineate regions of high lithium resource potential and

Here is a detailed summary of the USGS paper titled “Quantitative Mineral Resource Assessment of Lithium Pegmatite Deposits in the Northern Appalachian Orogen, USA” by N.E. Wintzer and others, published in Natural Resources Research (2026).

The assessment provides probabilistic estimates of undiscovered lithium resources in pegmatite deposits across the northern Appalachian region (roughly latitudes 38°N to 48°N, covering parts of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and other northeastern states).

  • Median (50% probability) contained Li₂O: 1,410,000 metric tons (considering moderate correlation across sub-regions).
  • 90% confidence (at least): 90,000 metric tons of Li₂O.
  • 10% confidence (as much as): 7,380,000 metric tons of Li₂O.

After applying an economic filter (based on current global mining experience, costs, and lithium prices), the median economically recoverable amount is approximately 900,000 metric tons of Li₂O.

This recoverable figure for the North alone equates to roughly 127 years of current U.S. net lithium imports (based on ~7,100 t Li₂O/yr apparent consumption/import reliance in 2025 data).

Most prospective area: Domain 1 (Maine, New Hampshire, and part of Vermont) stands out, with a median contained resource of ~837,000 metric tons Li₂O and recoverable ~530,000 metric tons Li₂O, potentially from just two undiscovered deposits.

USGS scientists used a standard three-part quantitative mineral resource assessment approach:

  1. Delineation of permissive tracts — Areas geologically favorable for lithium-bearing (LCT-type) pegmatites, based on:
    • Geologic maps and tectonic history.
    • Geochemical sampling (lithium indicators in stream sediments, soils, etc.).
    • Geophysical data.
    • Known mineral occurrences (thousands of pegmatites exist in the region, though most are simple and not lithium-rich).
  2. Estimation of the number of undiscovered deposits — Expert judgment informed by the density and characteristics of known deposits.
  3. Grade-and-tonnage modeling — Combined with a newly developed global dataset for lithium pegmatite deposits to simulate resource amounts via Monte Carlo probabilistic methods.

An economic screening step converted “contained” resources into potentially recoverable ones.

The northern assessment complements a separate (or forthcoming) study on the southern Appalachians (focused on the Carolinas region), which estimated ~1.43 million metric tons of economically recoverable Li₂O. Together, they support the widely cited regional total of ~2.3 million metric tons.

Context and Implications

Lithium occurs primarily in spodumene-bearing pegmatites (coarse-grained igneous rocks). These are “hard-rock” deposits requiring mining, crushing, and chemical processing, unlike South American brine operations.

The U.S. has a long history of pegmatite mining in this region (e.g., historical operations in North Carolina and New England), but current domestic production is minimal, with heavy reliance on imports (much of the supply chain influenced by Australia mining and Chinese processing).

This assessment addresses rising demand for lithium-ion batteries in EVs, grid storage, and electronics. Global demand is projected to grow dramatically (e.g., >48x by 2040 in some scenarios).

Important Caveats

These are undiscovered resource estimates, not proven reserves. Realization depends on successful exploration, drilling, metallurgical testing, permitting, infrastructure, and market conditions.

The number of undiscovered deposits is modeled as relatively small (median of ~3 across the entire northern region in some summaries), meaning any large finds would be significant but not guaranteed.

Economic viability can shift with lithium prices, technology improvements, or regulatory changes.

Environmental and community considerations will play a major role in any future development, especially in rural and scenic parts of New England.

The full paper is available via Springer (open access in some cases) or through USGS publications pages. A companion data release includes GIS shapefiles, geochemical data, permissive tract maps, and tabular results.

RCP8.5 Is Officially Dead: Climate Science Finally Retires Its Implausible Extreme Scenario

The RCP8.5 (and its close equivalent SSP5-8.5) has effectively been retired from the core framework for the next round of major climate modeling (CMIP7, feeding into IPCC AR7).

The RCP8.5 (and its close equivalent SSP5-8.5) has effectively been retired from the core framework for the next round of major climate modeling (CMIP7, feeding into IPCC AR7).

This is a meaningful course correction after years of criticism. Roger Pielke Jr. called it “the most significant development in climate research in decades” in his recent Substack post.

Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) were developed for CMIP5 (used heavily in IPCC AR5). RCP8.5 assumed a radiative forcing of +8.5 W/m² by 2100 relative to pre-industrial— the highest of the standard set. It implied very high greenhouse gas concentrations, often described (misleadingly) as “business-as-usual” or a no-new-policies baseline.

In practice, it became the most-cited scenario in thousands of impact studies (floods, wildfires, agriculture, health, sea level, etc.) because it produced the strongest “signal” for detecting climate effects amid natural variability—useful for model diagnostics but problematic when treated as the default future.

A new paper by Van Vuuren et al. (2026) for the ScenarioMIP framework (guiding CMIP7) introduces seven updated scenarios and drops RCP8.5/SSP5-8.5 and SSP3-7.0 as core cases.

Reasons cited:

  • Falling costs of renewables (solar/wind).
  • Expansion of climate policies.
  • Actual emission trends and energy outlooks (e.g., IEA current/stated policies scenarios) that diverge sharply from the extreme high-coal pathway.
  • The high-end scenarios are now deemed implausible on socioeconomic and technological grounds.

Critics like Pielke, Justin Ritchie, and others had documented for years that RCP8.5 diverged from reality even in the near term: observed/post-2005 emissions, coal trends, and energy projections tracked much lower. It required assumptions (e.g., coal super-abundance ignoring reserves and economics) that were already strained by the 2010s. IPCC AR6 itself noted high-emissions scenarios had “low likelihood” and weren’t typical “no policy” baselines, though legacy use persisted.

For over a decade, RCP8.5 was over-weighted in research, media, and policy communication—often without clear probability labels or caveats that it was an extreme/high-risk pathway, not the expected one. This inflated perceptions of imminent catastrophe and justified aggressive mitigation timelines that downplayed trade-offs (energy reliability, costs, development in poor countries). Self-correction in science is good: dropping implausible baselines improves credibility.

CMIP7 (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 7) is the next major iteration of the international effort to coordinate Earth System Model (ESM) simulations for understanding past, present, and future climate. Its ScenarioMIP component defines the core future emissions/concentration/land-use pathways that drive these models. The key paper is Van Vuuren et al. (2026) in Geoscientific Model Development, which formalizes a new set of seven scenarios for CMIP7 (feeding into IPCC AR7 and broader research).

Roger Pielke Jr. is a political scientist and policy scholar (University of Colorado Boulder emeritus, now AEI senior fellow) specializing in the intersection of science, policy, disasters, and climate. He accepts the core physics—humans influence the climate via greenhouse gases, and the planet has warmed—but has long criticized how climate science is communicated, how scenarios are used (or misused), the politicization of research, and the overemphasis on aggressive mitigation at the expense of adaptation and innovation.

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RCP8.5 is Officially Dead

The most significant development in climate research in decades

From The Honest Broker

By Roger Pielke Jr.

“[T]he high-emissions RCP8.5 scenario has long been described as a “business-as-usual” pathway with a continued emphasis on energy from fossil fuels with no climate policies in place. This remains 100% accurate . . .“ — from 2021, Chris Field (co-chair of IPCC WG2 AR5) and Marcia McNutt (president of U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine )

The international committee responsible for the official scenarios that feed into climate modeling that are the basis for most projective climate research and the assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just published the next generation of climate scenarios.

Big news: The new framework has eliminated the most extreme scenarios that have dominated climate research over much of the past several decades — specifically, RCP8.5, SSP5-8.5, and SSP3-7.0. This is an absolutely huge development in climate science which will have lasting impacts across research and policy.

The future is not what it used to be.

Today’s post commends the researchers who have brought climate scenarios more in line with current understandings, but also raises some significant continuing issues with the scenarios.

Let’s get started . . .

The new scenarios come from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) — a project of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), co-sponsored by the World Meteorological Organization, the International Science Council, and UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission.

Under CMIP, now in its seventh iteration, sits another little-known committee with responsibility for developing the scenarios necessary for earth system models to project future climate.1 That committee — called ScenarioMIP — just published the new scenario framework that will underpin the IPCC’s Seventh Assessment Report (AR7) and much of the research that it will draw upon.

In a paper released earlier this month, Van Vuuren et al. (VVetal26) introduce a new set of seven scenarios. The authors write of the obsolete high end emissions scenarios (emphasis added):

“For the 21st century, this range will be smaller than assessed before: on the high-end of the range, the CMIP6 high emission levels (quantified by SSP5-8.5) have become implausible, based on trends in the costs of renewables, the emergence of climate policy and recent emission trends.”

Read that again — The high end scenarios are Implausible.2

I disagree that the implausibility of the high-end scenarios resulted from the falling costs of renewables or the emergence of climate policy, but that is a debate for another day.

What matters today is that the group with official responsibility for developing climate scenarios for the IPCC and broader research community has now admitted that the scenarios that have dominated climate research, assessment, and policy during the past two cycles of the IPCC assessment process are implausible: They describe impossible futures.

Tens of thousands of research papers have been — and continue to be — published using these scenarios, a similar number of media headlines have amplified their findings, and governments and international organization have built these implausible scenarios into policy and regulation.

We now know that all of this is built on a foundation of sand.

What changed

The new CMIP7 ScenarioMIP framework offers seven scenarios spanning a range from “VERY LOW” through “HIGH.” The current naming convention drops the radiative-forcing target labels of the SSP era — there is no “8.5” scenario, and no “7.0” scenario, but as I’ll show below, each scenario has a radiative forcing level in 2100.

I ran the available new scenarios (HIGH, MEDIUM, LOW, and VERY LOW) through the FaIR calibrated and constrained ensemble that Sanderson and Smith (2025) used to characterize the CMIP7 set (FaIR v. 2.2.0 as described in their README file). I then ran each of the five tier-1 SSPs through the same emulator with identical parameters to ensure that the results are apples-to-apples. The full methodology, data, and code is in the appendix to this post.

The headline results follow.

CO₂ emissions: fossil fuels and industry, 2000–2100

The chart above shows fossil-fuel and industry CO₂ emissions for four CMIP7 scenarios alongside the five tier-1 SSPs and the two main reference scenarios from the 2025 IEA World Energy Outlook.

Note the massive gap between the new HIGH and SSP5-8.5. The new HIGH reaches 71 Gt CO₂/yr in 2100 — far below SSP5-8.5 at 128 Gt in 2100. Nothing in the CMIP7 set comes close to SSP5-8.5. The new HIGH also sits below SSP3-7.0 by about 9% in terms of cumulative emissions to 2100. Note also the gap between MEDIUM (solid yellow) and SSP2-4.5 (dashed yellow), which I’ll return to below.

Both of the most recent IEA near term scenarios — which run to 2050 — fall below MEDIUM and SSP2-4.5.

The table below compares the CMIP7 scenarios to their closest AR6 analogues, showing that the overall range has constricted. The higher scenarios have come down and the lower scenarios have come up — except VERY LOW, which moved down.

2100 effective radiative forcing and end-of-century temperature

The table below lists AR6 and CMIP7 scenarios from highest to lowest 2100 radiative forcing. The middle column shows the average global temperature change from an 1850-1900 baseline, under the climate emulator used by CMIP7. The right column shows the average temperature change for the SSPs as projected by the IPCC AR6.

Read the full story here.

Claim: Only Conservatives who Don’t Like Liberals Oppose Climate Action

The claim—that opposition to “climate action” stems primarily from conservatives who personally dislike liberals, rather than substantive disagreements—is a reductive framing often pushed in academic or activist circles. It attempts to pathologize dissent as tribal animosity instead of engaging with policy, economics, science, or risk assessment. Polling and real-world outcomes show a clearer picture: a large, persistent partisan gap exists, but it’s rooted in differing priorities, views on government intervention, economic trade-offs, and skepticism about alarmist framings and specific prescriptions—not mere “dislike.”

From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

“… reducing hostility toward the other side (particularly among conservatives) may facilitate cross-ideological climate coalitions. …”

Climate policy isn’t partisan — research suggests more on the right support it than oppose it

Published: April 29, 2026 2.09am AEST
Emily Huddart Professor of Sociology, University of British Columbia
Tony Silva Associate Professor of Sociology, University of British Columbia

Climate change has become entangled in partisan politics. In Canada, as in other countries, climate concern and support for climate policy are often coded as left-leaning positions. Meanwhile, climate change skepticism or denial is more likely to be espoused by those on the political right.

…

However, we found that having ties to the oil and gas sector did not significantly predict their support for climate policy. Likewise, the degree of conservatism — whether someone identified as centre-right or far-right — didn’t make conservatives less likely to support climate policy either.

…

What mattered most was affective polarization.

Negative feelings toward the left and positive feelings toward the right were by far the strongest predictors of climate policy attitudes, and explained the most variation in support. 

In simple terms, people on the right who felt the most hostility toward the left, and the most warmth toward the right, were more likely to oppose climate policy.

…Read more: https://theconversation.com/climate-policy-isnt-partisan-research-suggests-more-on-the-right-support-it-than-oppose-it-280912

The abstract of the study;

Negative partisanship, positive partisanship, and variation in climate policy attitudes on the political right

Emily Huddart , Tony Silva , Parker Muzzerall , James N Druckman

PNAS Nexus, Volume 5, Issue 4, April 2026, pgag094, https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag094

Published:
28 March 2026

Abstract

Conservatives are more likely than liberals to oppose climate policies, resulting in political polarization over climate change. Most research treats this gap as if it reflects two cohesive blocs on opposite sides of an issue. Drawing on original survey data from a probability sample of Canadians (n = 2,503), we find that while liberals are highly uniform in their orientation toward climate policies, conservatives are far more heterogeneous. Further analyses reveal conservatives’ policy positions strongly correlate with their partisan affect—both the extent to which they dislike opposing liberals (negative partisanship) and the extent to which they like fellow conservatives (positive partisanship). These findings highlight the importance of considering variation within, and not just between, political sides. The results additionally suggest that reducing hostility toward the other side (particularly among conservatives) may facilitate cross-ideological climate coalitions.

Read more: https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/5/4/pgag094/8553701

The study appears to assume conservatives who oppose climate action are irrational. From the first paragraph of the study – “… Climate mitigation policy in democratic nations requires coordination and compromise between political elites, scientific experts, and citizens. Yet sound public policies are often rejected due to partisan or ideological divides. …”

The determination of whether someone was conservative was based on self identification – “… We use “liberal” and “conservative” to denote respondents’ self-placement on a 0–10 ideological scale (0 = extremely liberal/left, 10 = extremely conservative/right), rather than formal party affiliation …”. This introduces some obvious potential biases.

The unsupported assumption that climate policies are “sound”, and by implication that opposition to climate policies is irrational, is the key mistake which led the study authors to an erroneous conclusion.

When I first heard of the climate crisis I was concerned. It was when I heard the absurd proposed solutions – solar panels and wind turbines – and heard and read claims that nuclear power was too dangerous, that I started digging deeper.

If the world was truly on the brink of a climate catastrophe, how could the risk of a few nuclear meltdowns possibly be worse than a global warming mass extinction event?

It didn’t long to discover the truth of the situation. The reality is claims we are in the midst of a global warming crisis are just as irrational as green opposition to nuclear power. The world is in no danger of overheating – our world has been locked in the Late Cenzoic Ice Age for the last 34 million years, an ice age which shows no sign of ending.

Why would awareness of these facts lead to feelings of hostility towards climate activist politicians?

The ongoing affordability crisis in renewable enthusiast regions like Europe more than demonstrates a world with energy systems dominated by wind and solar would be a world locked in a permanent economic great depression, with industries crushed by the cost of unreliable energy, by having to continuously start and stop the engine of society depending on hour by hour changes in the weather. Not the kind of world most people would want to leave to their kids.

The study authors considered none of this. By blindly assuming climate policy proposals are sound, by inferring respondents who opposed climate action did not have rational reasons for that opposition, without bothering to ask what those reasons are, the study authors confused cause and effect. The study authors leapt to the false conclusion that opposition to climate policy is motivated by emotional prejudice against liberals, without considering the possibility those negative feelings are motivated by reason.

It’s ‘Weather’ Season … Again. What to Expect – The Climate Realism Show #200

The Heartland Institute’s Anthony Watts, Linnea Lueken, Sterling Burnett, and Jim Lakely will talk about all this, and more, on Episode #200 of The Climate Realism Show. Join us LIVE at 1 p.m. ET on YouTube, Rumble, X, and Facebook. Participate in the show by leaving your comments and questions in the chat.

The Heartland Institute

Spring is here, which means it is Hurricane Season, Tornado Season, Allergy Season, all normal and natural aspects of life on Earth. Climate alarmists, however, will be telling you this year promises to be the worst season ever, and it’s your fault. We will prepare you to counter this propaganda with the truth. We will also cover some of the Crazy Climate News of the Week, including EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin slaying members of Congress (rhetorically) on Capitol Hill, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is finally abandoning its always-absurd worst-case-scenario for global warming, a hare-brained scheme to dam the Bering Strait to save the planet, New York’s climate mandates are dramatically spiking energy prices for middle class residents of a New York City co-op, and do we kind of agree with what King Charles said about environmentalism in front of Congress?

The Heartland Institute’s Anthony Watts, Linnea Lueken, Sterling Burnett, and Jim Lakely will talk about all this, and more, on Episode #200 of The Climate Realism Show. Join us LIVE at 1 p.m. ET on YouTube, Rumble, X, and Facebook. Participate in the show by leaving your comments and questions in the chat.

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

Florida AG James Uthmeier just ended the ‘green’ plastics cartel

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier recently did something that environmental activist groups clearly weren’t expecting: He stopped asking nicely.

Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine – May 23, 2022: Long shelves with Coca-Cola bottles in a supermarket

From CFACT

By Melanie Collette

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier recently did something that environmental activist groups clearly weren’t expecting: He stopped asking nicely.

Earlier this month, Mr. Uthmeier issued civil investigative demands to the U.S. Plastics Pact, the Consumer Goods Forum, the Sustainable Packaging Coalition and to corporate members Coca-Cola, Mondelez, Nestle, Target and Unilever.

The civil investigative demands compel these organizations and companies to turn over communications, documents and records related to their coordinated packaging rules, including their “problematic materials” lists.

Mr. Uthmeier alleges that these groups have been operating what amounts to a green cartel, coordinating corporate behavior, restricting which products can be made and sold and driving up costs for consumers — all under the guise of “sustainability.”

If that sounds like an antitrust violation to you, it does to Florida’s attorney general, too.

“Environmental groups are pressuring corporations to abandon free market principles and raise prices on consumers for products they don’t want,” Mr. Uthmeier said. “Our office provided them with a sufficient opportunity to respond to our inquiries regarding potential violations of the law. Time’s up.”

He is right. This investigation started back in October 2025, when Mr. Uthmeier led a coalition of attorneys general from Texas, Iowa, Nebraska and Montana in sending letters directly to the environmental organizations, warning that their coordinated market activities raised serious antitrust concerns.

The groups apparently didn’t take the hint.

In February, the coalition, now expanded to 10 Republican attorneys general, sent letters to nearly 80 corporations warning that their continued participation in these organizations could expose them to antitrust liability.

Some companies read the room. Nestle and Mondelez left the U.S. Plastics Pact in 2025. Walmart and Mars did the same after concluding that their recycling targets were unrealistic and costly, and that they produced no real environmental benefit.

Others didn’t budge.

Coca-Cola, for instance, still aims to use 30% to 35% recycled plastic in its packaging. Target still touts its membership as a U.S. Plastics Pact “activator,” working toward targets such as making all packaging reusable, recyclable or compostable.

What makes this investigation different from the letters that preceded it is the civil investigative demands themselves. A letter is a warning. A civil investigative demand is a legal instrument that requires companies and organizations to produce the documents and communications requested.

The Florida attorney general’s office is moving from talk to action, and it’s exactly the kind of enforcement that free market advocates have been awaiting.

So what exactly are the civil investigative demands after? According to Bloomberg Law, the demands target communications between the companies and the environmental groups that have collaborated on industry packaging practices.

The demands cite the Florida Antitrust Act, alleging that “agreements that unreasonably restrain trade and result in increased costs, reduced output and reduced quality of goods and services” may be in play.

The Consumer Goods Forum’s “Golden Design Rules” require member companies to adopt uniform packaging standards by agreed-upon deadlines. The U.S. Plastics Pact’s “Roadmap to 2025” set four binding targets, including eliminating “problematic” plastics and increasing recycled content to 30%.

The timing matters too. Just four days before these civil investigative demands, Mr. Uthmeier’s office subpoenaed the Environmental Law Institute and its Climate Judiciary Project, demanding it disclose funding sources, communications with Florida judges and its role in climate-related litigation.

Mr. Uthmeier called it part of a “Climate Cartel” trying to hijack the judicial system.

The plastics civil investigative demands fit the same systematic effort to expose how activist organizations coordinate corporate and legal behavior behind closed doors. (Mr. Uthmeier’s office has also previously subpoenaed the Science Based Targets initiative and CDP, two other pillars of the corporate sustainability compliance ecosystem.)

The message to the environmental, social and governance establishment is becoming clear: If your “voluntary” frameworks function as mechanisms for coordinating market behavior and suppressing competition, then state attorneys general are prepared to treat them that way.

Florida and its coalition partners deserve credit for following through. Too often, state-level pushback against ESG overreach amounts to nothing more than sharply worded letters and press conferences. Mr. Uthmeier is putting legal teeth behind the rhetoric, and the companies and organizations on the receiving end of these civil investigative demands would be wise to take notice.

The free market doesn’t need a cartel of activist nonprofits telling it what kind of plastic bottle your soda should come in. Consumers are perfectly capable of making those choices themselves if the green lobby gets out of the way.

This article originally appeared at The Washington Times

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Melanie Collette

Melanie Collette is a CFACT Policy Analyst.

She comes to CFACT (Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow) with a background in environmental/energy policy work, especially in combatting the offshore wind turbine groups and green organizations in their plans for northeast construction of wind farms up and down the Atlantic coast.

As a policy analyst for CFACT and host of the podcast How Money Works with Melanie Collette, she’s made it her mission to speak out against harmful or inadequate social and public policy issues, simplify economics and energy issues, and empower others with practical financial wisdom.

Before stepping into the national spotlight, Melanie spent over 24 years in education, with 12 of those years dedicated to teaching business and technology.

Her background as a former educator and current Cape May County Commissioner in New Jersey speaks to her deep commitment to serving her community.

Beyond her local leadership roles, she’s also a former Vice Chair of the New Jersey Federation of Republican Women and now serves as Vice Chair of the Cape May County GOP.

When she’s not analyzing policy or sharing money tips, Melanie is a regular face on television, known for her sharp, thought-provoking commentary on today’s hottest issues.

With more than 400 on-screen appearances—and adding 3 to 5 new segments weekly—her voice has become a trusted resource on the intersections of media, education, and policy. Melanie’s public policy work and her passion for financial literacy has made her a sought-after speaker nationwide.

Whether delivering keynote addresses or joining panel discussions, she inspires audiences with her unique blend of experience, insight, and unwavering dedication to empowering others.

Miliband’s Favourite Economist Doesn’t Understand How Markets Work

Ed Miliband, as Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero in the Labour government, spoke at a Good Growth Foundation event. He praised Mariana Mazzucato (UCL professor, often called the “godmother of missions”) for shaping Labour’s approach. Miliband framed the transition away from fossil fuels as delivering both energy security and cheaper energy long-term, positioning government-led “missions” (directed investment, industrial strategy, and public direction of innovation) as the solution to climate and growth challenges.

From Tilak´s Substack

By Tilak Doshi

When Ed Miliband took the podium at the Good Growth Foundation’s National Growth Debate in Westminster last week, he did not disappoint his audience of the converted. Flanked by the economist he has long revered, Miliband delivered a speech that could serve as a textbook case of what I have elsewhere called the “economic illiteracy of UK energy policy”.

Yet to dismiss it as mere stupidity would be a mistake. There is a method to Miliband’s madness—one honed over years in the cloistered halls of “woke” Oxford and the Fabian-inspired London School of Economics and now supercharged by the “mission”-obsessed theories of Professor Mariana Mazzucato of University College London.

In that speech—republished by the New Statesman—Miliband declared that “the era of fossil fuel security is over, and the era of clean energy security must come of age.” He credited “the godmother of missions, Marianna Mazzucato, who’s with us,” for the intellectual scaffolding of Labour’s clean energy push.

The mission, he said, established in opposition and now in government, has “two parts—driving to a clean electricity system but also electrifying as much as we can, as we decarbonise the wider economy.” Informed by the “lessons” of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the latest crisis over the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Miliband insists Britain must “double down” on net zero, tax North Sea oil and gas investments punitively, and “electrify everything” while rejecting any new exploration and development of domestic hydrocarbons.

Pernicious Political Elite

This is not ignorance born of inexperience. Miliband has been a central figure in Britain’s—and the world’s—climate movement for nearly two decades. As Climate Change Secretary under Gordon Brown, he helped shepherd the 2008 Climate Change Act, the legislative foundation for the UK’s self-proclaimed folly of “international climate leadership”. He has since served as Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change and, since July 2024, as the government’s Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary.

His fingerprints are on every major escalation: the legally binding net zero target by 2050, the push for “clean, homegrown” renewables, and the deliberate throttling of North Sea production through windfall taxes and regulatory hurdles. Far from a novice, Miliband is a seasoned operator who has consistently placed climate ideology above economic realism. The roots of this approach lie in his education. Miliband read Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, before earning an MSc in Economics at the LSE.

PPE, that notorious Oxbridge conveyor belt of generalist debaters and policy wonks, has long been criticised for producing slick operators fluent in debating abstractions and civil service procedures but often shallow on real world trade-offs and incentives. The degree is seen as a “sure ticket to the top,” having regularly produced numerous UK Prime Ministers (including Cameron, Truss, and Sunak), cabinet ministers and top civil servants.

Add the Fabian socialist ethos of the LSE—long a cradle of central planning and state-directed “progress”—and you have the perfect incubator for learned economic illiteracy. This is not a failure to learn economics; it is the active absorption of a peculiar strain of it, one in which “saving the planet” by a self-appointed expert class from the apocalypse of “global boiling” trumps every mundane consideration of reliability or opportunity cost.

Enter Mariana Mazzucato, the UCL professor whose 2021 book Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism has become the bible for Starmer’s five-mission Labour platform. Miliband’s praise of her as the “godmother of missions” was no throwaway line. Mazzucato’s framework—bold state “missions” to shape markets, “directionality,” “intersectoral collaboration,” and “public value”—has been adopted wholesale. Starmer’s missions on net zero, health, education, and the rest echo her call for government to move from “fixing market failures” to actively creating markets through “moonshot” ambition.

Critics of Prof. Mazzucato, including economists like Alberto Mingardi in City Journal and Michael D. Thomas in The Independent Review, refer to her work as an example of the “nirvana fallacy”: comparing imperfect real-world markets to an idealised, omniscient state free of rent-seeking, bureaucratic capture, or coordination failures. Her evidence is selective—she overstates the state’s role in innovations like the mobile phone while downplaying government waste, political short-termism, and the knowledge problem that Friedrich Hayek warned against in his critique of central planning’s “fatal conceit.”

Mazzucato’s jargon—“missions,” “moonshots,” “collective intelligence”—is not neutral rhetoric. It is the linguistic scaffolding of a worldview in which experts in white papers and government institutes know better than price signals, consumer choice, or entrepreneurial discovery. Miliband and Starmer quote her not as an economist offering testable hypotheses but as an influencer whose narrative fits the climate zeitgeist.

Since 2023, Prof. Mazzucato has served as a key technical adviser to Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley and co-authored with the prime minister two major reports on inclusive and sustainable development for Barbados. A central plank of the government is the Bridgetown Initiative which Mottley launched and invited Mazzucato to join as a founding member in 2022. The Initiative calls on the UN to give climate-vulnerable small island developing states (SIDS) which allegedly face existential threats from sea-level rise expanded access to loss-and-damage funding and climate finance mechanisms.

The Climate Imperative Above All

Economics is the science of ranking alternatives under scarcity, aka “opportunity costs” and trade-offs among various public policy choices by government. When climate change is elevated to existential imperative, trade-offs disappear by fiat. There is only one opportunity (“decarbonize”) and only one cost (“decarbonization”) that matters. The only permissible policies are those that accelerate decarbonisation, no matter the cost to bills, jobs, or growth. Nowhere is this clearer than in UK energy policy. Miliband insists that renewables are “homegrown” and “clean,” and “cheaper” to boot, insulating Britain from volatile global fossil fuel prices.

Yet none of these claims survive scrutiny. Solar and wind components are overwhelmingly manufactured in China, whose coal-fired power underpins the entire global supply chain from mining rare earths to refining polysilicon. The “clean energy superpower” vision depends on Beijing’s dirty energy. The UK has various “on shoring” initiatives to bring about a “manufacturing renaissance” in clean energy. Most are far-fetched to say the least (remember Boris Johnson’s boast about making the UK the “Saudi Arabia of wind energy”?) There are no UK-owned major OEM (original equipment manufacturers). Turbines are still designed and largely supplied by foreign companies (Vestas, Siemens Gamesa, GE Vernova). A “British wind turbine” from scratch would require enormous R&D, capital, and scale that doesn’t currently exist.

In any full-cycle analysis of renewable energy manufacturing, the mining and refining of minerals and rare earths required to produce components in solar, wind and battery technologies is anything but clean. And the myth of “cheap” renewables has been debunked countless times though interminable debates on system costs and intermittency keep being repeated across the energy policy literature. But the real test for all countries embarked on the Net Zero campaign remains as to how long can government subsidies for renewables on the one hand and high taxes on fossil fuels on the other, last before voters revolt over high energy bills and before the bond vigilantes come calling as the country tests its creditworthiness in international credit markets.

Meanwhile, punitive taxes on North Sea investments have accelerated decline in a sector that still provides Britain energy security and tax revenues. IEA’s Executive Director Fatih Birol — who had sounded contrite previously regarding his anti-fossil fuel posture in public meetings with US Energy Secretary Chris Wright — once again echoes Miliband. Since no new oil and gas investments are needed because demand will fall and investments will be stranded, Mr. Birol advises that the UK should forgo much of its potential North Sea expansion “despite the pressure”.

In the energy crises brought on by the Russian invasion of the Ukraine in 2022 and now in the face of the Hormuz crisis, Fatih opined in an “exclusive with the Guardian” interview:

“There will be a significant boost to renewables and nuclear power and a further shift towards a more electrified future…And this will cut into the main markets for oil…The vase is broken, the damage is done – it will be very difficult to put the pieces back together. This will have permanent consequences for the global energy markets for years to come.”

What Net Zero Has Wrought for Britain

Britain’s cumulative GDP growth since 2008 lags the US and even much of the EU, as Jon Moynihan meticulously documents in his two-volume Return to Growth: How to Fix the Economy. While the US boomed on the shale revolution and market-led innovation, the UK has presided over deindustrialisation, energy poverty, and policy-induced stagnation.

Massive government R&D spending on green innovation — as per Prof. Mazzucato’s call for “moonshot missions”—falls short when subjected to economic scrutiny. Miliband’s £22 billion bet on carbon capture and storage (CCS)—an unproven, outrageously expensive technology—exemplifies the conceit. It is the very industrial policy Mazzucato champions: government “picking winners” while socialising risks and privatising rewards for cronies.

Private firms like Google and SpaceX often lead where government lags. Government R&D subsidies invite cronyism—firms find it easier to lobby for handouts rather than compete in a competitive marketplace. Bureaucratic committees cannot replicate the dispersed knowledge of markets with skin in the game. Nuclear fusion, for instance, always remains “50 years away,” and history is littered with white elephants from state-directed innovation. Miliband’s approach reflects this planner’s hubris writ large.

Lenin’s Useful Idiots

The deeper problem is emotional, not intellectual. As one perceptive X post claims, Ed Miliband suffers from a “saviour complex”. Advisers who understand economics are sidelined because the mission is messianic: Britain must lead the world in “climate leadership,” consequences be damned. This learned illiteracy is shared across the Anglosphere’s progressive governments—from Ottawa to Canberra to Brussels. They double down on net zero dogma even as energy prices soar, industries flee, and voters revolt at the ballot box.

Mazzucato’s ideas provide the perfect intellectual cover. Her missions promise purposeful capitalism without the messy realities of perverse incentives, bureaucratic failure or unintended policy consequences. They elevate “public purpose” above profit and loss, allowing politicians to pose as visionaries while entrenching bureaucratic power and corporate welfare. In this, they serve a larger agenda: using climate as the Trojan horse for expanded state control over the economy.

Lenin famously found “useful idiots” among Western intellectuals sympathetic to the Bolshevik cause—naïve fellow travellers who lent credibility to revolutionary violence. The Greens, it seems, have found their own cadre in the Mazzucato mould: well-credentialed, jargon-fluent economists whose learned illiteracy provides intellectual respectability to policies that immiserate the working class, hobble growth, and enrich cronies.

Call them Mazzucato’s idiots. They are indispensable to the Net Zero agenda precisely because they cloak ideological zeal in the language of economic sophistication. Britain deserves better. Until policymakers rediscover the humility of classical political economy—acknowledging trade-offs, the limits of state knowledge and state action, and the superior information-processing power of competitive markets—the method to Miliband’s madness will continue to deliver higher bills, lower growth, and energy insecurity dressed up as climate virtue and moral triumph.

The mission, it turns out, is not to save the planet. It is to remake capitalism in the image of the administrative state. And the bill, as always, will be paid by ordinary Britons.

A version of this article was first published in the Daily Sceptic https://dailysceptic.org/2026/04/29/milibands-favourite-economist-doesnt-understand-how-markets-work/

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 (cancelled) to Forbes. Follow him on Substack and X.

South Korea’s Net Zero Boast Crumbles

Just a few months ago, South Korean officials were busy boasting about extreme net zero targets. Fast forward to April 2026, and the country is scrambling to secure every vessel load of oil and natural gas available on the global market.

From The CO2 Coalition

By Vijay Jayaraj

Just a few months ago, South Korean officials were busy boasting about extreme net zero targets. Fast forward to April 2026, and the country is scrambling to secure every vessel load of oil and natural gas available on the global market.

Last November, the Presidential Commission on Carbon Neutrality and Green Growth formalized its 2035 Nationally Determined Contribution, pledging a sweeping 53–61% cut in greenhouse gas emissions from 2018 levels (742 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent).

The anti-fossil fuel lobby hailed this as proof of Asia’s fourth-largest economy decoupling growth from fossil fuels, an energy source that is often maligned as “poison” and relics of an unsustainable past.

Today, the same fuels are national lifelines. The government’s request to Gulf producers for “steady energy supply and safety assurances for Korean vessels” is a stunning reversal. The contrast could not be starker.

The desperation extends directly to the streets. On April 1, the South Korean government elevated its energy security alert, announcing strict conservation rules to save the fuels they had planned to tax into oblivion. Public-sector fleets — including 1.5 million vehicles across ministries, local governments, and schools — were to face alternate-day driving rules based on license plate numbers.

President Lee reportedly has called Indonesia’s stable LNG (liquefied natural gas) and coal supplies “very reassuring” amid the chaos — a statement that reveals a recognition of fossil fuels as cornerstones of national security.

So, why does a wealthy nation codify a net zero mandate for 2035 and then follow up by begging global suppliers to send massive loads of hydrocarbons?

The answer lies in the unforgiving physics of energy. Wind turbines, solar panels, and battery storage cannot power, produce, or sustain a modern manufacturing base. They lack the energy density and reliability required to replace electricity from fossil fuels.

South Korea’s three major refineries — SK Energy’s Ulsan complex, GS Caltex in Yeosu, and S-Oil’s Onsan plant — rank among the largest globally. Combined, they process millions of barrels per day into both fuels and industrial feedstocks exported to nations. Naphtha from these refineries serves as the vital feedstock for South Korea’s petrochemical plants, the fourth-largest producers of ethylene and propylene on Earth.

These chemicals create the plastics, synthetic fibers, and resins that make up automobile interiors, electronic device casings, clothing fabrics, food packaging, medical tubing, and construction. Without them, South Korea’s export engines for semiconductors, shipbuilding, automobiles, and textiles don’t exist. Oil does not merely move goods; it sustains entire industries.

South Korea’s economy cannot operate without imported hydrocarbons. The country imports more than 97% of its energy, with crude oil and natural gas accounting for the lion’s share. South Korea must spend its resources on diversifying oil and gas imports while expanding LNG partnerships in Southeast Asia, not on unachievable political vanity projects.

Climate policies, framed as moral imperatives, cannot withstand the scrutiny of real-world performance. The science around catastrophic climate predictions remains unsettled, and the historical record shows that nations have often thrived during periods of moderate warming. Increased atmospheric CO₂ has correlated with agricultural productivity, greening large parts of the world and benefiting food security in South Korea.

The net zero agenda requires a deliberate ignorance of how the modern world functions. South Korea rose from the ashes of war to become a global economic titan because it embraced the power of energy-dense, reliable fossil fuels. Turning away from this proven model in favor of unproven, weather-dependent technologies is a recipe for economic ruin.

South Korea must end sacrificing growth, stability, and innovation at the altar of unverifiable climate fantasy. The country remains dependent on fossil fuels by necessity.

Originally published on California Globe on April 28, 2026.

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. He served as a research associate with the Changing Oceans Research Unit at University of British Columbia, Canada.