Day: May 5, 2026

Amsterdam Bans Meat And Fossil Fuel Ads But You Can Still Get Stoned

The tireless virtue-signallers of Amsterdam have found another route to saving the planet. Since May 1st advertising meat and fossil fuels has been banned in the familiar way the Left seeks to modify behaviour.

From The Daily Sceptic

By Sallust

The tireless virtue-signallers of Amsterdam have found another route to saving the planet. Since May 1st advertising meat and fossil fuels has been banned in the familiar way the Left seeks to modify behaviour. The BBC has the story:

Politicians in the city say the move is about bringing Amsterdam’s streetscape into line with the local government’s own environmental targets.

These aim for the Dutch capital to become carbon neutral by 2050, and for local people to halve their meat consumption over the same period.

“The climate crisis is very urgent,” says Anneke Veenhoff from the GreenLeft Party. “I mean, if you want to be leading in climate policies and you rent out your walls to exactly the opposite, then what are you doing?

“Most people don’t understand why the municipality should make money out of renting our public space with something that we are actively having policies against.”

Supporters of the policy argue that the initiative will help to make people freer, even though meat advertising only constituted 0.1% of advertising revenue:

This view is echoed by Anke Bakker, who is Amsterdam group leader for a Dutch political party that focuses on animal rights – Party for the Animals.

She instigated the new restrictions, and rejects accusations of them being nanny state.

“Everybody can just make their own decisions, but actually we are trying to get the big companies not to tell us all the time what we need to eat and buy,” says Bakker.

“In a way, we’re giving people more freedom because they can make their own choice, right?”

Removing that constant visual nudge, she says, both reduces impulse buying, and signals that cheap meat and fossil heavy travel are no longer aspirational lifestyle choices.

The idea it seems, is that by “grouping meat with flights, cruises and petrol and diesel cars reframes it from a purely private dietary choice to a climate issue.”

Others might call this a form of brainwashing. One wonders what might else be grouped with meat, flights and fossil-fuelled cars.

Unsurprisingly, the Dutch Meat Association, which represents the industry, is unhappy at the move, which it calls “an undesirable way to influence consumer behaviour”. It adds that meat “delivers essential nutrients and should remain visible and accessible to consumers”.

Meanwhile, the Dutch Association of Travel Agents and Tour Operators says that the ban on advertising holidays that include air travel is a disproportionate curb on companies’ commercial freedom.

Of course, this doesn’t affect advertising online. So will it even work?

However, some researchers are cautiously optimistic, such as Professor Joreintje Mackenbach who is an epidemiologist – a medical professional who investigates health patterns within populations.

“If we see advertisements for fast food everywhere, it normalizes the consumption of behaviour of fast consumption,” says Mackenbach, who is from the Department of Epidemiology and Data Science at hospital Amsterdam University Medical Centre.

“So if we take away those types of cues in our public living environments, then that is also going to have an impact on those social norms.”

“Because like everything we love, festivals, nice cheese, a flower shop around the corner. All the stuff that we love, we don’t hear from through ads,” she says.

“I think and I hope that big polluting companies will be extra scared. And maybe will rethink the kind of products they are selling. I think you can really see that change is possible.”

A quick glance through Professor Mackenbach’s publications shows a strong interest in using nudge techniques to change people’s behaviour.

As the New York Times observed, in permissive Amsterdam ads for fossil fuels or meat are now verboden, but you can still get stoned:

Amsterdam is famously a place where anything goes. Prostitution is legal. Coffee shops sell marijuana and hashish. Truffles laced with the psychoactive compounds found in hallucinogenic mushrooms are available at ‘smart shops’.

But what is no longer allowed in the freewheeling city’s public spaces are advertisements for products that some city councillors consider to be true vices: Big Macs. Exotic vacations. Gas-powered cars.

Ads for airlines, cruises and faraway destinations are no longer allowed, because they implicitly promote the burning of fossil fuels. Ads for beef, chicken, pork and fish are also banned, because of the environmental harms caused by animal agriculture.

Interestingly, the City Council in The Hague passed the first such law in 2024. In 2025 a trade association and travel agencies sued, only for the judge to rule that the health of citizens and the climate were more important than commercial considerations. Getting stoned and substituting hallucinogenic tripping for going on foreign trips aside.

Never mind though, the abstemious and righteous Dutch can console themselves with festivals, nice cheese and flowershops. And by getting stoned.

Anyone fancy a Big Mac?

The BBC’s piece is worth reading in full.

What about Earth’s Threatened and Endangered PEOPLE?

We just had our 57th Earth Day, and our planet’s poorest people were ignored yet again

From Watts Up With That?

We just had our 57th Earth Day, and our planet’s poorest people were ignored yet again  

Paul Driessen

Another Earth Day has come and gone – number 57, like Heinz steak sauce. Once again, the media, activists and international agencies fed us pablum, exaggeration and alarmism.

Our public lands, the Endangered Species Act, biodiversity and environmental justice are under threat, they raged. Oceans are filling with plastic waste. Big polluting corporations are getting away with “climate homicide” and “planetary ecocide.” The Arctic is melting, and polar bear cubs are drowning.

The United Nations took a short break from bashing Israel over “Palestinian genocide” and western nations for the “gravest crime” ever committed against humanity (trans-Atlantic slavery), to proclaim April 22 “International Mother Earth Day” and call for an end to “crimes” that “disrupt biodiversity.” 

Activists held the “first multilateral conference” on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels. Their “Our Power, Our Planet” theme says further progress will require that communities and individuals pressure governments to accelerate the “clean” energy transition from “dirty” fossil fuels.

Forgive my skepticism. But I was a college organizer for very first Earth Day (1970), back when we had real, highly visible environmental problems: air pollution and toxic smog over cities, industrial water pollution that made it unsafe to swim, leaded gasoline, and more. We largely solved those problems.

Since then, greens have grown in domestic and foreign financing, power and influence, and the ability to conduct ideological campaigns and lawfare on issues of irrelevance to the vast majority of Americans, let alone families in the most energy-deprived, destitute, diseased and malnourished nations on our planet.

Any yet, for days leading up to Earth Day and afterward, virtually nothing was said by the UN, WHO, eco-activists, media screed-meisters or I-care-deeply politicians about these people … or even about people in their own developed countries who bear the brunt of climate-centric, anti-growth, net-zero, de-industrialization, lower-living-standards policies.

It’s as if people don’t exist, and don’t belong, on our planet. The human herd must be culled.

In the developed world, most climate-focused countries and states have the most pseudo-clean energy mandates and subsidies … the highest electricity prices … the highest prices for goods and services. They’re destroying entire industries, leaving thousands unemployed. They have the technologies to utilize their abundant carbon and nuclear energy, but ruling elites don’t want citizens to enjoy jobs and living standards based on that energy. Each year thousands die needlessly during frigid winters and summer heatwaves because families cannot afford or obtain proper heating and air conditioning.

The “climate crisis” is s Hollywood special effects disaster movie. The foundation for any “clean” energy transition is imaginary. Utopian energy is simply not clean, green, renewable or sustainable.

When wind turbines, solar panels, transformers, transmission lines and backup batteries or power plants are included, wind and solar energy require dozens of times more raw materials (and thus mining and pollution) and hundreds of times more land than just building a few nuclear or combined-cycle gas plants close to where electricity is needed – and forgetting about any pseudo-renewable systems.

For families in poor nations, the price tag is infinitely higher.

Worldwide, 730 million people still have no access to electricity. Billions more have minimal, sporadic access. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 600 million have no electricity; hundreds of millions more have minimal, unpredictable electricity from small wind turbines and solar panels here and there. The situation in much of rural Asia and Latin America is little better. Ditto for vehicles and gasoline.

The result is entirely predictable. Almost no wage-earning jobs or mechanized farming, but abundant backbreaking work for parents and children in fields – and plenty of malnutrition, disease and death.

Over half the world’s people (more than four billion) still subsist on $10 a day.

More than 260 million suffer from critical food insecurity and malnutrition, and 35 million children are acutely malnourished, including 10 million with childhood wasting disease – leaving them with weak immune systems and vulnerable to developmental delays, disease and death

Malaria still infects 280,000,000 people annually and kills 610,000. Indoor air pollution from wood, dung, coal and kerosene cooking and heating fires kills nearly 3,000,000 people globally every year. Up to 3.5 million – mostly children – die annually due to inadequate safe water, sanitation and hygiene. Diseases modern western societies never even hear about sicken, disable or kill still more millions.

Do you think any of their grieving families gives a spotted owl hoot that your local temperature climbed a degree since the Little Ice Age ended, or a polar bear cub drowned halfway around the world?

A major reason is rampant corruption. The World Bank found that at least 7.5% (and as much as 15% or more) of total assistance to the most aid-dependent nations ends up in ruling elites’ foreign bank accounts. And yet the WB’s International Development Association received $94 billion for the 2022-2025 period. Multilateral development bank financing to top humanitarian recipients was $12 billion in 2020. Total worldwide Official Development Assistance reached a record $161.2 billion in 2020. Do the math.

Far worse, these banks, US and European foundations, and climate, agricultural and other activist groups work tirelessly to prevent these countries from acquiring or developing the electricity and other energy they need to emerge from squalor, starvation and disease. For decades these virtue-signaling banks have provided loans only for wind and solar projects – almost never for coal or gas power plants.

The result? Expensive, limited, unreliable electricity. No modern hospitals, schools, water purification, factories or shops. Continued pollution from wood and dung fuels. No jobs, improved living standards or reductions in killer diseases.

The same institutions – along with UN and other government agencies – oppose pesticides for eradicating locusts and malarial mosquitoes. They wage campaigns against biotech corn, soybeans, canola, and even hybrid seeds and life-saving Golden Rice. They pressure African governments to ban non-organic fertilizers and crop-saving pesticides that have been approved as safe in wealthy countries. Many even oppose tractors and other mechanized equipment.

To them, the only acceptable farming method is “agro-ecology” – la Via Campesina: the Peasant Way – aka, “traditional,” “organic,” backbreaking subsistence farming.

This, corruption, wars and food-deprivation as a weapon of war is why we still have malnutrition, starvation, disease and astronomical death tolls in African and other impoverished countries.

These global zealots want power over poor countries – not power for the countries’ destitute and desperate people. Their morally depraved policies and practices bring death to millions every year.  

Developing countries should avoid doing what rich nations are doing now that they are rich. Instead, they should do what rich nations did to become rich. They should remember that wealthy industrialized countries did not have MDBs to help them; they created institutions to finance the power generation and factories that created jobs, middle classes, health, prosperity, new industries … and taxes to pay for more.

They must chart their own destiny – and take their rightful places among Earth’s healthy and prosperous people. Decent, moral Westerners must help them end the corruption and make this happen.

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books, reports and articles on energy, environmental, climate and human rights issues.

Hatching a fossil fuel phase out treaty

About 60 countries just gathered together to try to kick off a global phase out of fossil fuel use. For now it is more of a show than a threat so it is worth watching with some humor. Planning to achieve the impossible has to be funny.

People of different nationalities shake hands, symbolizing peace, unity, and respect. Peace concept

From CFACT

By David Wojick

About 60 countries just gathered together to try to kick off a global phase out of fossil fuel use. For now it is more of a show than a threat so it is worth watching with some humor. Planning to achieve the impossible has to be funny.

At this point there are just a lot of proposals. By far the funniest is a proposed phase out deadline of 2030 for coal. Do they not know that China is burning over 5 billion tons a year? That India, Indonesia and others are rapidly building fleets of new coal-fired power plants? This madness is the measure of the phase out movement.

The most threatening proposal is for a designing a new Fossil Fuel Treaty (FFT) mandating the phase out that countries can adopt. As a treaty the FFT would be a legally binding instrument enforceable by the Courts. The FFT has  its own promoting organization here.

What is most interesting is that such a Treaty has the potential to destabilize the UN Climate Change Program. The UN Program is based on an existing treaty, the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC).

The FFT could compete with the FCCC such as for financial resources and even for jurisdiction. The FCC might even make the FCCC obsolete.

This is no accident since the FFT was born out of frustration with the FCCC. The annual decision meeting of the FCCC is the well known COP which stands for Conference of the Parties.

It took 28 COPs to finally get the words “fossil fuel” into a decision and it had no teeth. The reason is simple. The FCCC COP rules call for decisions to be unanimous so nothing controversial ever gets said. At COP 30 there was a movement to get a decision calling for national roadmaps for phasing out fossil fuels. It failed but the present phase out Conference was authorized as a concession.

Given that the FFT is not part of the Conference charter it is far from clear what connection this Treaty has to the UN, quite possibly none. So it is certainly possible that the FFT movement could compete with the UN Program for attention, funding and other resources. The UN Program may have spawned its demise.

The Conference itself made some progress down the road to impossibility that the FFT movement can tap into. France claims to have created a model phase out roadmap. I have not seen it but it likely uses a lot of nuclear power. France figures that if the world goes nuclear their companies will get a lot of the work.

There has also been created a so-called “Panel of Experts” to help countries develop national phase out roadmaps. It is described here.

They are described as scientists and economists and I do not see any engineers. More fantasy that.

It is easy to see how developing a phase out roadmap can lead to adopting a phase out treaty to enforce it. All it takes is a strong green government which most countries get from time to time when the political pendulum swings far left.

It is also easy to see this FFT movement replacing the FCCC. Why spend a fortune on huge ten day global meetings where nothing gets decided? Better to operate at the national level picking off one country at a time.

That the goal is impossible and ill-informed has little bearing on the political reality. The Fossil Fuel Treaty movement is potentially even more dangerous than the UN Climate Change program. It bears careful watching.

Stay tuned to CFACT as this hatchling monster grows.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

David Wojick

David Wojick, Ph.D. is an independent policy analyst and senior advisor to CFACT. As a civil engineer with a Ph.D. in logic and analytic philosophy of science, he brings a unique perspective to complex policy issues. His specializes in science and technology intensive issues, especially in energy and environment. As a cognitive scientist he also does basic research on the structure and dynamics of complex issues and reasoning. This research informs his policy analyses. He has written hundreds of analytical articles. Many recent examples can be found at https://www.cfact.org/author/dwojick/ Often working as a consultant on understanding complex issues, Dr. Wojick’s numerous clients have included think tanks, trade associations, businesses and government agencies. Examples range from CFACT to the Chief of Naval Research and the Energy Department’s Office of Science. He has served on the faculty of Carnegie Mellon University and the staff of the Naval Research Laboratory. He is available for confidential consulting, research and writing.

What Fuel Crisis? New Aussie Call to Tax Fossil Fuel Giants for Climate Damage

Locals ignored the advice of experts in beach sand erosion management. Now the council is blaming fossil fuel companies for the mess.

Inverloch Rock Bag Seawall, Inverloch, Victoria, Australia. Source Facebook, fair use, low resolution image to identify the subject. Image annotated.

From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

Locals ignored the advice of experts in beach sand erosion management. Now the council is blaming fossil fuel companies for the mess.

Coastal council pushes for levy on fossil fuel giants to fund disaster recovery

By Bec Symons and Danielle Kutchel
ABC Gippsland

In short:

Bass Coast Shire Council in south-east Victoria wants the federal government to charge big polluters to help councils and communities recover from environmental disasters. 

The council says fossil fuel companies should be held partly responsible for extreme weather events.

What’s next?

The council will write to Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen asking for a levy to be imposed on fossil fuel companies. 

…

Councillors voted to approve the motion, five votes to four.

“We give away the majority of our gas for free, and we’re exporting it overseas,” Cr Morgan said.

“Australians should be getting a fair share of the returns from the resources that belong to us, and we should use that money to pay for climate damage.”

…

In the tourist town of Inverloch, more than 70 metres of foreshore at the surf beach has been lost to erosion since 2012.

…Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-04/bass-coast-council-pushes-fossil-fuel-levy-for-recovery-fund/106624424

In 2025 locals supported a less than optimal plan to prevent beach erosion – pushing for a rock wall to protect an area of beach, rather than building tried and tested groynes, to force ocean currents to drop more sand on the beach;

Inverloch locals losing beach to erosion support disputed rock bag wall fix

By Danielle Kutchel
ABC Gippsland
Sat 2 Aug 2025

…

A report written by Inverloch resident and retired engineer Keith Godridge proposes installing a rock bag revetment along the beach to prevent further erosion.

This proposal was endorsed by a majority of those at the meeting.

…

University of Melbourne coastal geomorphologist David Kennedy said there was a problem with seawalls like those at Silverleaves and Inverloch.

He said while they might prevent erosion in their location, they could cause it at either end of the wall.

…

Mr Kennedy said the most feasible solution would be an integrated coastal plan, taking into account sand movements around the coast in the whole area and potentially groynes (structures built perpendicular to a shoreline), renourishment and walls.

…Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-02/erosion-rock-walls-phillip-island-inverloch/105586884

Groynes should be a no-brainer in a situation like this. Unlike seawalls, which cause gouging and undermining adjacent to the sea wall as currents become turbulent thanks to encountering the sea wall, groynes act to slow down the current which is carrying away the sand, causing the flowing water to drop any sand it is carrying.

Rock Groyne at Sea Bright Beach, New Jersey. By Tomwsulcer – Own work, CC0, Link

Instead of researching practices which have been successfully deployed countless times in nearby Melbourne and many other places, the Bass Coast Shire council decided to go their own way.

To add to the mystery, Bass Coast Shire Council did install groynes in Cowes in 2021 and was apparently pleased with the result – but went with a sea wall in Inverloch.

To be fair I’m not blaming engineer Keith Godridge for suggesting a seawall – from the picture at the top of this article that rock bag seawall successfully protected what looks like a pleasant picnic area. But expecting such a sea wall would protect the rest of the beach was at best an optimistic proposition. If anything the seawall likely accelerated the erosion, if building the seawall narrowed the passage for the sideways moving current which is stealing all their sand. The forces pushing such currents are enormous, if you narrow the passage, the water often responds by flowing faster, and picking up more sand.

This greedy local government call for more taxes on fossil fuel couldn’t have come at a worse time.

Australia really, really needs to convince fossil fuel companies that Australia is a safe place to invest, to build new refineries, to address the fragility of our long distance fuel supply chain.

Threatening arbitrary new taxes is not an incentive to invest. A local government council blaming climate change and fossil fuel companies for their own poor choices, and adding their voice to demands for more taxes on fossil fuel, this is the last thing Australia needs in this difficult time.

New Probabilistic Model Predicts When and Where Solar Superflares (>X10) Are Most Likely

We are not clearly “overdue” for a solar superflare in any predictable sense—solar activity doesn’t work like a clock, and the risks, while real, are often overhyped in headlines.

We are not clearly “overdue” for a solar superflare in any predictable sense—solar activity doesn’t work like a clock, and the risks, while real, are often overhyped in headlines.

X-class flares are the strongest category in the standard GOES classification (peak soft X-ray flux ≥ 10⁻⁴ W/m²). An X10 is already enormous; stronger ones are sometimes informally called “S-flares” (>X10) in recent research.

Superflares are a broader term from stellar astronomy: much more energetic white-light events observed on other Sun-like stars, often 100+ times stronger than the 1859 Carrington Event (estimated around X45–X80 equivalent in some reconstructions).

The Carrington Event (1859) is the benchmark for extreme solar storms in recorded history. It caused auroras visible in the tropics, telegraph system failures, and fires from induced currents. A modern repeat could disrupt satellites, power grids, GPS, and communications globally, with trillions in potential economic damage—but it wouldn’t end civilization.

Recent studies (e.g., late 2024 analysis of ~56,000 Sun-like stars from Kepler data) suggest stars like ours produce superflares roughly once per century on average—more frequent than older estimates of once every few thousand years.

The last major Carrington-level event was ~165 years ago, so some headlines say we’re “overdue.”

However, this is statistical, not deterministic. Solar cycles are ~11 years, with longer modulations, but extreme events don’t follow a strict schedule. The Sun may behave differently from the average in those stellar samples (e.g., rotation rate, magnetic field strength).

Proxy data (tree rings, ice cores) show extreme solar particle events (like Miyake events) roughly once every 1,000–1,500+ years, not every century. There’s a gap between stellar superflare statistics and Earth evidence.

S-flares (>X10) are rare even in modern observations. Solar Cycle 25 (ongoing, near/after peak) has seen strong X-class activity, but true >X10 events remain uncommon. Some models flag higher risk windows around 2025–2027.

Space weather is active but not apocalyptic right now. Monitor reliable sources like NOAA SWPC, SpaceWeatherLive, or Spaceweather.com for real-time updates. Superflares remain rare tail-risk events rather than something “overdue” on any specific calendar. Preparedness for moderate-to-strong storms (satellites, grids, HF radio) is wise during solar maximum, but there’s no immediate cause for alarm.

There is a February 2026 research paper titled “A New Method for Probabilistic Spatiotemporal Forecasts of Solar Soft X‐Ray “S‐Class” (>X10) Superflares” by V. M. Velasco Herrera and colleagues (including W. Soon and others), published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

“A New Method for Probabilistic Spatiotemporal Forecasts of Solar Soft X‐Ray “S‐Class” (>X10) Superflares”

Instead of trying to predict the exact timing and location of individual flares (which remains extremely difficult due to the chaotic, nonlinear nature of magnetic reconnection), the authors shift to identifying extended high-probability windows (months-long) and preferred heliographic latitude bands where S-class events (>X10 in soft X-rays) are statistically more likely.

Spatial component: “Cross-Laplacian” diagnostic from butterfly diagrams (sunspot area + flare density). This highlights regions of strong photosphere-corona magnetic coupling and energy accumulation (negative Laplacian zones act as “hotspots”).

Temporal component: Wavelet analysis reveals ~1.7-year and ~7-year oscillations in flare activity. These are projected forward using a Bayesian Least-Squares Support Vector Machine (LS-SVM). S-flares prefer positive phases of the 1.7-year cycle.

Integration of both yields unified probabilistic maps.

This is a genuine advance over purely statistical or short-term active-region forecasting. It leverages long-term patterns (nearly 50 years of GOES data) and physics-inspired diagnostics rather than pure ML black-box approaches.

Forecast for Solar Cycle 25

Window A (current/recent): ~2025.7–2026.6, southern hemisphere preference (5°S–25°S).

Window B: ~2027.2–2027.9, northern hemisphere (10°N–30°N).

Additional windows into Cycle 26.

We are currently near the end of the first major window. The authors note that S-flares often occur in the declining phase of cycles and in persistent low-latitude active zones that interact with emerging flux.

Strengths and promising aspects

Real-world partial validation: Far-side strong flares in May 2024 (detected by Solar Orbiter/Parker, estimated >X10 in some cases) aligned with the model’s emerging patterns, even though the paper was in review. This gave the team confidence in its applicability across the entire Sun.

Ties into known phenomena like Ground Level Enhancements (GLEs) and severe geomagnetic storms.

Long lead time (months to years) is operationally valuable for satellite operators, power grid hardening, astronaut scheduling (e.g., Artemis discussions), etc.

Open access and multidisciplinary team (including Willie Soon and others).

This paper represents a meaningful step forward in moving from reactive short-term warnings to longer-horizon risk mapping. It aligns with the broader understanding that the Sun’s magnetic dynamo has multiple overlapping timescales, and extreme events aren’t purely random.

Are we “overdue”? Not in a calendar sense — we’re in a statistically elevated window, which matches the active phase of Cycle 25. The absence of a confirmed S-flare so far doesn’t disprove it, but it reminds us these events remain rare tail risks.

Continued monitoring is essential. If the model holds through the 2027 window, it will gain significant credibility. For now, it’s a useful tool for preparedness rather than a reason for alarm.

Published: Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics

DOI: 10.1029/2025JA034977

Authors: V. M. Velasco Herrera, G. Velasco Herrera, W. Soon, A. Özgüç, N. Babynets, A. Tlatov, M. Švanda, S. Qiu, S. Baliunas, B. Kotan, G. González González, L. A. Bautista Flores, M. Pazos

Abstract

Solar superflares of S-class (>X10 in soft X-rays) pose extreme space weather hazards, yet their prediction remains a fundamental challenge owing to their rapid and transient natures and the limitations of conventional event-based forecasts. We introduce for the first time, a probabilistic spatiotemporal framework designed to identify extended epochs and heliographic zones with heightened superflare likelihood, rather than predicting individual events. Our methodology analyzes nearly five decades of Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites SXR observations (1975–2025) and introduces two novel components: (a) a cross-Laplacian diagnostic, derived from the butterfly diagrams of sunspot area and SXR flare density, which identifies photosphere-corona coupling and pinpoints magnetic energy accumulation sites as preferential zones for S-flare occurrence; and (b) a temporal model based on the coupled phase states of 1.7-year and 7-year oscillations, extracted via wavelet analysis and projected forward using a Bayesian Least-Squares Support Vector Machine method. Integrating these spatial and temporal diagnostics yields a unified forecast, we identify 2025.7–2026.6 and 2027.2–2027.9 years, as the primary high-probability windows for S-class flare activity during Solar Cycle 25, corresponding preferentially to latitudinal bands in the southern (S–S) and northern (N–N) hemispheres, respectively. Subsequent windows are projected for Cycle 26. This physics-informed, probabilistic approach provides a robust strategy for anticipating periods of extreme solar activity by characterizing the inherent patterns of magnetic energy storage and release in the solar atmosphere.

No, USA Today, ‘Day After Tomorrow’ AMOC Collapse Isn’t Happening

USA Today claims in “Infamous disaster scenario can rapidly unfold, study finds” that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, could rapidly collapse in a scenario reminiscent of the movie The Day After Tomorrow. This is false. The article leans on cinematic fear imagery and speculative modeling rather than observational evidence, and it repackages long-debunked catastrophe narratives as breaking news.

From ClimateRealism


By Anthony Watts

USA Today claims in “Infamous disaster scenario can rapidly unfold, study finds” that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, could rapidly collapse in a scenario reminiscent of the movie The Day After Tomorrow. This is false. The article leans on cinematic fear imagery and speculative modeling rather than observational evidence, and it repackages long-debunked catastrophe narratives as breaking news.

The piece explicitly invokes The Day After Tomorrow, writing that the film “imagined a world where a critical ocean current suddenly collapsed.” That comparison is not accidental. It is rhetorical framing designed to trigger anxiety. The glaring problem is that the movie’s premise has been scientifically debunked for years.

The film portrayed the AMOC collapsing in a matter of days, plunging the Northern Hemisphere into an instant ice age. Oceanographers and atmospheric scientists have repeatedly explained that such abrupt global glaciation is physically impossible under current planetary conditions.

The Day After Tomorrow’s depiction of an instantaneous AMOC collapse and rapid ice age was scientifically debunked by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)  in 2004. NOAA stated that while the AMOC could weaken under climate change, the movie’s rapid, days-long shutdown and instant global freeze are physically impossible. NOAA explained that such changes would unfold over decades to centuries, not days.

NASA scientists also publicly criticized the movie’s premise. NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt wrote at RealClimate that the film’s portrayal of hemispheric flash-freezing and superstorms “is physically impossible” under known atmospheric and ocean dynamics.

The American Meteorological Society (AMS) similarly explained that while ocean circulation changes are scientifically plausible over long timescales, the movie’s depiction of continent-scale temperature drops occurring in days violates basic thermodynamics and atmospheric physics.

Additionally, oceanographer Stefan Rahmstorf, who studies the AMOC, stated that although weakening is possible over long periods, the rapid ice-age scenario shown in the film is not realistic.

In short, multiple authoritative scientific bodies and researchers made clear at the time of the film’s release that while AMOC variability is a legitimate research topic, the movie’s catastrophic timeline and mechanisms were exaggerated beyond physical plausibility.

Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) states there is low confidence in an AMOC collapse before 2100. Yet Doyle Rice of USA Today points to the big-budget Hollywood disaster film to keep the catastrophic imagery alive.

Fear sells, but in the real-world physics matters.

The study highlighted by USA Today examines the Younger Dryas, a cooling event roughly 12,900 years ago, and suggests volcanic eruptions may have contributed to AMOC disruption. That paleoclimate research is not evidence that modern AMOC collapse is imminent or is made likely by human emissions of carbon dioxide.

The article admits that during the Younger Dryas there was evidence of “a weakening of the AMOC, but not a complete collapse.” The article also quotes a scientist saying the Younger Dryas shift was “a much more abrupt shift than what is currently happening.” Those admissions contradict immediacy of an AMOC collapse induced climate catastrophe implied in the headline. Weakening is not the same as collapse. Variability is not the same as shutdown.

Moreover, the Younger Dryas occurred under vastly different conditions. Ice sheets were far larger. Freshwater pulses from glacial lakes were massive. Orbital forcing differed the amount of sunlight received on Earth’s surface. Comparing that era to today is dishonest.

USA Today pivots from volcanic cooling thousands of years ago to modern carbon dioxide, asserting that today’s threat comes from “excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.” But that claim rests on climate model simulations projecting weakening under high emissions scenarios. It is not based on observational evidence of collapse.

Direct measurements of AMOC strength, such as the RAPID array at 26.5°N operating since 2004, show variability but no clear downward spiral toward shutdown. The system fluctuates on decadal timescales. It has throughout recorded history.

As summarized at Climate at a Glance’s review of ocean currents, claims of imminent AMOC collapse are not supported by consistent observational data. The page highlights that while some model projections show weakening under high emissions pathways, empirical measurements remain inconclusive and demonstrate substantial natural variability.

Climate Realism has likewise documented how concerning the AMOC there is no consensus. The scientific literature has gone three ways: collapse scenarios, steady-state projections, and partial strengthening, all depending on model configurations. That divergence alone signals high uncertainty. Ocean circulation depends on salinity gradients, wind forcing, freshwater input, and deep water formation processes that are imperfectly represented in even the most advanced models.

The AMOC is complex. It has fluctuated for millennia. It may weaken modestly over this century under certain emissions scenarios. That is not the same as a Hollywood-style catastrophe.

Referencing The Day After Tomorrow as scientific shorthand for disaster is dark storytelling not journalism. The movie was unrealistic when it was released. It remains unrealistic today. When media outlets use debunked cinematic imagery to frame uncertain model projections as looming disaster, they are misinforming and fearmongering their audiences. USA Today should be ashamed of itself for substituting a falsely alarming climate change narrative for the journalistic presentation of truth and knowledge about an important issue.