Day: September 2, 2026

How dare YOU – Doom Pixie Greta and your political pals!?!

Swedish activist Greta Thunberg earned her moniker Doom Pixie because of her diminutive height and shrill accusations of human and planetary doom allegedly due to fossil-fuel-fueled climate change.

How dare YOU employ bogus scares based on computer models that can’t even recreate past climates, much less predict future climate and weather? How dare you turn every temperature and weather event, flood, drought, and forest fire into assertions that wildlife, humanity, and planet face imminent demise?

How dare YOU claim plant-fertilizing, planet-greening, life-sustaining carbon dioxide from fuels, manufacturing, and agriculture somehow endangers our human health and welfare?

From CFACT

By Paul Driessen

Swedish activist Greta Thunberg earned her moniker Doom Pixie because of her diminutive height and shrill accusations of human and planetary doom allegedly due to fossil-fuel-fueled climate change.

Her most famous tirade was directed at world leaders for allegedly doing too little to stop it.

“How dare you?” she fiercely scowled at United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, presidents, prime ministers, dignitaries, and functionaries in the UN’s General Assembly Hall.

“You have stolen my dreams, my childhood with your empty words…. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. How dare you?!”

No, Miss Thunberg and the politicians, bureaucrats, and activists who turn your diatribes into policy.

How dare YOU employ bogus scares based on computer models that can’t even recreate past climates, much less predict future climate and weather? How dare you turn every temperature and weather event, flood, drought, and forest fire into assertions that wildlife, humanity, and planet face imminent demise?

How dare YOU claim plant-fertilizing, planet-greening, life-sustaining carbon dioxide from fuels, manufacturing, and agriculture somehow endangers our human health and welfare?

How dare YOU demand that we shut down the energy systems that make our lives, health, and living standards possible? That we must be deprived of modern comforts, aspirations and loved ones, because you force us to eliminate energy systems that work – and replace them with expensive weather-dependent substitutes that bring blackouts, poverty, disease, deprivation, joblessness and shortened lives?

How dare YOU tell the poorest people on Earth that they must renounce their God-given right to modern technologies, health, and living standards – and sacrifice their landscapes and wildlife with wind turbines, solar panels, and renewable energy trash on your altar of climate fanaticism?

How dare YOU demand that we abandon free enterprise democratic capitalism that has brought health and prosperity to billions – and replace it with socialist-communist-totalitarian governments that have immiserated billions and starved and murdered over 100,000,000 people?

Shortly after the October 7, 2023, barbarities, Doom Pixie shifted her focus to promoting Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian terrorist dreams of eradicating Israel and Israelis “from the river to the sea.” Perhaps her audiences had tired of her climate rants, perhaps because they realize the “crisis” is wildly overblown, the world will need oil and gas for decades to come, and mining, manufacturing and installing wind, solar and battery power is environmentally horrific. Or maybe vilifying Israel simply pays better.

But her climate harangues continue – and her acolytes still glory in imposing diktats that raise costs and cost lives, while doing nothing to stabilize Earth’s frequently and perpetually fluctuating climate.

Indeed, I am eternally astonished at how often I think their callous insanity and depravity couldn’t possibly sink any lower … and I’m proven wrong.

California policies have forced oil drilling and production, refineries, coal, gas and nuclear power plants, and even hydroelectric plants to shut down. Big surprise: it now has the highest electricity and gasoline prices in the continental USA. Kind bureaucrats now say they will shave a few cents off per gallon.

By mandating improved “tire efficiency,” so tires glide along roads with less resistance. All-season 65,000-mile US tires must now be replaced with 27,000-mile Euro tires. That will at least double tire costs over a vehicle’s lifetime. Far worse, it will bring more accidents, injuries and deaths, because the new tires require longer stopping distances, especially under wet conditions.

California, Connecticut and New York also lead the US on Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and net-zero policies – with Virginia’s “moderate” governor and legislators working feverishly to catch up, thereby driving household, school, hospital, business, factory, and data center electricity and operating costs ever higher. You need heating, air conditioning, cooking, lighting, and computing? Too bad.

Under those same climate-centric policies, Britain’s per capita primary energy consumption has plummeted since 2005. Its wealth and living standards have done likewise. Meanwhile, its electricity prices are among the world’s highest, thanks to wind and solar replacing coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants. Jobs and entire industries have disappeared, and residents have been forced to remove air conditioning units if they actually use them during heatwaves.

The jobs, energy cost, and industrial situation is just as bleak in Germany where “bathroom ministers” now inform homeowners they cannot have a shower and bathtub in the same bathroom.

As absurd as all this is, nothing compares to the totalitarian imperialism of UN, European, World Bank, World Economic Forum, Obama-Biden, and other “climate crisis,” “energy transition,” and “traditional agriculture” ministries. For decades, they have imposed their “moral” and “ethical” principles on poor countries, to keep them from developing “excessively.” Until recently, they’ve gotten away with it.

Obama science advisor John Holdren insisted that the United States and other industrialized nations must “de-develop” – and then tell underdeveloped countries what “ecologically feasible development” they will be permitted to reach.

For decades, this meant no grants or loans for coal, gas, or even nuclear power plants – because impoverished countries were expected to “leapfrog dirty fossil fuels” and go directly to “clean, renewable, sustainable” wind and solar.

That’s why, even today, the average Sub-Sahara African has electricity 20 minutes a day, 141 minutes a week, 123 hours per year (out of 8,760) – sporadically, at totally unpredictable times, for a few minutes or hours at a time. Homes, shops, and even schools and hospitals are severely energy-deprived, and access to clean water is a luxury.

Eco-imperialist, neo-colonialist policies have also dictated agricultural and health policies. Farmers were told for years that they must not use pesticides, herbicides, or biotech seeds – especially if they want to sell their produce in European markets. They should even forego tractors and be content with ox-pulled plows and “traditional,” “ecological” subsistence farming.

Even malaria control must be done without pesticides, with often counterfeit and substandard drugs, and with hospitals that lack clean water, adequate electricity and even window screens.

Thankfully, President Trump has restored regulatory sanity and American energy dominance – and ended the use of foreign aid as a weapon to browbeat poor countries into accepting these lethal policies.

That compassionate approach – and the refusal of China, India, and other emerging powerhouse economies to buy into the insanity – has further encouraged still poor developing countries to reject eco-imperialism and neo-colonialism. They now tell the world they want, demand, and expect rapid, dramatic transformations in living standards, nutrition, and health through modern energy, industrial, agricultural, and healthcare infrastructure. As their sacred right.

The world is changing, at least in many states and countries. It’s about time. But there is still much left to be done – beginning with electing American, European, Asian, and African leaders who understand and champion these realities.

Wrong, New York Times, Nepal’s Tragedy Wasn’t Caused by Climate Change

The New York Times (NYT), in its article “Climate Change Raises Risk of Disasters Like Nepal Floods,” claims that climate change increased the risk of the catastrophic glacier collapse and flooding in Nepal by thawing permafrost and destabilizing the mountainside. This is false.

From ClimateRealism

By Anthony Watts

The New York Times (NYT), in its article “Climate Change Raises Risk of Disasters Like Nepal Floods,” claims that climate change increased the risk of the catastrophic glacier collapse and flooding in Nepal by thawing permafrost and destabilizing the mountainside. This is false. The best evidence suggests the disaster was primarily the result of a complex cascade of geological failures and human infrastructure vulnerabilities, not proof of a climate crisis.

The scenes from Nepal are heartbreaking. Entire communities were devastated as millions of tons of rock, ice, mud, and water thundered down the Langtang Lirung valley. Hundreds are dead or missing, roads and bridges have been swept away, and the landscape has been permanently altered.

When disasters of this magnitude occur, journalists should resist the temptation to immediately assign blame before the evidence is fully understood.

The NYT did exactly the opposite.

Even within its own reporting, the paper admits scientists are “still determining the exact cause” of the catastrophe and that research could take months. Despite this acknowledgement, the NYT nevertheless frames the disaster as another consequence of climate change from the headline onward. That is not reporting. It is climate crisis narrative promotion.

“Climate change is heating up the Himalayas and supercharging the risk of disasters like the deadly flash flooding in Nepal and Tibet,” says the NYT, which quotes one researcher saying, “‘There’s a very straight link between climate change and these types of disasters.’”

Yet just a few paragraphs later the article quotes Newcastle University geomorphologist Stuart Dunning, “I don’t think we can simply say this is a result of climate change.”

That caution should have been the headline. Instead, it was buried.

Dr. Roger Pielke Jr.’s analysis of the event, “What Actually Caused the Nepal Disaster,” reaches a much more measured conclusion. The immediate trigger appears to have been an enormous bedrock collapse beneath the glacier, which destabilized the overlying ice and produced a massive rock-ice avalanche. The resulting debris flow raced downstream at extraordinary speed. That is fundamentally a geological process, not an atmospheric or climate-related one. More importantly, much of the destruction was amplified by human decisions completely unrelated to climate.

Roads, bridges, hydropower facilities, and communities had been constructed directly within vulnerable river valleys and debris-flow pathways, areas where floods have hit in the past. Infrastructure occupied locations long known to be exposed to landslides and flash floods in one of the most geologically active mountain ranges on Earth. Those choices dramatically increased the disaster’s consequences.

In other words, the event was catastrophicly worse than it might otherwise have been had people and governments not placed expensive infrastructure and growing populations directly in the path of natural mountain hazards. That is a very different conclusion than “climate change caused it.”

Ironically, the NYT itself provides historical context that weakens its central narrative. The article acknowledges that glacier failures have occurred dozens of times in the China- Nepal border region since 1900.

That matters far more than their click- bait headline.

Since these events occurred repeatedly for well over a century, long before human greenhouse gas emissions rose, this event cannot automatically be linked to modern greenhouse gas emissions and human induced climate change. Mountain glaciers fail for many reasons, including gravity, unstable rock formations, earthquakes, heavy snowfall, freeze-thaw cycles, and natural slope failure.

The Himalayas are among the youngest and most tectonically active mountain systems on Earth, caused by when the Indian Plate slammed into the Eurasian landmass. Landslides are not unusual there. Neither are rock, snow, and ice avalanches. The NYT also acknowledges that scientists initially suspected a glacial lake outburst flood before satellite observations showed no overflowing lake was involved.

That illustrates an important lesson: early assumptions after disasters are often wrong.

Unfortunately, that lesson was not applied to the climate narrative. Instead of waiting for investigators to complete their work, many media outlets including NPR, the New York Times, the Associated Press immediately declared the disaster another example of climate change. Once again, the conclusion came before the evidence.

There is another glaring omission. The article briefly notes that Nepal’s warning systems were not designed to detect this type of rapidly developing debris flow. That is a practical issue policymakers can actually address and should.

Improved geological monitoring, better hazard mapping, stronger infrastructure design, and avoiding construction in known debris-flow channels will save lives regardless of future climate conditions. Those are the real solutions. Ending fossil fuel use will not mitigate or prevent future avalanches, but it would hamper recovery efforts and infrastructure improvements.

The tragedy in Nepal deserves careful scientific investigation, not instant political messaging. Good journalism follows the evidence wherever it leads. In this case, the evidence points first to geology and human exposure to natural hazards, not to climate change. The New York Times should have let science finish its work before declaring the verdict. Sadly, the “publish first, ask questions later” method seems to be the norm these days when it comes to climate change related news.

Measuring Meaningless Climate Actions

What would Americans gain from eliminating every ton of carbon dioxide emitted from the use of fossil fuels in the United States?

The global campaign against carbon dioxide (CO2) rests on a promise that has never been audited.

You were told this would help the planet. Nobody said by how much.

From The CO2 Coalition

By Vijay Jayaraj

What would Americans gain from eliminating every ton of carbon dioxide emitted from the use of fossil fuels in the United States? The answer, even accepting unfounded assumptions that make the so-called benefit look as large as possible, is nothing.

The global campaign against carbon dioxide (CO2) rests on a promise that has never been audited. Governments around the world have instituted levies, cap-and-trade markets, fuel standards, and subsidies on the unexamined premise that national sacrifice – to the point of economic destruction – would avoid calamitous warming.

Washington signed on to the premise twice. The Obama administration delivered the Clean Power Plan and a Paris pledge to cut emissions more than 25% below 2005 levels. The Biden administration made a fiscal commitment that Congress put at $391 billion in the climate provisions of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Add rules for tailpipes and power plant exhausts, appliance standards, and fuel mandates, and Americans are financing the largest reordering of an energy system in history.

You were told this would help the planet. Nobody said by how much.

Demolishing Economies of 50 States for Zero Gain
A report by Advancing American Freedom’s Kevin Dayaratna, “Fifty States, Virtually No Impact,” puts the question through computer models emulating alarmist climate simulations of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In an accommodation to the IPCC’s far-fetched apocalyptic claims, the analysis assumes the fantasy that cuts in greenhouse gas emissions began in 2020 and became permanent. Disputed technical assumptions of the IPCC were included as well.

Even so, Dayaratna found that the amount of global warming avoided by elimination of U.S. CO2 emissions would be about 0.11 degrees Celsius by 2050 and 0.24 degrees Celsius by 2100. The report ranks the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia according to their theoretical warming potential, showing differences of tiny fractions of a degree. Of course, it is ludicrous to think that such small differentials could be predicted decades in advance when the weekend’s weather forecast often is wrong.

The report’s overarching message is that a state legislator voting for U.N.-style climate policies would impose catastrophic economic costs on constituents in exchange for a temperature reduction that cannot be observed or felt.

Real Physics Exposes Pseudoscientific Absurdities

To add to the absurdity, every figure in the Dayaratna analysis assumes the U.N. IPCC’s warming analysis is sound. Strip away the pseudoscientific assumptions and the collapse of the case for favored climate programs compounds. Real-world physics tells a completely different story.

Greenhouse gases, including CO2, exhibit diminishing returns in their warming effect as atmospheric concentrations rise. At current levels, the infrared absorption bands for CO2 are already largely saturated, meaning additional molecules contribute progressively less to warming. Doubling CO2 from today’s 420 parts per million translates to a trivial temperature increase of less than 1 degree Celsius.

Using more realistic assumptions, the amount of warming averted by 2050 would be 0.0084 degrees Celsius (instead of 0.11 degrees) if U.S. emissions were eliminated. Cutting out all global emissions would avoid only 0.070 degrees Celsius of warming, again assuming that any of this can be predicted at all.

Natural, Beneficial Warming
In 2025 comments to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Dr. William Happer, professor of physics emeritus at Princeton University, called the assertions of the IPCC “badly flawed science.” First, he said, greenhouse gases from the Industrial Revolution to the present have not caused catastrophic warming, extreme weather, or harm; saturation ensures their future impact will be even smaller. Second, most observed warming since 1750 reflects natural recovery from the Little Ice Age, with greenhouse gases contributing only a fraction.

The EPA, Happer said, should “inform the public of the real science that increasing carbon dioxide and other (greenhouse gas) emissions, and increasing the use of fossil fuels will benefit people worldwide with more food and cheap energy, with only a trivial effect on temperature and extreme weather.”

So, the return on trillions in subsidies, costs of regulatory compliance, higher electricity prices, and lost economic growth is hypothetical, minuscule temperature changes that mean nothing.

Policymakers should weigh their energy decisions accordingly, prioritizing affordable and reliable energy supplies over the vacuous gestures of an antihuman

ideology.Originally published at American Thinker, September 1, 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.

The Restless Roof of the World: How Colliding Continents Keep Raising the Himalayas and Shaking the Tibetan Plateau

The Himalayas are actively growing due to ongoing plate tectonics.

About 50–55 million years ago, the leading edge of the Indian Plate collided with the southern margin of the Eurasian Plate.

The collision is not finished. The Indian Plate is still moving northward relative to Eurasia at roughly 4– 5 cm per year.

AI generated by Grok

The Himalayas are actively growing due to ongoing plate tectonics.

The Earth’s lithosphere is broken into large tectonic plates that move slowly over the underlying mantle. The Himalayas formed (and continue to rise) because of the collision between two of these plates:

  • Indian Plate (carrying the Indian subcontinent)
  • Eurasian Plate (carrying most of Asia, including the Tibetan region)

Around 120-100 million years ago, India was part of the southern supercontinent Gondwana and began drifting northward after it separated from Antarctica and Australia. It moved rapidly (up to ~15–20 cm/year at times) across the Tethys Ocean toward Asia.

AI generated by Grok

About 50-55 million years ago, the leading edge of the Indian Plate collided with the southern margin of the Eurasian Plate. This was a continent- continent collision (not an oceanic subduction zone like the Andes or Japan).

Because both plates are made of relatively buoyant continental crust, neither one can easily sink deep into the mantle. Instead:

  1. The Indian Plate is forced underneath the Eurasian Plate (a process called underthrusting or continental subduction).
  2. Enormous compressive forces crumple, fold, and stack the crust into multiple layers (thrust sheets and nappes).
  3. The crust thickens dramatically, in places the continental crust under the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau is 60- 80 km thick (normal continental crust is ~35- 40 km).
  4. This thickened, buoyant crust rises isostatically, creating the high elevations of the Himalayas and the vast Tibetan Plateau.

The ancient Tethys Ocean that once separated India from Asia was completely closed and its sedimentary rocks were scraped up and incorporated into the mountain belt.

The collision is not finished. The Indian Plate is still moving northward relative to Eurasia at roughly 4- 5 cm per year. As a result:

The Himalayas continue to rise at average rates of about 5- 10 mm per year (locally higher in some segments).

Earthquakes are frequent along the Main Himalayan Thrust and other major faults as the crust accommodates the ongoing convergence.

Erosion (by rivers, glaciers, and landslides) continually removes rock from the high peaks, but the tectonic uplift currently outpaces erosion in many areas, so the mountains keep growing overall.

The same collision that built the Himalayas also created and elevated the Tibetan Plateau, the largest and highest plateau on Earth (average elevation ~4,500- 5,000 m). Crustal thickening and lateral flow of the lower crust have expanded the plateau both vertically and horizontally over the past 50 million years.

The Himalayas are a classic example of a collisional mountain belt formed by the ongoing convergence of the Indian and Eurasian plates. What began ~50 million years ago is still active today: India continues to push northward into Asia, driving continued uplift, crustal deformation, and the growth of the world’s highest mountain range.

AI generated by Grok

The uplift history of the Tibetan Plateau is a complex, progressive process closely tied to the ongoing collision between the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates.

It is not a single, uniform event in which a flat plateau rose all at once. Instead, different regions of the plateau reached high elevations at different times, with earlier high mountain belts in the south and center, a long- lived low central valley, and later outward expansion and filling of lower areas.

The Tibetan region is an amalgam of several continental terranes (blocks) that rifted from Gondwana and successively accreted to the southern margin of Asia during the Mesozoic.

Key events included the collision of the Lhasa and Qiangtang terranes (roughly Late Jurassic to Cretaceous).

These earlier collisions already produced localized mountain building, crustal thickening, and a complex topography with highlands and basins long before India arrived. Cretaceous ocean- continent convergence also built Andean- style mountains (e.g., the Gangdese arc) in southern Tibet.

Most geological evidence indicates that the Indian Plate began colliding with Asian-affinity rocks around 65– 60 million years ago (Ma), somewhat earlier than the classic ~50 Ma estimate (though the exact timing and possible diachroneity remain debated).

Key stages of surface uplift (based largely on paleoaltimetry, sedimentology, thermochronology, and fossils):

  • Southern Tibet (Lhasa terrane / Gangdese region): High elevations (>4 km) were established by ~55 Ma.
  • Central Tibet (Qiangtang region): High east- west mountain belts reached >4 km by ~45 Ma.
  • Central valley: A relatively low -elevation (<2 km) east- west basin/valley system persisted between the southern and central highlands until roughly 38- 29 Ma, after which it was uplifted.
  • India–Asia suture zone, Himalayas, and northern Tibet: Significant uplift to near- modern elevations was delayed until around ~20 Ma (and later in some northern and northeastern margins).

By the late Oligocene to early Miocene (~26 Ma in some central basins), large parts of central Tibet had reached high elevations (3.5- 4.5 km or more). The modern- style high plateau, with its broad, relatively flat high surface, largely assembled through a combination of continued crustal shortening, sedimentary infilling of internal basins, and outward growth.

From ~30 Ma onward, and especially around 25-10 Ma and later, the plateau expanded outward (northward, northeastward, and eastward). Notable pulsed deformation and uplift occurred along the northern and northeastern margins (e.g., Qilian Shan, Qaidam Basin region) at roughly ~30 Ma and again ~10 Ma. These pulses are often linked to removal (delamination or break-off) of dense lithospheric mantle beneath different parts of the plateau, which causes rapid isostatic rebound and surface uplift.

The dominant processes include:

  • Crustal shortening and thickening from the northward push of India (the Indian Plate is still converging at ~4- 5 cm/year).
  • Underthrusting of Indian lithosphere beneath Tibet.
  • Delamination/break- off of subducted Indian and Asian lithosphere, allowing hot asthenosphere to rise and buoyantly uplift the surface.
  • Inherited lithospheric strength variations that controlled where and when uplift was concentrated.
  • Secondary contributions from magmatic underplating, lower- crustal flow, and sedimentary loading/filling of basins.

Some researchers emphasize that the phrase “the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau” can be misleading because it implies a coherent, simultaneous rise of a flat surface driven solely by the India collision; the reality was more piecemeal and built on pre- existing topography.

Scientists combine multiple independent methods:

  • Paleoaltimetry (stable isotopes in carbonates, leaf fossils, etc.) to estimate past elevations.
  • Thermochronology (fission- track, U-Th/He dating) to track when rocks cooled as they were exhumed toward the surface.
  • Sedimentary records, paleocurrents, and provenance studies in basins.
  • Fossil floras and faunas that indicate past climate and elevation (low- elevation tropical/subtropical fossils in what are now high areas provide key constraints).
  • Magmatism patterns and geophysical imaging of the current lithosphere.

The plateau averages ~4,500- 5,000 m elevation and is still tectonically active. Uplift continues in many areas (typically several mm/year), balanced to varying degrees by erosion. The ongoing collision also drives east- west extension in the plateau interior and frequent earthquakes.

the Tibetan Plateau’s uplift history spans from pre- Cenozoic terrane assembly, through early high mountain belts shortly after the start of the India- Asia collision (~55- 45 Ma), progressive filling and raising of intervening lows, and later outward expansion into the modern “Roof of the World.” Research continues to refine the precise timing and mechanisms in different sectors.

Seismic activity along faults in the Himalayan- Tibetan region is among the most intense on Earth, driven by the ongoing collision between the Indian and Eurasian plates (converging at roughly 4- 5 cm/year).

This collision builds enormous strain that is released through earthquakes on a network of active faults.

More than half of China’s major historical earthquakes (and a large share of those affecting South Asia) occur in or around the Tibetan Plateau and its margins.

The region features different fault types depending on location:

Himalayan thrust system (southern margin): The dominant plate-boundary structure is the Main Himalayan Thrust (MHT), a gently north-dipping megathrust that accommodates most of the India–Eurasia convergence. It is locked (stuck) in its shallow portion (~100 km wide from the Main Frontal Thrust northward) and creeps aseismically at greater depths. Strain accumulates for centuries and is released in great (Mw 8+) earthquakes that can rupture to the surface along the Main Frontal Thrust (MFT). Parallel older thrusts include the Main Boundary Thrust (MBT) and Main Central Thrust (MCT).

Interior of the Tibetan Plateau: Dominated by strike- slip faults (left-lateral: Altyn Tagh, Kunlun, Haiyuan, Xianshuihe- Xiaojiang; right- lateral: Karakoram) that allow eastward extrusion of crustal blocks, plus north- south- trending normal faults (grabens/rifts) that accommodate east- west extension. These produce frequent moderate-to-large earthquakes.

Eastern and northern margins: Thrust and oblique- slip systems such as the Longmenshan Fault (eastern edge; site of the 2008 Mw 7.9 Wenchuan earthquake) and faults along the Qilian Shan and Qaidam Basin. These accommodate compression as the plateau pushes outward.

Most seismicity is shallow (typically <20- 50 km depth) and closely follows mapped surface faults.

Intermediate- depth earthquakes (50- 300 km) occur in places such as the Hindu Kush- Pamir, southern Tibet, and the Indo- Burmese region, often linked to the subducted/underthrust Indian lithosphere.

Earthquake Patterns and Notable Events:

Great Himalayan earthquakes (Mw ≥ 8) typically involve full or large ruptures of the locked MHT. Historical examples include the 1934 Bihar- Nepal (Mw ~8.4), 1950 Assam-Tibet (Mw ~8.6), and partial ruptures such as the 2015 Gorkha (Mw 7.8) event in Nepal.

Strike- slip and normal- fault earthquakes dominate the plateau interior and can reach Mw 7- 8 (e.g., 2001 Kunlun Mw 7.8).

Activity often occurs in temporal clusters and migrates between fault systems or blocks (e.g., sequential series on the Bayan Har block margins in recent decades).

Some segments show seismic moment deficits (accumulated strain not yet released), raising the potential for future large events. Central Himalayan “seismic gaps” have long been of concern, though recent paleoseismic work suggests more frequent moderate events than previously thought and a more random (less strictly periodic) recurrence pattern.

Recent instrumental records (including 2025- 2026) show ongoing moderate activity: frequent small-to- moderate events (M 4- 6) along the western Himalaya, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Nepal, and parts of Tibet, consistent with continuous strain accumulation. Clusters of dozens of tremors in short periods are common.

Plateau margins and densely faulted interior zones are the primary loci of future large earthquakes.

The combination of high population density in the Himalayan foothills and Indo- Gangetic plain, vulnerable infrastructure, and the potential for cascading hazards (landslides, glacial lake outbursts) makes the region exceptionally high- risk.

Monitoring relies on dense seismic networks, GPS/InSAR geodesy (tracking interseismic locking and post- seismic relaxation), and paleoseismology.

Seismic activity here is the short- term expression of the same plate- tectonic forces that have built and continue to elevate the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau over millions of years.

Strain builds steadily on locked fault segments and is released abruptly in earthquakes that range from frequent moderate events to rare, devastating megathrust ruptures.

‘Supercharged’ Global Greening in African Savannah: CO2 Brings Huge Boost to Grass Growth

More evidence of global greening from carbon dioxide fertilisation has been published in the prestigious publication Nature.

The research involved 70 experiments and three decades of field data from many locations in the savannah of South Africa’s Kruger National Park.

AI generated by Grok

From The Daily Sceptic

By Andrew Sibley

Global greening is being supercharged in the African savannah, new research published in Nature has found, with higher CO2 levels driving a 28% increase in plant growth in just 32 years, writes Andrew Sibley.

More evidence of global greening from carbon dioxide fertilisation has been published in the prestigious publication Nature. The research involved 70 experiments and three decades of field data from many locations in the savannah of South Africa’s Kruger National Park. The international scientific team was led by Dr Kimberley Simpson of the University of Sheffield, the paper entitled ‘Increasing CO2 levels fertilise C4 grass production‘. Phys.org reported the study as follows: ‘Rising carbon dioxide is supercharging grass growth in African savannas, study finds.’ The latest study challenges the previously held view that the dominant grasses in the savannah (known as ‘C4’) benefit little from rising levels of carbon dioxide.

African savannah covers approximately half of the great continent and sustains a vast habitat for wildlife across tropical and sub-tropical regions. Globally, savannah grassland covers about 20% of Earth’s land surface, and contributes nearly one-third of plant productivity. C4 grasses form a major part of these ecosystems in hot climates; they utilise a more complex form of photosynthesis which allows them to thrive in harsher conditions where hotter and sunnier conditions prevail. These grasses are able to retain water and capture carbon dioxide more efficiently than other types of plants. C4 grasses include both wild grasses and important crops such as maize and sugarcane.

Given higher levels of carbon dioxide, the C4 plants have been found to increase their growth by capturing more of the greenhouse gas while limiting water loss through leaf stomata. In the Kruger National Park, it was found that there was a 28% increase in plant growth from 1989 to 2021. After discounting other factors, such as changes to rainfall, temperature and nitrogen, the report concluded that increased carbon dioxide was the main factor in the extra plant growth. It was also noted that there was an increase in the number of herbivores in the park over the period, thus benefitting the wider ecosystem.

As with other recent findings, this study shows that there are some benefits to higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. You would think that evidence of growth of grassland in drier parts of the world would be welcome news for environmentalists. But of course, the study put a dampener on the positive benefits and discussed a few possible downsides: it noted the risk of increased fuel for wildfires, possible changes to the distribution of foraging animals and that extra grass production may not feed into long-term carbon storage. Simpson commented that: “More grass does not automatically mean more carbon will be stored. The wider impact depends on where the extra grass ends up. If it is eaten by animals or burned in fires, much of the carbon is quickly released back into the atmosphere.” And: “Because savannahs cover such large areas, even modest changes could have major consequences for wildlife, livestock, fire and the global carbon cycle.”

Other recent studies have noted the benefit to plant growth from higher carbon dioxide levels; see: ‘Global Greening Hits New Record as Climate Emergency Fails to Materialise‘, and ‘Vegetation greenness in 2025‘. Evidence of global greening has been known for many years and reported in an IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land (A2.3) in 2019. A paper in Nature Climate Change in 2016 discussed the drivers for global greening, estimating from computer modelling that 70% of the change to plant growth was caused by higher levels of carbon dioxide, with an increase of between 25% and 50% in global vegetation coverage.

As well as evidence of increased plant growth and wildlife in parts of Africa, the benefits of carbon dioxide fertilisation include higher crop yields to feed a growing world population, now above eight billion people. Policy makers committed to achieving Net Zero in the UK need to take into account the benefit of higher levels of carbon dioxide for the ecosystem and global food provision. The Net Zero policy is looking increasingly archaic in light of the direction of scientific research and global developments. Instead of the very costly and futile subsidies, I would suggest that resources need to be directed towards the development of mitigation strategies to protect against natural disasters such as wildfires and flooding.

Andrew Sibley is a semi-retired chartered meteorologist with an MSc in Environmental Decision-Making and an MPhil in Theology.

What is California’s ‘inefficient tire’ ban, and why does it matter?

Snow tires, mud tires, all-terrain tires — gone?

California’s new efficiency standard could wipe out most of the tires on the market by 2033.

From CFACT

By CFACT Ed

Snow tires, mud tires, all-terrain tires — gone? California’s new efficiency standard could wipe out most of the tires on the market by 2033.

Marc Morano from ClimateDepot.com joins Kelly Sadler on Politically Unstable to explain the rule, the backlash from tire makers, and why this fight could spread far beyond California.

[SADLER] What is an inefficient tire? An inefficient tire to me is one that a tire that doesn’t roll.

[MORANO] That’s right. And all tires roll. No, what this is is they’re considering tires that are inefficient, meaning not aerodynamic enough, not fuel-mileage conscious enough. Doesn’t meet their specific requirements for carbon dioxide reduction. Their goal is to remove the equivalent of almost half a million cars off the road, you know, equivalent in CO2 reductions. That’s what’s going on behind this energy efficiency.

So when they say a noncompliant tire, say you got one from the factory that was just sort of your boring middle-of-the-road tire and you want to upgrade. So you have an SUV you want to upgrade to maybe a mud tire or an aggressive all-terrain. Well, hey. That’s not very good with resistance. That’s going to cause a lot more resistance with the road, i.e. more traction in that case, or even people who live in the mountains want snow tires. All sorts of specialty tires are going to be impacted.

And the tire manufacturers themselves say 70% of the tires currently sold in California may not be legal to be sold by the time this is fully implemented. That’s how insane this is. So it’s climate-focused, climate-motivated, and it’s unelected bean counters in California coming after just the next thing. I mean, they’ve already come after the pizza ovens, the gas stoves, the dishwashers, the washing machines, the dryers, the ceiling fans, gas-powered cars. Why not add tires to that list?

[SADLER] So what has been the response from the tire industry? Let’s say Goodyear, Bridgestone, Michelin, because it seems like they’re going to have to change their business model to deal with California. California has a huge economy; a lot of tires are sold in the state of California. What is the industry’s response, as well as the car dealerships and the car manufacturers, let’s say Ford?

[MORANO] Well, I can say no one likes this, and they’ve all been pushing hard against it. Dunlop Tire, Goodyear, they’re actually saying, as I said, 70% of the tires won’t be legal to be sold. And this is a huge business model problem. And California knows it. California dreaming is that they set environment, energy, climate policy for the rest of the country. And for years, they had that sort of terrorist role to be able to do that with the — starting with the California Air Resources Board — this is back now, and I think it was 2021 maybe, where they actually did the EV mandate and they started the slow gas-powered car ban.

And their goal was to force the auto manufacturers to follow, because California is such a big market. And then you add to that, you have other insane states that will likely follow, including Washington, Oregon, Massachusetts, New York. A lot of these blue states will follow whatever. I live in Virginia and we have a law on the books that says whatever California does, Virginia will follow. So we had the California gas-powered car ban, EV mandate on our books just because we were blindly following California. It’s nuts.

And so this is huge. The tire manufacturers see what’s coming. What it really means, at least in the short term, is people leaving California to cross state lines to buy tires. Just like they’re probably buying tobacco, fireworks, gas, stoves- who knows what else they have to buy in California. They’re going to have to cross over. Manufacturers are sounding a big warning on this, but this is California. Nothing usually deters them, except that the Trump administration was able to reverse the gas-powered car ban. And that took federal statutes. That took court cases. It took years. California is like — I want to say environmental terrorist, but they’re like an economic terrorist when it comes to this. They can do a lot of damage. Damage lasts for years. It takes a lot of years to overdo it.

[SADLER] When does this ban go into effect? I read it, it’s a two-phase ban. And is there any way to reverse it before it does go into effect?

[MORANO] Well, in terms of reversing, yes. This is five unelected board members of the California Energy Commission, and it was a unanimous vote. And so they have to have the efficiency standard in place by — for original equipment tire replacement — by 2033, and the automakers are saying that by that point, you know, especially the way these bureaucrats — not even the way something’s written or the initial ruling — it’s actually how it’s going to be interpreted, and then how it makes economic sense to react to it.

So even if a bureaucrat lays out, well, here’s all you have to do: follow these 14 steps and you can still sell that tire, a tire manufacturer is going to look at that and say, that’s insane, I’ll never do it, we’re just not going to sell that tire there. And that’s the reality of it. The unelected bureaucrats don’t ever see that part of it. They just say, well, I just follow these 18 point plan and they can do it. No, well, no company will do that if the 18-point plan is going to cost more and not be even remotely cost-effective. They’ll just say, not worth it, not going to happen. And that’s what’s going to end up happening to the California consumer.

This article originally appeared at The Washington Times