Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
On April 16, 2026, IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol told the Associated Press that Europe has “maybe six weeks or so” of jet fuel left. He warned that if the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked due to the ongoing Iran war (involving US and Israeli actions), flight cancellations could start “soon,” particularly affecting intra-European routes. This could hit just as the busy summer travel season begins, with potential disruptions from late May into June.
On April 16, 2026, IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol told the Associated Press that Europe has “maybe six weeks or so” of jet fuel left.
He warned that if the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked due to the ongoing Iran war (involving US and Israeli actions), flight cancellations could start “soon,” particularly affecting intra-European routes.
This could hit just as the busy summer travel season begins, with potential disruptions from late May into June.
Here’s a clear, chronological timeline putting your three points into full context (as of April 17, 2026):
1. The “Six Weeks of Jet Fuel” Warning (April 16, 2026)
This came first, from IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol in an interview with the Associated Press.
Date: April 16, 2026 (Thursday) Source: IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol in an exclusive Associated Press interview.
Birol warned that Europe has “maybe six weeks or so” of jet fuel left.
Reason: The Strait of Hormuz had been effectively closed for weeks by Iran during the Iran conflict, cutting off ~75% of Europe’s normal jet-fuel imports from the Middle East.
He flagged possible flight cancellations “soon” (especially intra-European routes) and called it potentially “the largest energy crisis we have ever faced.”
Airlines like Ryanair had already said supplier guarantees only run through mid-to-late May; IATA warned of summer-travel disruptions.
This headline and warning dominated news on April 16.
2. President Trump’s Truth Social Post (April 17, 2026, ~9:40 AM)
This happened the next morning, reacting to a fresh Iranian announcement:
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi announced the Strait of Hormuz is now “completely open” to all commercial vessels for the remaining period of the Lebanon ceasefire (a fragile 10-day truce that began April 16). Ships must follow “coordinated routes.”
Trump reacted immediately on Truth Social: “IRAN HAS JUST ANNOUNCED THAT THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ IS FULLY OPEN AND READY FOR FULL PASSAGE. THANK YOU!”
Follow-up: “THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ IS COMPLETELY OPEN AND READY FOR BUSINESS AND FULL PASSAGE, BUT THE NAVAL BLOCKADE WILL REMAIN IN FULL FORCE… until our transaction with Iran is 100% complete.”
This is the realistic short-term assessment right after Trump’s post.
Even with today’s positive announcements:
The IEA’s April 16 warning was issued before the reopening announcement, so the low stocks are already baked in.
New tankers still take 5–6+ weeks to load in the Gulf, transit, and reach Europe.
Actual shipping traffic remains far below normal (only a fraction of the usual ~130–140 vessels/day; many shippers are still cautious due to coordination rules and the lingering U.S. blockade on Iranian ships).
Airlines (e.g., Ryanair) have supplier guarantees only into mid-to-late May. Peak summer travel season (late May/June onward) could still see higher fares, schedule cuts, or cancellations in the near term.
Today’s news is a real step forward and could prevent the absolute worst-case scenario if the ceasefire holds and traffic normalizes quickly.
But Europe is still operating on thin inventories built up over weeks of near-shutdown. The “six weeks” clock is ticking from pre-announcement levels, so some pain (higher ticket prices, possible schedule cuts) looks likely in the coming weeks even in the best case.
Travelers heading to Europe this summer should keep checking airline apps and news — things could shift fast, but the near-term squeeze is real.
The broader energy picture (not just aviation) remains fragile too.
Fingers crossed the coordinated routes actually ramp up tanker flows soon.
Science denying cry-babies in the US have toddled over to the Federal court in Massachusetts to seek an injunction against the recent Department of Energy (DoE) working party report about greenhouse gas emissions. The report’s main finding, produced after examining much of the literature from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), was that computer models offered “little guidance” on how much of the climate responds to warming gases such as carbon dioxide. This observation is regularly ignored in mainstream media, but it is hardly a new opinion.
Science denying cry-babies in the US have toddled over to the Federal court in Massachusetts to seek an injunction against the recent Department of Energy (DoE) working party report about greenhouse gas emissions. The report’s main finding, produced after examining much of the literature from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), was that computer models offered “little guidance” on how much of the climate responds to warming gases such as carbon dioxide. This observation is regularly ignored in mainstream media, but it is hardly a new opinion. The available data leads to that inevitable conclusion despite all the political nonsense claims of ‘settled’ science. To go to court to seek to ban the report is a new low in the increasingly desperate attempt to keep the Net Zero fantasy alive using science scares that are increasingly being debunked.
Not only did the five highly credentialed scientists who wrote the report cast reasonable doubt on the role of climate computer models, they also quoted extensively from data that revealed most extreme weather events were not increasing and sea level rises in North America showed no increasing trend. Attribution claims of human involvement in individual weather events are widely used to spread climate fear, but these were said to be challenged by natural climate variation along with an admission that they were originally designed with ‘lawfare’ in mind. The authors went out of their way to highlight much of the science and many of the opinions contained in the IPCC assessment reports, but they also publicised areas that were conveniently downplayed such as the recent massive ‘greening’ of the planet due to higher levels of CO2.
In any other branch of science, the idea that civilised discussion and disagreement of matters that have crucial public policy importance should be banned by a lawsuit would be absurd – childish even.
But then this is not really about the science. The plaintiffs are worried that the report will be used to justify the removal of CO2 from a 2009 endangerment finding. This would inevitably lead to major rollbacks of rules backing the command-and-control Net Zero project. Announcing the lawsuit, the toys were flung out of the pram: “Two leading science and environment groups are going to court to challenge the Trump administration’s use of a secretively convened group of climate sceptics to prepare a now widely disparaged report in its attempt to undo the Endangerment Findings… the development of this corrupted report, cloaked in secrecy, and Administrator Zeldin’s [Head of the Environment Protection Agency EPA] use of it to undermine pollution protections, puts the American people in harm’s way and violates federal law”. At one point, the report was described as a “sham” and was conducted by “five known climate deniers”.
Needless to say, the two plaintiffs are straight out of Green Blob central casting. The Environmental Defense Fund is a large green activist group and uses ‘lawfare’ to promote its Net Zero advocacy. Donor filings suggest that in 2023 it received $162.9 million from tax-efficient foundations with notable contributors including the Bezos Earth Fund, Sloan and Valhalla funds. The second plaintiff, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), also accepts foundation money and in the past has received sizeable contributions from the MacArthur, Schmidt and Packard funds. Meanwhile, the UCS frequently adds to the gaiety of the nation, not least when on July 24th it issued an oddly precise warning that 169,899,454 people in the United States currently faced extreme weather alerts. In other words, during a typical American summer most of the population might need to top up their sunscreen. This and similar silly scares have led some to suggest the organisation should really be called the Union of Scientists We Should be Concerned About.
Meanwhile, activist ‘fact checkers’ continue to mobilise to find fault in the DoE’s climate report and the proposal by the EPA to rescind the 2009 gas endangerment findings. Last week it emerged that the Blob-funded Carbon Brief operation was ‘fact checking’, and now it appears Associated Press (AP) is engaged in a similar project. AP has written to the scientists quoted in the DoE report and is asking 10 questions “to get a broad sense of the documents’ scientific accuracy”. Noble work of course, but curiously not undertaken when other major reports from bodies such as the IPCC are published. The project is being headed by AP’s Seth Borenstein who has spent over a decade reporting on every climate scare imaginable. He is no stranger to the weird world of mainstream fact checking. In 2018 he helped write a rely to Scott Pruitt, then head of the EPA, that ran as follows:
PRUITT: Do we really know what the ideal surface temperature should be in the year 2100, in the year 2018? That’s somewhat fairly arrogant for us to think we know exactly what it should be in 2100.
THE FACTS: What he calls arrogant is established science. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says if fossil fuel emissions continue on the current trajectory, temperatures by the end of the century will be around 6.5 degrees warmer than now (3.7°C).
Note how Borenstein dismissed a reasonable opinion from Pruitt by stating another opinion that the Earth will warm by nearly 4°C in 80 years. His opinion, increasingly seen as fanciful agitprop, is said to be “established science”. It might be argued that the only arrogance on show was in the headline which ran – “AP FACT CHECK: Climate science undercuts EPA chief’s view”. On a wider front, AP describes its fact checking service as – “No spin. No agenda. Just journalism that respects your intelligence”.
For its part, AP received £8 million from tax-efficient foundations in 2022 to hire 20 journalists to help run a climate desk. Funders included the Hewlett, Rockefeller and Walton foundations. The standalone desk “will enhance the global understanding of climate change and its impact across the world”, promised AP. “Unbiased, fact-based journalism has never been more important or imperilled”, chipped in Larry Kramer, President of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. “AP retains complete editorial control of all content”, explained the AP press release announcing the large cash injection.
Meanwhile, Dr Roger Pielke Jr, whose work is quoted extensively in the DoE report, has been sent a questionnaire by the Borenstein operation. He notes that the last two questions ask him to assess what grade on a scale A to F he would give to the reports assuming they were handed in as an undergraduate assignment. Activist stupidity got the answer it deserved: “These are absolutely ridiculous questions and suggest that your goal here is not journalism but team sport”.
Lately, a series of mainstream news outlets, including USA Today, AP News, BBC Future, and Fast Company, have churned out articles claiming that January 2025’s record cold and heavy snowfall across the United States are to greater or lesser degrees due to climate change, or at least that such a connection can’t be ruled out. This is false. Their arguments hinge on the increasingly popular yet scientifically dubious idea that climate change is disrupting the polar vortex, causing frigid Arctic air to dip southward into mid-latitude regions like the United States.
Lately, a series of mainstream news outlets, including USA Today, AP News, BBC Future, and Fast Company, have churned out articles claiming that January 2025’s record cold and heavy snowfall across the United States are to greater or lesser degrees due to climate change, or at least that such a connection can’t be ruled out. This is false. Their arguments hinge on the increasingly popular yet scientifically dubious idea that climate change is disrupting the polar vortex, causing frigid Arctic air to dip southward into mid-latitude regions like the United States. While this explanation is neatly packaged to fit the narrative that “everything bad is caused by climate change,” the science backing these claims is weak, unsubstantiated, and is riddled with contradictions.
The notion that extreme cold spells are a product of global warming flies in the face of both historical records and atmospheric science fundamentals. These stories rely on cherry-picked data and untested theories while ignoring decades of meteorological knowledge about natural climate variability. As outlined below, there is no solid evidence to support these claims. Instead, the mainstream media’s claims rely on flashy headlines and alarmist language, leaving out inconvenient facts that undermine their sensationalist conclusions.
Let’s start by summarizing the claims made in these articles:
USA Today describes the recent Arctic blast as being caused by a disrupted polar vortex, which it links to melting Arctic ice supposedly induced by human-caused climate change.
AP News echoes similar ideas, suggesting that rapid Arctic warming leads to instability in the jet stream, allowing cold air to “spill southward.”
BBC Future goes further, calling this phenomenon “climate instability,” implying that climate change makes extreme cold more likely by destabilizing established weather patterns.
Fast Company takes the same approach, arguing that “climate change is making the polar vortex worse,” a claim that is not only speculative but also directly contradicted by other climate studies.
A close examination of these claims, of the link between variations in the polar vortex and climate change, reveals glaring problems with the logic and science behind these claims.
The polar vortex is a long-established, well-documented feature of the upper atmosphere—known decades before politicized climate scientists and media mavens began talking about climate change. The polar vortex was first described in 1853, but the term became popular with the media in 2014 after a cold snap in North America. The polar vortex is a large-scale low-pressure system that forms in the stratosphere over the polar regions during the winter. Its strength and position are influenced by a variety of factors, including natural atmospheric variability like the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
Courtesy: National Science Foundation – National Science Foundation: Scientists Verify Predictive Model for Winter Weather, Public Domain.
When the polar vortex weakens, it can allow colder Arctic air to drift into mid-latitude regions, resulting in frigid weather and snowstorms. This weakening isn’t some newly minted phenomenon tied to climate change; it’s part of natural variability. Similar cold outbreaks were documented in the 1970s, long before CO2 levels became a focal point of global policy discussions. In fact, those cold outbreaks then led many climate scientists to start warning of a coming ice age. Obviously, that never happened.
There is, in fact, no consensus within the scientific community about a link between Arctic warming and polar vortex behavior. As Climate at a Glance discusses, empirical data shows no consistent trend in the frequency or intensity of polar vortex disruptions over the past several decades. This contradicts the claim that polar vortex weakening has become more common due to human-induced warming.
If we set aside the speculation for a moment and look at actual data, the picture becomes much clearer:
Arctic Ice Trends: While Arctic ice has experienced periods of decline, recent measurements indicate that the Arctic is not in a “death spiral.” In fact, since 2012, Arctic sea ice extent has been relatively stable during winter months. The claim that melting Arctic ice is destabilizing the polar vortex simply doesn’t hold up to scrutiny when examined against actual sea ice trends, as pointed out at Watts Up With That, which cites government data.
Cold Extremes in Context: Historical weather data reveals that extreme cold events in the United States are neither new nor increasing. Cold outbreaks similar to the current one have been documented regularly over the past two centuries, at least, including the brutally cold winters of the late 19th and mid-20th centuries. Documentary evidence from the 18th and 17th centuries show extreme cold spells were common even then. The recent cold spell is notable, but it is not unprecedented.
Jet Stream Variability: Claims that the jet stream is becoming “wavier” or more unstable due to climate change are also unsupported by solid evidence. A 2021 study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters found no statistically significant increase in jet stream waviness or meandering in recent decades. As Climate at a Glance: The Polar Vortex shows jet stream’s behavior, like the polar vortex itself, is driven and sustained by natural atmospheric patterns.
These media articles also conveniently ignore the inconvenient fact that climate models—touted as the gold standard of climate science—struggle to accurately simulate the behavior of the polar vortex. If the models can’t reliably predict polar vortex behavior in a warming world, how can we credibly link this year’s cold snap to climate change? The reality is that most of these claims are based on post-hoc rationalizations rather than sound science.
Take, for example, the so-called “warm Arctic, cold continents” hypothesis often used to explain these events. This theory posits that warming in the Arctic destabilizes the polar vortex, leading to more cold air spilling southward. However, studies such as those by the American Meteorological Society, titled “Evidence Against a Physical Link Between Arctic Amplification and Mid-Latitude Weather“, have found that the connection between Arctic warming and mid-latitude cold outbreaks is tenuous at best. Simply put, the hypothesis lacks predictive power and is contradicted by many observational studies.
Additionally, another relevant study is the 2019 paper in Nature Climate Change, titled “Projected weakening of the stratospheric polar vortex in response to rising greenhouse gases“ by Amy Butler and Lorenzo Polvani, which shows that while some climate models suggest changes in polar vortex strength under warming conditions, the actual observed link between Arctic warming and mid-latitude weather is inconsistent.
In short, based on existing research and data, there is no clear cause and effect connection indicating climate change is causing a shift in the polar vortex, its frequency, its strength, its regularity, or pattern of impact.
It’s worth noting the sheer irony of claiming that record cold is caused by global warming. Multiple times in recent decades the mainstream media has warned of the “end of snow,” declaring that snow would become a thing of the past due to rising global temperatures. A notable example is a 2000 article in The Independent claiming that “children just aren’t going to know what snow is.” Also, articles published in the New York Times in 2014 and 2024 also warned of the snow’s end due to global warming. Yet here we are in 2025, witnessing some of the coldest and snowiest winters in recent memory, and the narrative has conveniently shifted to now blaming extreme cold and snow on global warming. This blaming of contradictory weather phenomena—no snow/record snow, weakening monsoons/strengthening monsoons, the Atlantic current speeding up/the Atlantic current slowing down, increasing drought/increasing rainfall—should raise red flags about the credibility of these claims.
Conclusion: The media is pushing a narrative at the expense of science
What we’re seeing here isn’t science; it is narrative-building. Recent years’ record cold and snowfall in the United States are not proof of climate change but rather evidence of natural variability at work—variability that has been part of Earth’s climate system for millennia. If anything, the rush to blame every cold snap on “global warming” aka climate change underscores the increasing desperation of a narrative that has lost its grounding in reality and credibility.
It’s time for journalists to stop treating speculation as fact and for readers to demand accountability in climate reporting. Climate change happens, but there is no evidence of a crisis. Also, interpretations of short-term weather events to promote ideas of catastrophic climate change, because they ignore data and long-standing meteorological knowledge, don’t inform but rather mislead, in the process eroding trust in science and journalism while unnecessarily alarming the public.
The continuous stream of news from the Great Los Angeles fire is heart-breaking, and the images are gut-wrenching.
And when the smoke clears and the recovery operations begin, I hope that not only do the insidious “Diversity-Equity-Inclusion” policies that led to inept leadership in critical civic positions are jettisoned….but also the “climate crisis” policies are terminated quickly.
It began with millions of people across the U.S. shivering amid blizzard conditions and frigid air that lasted for days, thanks to a jet stream that slips out of its usual path more often these days. Then, catastrophe in California, with wind-whipped flames taking off in a landscape parched by months of drought to become Los Angeles’ worst-ever wildfires.
To cap it off, major weather monitoring agencies confirmed 2024 as the hottest year in global history. Even more dire, four of the six agencies said it was the first full year Earth went beyond a warming threshold seen as critical to limiting the worst effects of climate change.
Welcome to one wild week of the climate crisis, scientists say. There will be more.
I am delighted to report that this inanity is being ratioed, which gives me hope that this disaster will put a stake in the heart of climate cult pseudoscience.
Actually Issues with the Santa Inez reservoir, which was supposed to provide water for fighting the Palisades fire, include:
– The reservoir ran out of water very quickly, just 3 hours into firefighting efforts.
I guess the term “climate change” might be correct if it means poor decisions being made by virtue-signalling eco-activists.
It wasn’t a partisan impasse that didn’t upgrade water collection & firefighting infrastructure for decades, ignore forest management, empty reservoirs during fire season, or cut funds to first responders. https://t.co/PkhjvkjTch
I have touched on several disastrous decisions made by local and state leaders already, and blog space is limited. There will be a whole catalog of failures to analyze, and thanks to X.com, the elite media can no longer protect its preferred bureaucrats.
In this piece, I would like to note how all of these climate-cult choices have utterly ruined the natural environment and wildlife habitats in the Greater Los Angeles area.
To begin with, California has been leading the charge on electrical vehicle mandates and ending the use of fossil fuels, because human emissions of carbon dioxide (a life-essential trace gas found in trace amounts within the atmosphere) are supposedly causing “global warming”.
Instead of focusing on water infrastructure, revising forest management choices, or funding fire departments, bureaucrats focused on nanny-state rules. As a result, millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent have been released into the atmosphere.
I would like to share some numbers to put it in perspective: The 2020 California fire season released approximately 127 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.
A nearly two-decade effort by Californians to cut their emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide may have been erased by a single, devastating year of wildfires, according to UCLA and University of Chicago researchers.
The state’s record-breaking 2020 fire season, which saw more than 4 million acres burn, spewed almost twice the tonnage of greenhouse gases as the total amount of carbon dioxide reductions made since 2003, according to a study published recently in the journal Environmental Pollution.
Researchers estimated that about 127 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent were released by the fires, compared with about 65 million metric tons of reductions achieved in the previous 18 years.
The Great Los Angeles Fire is still burning, so I don’t have a final number to share with you. However, because it is an urban fire, carbon dioxide isn’t the only emission. The smoke includes toxic cyanide and sulfur compounds, deadly carbon monoxide, and carcinogens.
So, the next time California’s eco-activist regulators want to gut emissions for your SUV or take away your gas stove, tell them to sit back down.
Another aspect of this destruction that has yet to be considered is the horrendous impact on wildlife. Many of the awful policy choices regarding water in this state have been related to protecting fish.
Because of these choices, many of the region’s iconic animal species are now suffering.
Animals try their best to move out of the direct path of the fire while remaining close to home if they cannot find refuge during wildfires, Stephanie Eyes, a senior wildlife biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) Sacramento Fish and Wildlife Office, noted in an October 2022 article.
…”Wildlife is incredibly resilient,” Eyes said, noting that “California has a long history with wildfire, and many species adapted to endure it.”
“When I was working in Yosemite [the national park], there was a female California spotted owl who weathered several wildfires. We were always concerned about her, but she would still be there, year-after-year,” the biologist recalled.
However, during a “high-severity fire,” which burns across a large forest landscape, moving fast and climbing through the tree canopy, finding refuge can be challenging for animals in the wild.
“Wildlife have adapted to deal with smaller fires, and unfortunately, sometimes they can’t escape these recent, big fires,” Eyes said.
Arguably, the Palisades and Eaton fires are “high-intensity”.
It’s not just humans fleeing the flames. A mountain lion & two cubs are seen on Topanga Canyon Blvd. running away from where the Palisades Fire ravaged hundreds of homes. [hollywood hills / Beverly Hills / Los Angeles / wildlife ] pic.twitter.com/SCO7w449Rs
LOS ANGELES, CA: Animals fleeing the California fires are seeking refuge in residential areas, having been displaced from their natural habitats in the mountains and hills. https://t.co/H1XFGMzanipic.twitter.com/vrxEfdTmMJ
Animals are fleeing the fires in the LA mountains and making their way into residential areas. Let’s hope there’s some people looking out for them, water if any is left What a disaster! pic.twitter.com/HhGocyCyxU
When Americans supported the Endangered Species Act, these were some of the species they had in mind…not bait fish.
Many supporters of sensible climate science policies have gone into great depth about the realities of climate change because of these fires. However, this is the first time I recall “climate crisis’ propaganda posts being so heavily ratioed.
I hope it is not too late to save the remaining natural areas of beauty in this state.
(@HOTS_twt) 
(@Timpanist) 
(@meantweeting1)
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