What I'm Reading: Global Warming

 Life is about patterns and circles. Patterns of behavior, and the social circles prompting that behavior.

 By Rich Kozlovich Tags: The World's Nine Orders, 

Okay folks, let's try and get this right once and for all..... just once...... please.  The foundation for all these climate change claims are outright lies:

For nearly 40 years, the global warming cabal has spread fear and wasted resources on an emergency that doesn’t exist. While their influence has begun to wane, as their credibility has crashed and their lies have been exposed, the fabrications, exaggerations, and junk science continue. How much longer must we endure their campaign of rancid propaganda?

The dawning moment of the global warming movement was NASA scientist James Hansen’s June 1988 testimony before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.  “In my opinion,” he told lawmakers, “the greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now.”  There was evidence, he insisted, “that the Earth is warming by an amount which is too large to be a chance fluctuation and the similarity of the warming to that expected from the greenhouse effect represents a very strong case.”  And yet 38 years later, there’s been no climate catastrophe.

Reality hasn’t slowed the flood of lies, though.

A thousand years ago during what's called the Medieval Warming Period it was not only warmer than it is now, it was substantially warmer than is is now, or for that matter, warmer than what they're predicting for the next fifty years, one hundred years, or whatever time frame is the meme of the moment.  There's not one iota of historical evidence the horrors they're predicting for today occurred then.  If none of that happened then, why should we expect it to happen now?  We shouldn't.  

Even a left wing former warmist supporting journalist is capable of seeing the exaggerations of ecological disaster. Which he calls "shrill eco-catastrophism".

 Deep State Corruption

So much of what's gone on has been based on the Endangerment Finding.

The Endangerment Finding (EF) is the absurd regulatory action by which the Obama-era EPA purported to find that the trace gas carbon dioxide (CO2) constitutes a “danger” to human health and welfare as it accumulates in the atmosphere from the current level of about 0.04%, to perhaps 0.05% or maybe even (the horror!) 0.06% by some time later this century.  (Here's my

of the DC Circuit court supported them.

•  More fuel to flame the myth of extreme weather By Bill Ponton| Climate litigators work to derail the pro-energy policies of the Trump administration. Will they be successful
• “Left-Wing Plaintiff Propaganda”: NAS Pulls Key Climate Science Chapter From Website Amid Massive Backlash - The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) removed a hotly debated chapter on climate science from its website.  NAS pulled the climate science section, which appeared in the fourth edition of the “Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence,” while it reviews the process used to develop the guidance, following scrutiny over the chapter’s contents and the involvement of a lawyer connected to climate litigation against energy companies.   The chapter, which critics liken to “left-wing plaintiff propaganda,” claims climate attribution — “climate change” linked to human activity and specific companies — is established science......
•  Trump loosens climate limits on refrigerants  -  Trump said that his administration is “officially terminating the Biden administration’s ridiculous regulations imposing costly requirements on refrigerators and air conditioners.” “Today’s reforms will deliver significant financial relief, saving American families and businesses more than $2.4 billion,” ..........

The Media

In the past there was no balance in the media regarding climate change.  It was happening, it was catastrophic, and it was being caused by mankind, and the only solution was to eliminate 4 to 5 billion people and for the rest to go back to living in caves, and no other position could be tolerated.  Those who resisted were flat Earthers and had to be punished.  

• No Balance: PBS Spreads Environmental Hysteria, From Northwest to Deep South

Bu time and truth are on the same side, Smokey skies does not mean global warming, "because good science depends on evidence, good journalism should too."  Canadian forest fires created a lot of smoke and the media claimed it was caused by global warming.  But now when their doomsday scenarios are dying, its not news.

• The Climate Scenario Behind A Decade of Alarmism Is No Longer Considered Plausible Mark Keenan | The most alarming projections of climate change have been built upon a scenario known as RCP 8.5 and its successor, SSP5-8.5, which climate scientists now admit are “implausible” parameters.....

I think you will find this article more than interesting, The Climate Scam Is Acknowledged. Why is it interesting?  Because as this fraud and the media's collusion with the fraudsters is being exposed ... they somehow claim they knew and questioned it all along.  Really? Boy I must really have a bad memory.  You see, as I remember events that have take place over the last 25  years or so, where I and others took a stand challenging this whole corrupt fraud, until recently, I never once saw a major media/newspaper outlet take my side on this.  

•  Climate Alarm On The Run, Part II -........Unfortunately, taxpayer-funded radio won’t entirely stop yapping about a non-event, as, according to NPR chief climate editor Neela Banerjee, climate coverage will be “folded into the national desk.” But there will no longer be a separate section from which to harangue, screech and wail about the evils of the dominant driver of the world economy, the burning of fossil fuels for energy, while at the same time reaffirming NPR’s leftist listeners’ narrow and uninformed — yet ever sure of their “knowledge” — worldview. 
•  It was never about the climate - The protesters used climate change as a hook, but their ultimate goal was always more nefarious..........Why haven’t you ever seen a climate change protest before the Chinese embassy anywhere? Why is it always the US or capitalism messing up the environment? Why don’t they show up at all when China is a bigger threat to clean air than any US city?  The answer is obvious, but I’ll say it. It was never about the climate but rather capitalism or the US.

One thing I'm sure of.  We will never be rid of the “climate change” proponents. It allows them to blame their fellow humans for causing the latest “disaster”.   They can never give up the con as it gives them a self righteous feel good superiority for being so much wiser, smarter and far more noble than the rest of us for pointing it out. 

Consequences

Europe's insane embrace of global warming has caused serious problems for their societies, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine was one of the consequences since their purchase of Russian energy supplies is what funded his invasion.  This, no fossil fuels and no nuclear power folly, has made Europe the world champion of heat deaths, and in France, this has become a dividing political issue triggered by seriously hot weather.  In France they shut down reactors because the water they use to cool the reactor that's returned to the river may be a bit too warm and may.... may mind you.... impact "aquatic ecosystems."

Never mind the fact that massive heat waves will definitely kill people due to the lack of energy to run air conditions, but hey, that's not big deal since humanity only has a few months to live anyway, and Europeans just have to accept they're doomed to die from global warming.  But there's hope!  It can be halted if western societies hand over $1.3 trillion a year..... every year......to the UN to fight ‘Climate Chaos’.  Yeah, right!  The real goal?  This author sums it up nicely calling this scam and a Legal Weapon Against Sovereignty: The UN’s Global Climate Change Mandate Has All the Characteristics of a Scam:

Reports about the death of climate alarmism have been greatly exaggerated. In fact, obeying United Nations climate decrees is now officially “international law.” At least that is what two key UN entities and more than 140 national governments would like humanity to believe.

In one of the most consequential developments yet for the global climate movement, the UN General Assembly voted to formally endorse and “operationalize” a 2025 ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declaring that governments are legally obligated to combat climate change....another brazen power grab by globalist forces. 

All the agendas promoted by these globalists have one goal in common.  Tax America massively and give that money to corrupt third world nations voting to give them the power to create a world wide totalitarian system of governance, destroying the only thing standing between freedom and tyranny, the American culture, the American economy, the American identity, the American government, and ultimately the destruction of the U.S. Constitution.  

Solutions

Wind turbines and solar power cannot supply the needed energy for any advanced society, not to mention wind turbines slaughter birds and bats at a massive level.  Canada's building western civilizations first grid scale small modular reactor, and this is going to be the wave of the future.  But be assured, if it works, the green activists will turn against it.  

Update, 8/11/26:    

• California, The Blackout State - Federal data show that no state had as many power outages across more than two decades as California. The nearly 500 grid breakdowns correlate with increases in renewable energy. Maybe there’s been no causation, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be in the future, because the intermittency of renewables is a mismatch with the power grid.......  (My Take - The closet communists of the green/left Democrat party has dominated California's politics and policies for decades, with lies about global warming and energy production.   Assuming all their elections were devoid of voter fraud....a callous assumption...this is what they convinced the voters of California to vote for, and this is what they got... Schadenfreude.  RK)
• Last-Ditch Effort to Kill Trump Fossil Fuel EOs Goes Down in Flames - The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday refused to rehear the lawsuit brought by twenty-two young climate activists, which initially challenged President Donald Trump’s fossil fuel agenda, leaving intact a panel decision that found the plaintiffs lacked standing. The youths in Lighthiser v. Trump argued that Trump’s executive orders promoting fossil fuel development would increase emissions and worsen climate-related harms in the future................The youth plaintiffs’ defeat comes amid other recent setbacks for climate litigation. In March, the Maryland Supreme Court.  A Pennsylvania judge similarly 

Update, 8/14/26:

• D.C. Circuit Endangerment Finding Litigation: The Stall Is On - The Endangerment Finding (EF) is the completely absurd piece of regulatory overreach by which the Obama EPA in December 2009 purported to determine that the trace atmospheric gas carbon dioxide was a “danger to human health and welfare.” That action may have been absurd, but it was by no means benign. CO2 is a principal product of all combustion of fossil fuels. Following on the EF, EPA and other government agencies in the Obama and then Biden Administrations set out to use the EF as the basis to transform our entire energy economy — suppressing drilling, blocking pipelines, forcing closure of power plants, outlawing combustion cars and gas heat and stoves, and much, much more. In Trump’s first term, EPA never chose to take on the EF; but in Trump’s second term the agency got right to work on the job of rescission, and issued the final rule rescinding the first part of the EF (as to motor vehicle emissions) on February 13, 2026. By February 18, progressive NGOs were already in court (D.C. Circuit) seeking to block the rescission. I covered the rescission of the EF in this post on February 15, and then the status of the litigation in this further post on July 21. If you are interested in this subject, here is the key issue to watch: Do the progressive NGOs and their blue state co-petitioners, and for that matter the D.C. Circuit itself, want this case to proceed to a quick resolution? Or do they want to stall? 
• Voters ‘don’t care’ about climate - CNN pollster reveals climate tied for 14th on list of top issues for the midterm vote at 3% – Not even a majority agree humans cause any climate change – Least important issue for GOP voters.........

  Another New Study Links Modern And Past Global Warming To Natural Changes In Cloud Clover, Not CO2 - A July 2026 Environmental Research Letters paper authored by Bellocchi et al. attributes ~80% of the rise in Earth’s absorbed solar radiation since 2000 to declining high-reflectivity cloud cover, primarily from circulation-driven contraction of storm-cloud zones.The study highlights the climate’s “albedo governance,” suggesting a 1% shift in Earth’s albedo corresponds to a 1°C surface temperature change........... 

Update, 8/15/26:  

• Inside the Left’s Climate “Lawfare” Gambit in Colorado - A constellation of left-wing environmental groups wants to re-open the climate lawsuit floodgates, throwing their weight behind a high-stakes case in Colorado.  At least 20 new “friend of the court” briefs were filed last week in the Suncor Energy Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County case, which will decide whether local governments can use state tort law to pursue claims with implications extending far beyond their borders. A network of left–leaning climate groups and legal figures appear in the amicus curiae briefs in support of Boulder, adding to a long list of high-profile court cases challenging fossil fuel companies........

Update, 8/17/26

• D.C. Circuit Endangerment Finding Litigation: The Nefarious EPA "Futility" Analysis - Readers of my previous (August 13) post on the Endangerment Finding (EF) litigation pending in the D.C. Circuit may have come away wondering about this issue: What is the basis on which this coalition of most blue states plus many major municipalities and big-time environmental NGOs seeks to put an indefinite stall on resolution of the litigation?

Conclusions In The Face Of Reality!

By Rich Kozlovich

My friend Maury Siskel, who signed off as Maury and Dog, was a retired scientist in Texas who passed some years ago and used to send me stuff every day. Mostly serious stuff, but occasionally he’d send a joke, a humorous story, or some cartoons - some funny and some political. The interesting thing about humorous stories is they so often reflect how we humans live our lives. Maury and Dog sent this story to me, and I think it’s reflective of why people fall for so much clabber from the world’s activists.

On the outskirts of a small town, there was a big, old pecan tree just inside the cemetery fence. One day, two boys filled up a bucketful of nuts and sat down by the tree, out of sight, and began dividing the nuts. "One for you, one for me, one for you, one for me," said one boy. Several dropped and rolled down toward the fence.

Another boy came riding along the road on his bicycle. As he passed, he thought he heard voices from inside the cemetery. He slowed down to investigate. Sure enough, he heard, "One for you, one for me, one for you, one for me ...."He just knew what it was. He jumped back on his bike and rode off. Just around the bend he met an old man with a cane, hobbling along.

"Come here quick!" said the boy, "You won't believe what I heard! Satan and the Lord are down at the cemetery dividing up the souls!" The man said, "Beat it kid! Can't you see it's hard for me to walk?" When the boy insisted though, the man hobbled slowly to the cemetery. Standing by the fence they heard, "One for you, one for me. One for you, one for me." The old man whispered, "Boy, you've been tellin' me the truth. Let's see if we can see the Lord!" Shaking with fear, they peered through the fence, yet were still unable to see anything. The old man and the boy gripped the wrought iron bars of the fence tighter and tighter as they tried to get a glimpse of the Lord.

At last they heard, "One for you, one for me. That's all. Now let's go get those nuts by the fence and we'll be done...."They say the old man had the lead for a good half-mile before the kid on the bike passed him.

 

So, what’s the moral of this story? What message could I possibly take away from this? How about this!  People will fall for anything if they start out with the wrong conclusion already in their heads!

This tale has a young boy hearing an ambiguous and incomprehensible conversation and quickly arriving at a conclusion. If we conclude from this story he came from a Christian ethic we can understand his conclusion, but it was a conclusion he didn't bother to investigate. He panics and then runs off in an emotional state and involves another party, an old man. But he was just a kid you might say. True, but what really makes this story work is bringing in an old man. Someone who should have known better, and then having him fall for the same fallacious conclusion as the young boy, both becoming imbued with an irrational panic!

But what's the big deal - after all, this was just a story?  It’s not real! No, but the theme is very real! Unfortunately for humanity much of what poses as science in the real world follow the concept of this story - fallacious conclusions! Conclusions charged with emotion and filled with logical fallacies, such as:

• Anecdotal fallacy - using a personal experience or an isolated example instead of sound reasoning or compelling evidence.
•  Appeal to probability – is a statement that takes something for granted because it would probably be the case (or might be the case).
•  Base rate fallacy – making a probability judgment based on conditional probabilities, without taking into account the effect of prior probabilities.
• Unwarranted assumption fallacy - The fallacy of unwarranted assumption is committed when the conclusion of an argument is based on a premise (implicit or explicit) that is false or unwarranted. An assumption is unwarranted when it is false.” Much of what impacts us from scientists involved in the world of activism ends up being conclusions in search of data to promote some cause or other.

Rachel Carson promoted the idea DDT was destroying the world’s bird population in her book Silent Spring. That was a lie and she had to know it. Rachel Carson is touted as a great scientist. She wasn’t a scientist at all.  She did no research. Carson was a writer with a science degree writing for the Fish and Wildlife Service writing about the research done by others. As a result we know she had to have access to the actual bird counts performed by the Audubon Society. She had to know the bird population of North American increased dramatically during the DDT years, including the Bald Eagle. And the robin was the most populous bird in North America. In short– she deliberately lied – and the world accepted it, as did most in the scientific community. People who had to know better!

Now we've "returned to the future", with the cycle of lies constantly being repeated by activists. They claim neonicotinoid pesticides cause Colony Collapse Disorder - that's a lie. As that lie finally unfolds they shift back to the Carson premise claiming neonicotinoids are killing birds - that's a lie too. They report "declines in certain groups and species of birds" but fail to report those declines preceded the introduction of neonics by decades. They also fail to report “other birds that rely on wetlands, such as waterfowl, have been increasing over the same period.” Clearly they should know better, but academics willingly jump on board with that same pattern of lies they accepted about DDT. It would appear fifty plus years of fact based reality haven't made a dent in their willingness to draw preconceived unfounded conclusions.

Let's try and get this once and for all time, the greenies lie!   Lies of commission and lies of omission! That's why logical fallacies play such a large role in their pronouncements. In his book, Economic Facts and Fallacies Thomas Sowell said logical fallacies:

"..........are not simply crazy ideas. They are usually both plausible and logical – but with something missing. Their plausibility gains them political support. Only after that political support is strong enough to cause fallacious ideas to become government policies and programs are the missing or ignored factors likely to lead to “unintended consequences,” a phrase often heard in the wake of economic or social policy disasters. Another phrase often heard in the wake of these disasters is, ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time.” That is why it pays to look deeper into things that look good on the surface at the moment."

This is true of virtually every issue promoted by the anti–everything activists, along with their myrmidons in government and science. The universities are now so addicted to government grant money they can no longer to be trusted regarding anything they promote or publish.

Dr. Jay Lehr, one of the original founders of the USEPA, says:

"....science is following the government money, and it’s a problem in all industries. We’ve totally distorted science, not all of it, but certainly at the university level. They know they have to say what the government wants to hear in the grant proposal process in order to get their money.

"U.S. EPA rules the roost, and if they’re not out to prove or say bad things about chemicals of all kinds, they won’t likely get the money. This is all driven by the environmental advocacy groups that control U.S. EPA today. It’s a horrible thing, and what it has done to science mostly at the academic level is bad. But U.S. EPA’s goal is to remove every useful chemical from the environment." (Read the entire interview here. RK)

Every year Retraction Watch lists hundreds of papers that have to be retracted, and many of them due to fraud. In one period in 2012 two hundred and thirty papers were retracted out of about fifteen hundred. And those were the ones caught. It's my belief there are far more that should be retracted and aren't because of the collusion among "scientists" of like persuasion. Government grant money has made science rich. When science becomes rich it becomes politics. When politics dominates science the term scientific integrity becomes an oxymoron. 

 

For decades the left has been screaming about anthropogenic global warming, and yet every prediction they made has failed.   Bill Gates was a big promoter of that nonsense, and now he's backing away, and being attacked by the only people making money off all this climate madness, the environmentalists.   This climate cult is killing Europe, "a poverty engine that is systematically draining Europe’s industrial base in global competition", as Ursula von der Leyen takes COP30 attendees, "on a journey to fairyland -- EU-style, dreamy, green-tinted, and disconnected from reality. The Commission President declared, with evident pride, that EU member states now have a “crystal-clear commitment” to reduce CO2 emissions by 90 percent by 2040."

 

As a result of their unending embrace of this insanity European pension funds, that heavily invested in Net Zero projects are facing massive losses.  Projects that were predicted to fail by those on my side of this issue twenty years ago.  

 

De Omnibus Dubitandum – Question Everything. That's my personal motto, and is supposed to be the personal motto of every scientist in the world. Well, truth is no longer the Holy Grail of science, it's grant money. So what's to be done? Society must take oversight of science into its own hands, and that oversight should include serious penalties for fraud. When fraud is exposed, as was done in the now infamous Tulane endocrine disruption study, someone should be charged criminally. In the Tulane study not one person was charged with a crime. And as far as I can tell - that never happens in science - making science a Sacred Cow! That needs to be changed!

The term "citizen scientist" came into existence in 2014 and includes anyone “whose work is characterized by a sense of responsibility to serve the best interests of the wider community" or "'a member of the general public who engages in scientific work, often in collaboration with or under the direction of professional scientists and scientific institutions'" an amateur scientist.” That’s who we all have to become, but without allowing ourselves to be enfolded into the scientific community and used as "helpers", as is the current defining trend. 

 

If citizen science is to be effective it should be a movement of heterodoxy, having the courage to stand up to the conventional wisdom and tell the world, "you're wrong, and I'm going to tell you why!"

We cannot entrust policy promoted by “scientists”, because we know the scientific community isn't trustworthy. If we don’t stand up to be counted we will all end up like the old man and the young boy, panic stricken and running like chickens with their heads cut off, which is just what the activists want. A society that's panic stricken, ignorant and compliant to a movement that's irrational, misanthropic and morally defective.

What Happened to Climate Change, the "Existential Threat" of our Time?

Critically Thinking about alarmists

By John Droz Oct 29, 2025 @ Critically Thinking About Select Societal Issues  

As readers know, I periodically repost another author’s column that I believe is consistent with my Critical Thinking objective.

This is a good example from Ron Hart who frequently has good insights.

FYI: interestingly, Bill Gates just publicly backed off of his climate alarmist rhetoric. Not surprisingly Bill never had a hard Science degree, so his climate commentaries were based on political science, not Real Science.

---

Just 10 short months ago, Biden and Kamala told us that “Climate Change,” closely followed by “White Supremacy,” were the two biggest threats to America.

Global warming is the perfect fashionable worry for you liberals so you can talk about it like you know something about science, seem deeply concerned to make you look empathetic, and so you can tax other people to act like you are doing something about it – all with no quantifiable metrics to ever dispute your “grave” concerns.

Apparently, we have won the war on “global warming” the same way government “wins” most wars, like Covid in 2020 and the Vietnam War in 1975; they got too expensive and we got tired of hearing about them, so we just declared them over.

Can you remember any of the fearful warnings that government rained on us that panned out? The Domino Theory in Vietnam, Acid Rain, Smog, Holes in the Ozone Layer, Nuclear plants shuttered, Y2K, Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, the marauding Muslim armies that would come to our shores if we did not fight them “over there…” Then came the Russian Hoax, and Draconian Covid-shutdowns.

Those in power tend to scare us with fake fears, and then they act like they solved the problem. Government’s mantra seems to be “Everything is worse than you think, but I can fix it.” The murkier and more pretentiously moral the “crisis,” the better; then they set out to solve those mythical problems of their own creation. Every answer Dems come up gives them more power and taxes us more.

Maybe the earth just warms and cools over time. No need for hucksters to make money from it. Put in words Dems might understand, maybe the earth’s temperature is just “transitioning.”

To believe all the climate change propaganda, you must subscribe to the following: The Earth is warming, man is causing it (a fraction of a degree), it’s not cyclical and politicians are so smart that if we give them trillions more dollars, they can change the temperature of the Earth.

Bartender-turned-thought-leader of the Democrat party, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has turned her considerable intellect to opining on climate change. With the precision that can only come with $100,000 of student loan debt for a dubious liberal arts degree from a party school, she said at a climate forum in D.C. years ago that global warming “will cause the world to end in 12 years.”

The other global warming leader was 22-year-old Greta Thunberg. She has since turned her condescending scowl to helping Hamas. She demands the creation of a Palestinian state. You know, so it can be destroyed in 12 years by climate change.

Leftist dogma defies reason. We are led to believe that the polar ice caps are breaking up, but the Clintons are still together.

Time and facts are tricky things. Glaciers are now gaining ice. Miami is not underwater. The United Nations, which is promoting global warming as a shakedown excuse, leaked a U.N. study that said solar activity played a greater role in global warming than originally thought. Wow — the sun? It’s always the last place you think to look, ain’t it?

Gavin Newsom even tried to blame the Pacific Palisades wildfires on global warming (not that his policies have limited the water in the area to only hot tubs and bongs). Then it turns out the fires were started by an Uber driver. Whoops, wrong again. If Newsom is ever right about something, it will be one in a row. To err is human, but to blame it on others shows potential for presidential Democrat nominees.

The media and the Left bully people into believing the theory by saying, “The science is settled.” Then they set about calling those who do not cower in line with them “flat-earthers,” which is the kind of arrogant, derisive statement at which the Left is particularly good. Academic careers end in the liberal enclaves they gain tenure in if they point out any facts contrary to the religion of global warming.

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Actors without a high school diploma, like Leonard DiCaprio, lecture us on driving SUVs as he flies super models to his yacht in his private plane. Al Gore’s factually incorrect PowerPoint presentation wins Oscars. I do know one climate change fact: Global warming is the number one cause of documentaries.

Leftists make their point as they do now, with violence. The Mona Lisa got vandalized by climate activists. They threw paint on it. I say give them no attention and just reclassify the masterpiece as a Jackson Pollock.

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Trump Should Have Spoken at Climate Week NYC 2025

Tom Harris | Sep 30, 2025 

 

“If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail,” President Donald Trump told delegates in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly (GA) last week. It is a shame the president was not a speaker at this year’s Climate Week NYC, which wrapped up on Sunday, as he would have given them much needed relief from the steady drumbeat of alarmism heard during the weeklong gabfest.

Besides criticizing the UN’s failure to work to end conflicts and properly deal with immigration issues, the president focused on the climate change swindle promoted by the U.N. and nations around the world. He highlighted dire climate predictions made decades ago that have not come to pass, giving an example: “another UN official stated in 1989 that within a decade, entire nations could be wiped off the map by global warming,” adding correctly, “Not happening.” He emphasized how global cooling used to be the concern, then global warming, now “climate change,” creating “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.” 

Trump also criticized other countries’ green energy policies, explaining how they are wasting money trying to reduce their “carbon footprint” at the expense of lost jobs and closed factories. “The carbon footprint is a hoax,” he bluntly, and correctly, told the GA.

In stark contrast, 2.5 miles away in Manhattan, Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, the primary UN climate body, told Climate Week NYC 2025: 

“The clean energy transition is booming across almost all major economies and hit 2 trillion dollars last year alone…Meanwhile, climate disasters are hitting every economy and society harder every year. So, we need to step it up. And we need to step it up fast [to avoid catastrophe].”

At the Freshfields energy summit, a high-profile event held during this year’s Climate Week NYC, leaders agreed that coal must be “rapidly retired in developed economies” by 2035 to meet pathways aligned with the Paris Agreement. That developing countries account for nearly 80 percent of global coal consumption (as of 2024) didn’t seem to bother them. China, which alone consumes 58 percent of the world’s coal — more than the rest of the world combined, has made it clear they are going to continue to build coal fired power stations no matter what. In the first half of 2025 alone, China commissioned 21 GW of coal power, about 25 new coal-fired power plants — the most for that period since 2016. When it comes to China and developing countries, the tone shifts from rapid retirement of dependable coal plants in the west to respect for “energy sovereignty” and “national priorities” for Asia. If sovereignty is sacred, it should be respected universally, but the fact that it isn’t demonstrates yet another way China is gaming the system.

Tim Lenton, Professor of Earth System Science at University of Exeter and keynote speaker at Climate Week, chimed in,

“We need decisive mandates for the end of fossil fuel technologies that are going to be the crucial thing to stimulate the clean technologies we need.” Specifically, he wants to “Phase out of coal power stations in developed nations by 2035…mandating no petrol and diesel car sales from 2035…all heating appliances for buildings being heat pumps from 2035, and all trucks to be electric powered from 2040.” 

If this were to actually happen, it would be an unmitigated disaster for businesses and consumers alike. Trump illustrated this well when he told the GA that European electricity bills are now “two to three times higher than the United States, and our bills are coming way down.” Yet, this is only a preview of massive costs to come if Europe continues to replace inexpensive, dependable conventional power with costly, unreliable wind and solar power.

In his 2021 brief for Canada’s House of Commons, Robert Lyman, economist and Principal of ENTRANS Policy Research Group, and former director general, environmental affairs, at Transport Canada, said, “The cost to electrify the U.S. economy would translate into annual cost increases of at least U.S. $5,000 per household” and that “annual consumer expenditures for energy would roughly double.” That doesn’t even take into account the loss of energy security with increased vulnerability to blackouts and brownouts. 

For instance, Texas, the state with the most wind power, also had the greatest number of blackouts between 2000 and 2023. California, the state with the most solar power, had the third most blackouts. Dr. H. Sterling Burnett, senior fellow on environmental policy for The Heartland Institute, said “wind and solar power are particularly unsuited for a large power grid because they work only when the weather conditions are just right.” 

Trump was also right to call out EU politicians for leading their citizens to a health disaster. He pointed out how the U.S. has about 1,300 heat-related deaths annually, while Europe has more than 175,000, caused in large part by the high costs of electricity that prevents people from air-conditioning their homes. The population of Europe is only just over twice that of the U.S., so this means that the chances of a person dying due to the heat in Europe is 62 times that in America. 

Over the past week, New York City showcased the stark contrast between a climate realist president and those advocating overhauling our entire energy infrastructure to address a problem that only exists in the imagination of uninformed activists. Bravo President Trump!

Tom Harris is executive director of Ottawa, Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition.

UN, EU, ICJ, Climate Cabal want to keep world’s poor impoverished

They proclaim a ‘human right’ to ‘clean environment’ but not to reliable energy or better health  

By Paul Driessen

On the evening of September 30, 1882, Henry Rogers turned a switch and the Hearthstone Historic House living room in Appleton, Wisconsin (my mother’s hometown) was bathed in a soft amber glow. Hearthstone became the first home in the world lit by electricity.

Today, few can imagine our lives without plentiful, reliable, affordable electricity – for lights, computers, washers, driers, dishwashers, heating, air conditioning, television, vehicles, hospitals, schools, factories, data centers, artificial intelligence and more, to light, improve and sustain our lives. 

And yet nearly 750 million people still have no access to electricity. Billions more have minimal, sporadic access. The vast majority live in Sub-Saharan Africa: 600 million with no electricity; hundreds of millions more with minimal or sporadic power. Many Asians and Latin Americans are similarly deprived. Often, electrification rates are high in cities but extremely low in the countrysides.

Incredibly, across much of Europe, millions of poor and middle-class families are also deprived. Many simply cannot afford electricity prices that have skyrocketed in the wake of coal, gas and nuclear power plant closures, in favor of wind and solar installations.

Other Europeans no longer have jobs, because factories and entire industries cannot afford those prices, closed down and sent their jobs to China and other coal-based-electricity nations. Still others are being told by climate-obsessed pressure group, media and political elites to light, heat and cool only one room, wear more sweaters, and appreciate electricity when it’s available, not gripe about its cost or absence.

Europe refuses to frack for oil and gas … but imports Russian fuels, thereby sustaining Putin’s war on Ukraine’s citizens and civilian infrastructure.

Several US states have also imposed Euro-style electricity rates, rolling or recurring blackouts, and economic disruption in the name of saving the planet from climate calamities.

Leading, applauding and demanding this insanity are the United Nations, European Union, International Court of Justice (ICJ), multilateral anti-development banks, non-governmental organizations and even the now-defunct USAID. They harp about climate emergencies, demand that countries switch to “clean” energy, and refuse to approve or finance fossil fuel projects even for Africa.

The ICJ recently asserted that people have a “human right” to a “clean, healthy, sustainable environment” – which to the court means no impacts from fossil-fuel-driven climate change. It said nothing about rights to reliable and affordable energy, modern healthcare or decent living standards.

These proclamations and policies carry serious and often lethal consequences, especially for the world’s poorest people. They excuse and justify policies that effectively keep families and nations mired in poverty, squalor, joblessness, disease and malnutrition.

President Trump has excoriated the UN for its “brutal” climate and Net Zero policies. The rest of the world should do likewise.

The ICJ-defined right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment also ignores the reality that “clean energy” requires extensive mining and minerals processing, using fossil fuels and resulting in extensive toxic land, air and water pollution. Much of this dirty work is done in the poor families’ own backyards (because the elites want no mining or processing in their fiefdoms), and much of it involves child and slave labor, no or substandard workplace safety rules, and rampant land and habitat desecration.

The subsequent wind, solar and transmission installations impact hundreds of times more crop, habitat and scenic lands than coal or gas power plants that generate electricity in far greater quantities, far more reliably, far less expensively.

In India’s Thar Desert, next to Pakistan, native species are being sacrificed on the climate crisis and clean energy altar. Solar panels already blanket over 200 square miles; more than 2.5 million trees have been cut down to install them; and another 14,000 square miles of habitat (almost equal to Switzerland or half of South Carolina) could be clear cut for more panels, Vijay Jayaraj reports.

Even ponds that once attracted pelicans and a dozen other species are covered with solar panels. Numerous other wild species are also struggling to survive as their habitats are destroyed. Cleaning and cooling the panels already requires the equivalent of 300,000 people’s drinking water needs every week.

This destruction is happening all over the world. The ICJ still insists wind and solar power foster “clean, healthy, sustainable, climate friendly” economies – and ignores the privation it perpetuates.

The limited, intermittent, unpredictable electricity from Climate Cabal-approved generators guarantees that the world’s still-impoverished people will never have the appliances we take for granted. They may eventually have cell phones and laptops, a few lights, dorm-room refrigerators, and jobs maintaining “renewable” power systems.

However, they will never enjoy the modern healthcare, homes and living standards that require 24/7/365 coal, gas, nuclear or hydroelectric power.

So before we let Net Zero fanatics in the Climate Industrial Complex inflict their lies, ideologies and policies on people who’ve never had an opportunity to enjoy – much less reject – the marvels of modern civilization, let’s ask those prospective victims if they’re okay with that version of a “clean, sustainable” future. With giving up their aspirations for the lives and wonders they see in movies and magazines.

Let’s find out whether they’ve had a chance to speak with their European counterparts, and inquire about how Europe’s automotive, glass, pharmaceutical and other industries are faring. How many workers still have jobs. How many companies have moved their operations to China, India or other faraway locales. How much they enjoy living under the costs and restrictions imposed by EU politicians and bureaucrats.

Eastern Europeans weren’t overjoyed to exchange six years under the Nazis for 50 years under the benevolent people’s republics of the Soviet Union. Poor families in Africa, Asia and Latin America might not equally unexcited about the prospect of swapping their current daily grinds for the minimally better lives envisioned for them by would-be global ruling elites.

Perhaps they will no longer have to live in mud-and-thatch huts, carry water from distant wells, cook over wood and dung fires that infect women and babies with lung diseases, get intestinal diseases from parasite-infected water and spoiled food, suffer from malaria and other insect-borne diseases, be treated in antiquated hospitals that don’t even have window screens, and die decades before they should.

But how much better will their lives be under policies imposed by elites who decide their fates after flying private jets from one of their mansions to the next 5-star UN-sanctioned climate or economic conference?

The world’s poor don’t just have a human right to truly clean, healthy, sustainable environments. They have a right to enjoy the benefits of affordable 24/7 electricity, well-paid jobs, and all the modern appliances, healthcare, homes, prosperity and 6,000+ products made from petrochemicals that most people in industrialized nations already enjoy.

And do so without being guilted and conned by phony claims that aspiring to such energy and lives will bring worsening storms and inundations from rising seas, more forest fires, stressed blood supplies and other catastrophes conjured up by climate grifters and their political, academic and media allies.

Poor and developing nations need to band together, finance their own energy infrastructure, development, health and prosperity – and tell the carbon colonialists to take a hike.

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power - Black Death, and other books and articles on energy, climate change, economic development and human rights.

China’s Climate Confidence Trick

By Tom Harris

China is pulling a fast one on western nations and it is about time we called them on it.

For example, on July 24th, representatives from the EU and China met at a summit in Beijing to discuss their plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Both nations reaffirmed their commitment to the Paris Agreement on climate change and urged greater emission cuts, promotion of “green technology,” and a call for strong action at the COP30 climate summit coming up in Brazil this November. >

But is the west being “taken for a ride” on all this? Is China really committed to overhauling their coal-powered economy with so-called green energy?

Although China has significantly expanded its solar and wind power capacity, the following graphs show that it is still heavily reliant on coal. This is why its greenhouse gas emissions have soared and now stand at double those of the US.

 

As of 2023, China was the world’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide emissions at 35% of global emissions. While Chinese politicians tout their increased reliance on solar and wind to reduce the country’s “carbon footprint,” they are continuing to build coal power plants at a breathtaking rate. In 2024, they began building 94.5 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-power plants and resumed 3.3 GW of suspended projects in the country. This was an all-time high in the past ten years. In 2024, it permitted more coal capacity than the rest of the world combined.

Moreover, they are continuing to construct and finance coal plants in African, Southeast Asian, and South Asian countries. Although they have committed to halt the introduction of new coal plants overseas, existing plants or those that are in use will continue to run. India is the recipient of most of China’s overseas coal production.

So China’s renewable energy claims are just smoke and mirrors: coal use is expanding and most of their increased production of renewable energy technology is being built using coal as the energy source.

One point of tension at the July summit was that China wants tariffs revoked on its electric vehicle (EV) exports to the European market. China is booming in the EV market, which understandably raises concerns for domestic EU EV production. Concerning the restrictions of Chinese exports into the EU market, President Xi said:

“We hope the EU will keep its trade and investment markets open, refrain from using restrictive economic and trade tools and provide a good business environment for Chinese companies to invest and develop in Europe.”

China’s expanding share in the European EV market threatens European nations’ ability to grow their own green technology sector. Businesses and millions of EU auto industry jobs are at risk, as well as millions of other jobs related to EV production. With the EU remaining as China’s largest export market, these issues have created tensions between the countries despite their joint affirmation of climate change goals. No firm agreement was made about the issue of trade at the late July summit.

Hybrid cars from China are able to enter the EU levy-free, so the PRC have responded by introducing more hybrid models in Europe. The future of electric and hybrid vehicles is anything but certain, but it is clear that it is not in the best interest of the EU to rely on Chinese vehicle production while their own manufacturers struggle to stay afloat.

Moreover, the minerals crucial to EV production are mined by China with little or no environmental or human rights concerns. The lithium-ion batteries used in EVs are primarily composed of cobalt, lithium, manganese, and graphite, which are mined in developing countries. For instance, the Democratic Republic of Congo provides about two thirds of the global output of cobalt. Congolese mines are controlled by Chinese companies which employ child labour in extremely dangerous conditions. For more details on these issues, see “Wind and Solar are the Most Environmentally Destructive Energy Sources” that Dr. Jay Lehr and I wrote in 2021.

China has agreed to create an updated supply mechanism for their exports of critical minerals, which is further concerning due to their poor standards in mineral extraction. Even in their domestic EV production, the EU relies on these minerals from China, and so continued dependence on China’s minerals will only worsen human rights and environmental abuses.

To understand how China gets away with all this we need to examine the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which is the governing document for all UN climate agreements, including the Paris Agreement. Article 4 of the UNFCCC states that the first and overriding priority of developing nations is poverty alleviation and development. Since China is still considered a developing nation under the UN’s climate agreements, and burning coal is the cheapest way to continue to pull their people out of poverty, China will burn all the coal it wants indefinitely as it has full rein to soar past its Paris Agreement target to cap emissions by 2030.

When Xie Zhenhua, the Chinese climate negotiator at COP 20 in Lima, Peru (2014), was asked about China’s exemption from binding emissions reductions under Article 4 of the UNFCCC, he simply pointed to the article and said:

“We are exempt. We are a developing country.”

He then explained that the purpose of the Paris Agreement, then under development, was to enforce the UNFCCC, not to replace or change it.

So China knows it has a sweetheart deal—they can expand their coal usage, build coal stations across the world and grow their emissions without limit while boasting that they are following international climate agreements. All the while, they make a fortune selling wind and solar power equipment and batteries to western nations riddled with guilt over our own emissions that we falsely believe are damaging the climate.

China’s climate strategy is a strategically brilliant confidence trick—an elaborate balancing act in which the country presents itself as a global leader in clean technology, while approving and constructing coal-fired power plants at a staggering pace. It’s high time we called them on this.

Note: Mary-Jean Harris, BSc, MSc (physics), contributed to this article.

"Stupidest Litigation" Update

September 02, 2025/ Francis Menton @ Manhattan Contrarian

Suppose you had decided that the most important issue facing our planet was saving it from the possibility that some trace gas in the atmosphere, currently constituting about 0.04% of the air, might increase to 0.05%, or maybe even (oh no!) to 0.06%. What’s your strategy?

If you think like an environmentalist, the answer is simple: foment a barrage of civil lawsuits by states and municipalities against major oil companies, each seeking many billions of dollars in damages. The chance that such a strategy could ever have any measurable impact on the composition of the atmosphere is zero. However, with enough lawsuits from enough deep-pocketed plaintiffs, you could form an unstoppable juggernaut. Eventually you could coerce some gigantic settlement. Riches will be yours! It’s the American way.

And thus we have the Manhattan Contrarian series on what I have called the “stupidest litigations” in the country — the civil cases brought by states and municipalities, instigated by environmental advocates, against major oil companies, seeking multi billions on the ground that all extreme weather is caused by some tiny increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. My most recent update on this issue was more than four years ago, in April 2021. In the interim, the wheels of justice have been grinding slowly.

If you have the impression that this effort to change the world by civil litigation is some small or niche initiative, that impression would be completely wrong. This is a very large and very well-funded full court press intended to bring the oil companies to their knees. The very explicit model is the tobacco litigation of the 1980s and 90s. That litigation began as individual injury claims by smokers, but over time the states sensed the potential for major recoveries, and one by one they joined in the fray. A 1998 settlement with 46 states included a monetary payment of some $365 billion.

So how has Big Tobacco 2.0 been going? After many years of stalemate, the tide has recently been moving toward the oil company defendants.

The reasons are not hard to discern. Unlike with the tobacco litigations, there are no real injured parties, and nearly all of the claimed damage are based on hypothetical model predictions about future events. Perhaps more important to the specific litigation context, most of the conduct allegedly leading to damage has taken place outside the jurisdiction of the courts where the cases have been brought.

At the time of my 2021 update, the list of claims of this type — common law claims seeking damages from oil companies based on alleged climate impacts — included cases brought by the Cities of Oakland and San Francisco and County of San Mateo, California; the State of Massachusetts; the State of Rhode Island; the State of Delaware; the County of Boulder, Colorado; and the City of Baltimore, Maryland. Since then, the number of cases has continued to mushroom. For the list of cases I am relying on the U.S. Climate Change Litigation data base maintained by Columbia University. New filings have come from: in 2021, the City of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County in Maryland; in 2022, a group of municipalities in Puerto Rico, and the State of New Jersey; in 2023, Multnomah County (Portland), Oregon; in 2024, the State of Maine, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and the City of Chicago; and just now in 2025, the State of Hawaii.

A big reason why the cases have been proceeding so slowly is that the state and municipality plaintiffs have almost all brought the cases in state courts; but the oil company defendants have sought to have the issues litigated in federal court. This leads to procedural maneuvering, where the defendants initially file a petition for “removal” in the state court, which puts the case in the federal court; but then the plaintiff moves to have the case “remanded” to the state court. Little by little, the states and municipalities have been winning the battle to have the cases proceed in the state courts. Their hope is that, once back in the state court, the case will be treated as a local matter of “nuisance” from emissions of a pollutant, without regard to the nationwide, and indeed worldwide, scope of CO2 emissions.

A big complication for the plaintiffs, as noted in my 2021 post, was that one such claimant, the City of New York, had brought a similar case, but had initiated it in federal court. This meant that the issue of whether the case could be “removed” to federal court never came up, and the case went straight to the issue of whether states had the power to regulate CO2 emissions under the rubric of common law “nuisance” in the face of the comprehensive regulatory scheme of the federal Clean Air Act. In the New York City case, the District Court dismissed the City’s claim, and the Second Circuit affirmed. This quote is from the Second Circuit’s 2021 opinion:

Such a sprawling case is simply beyond the limits of state law.  To start, a substantial damages award like the one requested by the City would effectively regulate the Producers’ behavior far beyond New York’s borders.  Since “[g]reenhouse gases once emitted ‘become well mixed in the atmosphere,’” . . . “emissions in [New York or] New Jersey may contribute no more to flooding in New York than emissions in China,” . . .   Any actions the Producers take to mitigate their liability, then, must undoubtedly take effect across every state (and country).  And all without asking what the laws of those other states (or countries) require.  Because it therefore “implicat[es] the conflicting rights of [s]tates [and] our relations with foreign nations,” this case poses the quintessential example of when federal common law is most needed. . . .

As I noted in my 2021 post, “[T]he Second Circuit has laid down a marker that every state court that gets one of these cases will now need to deal with.” 

And with that background we come to the latest updates, from two of the deepest blue states. The Superior Court of New Jersey, Mercer County, dismissed the New Jersey claims in an opinion back in February. The main precedent cited was the Second Circuit’s opinion in the New York City case:

This court’s decision is reliant upon and consistent with both federal and state courts across the country that have rejected the availability of state tort law in the climate change context. See City of New York v. Chevron Corp., 993 F.3d 81 (2d Cir. 2021) (“City of New York”). . . .

The Columbia climate change litigation data base does not provide further information as to whether that decision has been appealed.

Meanwhile, in January this year, the Circuit Court of Anne Arundel County, Maryland, dismissed the claims of Anne Arundel County and of the City of Annapolis. That court again relied substantially on the Second Circuit’s decision in the City of New York case, as well as a prior dismissal in July 2024 of the City of Baltimore case by another Maryland state court judge.

The Maryland cases are now on appeal to the Supreme Court of Maryland. This post at eidclimate.org has excerpts from amicus briefs filed by the U.S. Department of Justice and by 24 Attorneys General (of red states) supporting affirmance of the dismissal. From the DOJ amicus brief:

“Extending Maryland law to redress climate-related harms caused by activities that overwhelmingly occurred beyond state and international borders would override policy choices made by the federal government and Maryland’s sister states.” (emphasis added) 

From the amicus brief of the 24 states:

“State and local governments cannot regulate the global atmosphere…no one State can ‘enforce its own policy’ on the others.” (emphasis added)

Hard as it may be to believe, the environmental lawyers hoping for a gigantic payday from this Tobacco 2.0 effort may well come up with nothing to show for it. We’ll see how the Maryland Supreme Court rules. But then, if that court comes out the opposite way from the Second Circuit, there will likely be a trip to the Supreme Court thereafter. The unstoppable juggernaut of environmental lawfare may turn out to be not so unstoppable after all.

The UN’s Krazy Kangaroo Klimate Kourt

By Paul Driessen

Vanuatu and other “climate vulnerable” island nations claim they are threatened by rising seas and worsening typhoons caused by fossil fuel use. In response to an emotional petition from them and law students at the University of the South Pacific, the United Nations General Assembly presented a resolution to the UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ or World Court), asking two questions: 

• What obligations do countries have under the Kyoto and Paris Climate Agreements or other international laws to protect Earth’s climate from carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions? 
• What legal consequences do (developed) countries face if they fail to abide by those laws and thus cause serious harm to the climate system and vulnerable communities? 
• The ICJ held hearings in December 2024 and (unsurprisingly) in July 2025 ruled formally, or declared in open court, that: 
• Greenhouse gas GHG) emissions are “unequivocally caused by human activities,” and are not confined by territorial boundaries” but are distributed throughout the atmosphere, thereby affecting Earth’s entire climate system. 
• The “climate crisis” is likewise “unequivocally” serious and caused by human activities. Indeed, manmade climate change is an “existential problem of planetary proportions,” a “universal risk” to all nations, a dire threat to “all forms of life and the very health of our planet.” 
• “A clean, healthy and sustainable environment” is a “human right.” 
• Member states (excluding China, India and other “emerging economies”) have a “duty” to prevent climate change, and failure of a state to “take appropriate action to protect the climate system … may constitute an internationally wrongful act.”

The Court’s pronouncements of legal and scientific expertise demonstrate yet again that the ICJ offers little more than politicized caricatures of law and justice – this time as a krazy kangaroo klimate kourt. 

Americans should be grateful that the ICJ ruling is nonbinding; advisory only, and the United States officially withdrew from the ICJ’s compulsory jurisdiction over UN member nations in 1986. 

Climate cultists will nevertheless demand obeisance to ICJ findings and dictates by the USA and other nations, and the ICJ decision and language will undoubtedly be cited in legal actions before their courts. 

The lawsuits will almost certainly include demands for billions or trillions of dollars in climate change “prevention” funds, “reparations” for past and ongoing damages, and money for “adaptation measures” that “victimized” countries will have to take to minimize horrific damage from climate changes caused by developed nations. They will also likely demand an end to fossil fuels and petrochemicals, despite our needing them to power vehicles, generators, furnaces and factories, and manufacture 6,000 petrochemical products, including solar panel, wind turbine, transformer, battery and electric vehicle components. 

The ICJ rulings raise endless issues and underscore the court’s propensity for vapid, ignorant analysis. 

Greenhouse gases (GHGs) certainly arise from human activities and become part of the global atmosphere. However, they are also the product of natural processes, like forest fires and vegetative and animal decay. The most important GHG is water vapor (~1-4% of the atmosphere), though climate activists never mention it. Other GHGs are minuscule components and play minor roles in climate and weather: eg, carbon dioxide (0.04%) and methane 0.0002%). 

The only places climate change is a “crisis,” an “existential problem of planetary proportions,” or a “dire threat” to people and planet are in climate cult computer models, fearmongering and press releases. 

Actual historic records, empirical data and ongoing measurements show no planet-wide or even national increases in the frequency or intensity of hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts, sea level rise, forest fires or other catastrophes. They do show crops, grasslands and forests growing better, faster and with less water, as atmospheric CO2 levels and global temperatures increased. 

A true dire threat to humanity and nature would be another ice age. The Pleistocene Era’s mile-high glaciers bulldozed and buried everything for thousands of miles south of the Arctic, dropped sea levels by hundreds of feet, and replaced countless plant and animal species with new cold-weather varieties. The Little Ice Age (~1300-1850) brought floods, storms, famines and disease to Europe and Asia. 

How could Vanuatu have survived the 400-foot rise in sea levels since the last Ice Age, including a foot since 1900, but now is threatened by 1-2 feet more over the next century or two? 

The blunt reality is that the World Court cannot decree that a “climate crisis” is being “unequivocally” caused by fossil fuels and other human activities – any more than Spanish Inquisitors could decree that the sun revolves around our planet. Science doesn’t work that way. 

Under the scientific method, a theory like catastrophic manmade climate change (nee global warming) must be supported by empirical evidence (not hype or models) – or it must be rejected. Not only is there no “settled” climate science. What we now know demonstrates that we face no crisis, and the supposed “green” energy cure for this non-crisis would be far more devastating to humanity, wildlife and planet than any climate calamities alleged to be threatening us. 

But the UN and Climate Industrial Complex cling so desperately to manmade climate cataclysm claims (and the money and power those claims generate) that they want to criminalize climate “misinformation, disinformation, misrepresentation, denialism and greenwashing” – which the UN, ICJ and nation states would define, prosecute and penalize. 

Any lawsuit claiming a “human right.” to a “clean, healthy, sustainable environment” falsely assumes that developed nations can actually control Earth’s climate and fulfill their “duty” to prevent both natural and human-caused climate change, for whatever climate exists wherever the litigants live. 

It must ignore harms from eliminating fossil fuels, reliable coal- or gas-based electricity and 6,000+ products made from petrochemicals. It must dismiss the fact that those life-enhancing products and other modern technologies were created and manufactured by the very countries they now vilify and blame. 

The lawsuits must also assume that “clean” wind, solar and battery technologies will magically arrive once the coal-oil-gas era ends – and will not involve mining and processing, toxic pollution, child and slave labor, and ecological destruction from blanketing vast areas with wind, solar and transmission installations. They must ignore the disease and death from the blackouts and reduced living standards and medical services that inevitably come with that unreliable energy. 

This “human right” proclamation also presumes that people will have no desire – and no human right – to act and live outside the dictates of UN, ICJ or other ruling elites regarding: what foods they may eat; what homes they may live in, and how warm or cool they may keep them; where, how, how far and how often they may drive or fly; and what they are permitted to read, think and say about any of this, without running afoul of Disinformation Police. 

This International Court of Justice is the height of arrogance, tyranny and injustice to the vast majority of the world’s people. The court and this opinion should simply be ignored and rejected. 

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy, climate change, economic development and human rights.