Archives de catégorie : better to know…?

better to know...?, climate-debate

Another New Study Suggests Most – 80% – Of The Modern CO2 Increase Has Been Natural

by K. Richard, Aug 29, 2025 in NoTricksZone 

An independent researcher (Robbins, 2025) has reviewed recent research that suggests at least “80% or more of the [modern CO2] increase is of natural origin.”

This is because “changes in atmospheric temperature are an ‘effect’ of changes in SSTs and not a ’cause’ as some might advocate.”

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Similar conclusions are found in a paper published in the same peer-reviewed journal last year (Ato, 2024).

“SST [sea surface temperature] has been the determinant of the annual changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations and […] anthropogenic emissions have been irrelevant in this process…”

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Media Falsely Claim Antarctica On Brink Of Climate Doom, Ignore Contrary Data

by A. Watts, Aug 29, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

Why abrupt Antarctic ‘climate shifts’ aren’t new or necessarily catastrophic.

 

Emperor Penguins
A recent CBS News article, “Abrupt Antarctic climate shifts could lead to ‘catastrophic consequences for generations,’ experts warn,” claims that Antarctica is on the brink of irreversible collapse due to climate change, warning that sea levels could rise by meters and that “catastrophic consequences for generations” are looming. [emphasis, links added]

This is false or, at best, deeply misleading.

The actual data and history of Antarctic ice show that “abrupt changes” are neither unprecedented nor a reason to panic. Natural variability and cyclical shifts are being ignored in favor of sensational headlines pushing the increasingly untenable climate crisis narrative.

CBS was not alone in pushing the Antarctic climate crisis narrative.

On August 21, 2025, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) joined the chorus of media outlets with alarming headlines warning of a pending ice collapse, publishing a report claiming Antarctica is undergoing “rapid, self-perpetuating changes” that are “potentially irreversible.”

Each of the reports cited a new Nature review led by Professor Nerilie Abram as the source of the information for their alarming articles.

ABC’s article presents Antarctica as being in a state of runaway decline, with imminent threats to emperor penguins and global sea levels, parroting language from the Abram paper as if it were an observed fact, rather than the speculative synthesis of research papers that the Nature study cites.

CBS, ABC, and other media outlets are covering this story as if a tipping point is upon us—but a closer look at the evidence reveals otherwise.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

NYT Falsely Blames Climate Change For Hurricane Erin Despite No Evidence

by L. Lueken, Aug 28, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch

Rapid intensification of Hurricane Erin isn’t unusual, and attribution studies don’t prove climate change caused it.

The New York Times (NYT) published an article titled “How Climate Change Affects Hurricanes Like Erin,” in which they rely on rapid attribution analysis to claim that climate change is making rapidly intensifying hurricanes more likely, implying that the storm was worsened by global warming. This is false. [emphasis, links added]

Attribution studies are generally not based on solid scientific evidence and, therefore, not provable. Plus, there is a lack of evidence to support the notion that rapid intensification is becoming more common.

At the outset, the NYT claimed that hurricane Erin’s effects, such as they are, “are made worse by global warming,” even though the storm stayed offshore. The storm intensified quickly from a Category 1 to a Category 5 hurricane, and NYT claims that “[a]s the planet warms, scientists say that rapidly intensifying hurricanes are becoming ever more likely.”

First, it is important to note that just because a storm is among the most rapidly intensifying on record, it does not mean that there were not similar storms that went unrecorded.

As mentioned in a previous Climate Realism post about hurricane Erin, hurricane measurement technology is far advanced today than it was even a few decades ago.

Before the widespread use of Hurricane Hunter flights starting in the 70s where offshore storms were first closely monitored and directly measured throughout their lifespan, other rapidly intensifying storms would not have made the record.

So there is uncertainty about the record there.

Beyond that, attribution researchers and the NYT would like to blame hurricane intensification all on warm sea surface temperatures, but rapid intensification occurs in response to a variety of factors lining up just right.

Similar claims were made two years ago concerning Hurricane Otis. That storm also intensified rapidly over a single day, turning into a Category 5 before hitting the west coast of Mexico.

Otis did not intensify under expected conditions; thunderstorm bursts that forecasters were unable to predict are now believed to have been responsible for its rapid intensification.

Just as some scientists say more intense storms are more likely with warming, other scientists say that they will become less likely to form or less likely to strike land.

The NYT neglected to mention these perspectives, focusing its story on the scarier opinions that support the narrative that climate change is responsible for worsening extreme weather events.

In fact, as Climate at A Glance: Hurricanes details, there is no data suggesting hurricanes are becoming more frequent or more intense.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Study Finds Extreme Weather Database Exaggerates Global Disaster Trends

by Climate Discussion Nexus, Aug 28, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

Disasters don’t count if you don’t count them.

City flood aftermath
According to its publishers, a dataset called EM-DAT, which stands for Emergency Events Database, so it’s not even an acronym, lists “data on the occurrence and impacts of over 26,000 mass disasters worldwide from 1900 to the present day.” [emphasis, links added]

Which makes it perfect for studying long-term trends. And what’s even better, for the climate change crowd anyway, is that, as the authors of a 2024 study noted, “There are very strong upward trends in the number of reported disasters.”

But as the same authors noted in the very next sentence, “However, we show that these trends are strongly biased by progressively improving reporting.” Simply put, before 2000, reporting of small disasters that caused fewer than 100 deaths was hit-and-miss.

So, historically, the record of giant disasters that killed hundreds or more persons is reasonably complete, but not the record of small ones.

And the authors of the recent study argue that once they adjust for the effect of underreporting, the trends in disaster-related mortality go away.

The paper, “Incompleteness of natural disaster data and its implications on the interpretation of trends,” by a group of scientists in Sweden, began by noting that they are not the first to point out the problem.

The weird thing is that many authors who have pointed out this massive flaw have then gone ahead and used the data anyway, as though it did not exist, or at least they had not noticed it:

“Various authors (Field et al., 2012; Gall et al., 2009; Hoeppe, 2016; Pielke, 2021) have noted that there are reporting deficiencies in the EM-DAT data that may affect trends then proceeded to present trend analyses based on it without correction. Even the EM-DAT operators themselves discourage using EM-DAT data from before 2000 for trend analysis (Guha-Sapir (2023)). Yet recently, Jones et al. (2022) investigated the 20 most cited empirical studies utilising EM-DAT as the primary or secondary data source, and found that with only one exception the mention of data incompleteness was limited to a couple of sentences, if mentioned at all.”

Having made that point, their study then digs into the records and shows that in the post-2000 period, there is a steady pattern relating the frequency of events to the number of fatalities (F) per event.

It follows something that statisticians call “power-law behaviour” in which the more extreme an outcome, the rarer it is, not in a straight line but in an inverse exponential relationship, where extreme things, [like] large numbers of fatalities in a disaster, are a lot rarer than small numbers on a logarithmic curve. (For instance, in boating accidents, there are tens of thousands of individuals falling out and drowning for every Titanic.)

Hydrological, meteorological, and geophysical disasters all follow power-law behaviour in recent decades. But in earlier decades, the relationship doesn’t appear to hold because of a deficiency of low-fatality disasters in the data, rather than because it wasn’t still true then..

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Finally, an Unbiased and Objective Climate Science Report

by T. Gallaudet, Aug 26, 2025 in TheEpochTimes

The recent report released by Energy Secretary Chris Wright on the climate impacts of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the U.S. has caused quite a stir in the climate science arena. “Outrage,” “pushback,” and “criticized” are the words used in many of the headlines about it.
To better gauge the overall opinion of the report, two journalists from the Associated Press asked members of the climate science committee if they believed that it accurately portrayed the current “mainstream view of climate science.”
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better to know...?

The Medieval Warm Period: A Global Phenomenon?

by M. Wielicki, Mar 06, 2025 in IrrationalFear

The debate over the characteristics and impact of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), roughly dated from 950 to 1250 AD, lies at the heart of discussions on historical climate variability and its implications for understanding current climate change.

Following the publication of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)Third Assessment Report in 2001, the MWP was essentially erased from the paleoclimatological record in favor of the ‘hockey stick’ graph. This disappearance remains a point of contention that has been particularly prominent in public and scientific debate.

The ‘hockey stick’ graph, first published by Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley, and Malcolm Hughes in 1999, depicted temperature anomalies over the past millennium. It showed relatively minor temperature fluctuations for most of the last millennium (the “shaft” of the hockey stick) and a sharp rise in temperatures in the 20th century (the “blade” of the hockey stick). This presentation suggested that the modern warming period has been unprecedented over the last millennium. This finding has been at the core of calls for robust measures aimed at addressing climate change.

better to know...?, climate-debate

Trump Unsettles Supposedly Settled Climate Science

by H.S. Burnett, Aug 26, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

DOE climate report shows rising CO2 has limited impact on temperatures and isn’t catastrophic as alarmists claim.

 

Donald Trump’s presidency has seemingly unsettled the supposedly settled science of climate change, disrupting 40 years of “climate change is killing us” dogma in seven short months. [emphasis, links added]

For nearly four decades, scientists with a reputational and financial stake in the game, and compliant, uninquisitive mainstream media, have told the public one thing consistently concerning climate change: there is a consensus, there is no debate, human greenhouse gas emissions are causing dangerous climate change. The end, roll credits, The Science is settled.

The Consensus Climate Cabal (CCC) of scientists, activists, and politicians attempted to enforce the settled climate science orthodoxy because they profited from it in one way or another, in part by shutting down continued debate and discussion about the causes and consequences of climate change.

For example, the Climategate emails showed scientists suppressing or lying about inconvenient data, undermining climate concerns, having open-minded journal editors removed from their positions or reined in by journal publishers (nefarious activity that continues to this day, unfortunately).

In Climategate’s aftermath, climate skeptics were increasingly shut out of the peer review process, and papers openly skeptical of the anthropogenic climate disaster narrative were nearly impossible to get published in top journals.

The mainstream media then piled on. It began to shut dissenting voices out of climate change stories.

The media concluded that since “the science was settled,” the debate was over, and publishing the views of climate skeptics/climate realists was tantamount to allowing Holocaust deniers a voice in stories about Nazi death camps.

Those not in the consensus group were labeled as climate deniers and disenfranchised in polite company.

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A recent article in Nature acknowledged that the DOE’s report has at least a modicum of validity.

“Predictions of global warming are uncertain,” writes Tim Plamer, D.Phil., in a recent article in Nature. “That’s why we need to keep finding out how the climate system works.”

Palmer admits, for example, that climate change is not catastrophic, and “its authors are correct in one respect: the most important uncertainty in our ability to predict how much global temperatures will increase as carbon emissions continue is related to how cloud coverage will change over time.”

The response of global temperatures to rising CO2 is the most critical question in the climate debate. If that question is unsettled, then we can’t really know how the climate will respond to rising temperatures and whether it endangers humans or the environment. Score one for the DOE report.

The science is not “settled,” after all. It never was!

better to know...?, climate-debate

INTERVIEW. Dr. Judith Curry on Global Warming: Where Is the Danger?

by Clintel Foundation, Aug 24, 2025

“People used to call the warm periods the optimums, the climate optimums, because ecosystems and people thrived in these warmer climate optimums,” says Dr. Judith Curry, professor emeritus at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “We talk about two degrees of warming, things like that, but the part that they don’t tell you is that the baseline is the period between 1850 and 1900. Since that period, we’ve already seen 1.3 degrees of warming,” she says. And each of us can see for ourselves if human life on planet Earth has gotten better or worse during that time, while the population has been increasing along with agricultural productivity. “The lives lost per 100,000 people from weather and climate extremes have dropped by two orders of magnitude. So, you know, we’ve managed to do quite well during the first 1.3 degrees of warming. So if we were to see another 1.3 degrees of warming, which is the current best estimate from the UN climate negotiators by 2100, is there any reason to think that would be any worse than the first 1.3 degrees of warming?” Curry asks a simple question.

Many widely held beliefs, such as the notion that a climate crisis or global warming is causing more extreme weather, are simply false. The sea level rise is insignificant. “So where is the danger?” Curry asks.

Curry also points out that until we better understand natural climate variability, we can’t be very confident about stating how much of the warming is human-caused. According to her we don’t have a good enough understanding of a number of issues, e.g. how big is the Sun’s influence on climate, or what is the effect of ocean circulations etc. Therefore the widely used narrative of 97% of scientists agreeing that we are facing a man-made climate crisis is, according to Curry, simply a joke. “Scientists do not agree on the most consequential issues,” she explains.

There is a popular claim. It is still alive, pretty much. I think that there is a scientific consensus that 97% of scientists agree that human-caused climate change exists. Many interpret this to mean there’s no room for any discussion. But where does this claim actually come from?

Well, where it comes from is that there was an activist scientist who had a blog, and he had some of his blogger buddies do a search of scientific abstracts, and they classified the abstracts as either for or against human-caused global warming. Most of them didn’t directly confront the issue. And they counted papers that included cook stove technology being used in India, for example. And they counted that as in favor of the global warming narrative. So, it’s actually a big joke.

What climate scientists actually agree on is very little. Everyone agrees that it’s been warming since about the middle 19th century. Everyone agrees that we’re adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. And everyone agrees that carbon dioxide has an infrared emission spectra that, all other things being equal, acts to warm the planet.

But scientists do not agree on the most consequential issues, such as how much of the recent warming has been caused by humans. How much warming can we expect for the remainder of the 21st century? Is warming dangerous? Will humanity and human welfare overall be improved by a rapid transition away from fossil fuels? There’s a huge debate, scientific and political debate on these issues, and pretending that we shouldn’t have this debate and pretending that there’s some sort of agreement by all scientists on these issues where there’s a lot of disagreement is not only bad for science, but it misleads policymakers. So it’s not good for anybody other than for the activist scientists who want attention, fame, fortune, whatever – who knows what drives them.

In your book Climate Uncertainty and Risk: Rethinking Our Response (2023), you write that in 2017, you resigned from your faculty position at the Georgia Institute of Technology because academia increasingly felt like “wrong trousers” due to climate consensus enforcement and free speech issues. Could you please elaborate on this? What did you mean?

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better to know...?

Germany’s Green Economy Collapse… Q2 Economy Shrinks 0.3% …AI Stalls

by P. Gosselin, Aug 24, 2025 in NoTricksZone

Germany is not just falling behind – it risks collapsing. 

Germany’s energy woes, brought on by its failed attempt at transitioning to green energies, continue to mount. Blackout News here reports on how the expansion of AI data centers is facing a significant slowdown due to a global lack of sufficient power supply.

In Frankfurt, Germany, industry experts report a critical shortage of grid capacity, leading to stalled projects. The massive energy needs of AI are outpacing the development of power grids and severely hindering growth. In the second quarter of 2025, the German economy shrank 0.3%, worse than expectations.

In contrast, China appears to have a competitive advantage due to its long-term, strategic energy planning and decades of extensive investment in all sectors of power supply. This centralized control has created massive energy reserves, positioning the country favorably for AI expansion. However, this advantage is not rooted in sustainable practices.

China’s energy mix still heavily relies on coal, with renewables making up a much smaller percentage.

German industry continues eroding

Blackout News also reports, “DAX companies are cutting jobs on a massive scale – 30,000 lost within a year”, thus confirming the country’s industrial decline.

“DAX companies are under enormous pressure. Within a year, the largest listed companies lost around 30,000 jobs,” writes Blackout News. “This corresponds to a decrease of 0.9 percent. ‘The demand for employees is likely to continue to decline,’ industry experts emphasize.”

better to know...?, climate-debate

Pielke Jr. –A Takeover of the IPCC

by C. Rotter, Aug 24, 2025 in WUWT

Roger Pielke Jr.’s “A Takeover of the IPCC” offers a timely post-mortem on what’s left of scientific rigor in the world’s most influential climate assessment body, of which Pielke Jr. has long been a supporter. The article chronicles not just a change in personnel at the IPCC, but a seismic shift in methodology and purpose—a transformation best described as a hostile takeover by advocates of “Extreme Event Attribution” (EEA). The implications for public policy, scientific integrity, and even the basic credibility of climate science are staggering, and long overdue for public scrutiny.

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Pielke’s article, in short, is a wakeup call. The so-called “settled science” is more unsettled than ever, and the very structures meant to provide honest assessment are being repurposed for advocacy. The cost, inevitably, will be paid in public trust, misallocated resources, and a continued failure to address the real drivers of disaster risk.

There’s an old saying in science: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The new IPCC, sadly, seems content to settle for extraordinary press releases. The public deserves better. It’s time to ask, loudly, whose interests are really being served by this shift—and to demand a return to genuine scientific skepticism before the last shreds of credibility are gone for good.

better to know...?

Michael Mann’s Social Media Rants Turn Anger Into Alienation

by R. Bradley Jr.,  Aug 23, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

Michael “ClimateGate” Mann cannot get out of his own way.

His arrogant, condescending social tweets speak for themselves—just as the words, sentences, and paragraphs of the East Anglia emails did. [some emphasis, links added]

“And yes, there is empirical, peer-reviewed support for the conclusion that climate deniers, in general, are truly awful human beings.” (–Michael Mann, via X)

He is not the kind of person you would want in just about any endeavor, much less as a climate scientist trying to present a case.

This post traces Mann’s angst on X and then at BlueSky, his successor to X:

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Final Comment

This is enough to keep a psychologist busy. Mann stepped into his own manhole, and he kept digging down.

Like Al Gore, he hurts his cause more than he helps it, as 97 percent of his colleagues (just an estimate) are more rational and quieter than he is on the same subject.

better to know...?, climate-debate

Another Study Affirms Anthropogenic CO2 Does Not Drive Climate Change

by K. Richard, Aug 22, 2025 in NoTricksZone 

Utilizing AI’s evidence-streamlining capabilities, a new study (with “Grok” literally positioned as the lead author) summarizes a few of the key counterpoints undermining the CO2-drives-climate narrative.

For example, consider that humans contribute just 10 GtC per year to the carbon cycle, whereas nature’s sources (ocean outgassing and soil respiration, primarily) contribute 220 GtC annually. The combined total (230 GtC/year) does not distinguish between sources, and thus natural sinks that remove carbon from the atmosphere proportionately absorb human as well as natural emissions, with the human percentage (4%) insignificant and the natural predominant (96%).

But even if the last century of rising CO2 was 100% anthropogenic, the empirical data indicate the residence time for atmospheric CO2 is just 3-7 years. This necessarily precludes the possibility for anthropogenic CO2 in particular to be the driver of presumed radiation imbalances, or radiative forcing. This is because the tiny anthropogenic component is too quickly removed from the cycle to have more than a negligible impact. Nearly 90% of CO2 derived from human emissions sources since 1750 has already been removed, absolving humans of the alleged responsibility for (allegedly CO2-induced) climate change.

The atmospheric CO2 residence time would need to last centuries for the presumed effects of anthropogenic CO2 to have the dominant impact the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claims it has. So what has the IPCC decided to do? Of course, the IPCC (and those hoping to blame humans for climate change) rely on modeled assumptions that the atmospheric CO2 residence time is, yes, over 100 years. There is no empirical basis validating these assumptions. To put it crudely, the IPCC’s 100-year CO2 residence time model is made up. Fake.

The study also addresses the causality problem that the CO2-drives-temperature narrative has, as there are many studies affirming CO2 changes follow, rather than lead, temperature changes. This T→CO2 directionality is not only observed in the short-term (months), but in paleoclimate studies (an 800-year CO2 lag) as well.

In sum, there is ample evidence available to support the conclusion anthropogenic CO2 does not drive climate change.

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better to know...?, renewable energy

UN: Renewables are So Cheap They Need Lots of Subsidies

by E. Worrall, Aug 21, 2025 in WUWT

Inflexion Point: Renewable Energy Is Cheaper Than Fossil Fuels

PRABIR PURKAYASTHA

The tipping point between renewable energy and fossil fuels has been reached, says a new United Nations (UN) report. The UN Secretary-General Antônio Guterres said that we are entering a renewable era and leaving the era of fossil fuels. According to the report, ‘In 2024, renewables made up 92.5% of all new electricity capacity additions and 74% of electricity generation growth’. While almost the entire world has increasingly switched to renewables, the United States stands out as the sole ‘dissident’, with the Trump administration denying climate change and still backing fossil fuels.

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The long-talked-about renewable transition is finally here! The question is, do we have the political will to do what is not only necessary in climate terms but also economically a better option for all of us? Or will the old fossil lobby, particularly in the US, sabotage humanity’s transition to a low-carbon future?

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Not surprisingly, an analysis—Li, M., Trencher, G., & Asuka, J., Feb 16, 2022, PLOS ONE —of their business activities shows, ‘a continuing business model dependence on fossil fuels…We thus conclude that the transition to clean energy business models is not occurring, since the magnitude of investments and actions does not match discourse’. In other words, oil companies are continuing with their business as usual under the cloak of carbon capture, grey hydrogen, etc., along with a lot of hot air. Incidentally, these four companies alone are responsible for 10% of all global warming in the world since 1965.

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The only country acting as the spoiler is the United States, which, though it is no longer competitive in manufacturing, believes that it can extract ‘rent’ from others. This is the new G1’s ‘Trump-based world order’, instead of the G7’s so-called ‘rule-based world order’.

Read more: https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/08/20/inflexion-point-renewable-energy-is-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels/

What about that cited UN report?

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better to know...?, climate-debate

The New York Times Publishes False Energy and Climate Information and Refuses to Correct Its Errors

by H. Greuenspecht, Aug 22, 2025 in WUWT

les addressing energy and climate topics in The New York Times (NYT) increasingly include Inaccurate data and false information. The problem is compounded by the paper’s failure to follow its own corrections policy when errors are called to its attention.

Readers look to the NYT to deliver well-reasoned and fact-checked information and analysis in areas where they are not themselves experts. However, based on my professional focus on data and analysis of energy and related environmental issues over the past 45 years, which includes White House and Department of Energy senior positions in the Carter, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, Obama, and Trump 45 administrations as well as work at leading universities and think tanks, NYT coverage of these subjects too often fails to live up to its own standards for accuracy and journalistic integrity.

As a lifetime reader of the NYT, the frequency of errors and a refusal to fix them raises doubts regarding the accuracy of information presented on other topics. Whether or not the problem extends beyond energy and climate, the NYT readership clearly deserves better.

Three recent NYT articles illustrate the problem: a July 22 article by Max Bearak, ostensibly reporting on remarks by UN Secretary-General Guterres’ on renewable energy; a May 26 article by Ivan Penn on competition between electric vehicles (EVs) and vehicles powered by internal combustion engine (ICEVs); and an April 23 column by David Wallace-Wells on the loss of cultural and political momentum for action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These are considered in turn below, followed by some summary conclusions.

  1. Max Bearak’s July 22 2025 article “U.S. Is Missing the Century’s ‘Greatest Economic Opportunity,’ U.N. Chief Says” (July 23 print edition).
  2. …
better to know...?

The Battery Storage Delusion.. what 35 million tons of industrial effort buys you

by Dr L. Schernikau, Aug 21, 2025 in WUWT

Details inc Blog at www.unpopular-truth.com

As someone who has spent most my professional life in the global energy and commodities space both as an economist and as a trader, I have grown increasingly concerned about the way grid-scale battery storage is portrayed in public discourse. If you have paid any attention to the headlines, you would have heard that battery technology is “on the verge of solving” the intermittency problem of wind and solar energy. According to this narrative, all we need to do is build more battery storage, and the path to “net zero” will unfold automatically… magically.

If only it were that simple…

In my latest blog post “Pros and Cons of Utility-Scale Battery Storage” I unpack the many assumptions behind this belief. The facts I present may be unpopular, but they are grounded in physics, not politics.

Here a couple of key points that I feel might spark some interest.

35 million tons of raw materials for a couple of hours…

To build a 50 GWh utility-scale lithium-ion battery system (approx. annual output of a Gigafactory), which has the ability to store electricity, for a city like New York, for only a few hours, you need ~ 35 million tons of raw materials (~ 700,000 t per GWh). That roughly covers the mining, upgrading, transport, and processing of ores like lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, iron ore, bauxite, and others.

Think about it like this…a 1-ton utility-scale battery has a storage capacity of around 100 kWh and requires ~ 70 tons of mined, processed, and manufactured raw materials to be manufactured. This is the energy equivalent of about ~40 kg of coal or ~20 litres of oil.

Let that sink in: 70 tons of mining and industrial processing to store what coal already provides in a (40kg) bag, small enough to be carried by hand.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

The DOE climate report: a scientific milestone that Europe does not want to see

by Clintel Foundation, Aug 13, 2025

In July, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) published a groundbreaking document: A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate. At the request of Energy Secretary Chris Wright, five leading scientists provided a clear and well-founded overview of climate science, finally paying explicit attention to uncertainties, alternative insights, and factual observations. The authors are not bloggers or activists, but internationally recognized researchers with decades of expertise in climate science, meteorology, economics, and physics. [See the box at the bottom of this article for their credentials].

Sober, well-founded, and without alarmism

Energy Secretary Chris Wright gave the researchers complete freedom in writing this report: “I exerted no control over their conclusions.” The report stands out for its clarity, objectivity, and scientific integrity.

Some key points of the report are:

  • CO₂ should no longer be seen as ‘pollution’: the report advocates a scientific review of this US position (since 2009), including recognition of the positive effect of CO₂ on crop growth.
  • Global greening: satellite images show greening of the Earth due to higher CO₂ levels.
  • Models vs. observations: the discrepancies between model results and actual observations are shown. There is also more emphasis on natural climate variability.
  • Weather extremes: there is no alarming increase in extreme weather conditions in the US.
  • Economic consequences: interventions on CO₂ emissions have little climate impact in the short term, but can entail high economic costs.

Reactions from Europe

The report has certainly been noticed within the US. Among others, researcher Roger Pielke Jr. devoted a widely read article to it on his Substack channels. Pielke describes the DOE report as a serious scientific text that has carefully processed sources.

This report should also have shaken Europe awake, but what happened? Complete silence. No news bulletins, no parliamentary questions, no editorial commentary. While alarmist reports are spreading like wildfire across Europe, this report is being ignored. This is not only remarkable, it is downright shocking. It casts a shadow over the intellectual honesty of the European climate debate.

Two articles on the Dutch blog Klimaatgek.nl endorse this. On August 8, DoE report and media silence (in the Netherlands) was published, noting that the report was widely discussed in US circles, but remained unseen in the Netherlands, despite its importance for the automotive, energy, and agricultural sectors, among others. Earlier, on July 30, Klimaatgek headlined: Breakthrough: revision of CO₂ vision in the US. The report is called a potential turning point in the American climate vision, something that Europe cannot ignore.

Why this is so essential for Europe

Europe is guided by a single narrative: the climate crisis is urgent and catastrophic. Those who think differently are ignored or denounced. This report does the opposite: it acknowledges human influence, puts it in context, highlights uncertainties, identifies the benefits of CO2, and advocates for balanced policy considerations. As mentioned, the European silence is distressing. It is not only journalistically inappropriate; it is a democratic and scientific shortcoming. The consequences are:

  • A limited public debate – the public only hears one side.
  • Democratic deficit – policy-making based on incomplete information.
  • Scientific impoverishment – essential uncertainties and alternatives disappear from view.

Time to wake up

The DOE report deserves open debate, not silence. Europe should be proud of space for scientific diversity. Anyone who truly trusts science cannot ignore this report. Clintel remains committed to increasing the visibility of this and similar contributions – not to prove itself right, but to make the conversation complete. Only with all the facts, uncertainties, and perspectives can sensible choices be made.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

The Weather Stations We Never Had

by Dr M. Wielicki, Aug 11, 2025 in Clintel

A central pillar of the climate-crisis narrative is simple enough to fit on a bumper sticker… today is the hottest in human history. That line only works if you accept, without question, that we have reliable, global temperature data before satellites. We do not. What we have is a patchwork of land stations concentrated in a few developed regions, a lot of ocean guesses from ship tracks, and then, later, generous statistical infilling.

Everyone agrees the 1930s were brutally hot across the United States… the Dust Bowl was a humanitarian and ecological disaster. Crops failed, soils blew away, and heat waves killed thousands. NOAA’s own retrospectives still call out 1936 as a benchmark summer, and July 1936 remains a singular month in the U.S. record.

https://www.weather.gov/arx/heat_jul36?utm

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The global map we never measured

Before 1950, most thermometers were in the United States, Europe, and parts of the British Commonwealth. Large parts of Africa, South America, the Arctic, and the Southern Ocean had little to no routine coverage. Even the NOAA-led overview of GHCN-Daily notes how the core database is a collage of many sources with varying periods of record… that is the raw material modern analyses inherit.

Now the uncomfortable part. When there are no thermometers, you either leave grid boxes blank, or you paint numbers in from far away. HadCRUT historically left many boxes blank, explicitly avoiding interpolation, which means the “global” mean depends on where you have observations. NASA’s GISTEMP goes the other direction and spreads anomalies up to twelve hundred kilometers from a station, filling the gaps with 1200 km smoothing. Those are not trivial choices, they are the ballgame.

If you overlay the 1930s anomaly map with the station density maps, you see something obvious… warm where the thermometers were numerous, cool or neutral where coverage was threadbare. A compilation of historical station distribution between 1921 and 1950 makes the same basic point… the network was sparse and badly unbalanced.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Die Welt’ Journalist Axel Bojanowski: Apocalypticism Is “A Code Of Belonging” Among Journalists

by P. Gosselin, Aug 13, 2025 in NoTricksZone 

The world is better than what the media think.

‘Die Welt’ science journalist Axel Bojanowski was recently interviewed by the online “BauerWilli” (BW) and discussed his recently released book

“33 Amazing Glimmers of Hope – Why the world is better than we think,”

 

Bojanowski argues there is an overly negative and apocalyptic style of reporting in the media, particularly concerning climate and environmental issues.

Cult-like behavior

According to Bojanowski, predicting the end of the world has become a sign of belonging among journalists. He sees this as a counter-movement to the post-war prosperity.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

New Study: No Decline In Arctic Sea Ice Extent – ‘No Long-Term Trend’ – Since 2007

by K. Richard, Aug 11, 2025 in NoTricksZone 

In 2007 Al Gore won a Nobel Peace prize for predicting summer (September) Arctic sea ice would “vanish” in the next 5 to 7 years, or by 2014.

Since 2007 Arctic sea ice extent (SIE) losses have ceased. Instead, the SIE trend has been stable for nearly two decades (Stern, 2025).

“Before 2007, September SIE was declining approximately linearly. In September 2007, SIE had its largest year‐to‐year drop in the entire 46‐year satellite record (1979–2024). Since 2007, September SIE has fluctuated but exhibits no long‐term trend.”

 

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better to know...?, climate-debate

The German “Summer From Hell” That Never Came…Earlier Wild Forecasts Backfire

by P. Gosselin, July 29, 2025 in NoTricksZone 

Already as early as May 2025 predictions of a hellish record-breaking hot summer with possibly thousands of heat deaths were forecast – much of it based on the unusually dry and warm spring that had gripped much of Central Europe at the time. 

Hat-tip: Frank Bosse at Klimanachrichten

The online Frankfurter Rundschau printed a weather column by meteorologist Dominick Jung just over 2 weeks ago, on July 13, warning of a “looming, huge heat dome” for the rest of the summer over Central Europe.

German TWC meteorologist Jan Schenk had already made a prediction in Focus magazine on June 10, 2025: “According to this, we can expect extreme heat and drought in Germany, especially in July and August.”

Then came reality.

Just recently, even the climate-alarmism purveyor Der Spiegel had to concede that “it feels more like autumn.”

Plenty of rain has been falling, along with snow high in the Alps.

So what was behind all the ridiculous hellish-summer forecasts? Veteran Swiss meteorologist Jörg Kachelmann in an interview with the online Bild called all the constant exaggerations and distortion: “Symbols of an education problem with us.”

At the end of June, 2025, after having made ridiculous made predictions a year earlier in 2024, biologist Mark Benecke lectured again on climate and weather to an auditorium, showing such weather model maps:

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better to know...?, climate-debate

A case for ‘Climate Humility’: Analyzing the DOE’s ‘A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate’

by A. Watts, July 31, 2025 in WUWT

Honestly, I never thought I’d see the day. To quote Mr. FOIA from ClimateGate, “A miracle has occurred.”

Yesterday’s release of the DOE’s A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate is a watershed moment in the ongoing debate over climate policy in America. Why? Because for the first time, a major U.S. government agency—on official letterhead and with a blue-ribbon cast of authors (John Christy, Judith Curry, Steven Koonin, Ross McKitrick, and Roy Spencer)—has published an open challenge to the central claims, data handling, and even the motivations behind mainstream climate science and policy.

This isn’t just another technical report. It is a systematic rebuke of accepted climate “wisdom,” and it does so with unusual clarity, scientific rigor, and (at times) a sense of humor often absent in climate documents. Most importantly, it directly confronts the exaggerated and politicized rhetoric that has dominated headlines for decades.

The Executive Summary from the DOE web page:

This report:

  • Reviews scientific certainties and uncertainties in how anthropogenic emissions of CO2 and other GHGs have affected, or will affect, the Nation’s climate, extreme weather events, and metrics of societal well-being.
  • Assesses the near-term impacts of elevated concentrations of CO2, including enhanced plant growth and reduced ocean alkalinity.
  • Evaluates data and projections regarding long-term impacts of elevated concentrations of CO2, including estimates of future warming.
  • Finds that claims of increased frequency or intensity of hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and droughts are not supported by U.S. historical data.
  • Asserts that CO2-induced warming appears to be less damaging economically than commonly believed, and that aggressive mitigation policies could prove more detrimental than beneficial.
  • Finds that U.S. policy actions are expected to have undetectably small direct impacts on the global climate and any effects will emerge only with long delays.

What Makes This Report Unique?

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Old carbon routed from land to the atmosphere by global river systems

by J.F. Dean et al., June 4, 2025 in Nature

Abstract

Rivers and streams are an important pathway in the global carbon cycle, releasing carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) from their water surfaces to the atmosphere1,2. Until now, CO2 and CH4 emitted from rivers were thought to be predominantly derived from recent (sub-decadal) biomass production and, thus, part of ecosystem respiration3,4,5,6. Here we combine new and published measurements to create a global database of the radiocarbon content of river dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), CO2 and CH4. Isotopic mass balance of our database suggests that 59 ± 17% of global river CO2 emissions are derived from old carbon (millennial or older), the release of which is linked to river catchment lithology and biome. This previously unrecognized release of old, pre-industrial-aged carbon to the atmosphere from long-term soil, sediment and geologic carbon stores through lateral hydrological routing equates to 1.2 ± 0.3 Pg C year−1, similar in magnitude to terrestrial net ecosystem exchange. A consequence of this flux is a greater than expected net loss of carbon from aged organic matter stores on land. This requires a reassessment of the fate of anthropogenic carbon in terrestrial systems and in global carbon cycle budgets and models.

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better to know...?

Study finds Southern Ocean’s surface is becoming saltier and losing sea ice, not experiencing an ‘ocean current reversal’

by ScienceFeedback, July, 2025

KEY TAKEAWAY

Recent articles and social media posts inaccurately summarized findings from a June 2025 PNAS paper by claiming that a ‘major current in the Southern Ocean has reversed’. In reality, the PNAS paper does not mention any ‘ocean current reversal’. Instead, the paper mentions a ‘reversal’ of a decades-long trend: the Southern Ocean’s surface is now becoming saltier, instead of ‘fresher’. A saltier ocean surface can speed up the melting of Antarctic sea ice – floating ice which surrounds Antarctica – by drawing heat in the ocean upward toward the ice. This trend surprised scientists in the study, given that prior observations show the Southern Ocean’s surface becoming fresher (less salty) since the 1980s.

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Figure 1 – Plot showing that sea ice began retreating around 2015 when the Southern Ocean’s surface became saltier, as shown by the red line representing sea surface salinity (SSS) anomalies obtained via satellite. Source: Silvano et al. (2025)[1]

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Most Americans Still Aren’t Buying Climate Hysteria

by D. Harsanyl, July 16, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

Climate alarmism hasn’t worked. Here’s why the public tuned it out.

The public awareness campaign to convince Americans that climate change is an existential threat has been an epic failure. [emphasis, links added]

In a recent segment, “Are Americans Afraid of Climate Change?” CNN’s Harry Enten incredulously noted that despite all “the bad weather” we’ve been seeing, only “40% of Americans are greatly worried about climate change. The same as in 2000!”

Why are climate activists losing?

Sooner or later, fearmongering becomes noise. Reality crashes against predictions.

Public schools, institutions of higher learning, governments, international organizations, the whole culture, and scientific institutions have spent billions and untold hours trying to normalize the idea that modernity and capitalistic gluttony have driven temperatures to dangerous extremes.

When I was growing up, it was cooling. Now, it’s warming. And with each surge of alarmism, the message depreciates.

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