The Week That Was: 2026-03-14 (March 14, 2026)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week: “…turbulence is the most important unsolved problem of classical physics.”— Richard Feynman,
Number of the Week: 21 out of 49
THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Scope: This TWTW begins with an editorial in the Wall Street Journal questioning the integrity behind the new Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence. TWTW notes a post by Nicola Scafetta on his new book, The Frontier of Climate Science: Solar Variability, Natural Cycles and Model Uncertainty. Then TWTW briefly discusses what we do not know or understand about climate change. TWTW concludes with investment advisor Tilak Doshi noting a sudden change in what is considered a stranded asset.
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Continuing Scandal: In an editorial, the Wall Street Journal covered Roger Pielke Jr.’s analysis of the discarded Climate Change Chapter in the new Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence discussed in last week’s TWTW. “A Judicial Climate Science Scandal: How political actors hijacked an education manual for judges to serve the plaintiffs’ bar,” began with [Boldface added]:
“Follow the science, say the climate lobbyists who want to change American life on their policy terms. It turns out they also want to control the judiciary, so by all means let’s follow the climate science of what is a scandal at the Federal Judicial Center.
The FJC is the education arm of the federal judiciary, and we told you recently that it retracted the climate chapter of the Fourth Edition of its Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence. The manual is a tool to help judges make unbiased assessments about scientific testimony, but it was hijacked by progressive climate advocates.
***
The chapter’s named co-authors are Jessica Wentz, a senior fellow at Columbia’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, which ‘develops legal techniques to combat the climate crisis and advance climate justice;’ and Radley Horton, a professor at Columbia Climate School, where he has taught on subjects like climate hazards and extreme weather events. But it gets worse.
In the climate science chapter, footnote 77 says ‘discussion of attribution research has been adapted, and, in some cases, excerpted from the authors’ prior publications on this topic.’ A review by American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Roger Pielke Jr. noticed that one of those earlier publications was co-authored with a third person who wasn’t named as an author in the climate chapter.
Mr. Pielke says the mystery author is Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center. But here’s the shocker. He is also of counsel at Sher Edling, a plaintiff firm pushing climate-related lawsuits. The firm has promoted dubious legal theories, suing fossil-fuel companies for failure to warn about climate effects and public nuisance over the ‘cost of weather induced events.’
Mr. Burger’s Sher Edling bio says he works to ‘help public agencies hold fossil fuel companies accountable for the climate change related damage they knowingly caused.’ Sher Edling’s website lists 25 cases against fossil-fuel industry defendants for ‘their decades-long campaigns of deception about the science of climate change.’
Getting the idea that Mr. Burger might not be an unconflicted student of unbiased climate science?”
The editorial summarizes Pielke’s work described in last week’s TWWT then concludes with:
“Using what Mr. Pielke called an approximate ‘fuzzy match’ raised the similarity to 47.8%. In other words, for all intents and purposes Mr. Burger was a third author.
We asked Mr. Burger if he approved the use of his work or saw the climate science chapter before publication. He responded that ‘the academic standards for authorship are well-established and well-known. My involvement here does not even come close to meeting those standards.’
But ghost writing in a scientific review violates ethical guidelines for attribution. The Council of Science Editors’ recommendations on publication ethics say ghost authorship is ‘ethically unacceptable’ because it misleads readers about potential conflicts of interest. The nonprofit Committee on Publication Ethics says, ‘authorship problems or misconduct can include a ghost author, someone who is omitted or deleted from an author list despite qualifying for authorship.’
After the FJC dropped the climate chapter, Ms. Wentz and Mr. Horton wrote a 10-page defense of their work to address objections raised by Republican state attorneys general. They say their presentation isn’t biased because the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) and the United States Global Change Research Program ‘concluded there is ‘unequivocal’ evidence that human activities have warmed the climate.’
That’s a nondefense defense. The FJC chapter doesn’t merely refer to human influence on climate. It amounts to a sweeping brief intended to influence judges to think every harm from climate change is the result of fossil fuels.
In a letter to the Journal responding to our earlier editorials, National Academy of Sciences President Marcia McNutt says the climate science chapter co-published with the FJC and National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine was rigorously reviewed by an oversight committee and reflects the ‘best available scientific evidence.’
That’s highly debatable, as Mr. Pielke points out, notably on the link between climate change and extreme weather events. Even the selection of Ms. Wentz and Mr. Horton as chapter authors should have raised questions about neutrality in a peer review. Ms. McNutt ignores the clear ideological and political conflicts of interest by the authors.
***
FJC director Judge Robin Rosenberg told us ‘the processes followed’ in the development of the manual were ‘thorough, rigorous, careful, and free from improper influence,’ including rounds of comments and external reviews. If true, she needs new reviewers.
The FJC’s manual is supposed to be a neutral guide for non-expert judges on scientific matters. The climate chapter was no such thing, and now we know why. It was an abuse of science by political actors who tried to hijack a tool of judicial education to serve the interests of the plaintiffs’ bar in the cause of bankrupting fossil-fuel energy companies.
This is a scandal for the manual’s authors and the FJC. Any judge who uses the manual in a ruling is taking distorted, biased material and serving up grounds for appeal.”
This episode reflects poorly on the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine as well as the Federal Judicial Center. In physical sciences, physical evidence is paramount; not statements from politicized organizations or legal speculation. Neither the IPCC nor the USGCRP have separated natural warming from human-caused warming. They have ignored the need to establish the greenhouse effect in today’s atmosphere based on physical evidence. Further they have ignored the need to establish how much human emissions of CO2 are adding to the greenhouse effect and whether adding CO2 is harmful – all based on physical evidence not speculation using elaborate mathematical models. The National Academies have lost their way. See Article # 1.
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Cyclical Change: Nicola Scafetta is a research scientist at the University of Napoli Federico II who has argued that climate change is principally driven by natural cycles which are present in the solar system. These cycles include the Sun’s movement around the Barycenter of the solar system (the center of mass around which two or more bodies orbit). His new book The Frontier of Climate Science: Solar Variability, Natural Cycles and Model Uncertainty has been published. He discusses the book in a post on Judith Curry’s blog, Climate Etc. In part, he writes:
“Over the years, I have become increasingly convinced that the climate system cannot be fully understood through a single explanatory lens. The prevailing attribution framework is the one currently advocated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It assigns nearly all post‑1850 warming to anthropogenic forcings. However, this assessment rests on computer global climate models (GCMs) that, while sophisticated, still struggle with fundamental aspects of natural variability.
Book Synopsis
How well do we truly understand Earth’s climate? What natural forces remain beyond our grasp? Is Net Zero the only viable path forward?
The Frontier of Climate Science explores climate dynamics through physics, complex systems, and astronomy, synthesizing several decades of peer-reviewed research.
The book critically reviews the scientific foundations of modern climate theory, the evolution of IPCC assessments, and the limits of global climate models (GCMs) when confronted with observations. It investigates natural variability across multiple timescales, including oceanic oscillations, solar variability, and astronomical cycles driving both solar and climate variability, integrating satellite data, paleoclimate reconstructions, and empirical modeling approaches.
From this evidence emerges a balanced view of climate risk, favoring pragmatic adaptation over narrowly defined policy pathways such as Net Zero. Rich in insights and analytical approaches, the book helps readers understand climate variability, assess risks, think critically, and explore key open questions in climate science.”
After further introduction he continues:
“1. Why I wrote this book.
My goal was to bring these threads together into a coherent, interdisciplinary perspective — one that reflects not only the breadth of the scientific debate, but also the many dimensions of the problem that I have personally explored in my own scientific publications over the past two decades, from solar variability to climate oscillations, from data biases to empirical modeling.
2. Climate as a multi‑scale, oscillatory system
One of the most striking features of Earth’s climate history is its rhythmic natural structure. Throughout the Holocene, we observe:
- multidecadal oscillations (~60 years),
- centennial fluctuations,
- millennial‑scale cycles such as the Eddy cycle,
- and the Hallstatt–Bray cycle.
These patterns appear in ice cores, marine sediments, tree rings, and historical documents. They also correlate with solar and astronomical proxies. These cycles are not speculative; they are among the most robust features of paleoclimate research.
Yet current GCMs do not reproduce these oscillations with the correct amplitude or timing.
This is not a minor detail. If models cannot capture the natural background variability of the climate system, then attribution regarding the global warming from 1850–1900 to the present becomes inherently uncertain, because any unmodeled natural contribution to the warming (for example due to solar activity increase during the same period) necessarily reduces the fraction of warming that can be confidently assigned to anthropogenic forcings. And if the anthropogenic contribution to past warming is smaller than assumed, then its contribution to future warming — and therefore the associated climate risk — must also be proportionally reduced.
3. Observational datasets: essential but imperfect
Another motivation for writing the book was the growing divergence between different observational datasets.
Surface temperature records are indispensable, but they are also affected by:
- urbanization and land‑use changes,
- station relocations,
- instrumentation shifts,
- homogenization algorithms that may introduce artificial convergence.
Satellite datasets, by contrast, show 20–30% less warming since 1980, particularly over Northern Hemisphere land areas. Rural‑only station reconstructions also reveal weaker secular warming.
These discrepancies do not undermine the reality of global warming, but they do expand the uncertainty range. A mature scientific field should acknowledge this openly.
4. The Sun: a more complex actor than often assumed
My work on solar variability began more than two decades ago, partly through my involvement with NASA–JPL’s ACRIM experiment, which was designed to measure total solar irradiance from space. Over time, it became increasingly clear to me that the Sun’s influence on climate is significant, but that a proper assessment requires addressing the long‑standing controversies surrounding solar variability on timescales longer than the 11‑year solar cycle — controversies that remain central to understanding the natural contribution to modern climate change.
The book reviews:
- the ACRIM–PMOD controversy,
- spectral solar variability,
- magnetic modulation of cosmic rays,
- cloud‑related mechanisms,
- and the possible role of planetary harmonics.
The point is not that ‘the Sun explains everything.’ Rather, it is that current models incorporate an overly simplified representation of solar variability, which may help explain why they attribute essentially zero post‑1850 warming to solar changes. [Boldface added]
This assumption deserves reexamination.
Contemporary hypotheses that secular and multimillennial solar activity has changed only minimally inevitably fail to account for the strong correlations observed throughout the Holocene between solar variability and documented climatic shifts. If long‑term solar variability is assumed to be negligible, these empirical relationships become scientifically inexplicable, underscoring the need to revisit the underlying assumptions.”
Climate change is a complex issue for which there are no simple explanation. The claim made by NASA-GISS and others that carbon dioxide is the “control knob” of climate is absurd. There is a great deal we do not understand. See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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What We Do Not Know or Understand: As expressed above, there is no one simple answer for climate change – even the more limited version of human-caused climate change. If we do not understand natural variation we cannot separate the human influence from the natural influence. Consider these facts::
- We do not understand the changing sun, which dominates Earth’s climate.
- We do not understand Dansgaard-Oeschger (D-O) events, periods of rapid warming followed by slow cooling. It has been suggested that they are volcanic, but the intervals seem too regular. Are they connected to the Bray Cycles and the Eddy Cycles that indicate changes in solar influence?
- We do not understand turbulence of fluids in the atmosphere and oceans – giving rise to Chaos Theory. Turbulence in the atmosphere restricts the horizontal dimensions of grid boxes describing weather to about 100 km, or 60 miles. However, it restricts the vertical dimension to a few thousand feet or 1000 meters.
- We do not understand the formation and dissipation of clouds in the atmosphere. They have a greater influence on climate than CO2.
- We do not understand plate tectonics, to include changes in volcanic activity. Changing plate tectonics changes with location of land masses which, in turn, changes the ocean currents. And the oceans are the vast storehouse of solar energy on Earth. Changes in underseas volcanos can cause significant local ocean warming.
Readers who wish to add their own suggestions to the list can contact Ken Haapala.
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Stranded Assets? Led by BlackRock asset management group, a number of investment organizations and banks promoted investing in renewable sources of energy rather than the fossil fuel industries. This trend was called ESG investing, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing which was briefly considered sustainable and responsible. Investments in fossil fuel industries were considered “stranded assets,” investment that will experience premature write-downs or devaluations. Investment advisor Tilak Doshi discusses a new report by the British international bank, Barclays, which is titled: “Transition Realism: Financing Energy Systems That Work.” Doshi writes:
“Barclays PLC dropped a bombshell white paper last week titled ‘Transition Realism: A Stranded Asset Perspective on the Energy Transition.’ The report pulls no punches in flipping the script on the climate establishment’s favorite bogeyman. For years, we’ve been lectured that fossil fuels are the quintessential stranded assets — trillions in oil, gas and coal reserves doomed to remain unused underground as the world races to Net Zero. The term ‘stranded assets’ – investments that suffer unanticipated or premature write-downs, devaluations, or conversion to liabilities – became a fixture of climate-policy discourse.
Yet, as the Barclays analysts point out, the real risks now lurk in the renewable sector. ‘Stranded-asset risk is becoming system wide,’ the paper warns. ‘Historically, stranding meant coal plants. Today, renewables facing multi-year interconnection queues, curtailment and congestion risks are increasingly likely to be impaired.’
In an era of geopolitical upheaval, energy insecurity, persistent inflation and AI’s insatiable power hunger, renewables — once the darlings of ESG portfolios — are emerging as the new buggy whips in an age of automobiles. The Barclays paper couldn’t be more timely. It argues – nothing original about this observation – that energy transitions are ‘additive, not substitutive’ with new sources like wind and solar stacking atop fossil fuels rather than displacing them, as global primary energy consumption hits record highs.”
Doshi concludes his analysis with:
“The irony is unmistakable. The stranded-asset narrative was originally deployed as a warning against fossil fuels. Yet the most vulnerable investments may be those built on the assumption that governments can permanently guarantee the economic success of politically favored sectors.
Capitalism has a way of exposing such assumptions, alas often at great cost to the interests of ordinary people.”
For the analysis and report see links under Problems in the Orthodoxy.
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Number of the Week: 21 out of 49 UK analysist Paul Homewood has been critical of the UK’s government policy of adhering to “Net Zero” greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The Net Zero plan included stopping the drilling for oil and gas in the British part of the North Sea. In his post, “Iran crisis shows folly of Ed Miliband’s North Sea plan” Homewood cites a news report in the Telegraph which states:
“It shouldn’t have taken an Iranian attack on the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility in Qatar for us to realize the benefits of being able to produce our own oil and gas.
Under Labour, not a single exploration well was drilled in British waters last year – for the first time since 1964. Labour ministers gleefully trumpet that the basin is just in natural decline.
But Norway, which shares the exact same basin, tells a different story. Last year, the country drilled 49 exploration wells and made 21 new discoveries.” [Boldface added]
Decline does not mean exhausted as the US found out after the 1970s when many in Washington claimed the US was running out of natural gas and world was about to run out of oil. The Norwegian oil company Equinor is planning more wells in 2026 and beyond. See link under Energy Issues – Europe and Equinor to drill 26 exploration and appraisal wells offshore Norway in 2026
Challenging the Orthodoxy — NIPCC
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science
Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2013
Summary: https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/CCR/CCR-II/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts
Idso, Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2014
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/climate-change-reconsidered-ii-biological-impacts/
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels
By Multiple Authors, Bezdek, Idso, Legates, and Singer eds., Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, April 2019
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/climate-change-reconsidered-ii-fossil-fuels/
Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming
The NIPCC Report on the Scientific Consensus
By Craig D. Idso, Robert M. Carter, and S. Fred Singer, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), Nov 23, 2015
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/why-scientists-disagree-about-global-warming/
Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate
S. Fred Singer, Editor, NIPCC, 2008
http://www.sepp.org/publications/nipcc_final.pdf
Challenging the Orthodoxy – Radiation Transfer
The Role of Greenhouse Gases in Energy Transfer in the Earth’s Atmosphere
By W.A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer, Preprint, Mar 3, 2023
Dependence of Earth’s Thermal Radiation on Five Most Abundant Greenhouse Gases
By W.A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer, Preprint, December 22, 2020
https://wvanwijngaarden.info.yorku.ca/files/2020/12/WThermal-Radiationf.pdf?x45936
Net Zero Averted Temperature Increase
By Richard Lindzen, William Happer, and William A. van Wijngaarden, CO2 Coalition, June 2024
Radiation Transport in Clouds
By W.A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer, Klimarealistene, Science of Climate Change, January 2025
Challenging the Orthodoxy
16th International Conference on Climate Change: Climate Realism Rising
By The Heartland Institute, Hotel Washington, WDC, April 8-9
Rethinking climate change
By Nicola Scafetta, Climate Etc., Mar 10, 2026
Climate Change and CO2 Derangement Syndrome
By Jules de Waart, WUWT, Mar 10, 2025
In the yearly CoP’s of the UNFCCCP with more than 50,000 – 100,000 (!) participants and no critics present, alarmistic positions on climate change are repeated again and again. Contrarian views in de 50.000+ participants do not seem to exist. This offers a great opportunities for mass manipulation.
Most geologists and physical geographers do not buy a human control knob on the temperatures. They point to vastly different temperatures in the past, on scales of 1000, 10,000, 100,000 and 1,000,000 years. Correlation between CO2 and temperatures on a geologic scale is weak. If it can be established at all, for instance in the case of the coming and going of glacials and interglacials, or the in recent “satellite aera” (Koutsoyiannis, 2023), temperature changes precede CO2 concentrations. Rising CO2 concentrations can not be a cause of warming, it is a consequence of warming.
The #CRE challenge: a new update
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Mar 11, 2026
Link to paper: Contribution of shorter-term radiative forcings of aerosols and ozone to global warming in the last two decades
By Qing-Bin Lu, AIP Advances, May 19, 2025
https://pubs.aip.org/aip/adv/article/15/5/055224/3347317
From Robson: Lu has made a clear challenge to the CO2 model the way science is meant to work. Not with smears, cancellations and loss of government funding and posts at state universities, but with predictions that will be either right or wrong. And he’s absolutely not playing the usual #Haveitbothways climate game of making vague or opposite predictions so no matter what happens you get to claim you were right.
He makes his predictions clearly and boldly and throws down the gauntlet:
“Future observations will decide whether these predictions are true and which warming mechanism prevails.”
And we will be watching carefully to see. What about them?
#DoEDeepDive: Chapter 6.8 on wildfires
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Mar 11, 2026
[SEPP Comment: Robson explains that wildfires have always been common and natural (and still are), and human action has thus far caused a lot fewer, not a lot more.]
Defending the Orthodoxy
Climate Change — Where The Experts Make Fools Of Themselves
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Mar 10, 2026
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2026-3-10-climate-change-and-the-death-of-expertise
A multi-trillion-dollar industry has grown up based on models and assurances by “experts” that there was a “climate crisis” that could only be solved by transition to a new energy future of windmills and solar panels. The government would just order it to occur!
Yale’s climate “experts” are backed by a $44 billion endowment, plus regular grants from left-wing foundations with aggregate assets a multiple of that. They will not go away any time soon. So for the foreseeable future we can look forward to being entertained by their folly.
[SEPP Comment: Menton exposes a major effort that accentuates the supposed dangers of climate change.]
Defending the Orthodoxy – Bandwagon Science
Intensifying global heat threatens livability for younger and older adults
By L A Parsons, et al., Environmental Research, Mar 10, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2752-5309/ae3c3a
From abstract: Here, we employ a human heat balance model – specifically the human/environmental adaptation and threshold limit model (HEAT-Lim) – to estimate, globally, where ambient temperature and humidity already limit ‘livability’, or the level of physical activity that a person can safely sustain without experiencing an uncontrolled rise in body temperature.
[SEPP Comment: Heat is dangerous for a species that evolved in tropical Africa, probably the Savanna? Why do humans have so many eccrine sweat glands that excrete water (and salts) for cooling? (Eccrine glands are separate from Apocrine glands which are located in hair follicle, which horses have.)]
Questioning the Orthodoxy
It’s all over already soon
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Mar 11, 2026
One vexing aspect of climate alarmism is that we’re never sure if its mostly untestable predictions concern things that have already happened, are happening now or will hit in the future. For instance, despite what journalists say scientists say with regard to the IPCC, its reports frankly detect very little current impact while insisting that the lack of same is strong proof that the roof is about to catch fire and blow off or something.
Tidbits
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Mar 11, 2026
Problems in the Orthodoxy
China is still the coal furnace of the world — 2026 update
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Mar 11, 2026
https://joannenova.com.au/2026/03/china-is-still-the-coal-furnace-of-the-world-2026-update
Link to: Global Integrated Power Tracker
By Staff, Global Energy Monitor, Accessed Mar 13, 2026
https://globalenergymonitor.org/projects/global-integrated-power-tracker
From Nova: This below, is the latest graph of coal plants in operation in the world today.
[SEPP Comment: China has over 1200, India over 200, US under 200.]
Bull in the China shop
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Mar 11, 2026
Climate competitiveness? It’s not even a thing. And if it were, China wouldn’t be exhibiting it. Think the “National People’s Congress” is going to pass legislation restricting firms’ ability to pollute and thereby hamper the CCP’s drive for world domination, including the ugly mineral extraction to power its EV takeover?
Barclays Sounds the Alarm on Renewable Energy
By Tilak Doshi, Tilak’s Substack, Mar 12, 2026
https://tilakdoshi.substack.com/p/barclays-sounds-the-alarm-on-renewable
Link to: Transition Realism: Financing Energy Systems That Work
By Staff, Barclays, February 2026
After Paris!
The Paris Agreement’s Temperature Goals: Meaning, Status, Origins and Reality
An impossible dream 2
By Robin Guenier, Climate Skepticism, Ma 11, 2026 [H/t Birnie Kepshire]
Social Benefits of Carbon Dioxide
The effect of CO2 on Barnyard Grass
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Mar 11, 2026
From the CO2Science archive.
From 1984 to 2011 there were 19 experiments showing that an extra 300 ppm CO2 raises growth by an average of 49.8 percent and 2 experiments showed an extra 600 ppm raises growth by 70.5 percent.
Seeking a Common Ground
The Shrinking Economic Weight of Energy
Part 2: How can fossil-free energy sources outcompete fossil fuels?
By Roger Pielke Jr., His Blog, Mar 9, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the-shrinking-economic-weight-of-c0f?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=119454&post_id=190283668&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=172n5r&triedRedirect=true&_src_ref=mail.haapala.com&utm_medium=email
Good News, CBS News Is Dialing Back the Climate Alarmism. Still, Media Matters Complains.
By Anthony Watts, Climate Realism, Mar 9, 2026
Science, Policy, and Evidence
The Blair minimum
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Mar 11, 2026
As for planning reform, nice work if you can get it. But the history of central planning since the invention of central planning suggests that a centralized plan for better central planning is easy to say and impossible to do. Whereas “strategic grid development” is precisely what, again, the British government has been engaged in for decades. Just badly. What makes you think they’ll suddenly get good at it because you said good is better than bad, let alone said it as though it was as deep as it was original?
How Climate Policy Is Being Built Into The Financial System
For most people, climate policy still sounds like something debated at environmental conferences or negotiated in international treaties but increasingly, it is being implemented somewhere else entirely.
By Mark Keenan, American Thinker, Mar 12, 2026
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/03/how_climate_policy_is_being_built_into_the_financial_system.html
Rather than relying primarily on legislation debated in parliament, much of the transition is being implemented through financial rules that operate quietly in the background.
These rules are highly technical. They involve capital ratios, stress-test scenarios, and disclosure frameworks that few citizens ever hear about. Yet they influence decisions that affect jobs, energy prices, housing markets, and industrial development.
Consider a practical example. Suppose regulators determine that properties in flood-prone regions carry increased climate risk. Banks may be required to assign higher risk weights to mortgages in those areas. That raises the capital banks must hold against those loans.
[SEPP Comment: If the regulators are wrong, the public suffers. For example, high-cost appliances deemed “energy saving” by previous DOE officials.]
Model Issues
Big cuts to CSIRO Aussie Science Jobs, but Climate Research is Protected?
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Mar 9, 2026
Interesting that climate modelling “fundamentally” lacks in industry partners. You would have thought green industry champions like Twiggy Forest would have provided a bit of support.
[SEPP Comment: In Australia CSIRO is Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, the national science agency.]
Measurement Issues — Surface
New Temperature Study in Reno Finds Strong Urban Heat Island Bias at Official Climate Station
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Mar 10, 2026
Link to report: What Was Accomplished in Reno
By Anthony Watts, Global Open Atmospheric Temperature System (GOATS). The Heartland Institute, March 2026
Changing Weather
Record Rainfall? No, A Damp Squib!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 7, 2026
Why It Was Wet This Winter
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 11, 2026
We only have to go back to the winter of 2024/25 to see how much these weather patterns can change from year to year. Given that the Met Office has difficulty forecasting the weather more than a few days in advance, maybe they should do some proper meteorological research, instead of obsessing about carbon dioxide.
Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice
Antarctic Sea Ice Back To Normal
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 13, 2026
King Penguins vote for climate change, have more babies
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Mar 13, 2026
https://joannenova.com.au/2026/03/king-penguins-vote-for-climate-change-have-more-babies
Link to paper: Multiannual environmental forcing shapes breeding phenology and success in a sub-Antarctic seabird
By Gaël Bardo, et al., AAAS Science Advances, Mar 11, 2026
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aea6342?adobe_mc=MCMID%3D18960886864580851410173394051753340710%7CMCORGID%3D242B6472541199F70A4C98A6%2540AdobeOrg%7CTS%3D1773124923&adobe_mc=MCMID%3D18960886864580851410173394051753340710%7CMCORGID%3D242B6472541199F70A4C98A6%2540AdobeOrg%7CTS%3D1773124927
From Nova: Scientists had so much money they were able to follow 17,000 penguins for, wow, 24 years. They discovered they were breeding 19 days earlier now than they were then. It all sounds rather dramatic — with penguins “bringing forward their mating cycles” in an “unbelievably big change”.
It’s like penguins have been forced into teenage pregnancy or something.
But then there’s the quiet line slipped in there: “….with greater success rates for chick survival.” which seems rather important, or perhaps, even the whole point?
New Study Documents A 20-Year Pause In Arctic Sea Ice Decline – Driven By Internal Variability
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Mar 11, 2026
Link to paper: Minimal Arctic Sea Ice Loss in the Last 20 Years, Consistent With Internal Climate Variability
By M. R. England, L. M. Polvani, J. Screen, A. C. Chan, Geophysical Research Letters, Aug 5, 2026
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2025GL116175
From abstract: Over the past two decades, Arctic sea ice loss has slowed considerably, with no statistically significant decline in September sea ice area since 2005. This pause is robust across observational data sets, metrics, and seasons. Large-ensemble CMIP5 and CMIP6 simulations reveal that such periods with minimal sea ice decline under increasing greenhouse gas emissions are not unusual.
[SEPP Comment: The models are so vague, that anything is possible?]
Changing Seas
Settled science underwater
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Mar 11, 2026
New Studies: UK Sea Levels Were 4 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Mar 13, 2026
Link to one paper: Holocene palaeoenvironmental reconstruction of sea level, coastal and vegetation changes along the southern Solway Firth, United Kingdom
By Dayang-Siti, et al, Journal of Quaternary Science, Accepted Jan 27, 2026
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/jqs.70052
From conclusions of the paper: Based on the newly produced and corrected SLIPs [sea level index points] from the region, it appears that differential crustal movement between the northern Solway Firth and the southern Solway Firth resulted in the higher relative sea level values at the former. Comparison between the corrected SLIPs and RSL [relative sea level] predictions using British and Irish ice sheet reconstructions was also made, showing that the timing of the Main Postglacial Transgression is best captured with a hybrid model for the presence of thick and thin ice sheets.
Link to second paper: Holocene sea-level and environmental changes on the Isle of Mull, Scotland
By Katherine A. Selby, et al., Journal of Quaternary Science, Jan 31, 2026
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jqs.70049
Lowering Standards
Rain, rain go away – Met Office app is costing us £137,000 a day
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 11, 2026
From the Telegraph:
“Misleading rain icons on the Met Office app are costing visitor attractions up to £137,000 a day in lost revenue, businesses have claimed.”
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?
Guardian: Net Zero would be Less Expensive than One Persian Gulf Oil Crisis
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Mar 12, 2026
[SEPP Comment: The crisis is not over oil, but oil provided Iran the funds to attack its neighbors. No one has calculated the cost of reliable electricity with net zero.]
Wrong, TIME Magazine, Air Conditioners Are Saving People from Heat, Not Causing Climate Change
By Linnea Lueken and H. Sterling Burnett, Climate Realism, Mar 4, 2026
Sorry, The New Republic, Climate Change Isn’t Causing Somali Migration. Blame Civil Strife and Poverty.
By Linnea Lueken, Climate Realism, Mar 10, 2026
No, Earth.org, Grasslands Are Not on the Brink of Climate Driven Collapse
By Anthony Watts, Climate Realism, Mar 6, 2026
Observed data show expanding vegetation, not disappearing grasslands. Claims of a climate-driven grassland collapse is just another speculative climate disaster fairy tale presented as fact. Earth.org got their facts badly wrong by failing to examine actual data.
No, New York Times, Climate Change Isn’t Driving Inflation
By Anthony Watts, Climate Realism, Mar 5, 2026
No, TIME, the Planet Isn’t ‘Heating Faster Than Ever’
By Anthony Watts, Climate Realism, Mar 12, 2026
Communicating Better to the Public – Exaggerate, or be Vague?
Study: “The strange and persistent psychological distance between us and climate disaster”
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Mar 12, 2026
Link to paper: Meta-analytical evidence of a self–other discrepancy in climate change-related risk perceptions
By Isak Sandlund, Pär Bjälkebring & Magnus Bergquist, Nature Sustainability, Jan 8, 2026
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-025-01717-3
[SEPP Comment: The real climate change risk is a future glaciation, wiping out major cities.]
Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.
Study: Global Warming Could Kill Half the Insects in the Amazon Jungle
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Mar 7, 2026
Link to paper: Limited thermal tolerance in tropical insects and its genomic signature
By Kim L. Holzmann, et al., Nature, Mar 4, 2026
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10155-w
From abstract: Insects make up the majority of all animal species, with 70% occurring in the tropics, yet the impacts of warming on tropical insects remain highly uncertain. This stems from sparse, taxonomically biased data on thermal tolerance of tropical insects and an incomplete understanding of the underlying physiological mechanisms. Here we compared environmental temperatures with field-measured upper and lower thermal tolerance limits of around 2,300 insect species along Afrotropical and Neotropical elevational gradients and identified genomic signatures of thermal tolerance across the insect tree of life.
From Worrall: Would some insect species suffer significant changes in distribution if conditions changed? Absolutely. 10s of thousands of insect species in intense competition with each other, even slight advantages matter. Any change which shifts the balance in favour of a different species causes changes in distribution and population.
Communicating Better to the Public – Do a Poll?
Wake-up Call: Survey Shows Majority Of Germans Now Favor Postponing Climate Targets!
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Mar 8, 2026
A recent survey reveals that a majority of Germans (53%) favor postponing the deadline for climate neutrality.
Questioning European Green
Starmer’s net zero surrender to EU will ‘damage British business’
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 7, 2026
Another £150 Billion For Net Zero–OBR
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 9, 2026
Link to report: Economic and fiscal outlook – March 2026
By David Miles and Tom Josephs, Office for Budget Responsibility, Mar 3, 2026
From the report: Over the past two decades, UK public sector debt as a share of GDP has nearly tripled and on a comparable basis is nearly double the advanced-economy average. Public sector net borrowing remained at elevated levels of around 5 per cent of GDP over the past four years – persistently higher than the advanced-economy average on a comparable basis….
We assume that productivity growth will pick up to 1 per cent in the medium term, while labour supply growth declines from recent highs – driven by lower net migration and population ageing – to ½ a per cent by 2030. Near-term cyclical weakness means we expect real GDP growth to slow from 1.4 per cent in 2025 to 1.1 per cent in 2026, before averaging 1.6 per cent a year over the rest of the forecast. [Boldface added]
From Homewood: They do not include, for instance, the £80 billion OFGEM have said needs to be spent in the next five years on the electricity grid, specifically to make it Net Zero ready. Or the £200 billion which has been estimated to upgrade the electricity distribution network, the low-voltage system which brings power into our towns and homes, and which will be needed to cater for the extra electricity we will need for electric cars and heat pumps.
Nor does it include the costs imposed on households and businesses, forced to pay for unaffordable heat pumps, electric cars and decarbonisation nonsense.
[SEPP Comment: Contrasting the UK experience, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the real US GDP growth rate has been above 2% since January 2023.]
A Work Of FICTION!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 13, 2026
Chris Morrison with his typically succinct analysis of Net Zero:
[SEPP Comment: Nine-minute video including inventing benefits from net zero.]
Net Zero Will Save Money, Says CCC
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 11, 2026
More gaslighting from the Climate Change Committee:
The CCC no longer serves any purpose, if it ever did. It should be shut down.
If renewable energy, electric cars, heat pumps, carbon capture and all the other things that the CCC wants to waste our money on are so wonderful, they will be automatically adopted without the need for mandates, subsidies or a Net Zero Act.
[SEPP Comment: Homewood gives a graph showing the monthly cost of Green energy price support from the weekly magazine “The Spectator.” The total from 2017 is over £10B; the current monthly is over £300M.]
Ouch! Data centers planned in the UK would use more electricity than the “rest of the country”
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Mar 10, 2026
https://joannenova.com.au/2026/03/datacentres-planned-in-the-uk-would-use-more-electricity-than-the-rest-of-the-country
AI is wrecking the renewables bubble even before it grows up.
Unite Union Pull Funds From Labour Over Net Zero
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 13, 2026
The unions are finally waking up!
Questioning Green Elsewhere
Clean Tech’s “Huge Blow”: Catalyst Fund (Gates’s Breakthrough Energy) Terminated
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Mar 10, 2026
Non-Green Jobs
Destructive Green New Deal: German Energy And Metal Group Warns Of Drastic Crisis
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Mar 11, 2026
High energy costs, green bureaucracy to blame
Since 2018, the sector has already lost 270,000 jobs. According to CEO Oliver Zander, the situation can be described as “deindustrialization in time-lapse.” The primary reasons cited are high energy prices, high corporate taxes, rising social security contributions, and excessive bureaucracy in Germany.
Funding Issues
Chinese Communist Party Using Nonprofit Networks To Attack American Energy, Report Suggests
By Sean Hustedde, Daily Caller, Mar 13, 2026
https://dailycaller.com/2026/03/13/china-earthjustice-ccp-energy-oil-gas-green-foreign-agents-louisiana
Link to report: Barriers to Louisiana Energy Dominance, 2026
By Staff, The Pelican Institute, 2026
From the report: According to a Pelican Institute review of data from the Foundation Directory, a database that compiles publicly available nonprofit financial documents, out-of-state donors have directed at least $115.5 million to a group of Louisiana-based anti-oil and gas advocacy organizations since 2020. This sum represents 98.4% of the total funding that these Louisiana-based nonprofits received between 2020 and 2025.
Finally, Earthjustice’s relationship with the U.S. Energy Foundation (EF) has been a particular point of controversy. Earthjustice’s latest 2025 Annual Report indicates that its Chair of the Board of Trustees is Stuart Clarke, a Director at the William Penn Foundation. Clarke also serves as the Board Chair for EF. This close relationship, along with Earthjustice’s historical track record of taking money from EF and its affiliated entity Energy Foundation China (EFC) raises eyebrows.
EFC has faced intense scrutiny over allegations of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) connections and improper foreign influence. CEO Zou Ji has been described as “deeply tied” to the CCP, while board member Hongjiun Zhang previously worked for China’s National People’s Congress. The organization has been accused of violating lobbying disclosure laws by failing to register as a foreign agent and of abusing its nonprofit status due to its ties to the Chinese government.
Even Canada is Walking Back Environmental Funding
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Mar 9, 2026
The Political Games Continue
Dems demand climate chapter be returned to influential judicial science manual so it’s ‘impartial’
The Federal Judiciary Center removed the chapter after critics called out how it cited the research of climate activists who at the same time advocated for climate litigation against oil companies, presenting a serious windfall of attorney’s fees. A coalition of Democrats say the decision came under political pressure, which undermines its neutrality. So they’re pressuring the FJC to add it back.
By Kevin Killough, Just the News, Mar 6, 2026
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/energy/dems-demand-climate-chapter-be-returned-influential-judicial-science-manual?utm_source=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter
Energy Issues – General
The Politics of Oil and the Origins of the IEA
By Matthew McManus, Real Clear Energy, Mar 12, 2026
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2026/03/12/the_politics_of_oil_and_the_origins_of_the_iea_1170114.html
Credit Henry Kissinger’s diplomacy for convening oil embargoed allies in 1974 and founding the International Energy Agency (IEA) at the State Department, where I worked on energy issues for over 30 years. The IEA remains the energy security backbone for OECD plus other member states, all 32 of which hold at least 90 days of net oil imports as strategic reserves. Even though the U.S. is now the world’s largest oil producer, its 411-million-barrel Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is the organization’s largest. The SPR has fallen from a 2009 high of 727 million barrels partly due to imprudent drawdowns by the previous Administration to manage prices which overcompensated for the initial oil market jolt caused by Russia’s cruel war on Ukraine
Electricity is about to become the most valuable commodity on earth
By Ronald Stein, Olivia Vaughan, Steve Curtis America Outloud News, Mar 9, 2026
https://www.americaoutloud.news/electricity-is-about-to-become-the-most-valuable-commodity-on-earth
For thirty years, the world has moved nearly $8 trillion of investment into wind, solar, and other so-called “renewable” sources for electricity.” The result? Their share of global primary electricity consumption has barely budged.
Yet our leaders in America treat nuclear-generated electricity like it’s the devil’s work.
Energy Issues – Europe
Iran crisis shows folly of Ed Miliband’s North Sea plan
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 7, 2026
Biggest Threat Is Climate Crisis–Mad Miliband
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 6, 2026
From GB News:
Ed Miliband has rejected calls to “open up the North Sea” as war rages in Iran, claiming that the biggest “long-term threat multiplier” to UK security is the climate crisis.
Earlier this week, President Trump urged the UK Government to exploit North Sea resources, with oil and gas prices spiking because of the Middle East war. MPs and industry bosses have also called for more exploration.
Britain has just two days of [Natural] gas as Middle East flow runs dry
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 8, 2026
As we saw during the Ukraine crisis, spikes in energy market tend to be extremely short-lived. Gas prices then spiked at 632p/therm in August 2022, but halved within a month.
The recent increase of about 60p/therm equates to £20.48/MWh. In 2024, the UK consumed 688 TWh of natural gas, so in theory if we pay that much extra for all of our supply, it would cost an extra £14 billion a year.
However, we produce about half our gas and LNG imports only account for 16% of supply. (The share of LNG rises to a quarter during winter).
In terms of electricity supply, we only use a quarter of total gas supply for power generation. Leaving aside the vagaries of electricity market pricing, the gas price spike should only add about £3.5 billion to electricity prices.
Bear in mind that this year we are adding £15.9 billion to electricity bills in order to pay subsidies to wind farms, solar farms and biomass power stations.
If we want to keep electricity prices from rising, there is a simple answer – suspend the Emission Trading Scheme immediately and indefinitely.
CCC Deny Reality
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 11, 2026
Press Release: Cost of Net Zero by 2050 less than a single fossil fuel price shock – CCC
By Staff, CCC, Mar 11, 2026
The independent, statutory body tested its cost and energy security conclusions against different scenarios. It found that the total additional cost of a single fossil fuel price spike of 2022 magnitude is likely to be as large as the total net additional cost of meeting the pathway to Net Zero across every year to 2050.
Link to: Supplementary analysis of the Seventh Carbon Budget
By Staff, CCC, March 2026
Homewood: The report is remarkably data free, …
As I noted earlier, the benefits mentioned are totally spurious. They say:
“we now incorporate our assessment of co-impacts to fully appraise the value of the Net Zero transition. These include health benefits from improved air quality and active travel, warmer and less damp homes, and healthier eating habits. We also include benefits from avoided climate damages.”
Eat less, give up driving and be grateful, seems to be the message!
[SEPP Comment: The CCC is the UK Climate Change Committee established by the Climate Change Act of 2008.]
Reduce Energy Bills? Don’t Make Me Laugh, Ed Davey–You’re The Reason Why They Are So High!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 6, 2026
Ed Davey has promised that the Lib Dems will cut energy bills by £870 a year, bringing the “benefits of cheap renewable power”. He naturally blamed the Tories and Labour for high electricity prices.
But Davey himself is personally responsible for one of the worst and costliest decisions made concerning energy policy.
Norfolk Plod Planning For Power Cuts
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 11, 2026
[SEPP Comment: Plod is slang for police.]
Energy Issues – Australia
The Iran Oil Crisis + Australia’s Failed Green Energy Policies are Collapsing our Farming and Fishing Industries
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Mar 13, 2026
Australia could be about to pay a heavy price for our green regulatory purge of local refinery capacity.
Energy Issues — US
Renewables Can Only Win Over Trump If They’re Made in America
By Chet Love, Real Clear Energy, Mar 9, 2026
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2026/03/09/renewables_can_only_win_over_trump_if_theyre_made_in_america_1169077.html
[SEPP Comment: Winning over Trump will not make renewables winners until massive, low-cost storage is deployed.]
New York “Climate” Policy Approaching The Cliff
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Mar 6, 2026
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2026-3-6-new-york-climate-policy-approaching-the-cliff
These people are all serious advocates, and also seriously innumerate. They don’t want anyone going wobbly on the CLCPA commitments. Excerpt:
“[W]e, the undersigned senators, categorically oppose any effort to rollback New York’s nation-leading climate law, the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, and urge you to stand strong in the face of misinformation that seeks to blame the CLCPA for the energy affordability crisis that fossil fuels have created.”
To these ideologically committed State Senators, it is obvious that the issues of energy affordability are entirely the fault of the evil fossil fuel companies, notwithstanding the fact that the states with the biggest pushes for “renewables” (California, New York) have the highest electricity prices.
Dark days loom for New Yorkers as climate law promises blackouts, cost hikes
By Ken Girardin, New York Post, Mar 9, 2026
https://nypost.com/2026/03/09/opinion/dark-days-loom-for-new-yorkers-as-climate-law-promises-blackouts-cost-hikes/?vcrmeid=YPuG9PntOkWOBhpln4mrLA&vcrmiid=sIcPo_uwhkirlYY1w4d2Ig
DOE green lights project for Puerto Rico’s electric grid
By Duggan Flanakin, CFACT, Mar 8, 2026
Last month, on top of other grid-related projects underway, the U.S. Department of Energy approved construction of a new natural gas power plant in the Dominican Republic that will intersect with Puerto Rico’s Mayaguez substation via a submarine power cable. The project will send Puerto Rico up to 700 MW of electricity – an extra 10% of the territory’s current capacity.
Solar advocates have no real answer to the fact that over 725,000 households (about 60% of all units) in Puerto Rico reported damages to their dwellings from Irma and Maria, including tens of thousands who were left roofless. [What happens to rooftop solar thrown to the wind?]
One reason the DOE approved the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico power project is that construction and operation costs are 30% lower in the DR, a fact that can cut costs for the power company and lower bills for Puerto Rican customers. [Boldface added]
The Cure for AI Data Center Energy Use Is Competition, Not Pledges
By Josh T. Smith, Real Clear Energy, Mar 10, 2026
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2026/03/10/the_cure_for_ai_data_center_energy_use_is_competition_not_pledges_1169634.html
Nuclear Energy and Fears
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Defining Moment
By Ho Nieh, Real Clear Energy, Mar 10, 2026
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2026/03/10/the_nuclear_regulatory_commissions_defining_moment_1169442.html
The Honorable Ho Nieh was designated as the Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission by U.S. President Donald Trump on January 8, 2026. Chairman Nieh had previously been sworn in as an NRC Commissioner on December 4, 2025, for a term ending June 30, 2029. He is the first former NRC resident inspector to serve as a Commissioner.
Ursula von der Leyen Calls Abandoning Nuclear Power “A Strategic Mistake” – 15 Years After Supporting the Nuclear Phase-Out
By Eugyppius, The Daily Sceptic, Mar 10, 2026
https://dailysceptic.org/2026/03/10/ursula-von-der-leyen-calls-abandoning-nuclear-power-a-strategic-mistake-15-years-after-supporting-the-nuclear-phase-out
[SEPP Comment: Too little, too late.]
Hinkley Point C UK: France’s EDF Boondoggle Sets a Record
By Kennedy Maize, Master Resource, Mar 12, 2026
Race for the Worst
The most expensive commercially operating reactors are Georgia Power’s two new units at its four-unit Vogtle site. Units 3 and 4 are two Westinghouse 1,000-MW advanced reactors. Construction began in 2009, with an estimated completion estimated at 2016 and 2017 at a cost of $14 billion combined. Unit 3 went into service in 2023 and Unit 4 in 2024, at a total cost of $36.8 billion, around 160 percent above budget, not to mention the time-value of money.
[SEPP Comment: Should the cost over the life span be compared with the cost over the life span of natural gas combined cycle plants not be considered?]
It’s a crisis (for renewables): The EU finally start throwing carbon credits at nuclear power
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Mar 12, 2026
https://joannenova.com.au/2026/03/its-a-crisis-for-renewables-the-eu-finally-start-throwing-carbon-credits-at-nuclear-power
A few days of war and a $100 oil spike was all it took for the EU to figure out the bleeding obvious after wasting a $1000 billion.
‘Climate Activists’ Blocked the One Technology That Could Have Saved the Planet
The Navy proved nuclear works. Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and their allies spent 50 years making sure we couldn’t use it. Last week, Bill Gates proved them wrong — and they called it a “Cowboy Chernobyl.”
By Ken Rhodes, Real Clear Energy, Mar 10, 2026
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2026/03/10/climate_activists_blocked_the_one_technology_that_could_have_saved_the_planet_1169415.html
On March 4, 2026, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission unanimously approved construction of America’s first new commercial nuclear reactor in nearly a decade. TerraPower — founded by Bill Gates — will build a 345-megawatt sodium-cooled reactor in Kemmerer, Wyoming, on the site of a former coal plant. Construction begins within weeks. The reactor is expected to be online by 2030.
The U.S. Navy has operated 219 nuclear-powered ships, accumulated 6,900+ reactor-years of operation, and visited ports in over 50 countries. Reactor accidents: zero. Radiation deaths: zero. Environmental damage: zero.
China’s Advanced Nuclear Efforts Are Pushing Frontiers
By Sonal C. Patel, Power Mag, Mar 2, 2026
https://www.powermag.com/chinas-advanced-nuclear-efforts-are-pushing-frontiers/?utm_source=omeda&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pwrnews+eletter&oly_enc_id=7809H6412578J0B
From the world’s first in-reactor thorium breeding confirmation to a dual PWR-HTGR plant and commercial supercritical CO₂ generation, China is assembling a vertically integrated advanced nuclear ecosystem. The breadth of activity signals a coordinated push toward fuel independence and industrial deployment.
[SEPP Comment: A breeder reactor, which “nuclear expert” President Carter squashed in the 1970s.]
DOE Unveils Initiative to Add 5 GW of Nuclear Capacity Through Uprates and Restarts
By Sonal C. Patel, Power Mag, Mar 12, 225
https://www.powermag.com/doe-unveils-initiative-to-add-5-gw-of-nuclear-capacity-through-uprates-and-restarts/?utm_source=omeda&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pwrnews+eletter&oly_enc_id=7809H6412578J0B
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
Solar Adds 43 GW in 2025; Fifth Straight Year as Top New Generation Source
By Darrell Proctor, Power Mag, Mar 10, 2025
https://www.powermag.com/solar-adds-43-gw-in-2025-fifth-straight-year-as-top-new-generation-source/?utm_source=omeda&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pwrnews+eletter&oly_enc_id=7809H6412578J0B
Link to: Solar Market Insight Report
By Staff, Solar Energy Industry Association, Mar 10, 2026
[SEPP Comment: Great news for those who like to have electricity but don’t need it. Not a word about dispatchable power to those who require it – such as turning on lights when it gets dark.]
A Windy Day!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 13, 2026
Yesterday we got 60% of our power from wind:
It does not take a genius to work out that when Ed Miliband succeeds in tripling wind power capacity, there will be far too much wind power for the grid to handle.
I have analyzed the half hourly generation data for the full winter just gone. It’s a fairly basic summary, but my model assumes a tripling of wind output, 4400 MW of fixed nuclear generation and existing demand profile.
It calculates that there will be 19 TWh of surplus wind power during those periods when wind and nuclear exceed demand. Obviously there will be other periods when wind and nuclear cannot supply all demand.
Whatever battery storage we have by 2030 will be far too tiny to make any difference, so most of that 19 TWh will have to be constrained. At a going rate of £100/MWh, that could cost £1.9 billion. And this is just for winter.
House hearing on bird killing ignores wind
By David Wojick, CFACT, Mar 10, 2026
Inconvenient wind turbine facts
By Craig Rucker, CFACT, Mar 13, 2026
U.S. Gas and Renewables Help Buffer Power Consumers From War Costs
By Paul Bledsoe, Real Clear Energy, Mar 9, 2026
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2026/03/09/us_gas_and_renewables_help_buffer_power_consumers_from_war_costs_1169076.html
[SEPP Comment: Gas will help buffer the cost; wind and solar increase costs because they are an unnecessary “add-on” to an efficient system.]
California Dreaming
Why Data Centers Will Create Electricity Abundance
By Edward Ring, What’s Current Accessed Mar 11, 2026
https://mailchi.mp/calpolicycenter/whats-current-issue-7861546?e=cd9fa89d1e
As we estimated in WC #121, converting the state’s entire road-based transportation fleet to EVs would consume approximately 120,000 GWh per year, whereas if data centers used 11.3 percent of California’s current electricity demand, that would only be around 34,000 GWh.
It doesn’t end there. The beauty of tech giants entering the energy space is not only their access to stupefying amounts of cash to pay for their projects. They also bring with them a culture of urgency. These companies are run by individuals who have spent their careers measuring the timeline for project launches in months. They will not accept decade long delays, and they will use all their power to adhere to the timelines to which they have become accustomed.
California’s Looming Fuel Crisis: Refiners Are Trying to Warn the State
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Mar 11, 2026
The companies operating those refineries appear to be trying to communicate this reality before additional capacity disappears.
Whether policymakers choose to treat those warnings as useful information or inconvenient noise will shape California’s energy future.
Bahamas to the rescue
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Mar 11, 2026
We read that California is now importing oil from the Bahamas. But didn’t they build all those windmills and solar panels and do the energy transition off fossil fuels? Yes. And it didn’t work. Nor in Canada, so-called “energy superpower” and thus geopolitical colossus, now buying Liquified Natural Gas from Australia, a 25,000-kilometer trip, less than four years after then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sent then-German Chancellor Olaf Scholz packing because “there has never been a strong business case” for us selling LNG to Europe even though Scholz had essentially a briefcase full of Euros for that very product.
Health, Energy, and Climate
Potomac Disaster Demonstrates Environmental Hypocrisy
By Vijay Jayaraj, CO2 Coalition, Mar 13, 2026
Indeed. How does the wealthiest nation on Earth allow a major river to become a septic system? At least in part, by having modern environmentalism hijacked by a climate industrial complex that obsessively demonizes carbon dioxide – a colorless, odorless gas essential for life. While the likes of [Maryland] Governor Moore direct billions to so-called green programs to address a fabricated climate crisis, a 60-year-old line –six feet in diameter – is allowed to deteriorate to the point of releasing toxins that are an immediate threat to wildlife and a hazard to people. The same politicians who lecture working-class families about their gas stoves and internal combustion engines are blind to the moral failing of an incompetence that dumps human waste into a river used by those same families. The irony is bitter.
Oh Mann!
The Scientists Who Declared War on Half of America
Michael Mann and Peter Hotez call scientists into a partisan fight
By Rober Pielke Jr., His Blog, Mar 9, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the-scientists-who-declared-war-on?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=119454&post_id=190411867&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=172n5r&triedRedirect=true&_src_ref=mail.haapala.com&utm_medium=email
This book review was originally posted at Minding the Campus, a project of the National Association of Scholars. The title I had proposed was: “The Hobbits Go to War,” but their recommendation is better.
“With Science Under Siege: How to Fight the Five Most Powerful Forces that Threaten Our World,” climatologist Michael E. Mann and virologist Peter J. Hotez have written an important book. When future historians look back at the early twenty-first century and document the causes and consequences of the intense politicization of the U.S. scientific community, Science Under Siege (SUS) will be a core reading.
Environmental Industry
“These People are Crazy:” Climate Science and the Cult of Self-Loathing
By Terry L. Headley, Real Clear Energy, Mar12, 2026
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2026/03/12/these_people_are_crazy_climate_science_and_the_cult_of_self-loathing_1170300.html
When environmental advocacy slips into narratives that portray human existence as inherently destructive, it crosses the line into Malthusian madness. A civilization that internalizes self-contempt risks forfeiting the confidence necessary to solve complex problems. Stewardship should flow from gratitude for human capacity, not hostility toward it.
They’ve nearly given up on climate — plastics will be next
By Craig Rucker, CFACT, Mar 11, 2026
Other News that May Be of Interest
Glyphosate, Agricultural Productivity, and Food Security: A Risk Based Policy Assessment in the Context of Modern Food Systems
By Gordon Evans, Cornwall Allaince.org, Mar 4, 2026
https://cornwallalliance.org/glyphosate-agricultural-productivity-and-food-security-a-risk-based-policy-assessment-in-the-context-of-modern-food-systems
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE
Chocolate Gets Dearer As It Gets Cheaper!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 11, 2026
Scientists DUMP 65,000 Litres Of CHEMICALS Into Ocean In Geoengineering Experiment
By Steve Watson, Modernity, Mar 10, 2026 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
https://modernity.news/2026/03/10/scientists-dump-65000-litres-of-chemicals-into-ocean-in-geoengineering-experiment/’
Critics slam risky Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement trial as potential ecological disaster
[SEPP Comment: The ocean has been taking care of itself for hundreds of millions of years.]
University of East Anglia: Climate Science is like the Invention of Steam Power, Electricity and Vaccines
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Mar 11, 2026
ARTICLES
1. A Judicial Climate Science Scandal
How political actors hijacked an education manual for judges to serve the plaintiffs’ bar.
By The Editorial Board, WSJ, Mar 13, 2026
TWTW Summary: Covered in the This Week section above.
