You are looking at the strongest El Niño event on record.
On Sept. 19, the key monitoring region in the Pacific Ocean reached 3.05°C above average, breaking the record from November 2015.
There are still three months of strengthening to go.
Below, the best and clearest layman’s explanation of El Niño is from a CBC presenter – leave it to the Canadians to cut through BS.
Continue reading “El Niño is Now Strongest on Record, with Months to Grow Stronger”Global Energy analyst Jeff Currie tells Bloomberg the Energy Transition is “TurboCharged” – but it’s not about climate, and maybe never was.
By far the biggest growth in energy consumption is going to come from the developing world in Asia and Africa, and those countries are no longer willing to be held hostage to fossil fuels.
Case study – Thailand.
Thailand is using the oil shock caused by the Iran war to accelerate a shift toward electrification and domestically sourced energy, trying to turn a supply crisis into a push for greater security.
Rising prices have reinforced the government’s drive to electrify the economy, including greater adoption of battery-powered vehicles, as policymakers seek to reduce dependence on imported crude that accounts for about 90% of Thailand’s oil supplies, Energy Minister Akanat Promphan said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.
Global energy prices have soared since the US and Israeli attacks on Iran resulted in the collapse of shipments of oil and liquefied natural gas through the Strait of Hormuz. South and Southeast Asian nations that relied heavily on the Middle East because of its proximity have been particularly hard hit.
Above, former Chair of Exxon Rex Tillerson in 2011, responding to a question from activist David Fenton.
“We’ll adapt.” he says. “Climate models are unreliable.”
“The consequences are manageable.” he says.
We know Exxon does good science on climate – they have just kept the results of their work a secret until a few years ago. Exxon scientists made forecasts of climate warming in the 1970s and 80s that are now being born out as very accurate today – so Mr Tillerson’s protests that climate models are unreliable and inaccurate was dishonest, as evidenced by the work of the company’s own staff.
Now that science team has some new numbers. The impact of the current conflict in the Middle East is not factored in. – which I believe pretty much negates the findings (see elsewhere on this page).
Nevertheless, worth knowing that these bastards persist in not giving a damn about their own children, much less yours.
Vote accordingly.
The world is at risk of falling behind in efforts to reduce carbon emissions by 2050, ExxonMobil said in its annual energy outlook published on Thursday, as the burning of coal could decline at a slower rate than previously expected.
Exxon estimates coal will account for 15% of the world’s energy mix by 2050, down from 25% in 2025, but up by one percentage point from the company’s previous projection. That is because coal is still a significant energy source in China and other countries in Asia and is considered key for energy security, said Prasanna Joshi, Exxon’s director of economics and energy, at a briefing.
Last week, the International Energy Agency forecast global coal demand to rise to a record 8.94 billion metric tons this year, as the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran chokes off exports of crude and liquefied natural gas shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.
Exxon’s outlook, which provides the basis for its investment decisions, does not account for the Middle East conflict because it is too early to determine the full ramifications, Joshi said.
Continue reading “Exxon Raises Estimate for Emissions, Warming”7 minute PBS clip follows a glaciologist in New Zealand, describing the effects of black carbon as it darkens glaciers.
What is really worthwhile about this piece is the incredible photography – they had a budget and it shows.
Great find by Zeke Hausfather.
The current Hurricane drought in the North Atlantic is hardly any refutation of climate change.
The Pacific, where a large El Niño event is playing out, has been extremely active, at one point in recent weeks 3 large storms were stretching across the eastern Pacific.
When hurricane forecasters released their seasonal outlooks in spring 2026, the El Niñobrewing in the Pacific contributed to predictions of below-normal activity in the Atlantic basinbut above-normal activity in the northeastern and central Pacific basins. In early September, near the climatological peak of hurricane season, those spring outlooks were on target, with the eastern Pacific buzzing with activity and the Atlantic notably quiet.
As of September 3, the Northeast Pacific had produced 15 named storms and six hurricanes, well above the norm for that point in the season. The Atlantic basin, meanwhile, laboring under unfavorable wind shear conditions, had produced just five named storms and no hurricanes. El Niño typically enhances hurricane activity in the eastern and central Pacific basins because of the unusually warm water temperatures it brings to those parts of the ocean. It tends to suppress hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin by shifting large-scale circulation patterns in a way that makes it harder to sustain storms there.
Another science denial meme has been that legislation passed against cloud seeding has lead to the dearth of hurricanes.
Also nonsense.
A strong El Niño event has led to a quiet start to the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season. But on social media, posts are ignoring the natural cycle, lauding controversial bills that ban weather modification for the lack of storms in Florida. Scientists have repeatedly said technology capable of creating or steering hurricanes does not exist and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration told AFP that the slow season resulted from meteorological factors forecast months ahead.
“Florida bans cloud seeding. Florida stops getting hurricanes,” a September 13 post on X says, resharing news coverage of the lack of hurricanes forming in the Atlantic basin so far in 2026.
Others — including White House accounts — gave credit to US President Donald Trump for the lack of hurricanes.
“Cloud seeding in the USA was defunded under trump and now (e) don’t get hurricanes in the south,” a September 15 post said.
Truckers planning a strike, allegedly.
They have the power to make things pretty difficult.
𝗘𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝗫 𝗦𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗦𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗶 𝗔𝗿𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗮’𝘀 𝗣𝗶𝗽𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗪𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗕𝗲 𝗙𝗶𝘅𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 “𝗗𝗮𝘆𝘀”. 𝗜 𝗛𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝗧𝗵𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘁𝘀. 𝗧𝗿𝘆 𝗢𝗻𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗠𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗵𝘀. First, let me say plainly that I love the desert and the Arab cultures. But it does shape a timeline the media does not understand because they are talking about something they have never experienced. Lots of people on
@X are saying the Saudi East-West pipeline and its pumping stations will be back online in days!?! I have worked these deserts, in Saudi Arabia and across the Middle East, and that is not how it goes. Even if it is “Expedited”, you are still looking at a month at the very least, and realistically one to three. You have to first understand what the work actually is.
This is not a “gas station attendant” tightening a few bolts or replacing a motor. A pumping station hit by a ballistic missile has to be completely demolished, cleared, re-engineered and rebuilt, from the ground and concrete upwards, often with newer technology because the stations are decades old anyways and the original parts no longer exist.
That means engineering, contractors, subcontractors and sub-subcontractors, each waiting on the one below them, each relying on a supply chain that is nothing like the robust, on-time machine people imagine in Germany or Norway or the West.
Continue reading “How Long Will the Saudi Pipeline be Shut?”Massive demerits to Bernie Sanders for lending credibility to the fascist Steve Bannon. The two collaborated on a AI conference the other day.
Small credit, they let an actually knowledgeable person speak, above.
Left-wing socialist Bernie Sanders and MAGA strategist Steve Bannon took to the same stage on Tuesday to rail against the AI industry and its leadership, in a sign of how spiraling worries over the rapidly advancing technology are upending political alliances. Still, the pair showed little sign of agreement over how the technology should be regulated.
Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, and Bannon, a former Trump White House adviser, both appeared at the “Pro-Human Assembly” on Tuesday, alongside a diverse set of speakers calling for curbs on AI development.
Speaking to nearly 300 people packed into a Washington, D.C., ballroom, Sanders raised concerns about AI surpassing human intelligence and escaping human control. He said he will be introducing legislation to permanently ban the development of “superintelligent” AI, with Congressman Greg Casar, D-Texas, next week.
Above, local California station has coverage of one way in which El Niño will exert strong effects on the state, including Coastal Flooding, which is already underway.
It’s called a Coastaly Trapped Kelvin Wave, and the physics behind it are fascinating.
If you’re interested, Daniel Swain had a really great discussion of this in his super valuable “Office Hours” YouTube session a few weeks ago, which I’ve excerpted here. The full length session is at this link, and worth your time.
Here’s the Kelvin wave explainer, about 10 minutes. Get coffee.
I don’t steal nearly enough material from Thom Hartmann.
So much Trumpian corruption has simply slipped down the memory hole because the zone is so flooded. Glad to see Rep. Casten get after Secretary Bessent here, but the scope of this criminality is just appalling.
At any other time in American history, it would end the career of somebody like Scott Bessent, our limited-intelligence Treasury Secretary. It came out yesterday when Illinois Congressman Sean Casten was questioning him about the “billions of dollars” that Trump keeps claiming America is “getting” from selling Venezuelan oil.
Bessent agreed with Trump, saying the oil and oil money we’ve seized from that country is “one of the largest assets to ever go on the U.S. balance sheet.” Billions and billions of dollars.
So Casten asked him a simple question: Can you tell us who controls that money and where it is? Can you confirm “whether or not those [funds] are flowing to U.S. persons?”
Bessent’s answer was a shocking single word: “No.” He ain’t talkin…
Did Trump take the oil and the money from the oil? Bessent refuses to say. Trump refuses to say. Nobody, in fact, in the Trump regime will tell us where that money is or who controls it or even who’s making the money accrued on its interest.
Here’s what we do know:
Three days after Trump kidnapped President Maduro and his wife, he went on his Nazi-infested social media site and wrote that Venezuela’s oil revenues would be controlled by him personally “as President of the United States.”
Three days after that, he signed an executive order declaring a “national emergency” involving that oil so no court or creditor could touch the money, screwing the bondholders and oil companies to which Venezuela owed roughly $150 billion.
Then Trump started selling the oil we’d seized from Venezuela. The first load, according to Reuters and Semafor, went to commodity trading companies Vitol and Trafigura for about $500 million, groups that the Washington Post said both carry histories of bribery schemes tied to oil sales.
Continue reading “Where Did Venezuelan Bucks Go? Congress says “Show Us the Money.””