California Declares Emergency in Prep for Monster El Niño

For a good explainer on why El Niño causes sea level rise along the West Coast, see this post.
Another illustration of how climate change will continue to provide eye-popping YouTube content.
Small comfort, but I take what I can get.

Wall Street Journal:

Nonstop swells combined with a “super” El Niño phenomenon have washed away truckloads of sand from Newport Beach and other parts of the California coast, exposing hazards buried a century ago. They’ve also delivered some of the best waves anyone here can remember.

“It’s been great,” Collins, 21, said as he waxed his board atop a six-foot-high sand cliff that’s edging ever closer to $20 million oceanfront homes. 

He tries not to think about the possibility of getting skewered on ancient rebar. “Good thoughts and good vibes,” he said.

The Wedge was created in the 1930s, when the Army Corps of Engineers extended a rock jetty some 2,000 feet out from the beach to protect the entrance to Newport Harbor. Because it protrudes at a slight angle, swells approaching from the south or southwest bounce off the jetty and mutate into triangular peaks—hence the spot’s name.

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As Researchers Warnings Increase, Trump Announces “AI Force”

Jim Stewartson on X:

One of the most disturbing things he’s ever said—and an example of how allowing this to go on is a conscious decision to destroy America.

This is a government bailout in motion, to temporarily save an industry that is doomed to fail, all because his donors need to exit through IPOs.

He’s evidentially criminally insane and no one will do a thing about it because his behavior suits the people who control him just fine.

This will turn a market crash and recession into a great depression, all because he’s cognitively unable to understand the real world and its ramifications. And no one has the courage to try and explain it to him.

We’re fucked. I don’t know how else to put it.

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High Diesel is Killing the Economy. Should We Stop Exporting It?

UPDATE: an hour after I posted this piece, I became aware that in the hotly contested Michigan Senate race, Trump flunky Mike Rogers, trailing Democrat Abdul El Sayed, has now called for an end to the Iran War, and for Diesel exports to be temporarily stopped.
As the analysis below shows, the export ban could boomerang on consumers.

Garret Golding and Lutz Killian in Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas:

Proponents of a U.S. crude oil export ban argue that prohibiting crude oil exports would increase the supply of crude in the United States, allowing refiners to increase their production of gasoline and diesel and lowering the price of these fuels. The implicit premise is that there is enough spare capacity for this light sweet crude oil to be refined in the United States.

One important point this proposal overlooks is that the prices of gasoline and diesel in the United States are determined by their prices in global markets since the U.S. trades diesel and gasoline. Because a cessation of U.S. crude oil exports would lower the supply of oil in global markets and raise its price, one would expect global fuel prices, if anything, to increase as a result. Refiners can always sell these fuels abroad at their global price, so it makes no sense for them to sell for less in the domestic market. 

In other words, the prices of gasoline and diesel fuel in the U.S. would not be expected to decline and might actually increase, rendering the crude oil export ban not only ineffective, but also counterproductive. Thus, there is no reason to expect that U.S. consumers would benefit from such a ban.

Garret Golding on X:

If you ban diesel exports, this is what happens:
Without the overseas market, diesel inventories start to accumulate domestically. This temporarily puts downward pressure on wholesale prices in the US, likely more so in the Gulf Coast than anywhere else. HOWEVER

Continue reading “High Diesel is Killing the Economy. Should We Stop Exporting It?”

El Niño is Now Strongest on Record, with Months to Grow Stronger

Ben Noll on X:

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.

Yesterday’s Nino 3.4 SST was 29.73°C (preliminary), setting the 114th consecutive daily record, 0.93°C higher than the previous daily high set in 2015 and 3.78σ above the 1991-2020 mean. The highest recorded sea-surface temperature for the Nino 3.4 region is 29.82°C, set on November 17, 2015.

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.

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Energy Transition is No Longer About Climate Change

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.

Bloomberg:

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.

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Exxon Raises Estimate for Emissions, Warming

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.

Reuters:

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.

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El Niño Hurricane Drought not the Coup Climate Deniers Think

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.

NASA, September 1, 2026:

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.

AFP FactCheck:

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.

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Music Break: CW McCall – Convoy

Truckers planning a strike, allegedly.
They have the power to make things pretty difficult.

Yahoo:

  • Social media users alleged in September 2026 that U.S. truckers planned to strike over high fuel costs beginning on Oct. 1, leading to food and supply chain shortages.
  • There was no evidence to support this unfounded rumor.
  • Searches indicated the claim largely spread because of a video one social media user originally posted on Sept. 15. Other users then reposted his clip without first looking for credible evidence.
  • A spokesperson for the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association said they had no knowledge of an upcoming strike. We also emailed the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the man from the video, and will update this article if we receive more information.
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How Long Will the Saudi Pipeline be Shut?

AJ Signal on X:

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?”