Month: December 2025

Study: Climate Change Bad for Children and Other Living Things

Who coulda thunk it?

Straining to hear anything from the “pro life” crowd.

Euro News:

Researchers have warned of the unexpected consequences of extremely hot, humid conditions during pregnancy.

Millions of children risk experiencing stunted growth if heat-trapping emissions continue to bake the planet. 

The dangers of extreme heat are already well established, with the World Health Organisation (WHO) warning that exposure to elevated temperatures exacerbates underlying illnesses such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and asthma. 

This summer, around 24,400 people died as a result of heatwaves that scorched vast parts of Europe. Without warming caused by human activities, scientists say 16,500 of these deaths could have been avoided, meaningclimate change was responsible for tripling the death toll.

Now, researchers at UC Santa Barbara have warned that the dangers of extreme weather have long been underestimated, and extend much farther than scientists and doctors realise.

The new report, published in Science Advances, found that humidity worsens the outcome of extreme heat compared to high temperatures alone. This is mainly because humans cool down by sweating, but evaporation slows when the air is humid.

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Trump Re-Ignites Greenland Threats

Utter madness. He’s not letting go of this. Deutsche Welle report above.

Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry appointed as “Envoy” to Greenland His state is of course a wholly owned subsidiary of the fossil fuel industry, further underlining the connection between the Oil industry and the criminal administration’s saber rattling. The industry of course covets unfettered access to arctic oil deposits.

Washington Post:

The leaders of Denmark and Greenland insisted Monday that the United States won’t take over Greenland and demanded respect for their territorial integrity after President Donald Trump ‍​announced ​the appointment of a ‌special envoy to the semi-autonomous territory .

Trump’s announcement on Sunday that Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry would be the envoy prompted a new flare-up of tensions over Washington’s interest in the vast territory of Denmark, a NATO ally. Denmark’s foreign minister told Danish broadcasters that he would summon the U.S. ambassador to his ministry.

We have said it before. Now, we say it again. National borders and the sovereignty of states are rooted in international law,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and her Greenlandic counterpart, Jens-Frederik Nielsen , said in a joint statement. “They are fundamental principles. You cannot annex another country. Not even with an argument about international security.”

“Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders and the U.S. shall not take over Greenland,” they added in the statement emailed by Frederiksen’s office. “We expect respect for our joint territorial integrity.”

MAGA’s War on Wind, Sun, and Wallets

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee:

Since Trump took office, the typical household’s electricity bill is up 13% across the country and up 7% from 2024.1 Nearly 3 in 4 Americans are worried about their utility bills increasing and 4 in 5 report feeling they have no control over their electricity and gas bills.2 A recent analysis of online filings by utilities and records of decisions in state public utilities commission (PUC) dockets found that utility customers across 49 states and Washington, D.C. have faced, or may soon face, $85.8 billion in total proposed or approved cost increases.

Greenlighting LNG Exports: Natural gas prices have increased more than 70% since mid- October, climbing above $5/MMBtu for the first time since 2022. According to Reuters, U.S. LNG exports hit a record 10.9 million metric tons in November, and between now and 2030, U.S. LNG export capacity is set to double, placing increasing pressure on domestic gas markets.

Natural gas prices over last 6 months

Emergency Orders Forcing Uneconomic Fossil Fuel Plants to Remain Operational: Trump is keeping uneconomic fossil fuel plants open beyond their planned retirements—driving up electricity costs across the Midwest and South.

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Fox Poll: Almost 60 Percent of Americans “Extremely/Very” Concerned about Climate

New Fox Poll results have interesting results in terms of top areas of concern for Americans.
Making the top ten with nearly 60 percent “Extremely or Very Concerned” – Climate change – one place above Illegal Immigration.

Political candidates need to figure out ways to communicate concerns about climate change, while aligning with other issues that voters feel are important.
A number of the leading issues have to do with financial concerns, “Inflation and High Prices” are number one.
A key messaging battle this year will be getting voters to make the connection between, for instance, the high price of electricity, and of home and car insurance, and climate change.
They need to understand that climate solutions, like renewable energy and storage, are what is needed to stabilize electric prices.
They should understand that doubling our exports of natural gas, currently planned by Energy Secretary and Fracking millionaire Chris Wright, is only going to drive prices up further.

Wright, among other MAGA sycophants, gets this, and is regularly posting misleading messages on social media blaming clean energy for rising electric rates. The data shows otherwise.

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Research: Antarctic Melt Could Save AMOC, But Wait…

New Scientist:

While the melting of the Greenland ice sheet is expected to slow or even collapse the Atlantic Ocean current that keeps Europe warm, meltwater from West Antarctica could preserve this vital current.

But it won’t be enough to prevent major changes in the climate. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) would still decline by 60 per cent, and its full recovery would take 3000 years.

“I would tend to say, don’t be so quick to say that the AMOC is going to collapse,” says Sacha Sinet at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. “But the things I show here do not change much what will happen for the next century. Probably you will not be alive to tell if the AMOC was stabilised or not by West Antarctica.”

The AMOC is a system of currents that brings warm surface water from the tropics towards northern Europe, where it cools and sinks before flowing south to Antarctica. The current carries 1.2 petawatts of heat – equivalent to the energy generated by 1 million power plants – that keeps Europe much warmer than Labrador or Siberia at the same latitude. But light, fresh meltwater from Greenland’s ice is expected to hinder the sinking of salty, dense AMOC water, slowing down the current.

If the AMOC collapsed, winter cold snaps could reach almost -50°C (-58°F) in northern Europe. This week, Iceland declared AMOC shutdown an “existential” security threat. Sea levels would also be higher along the US east coast, and Africa could suffer more severe droughts.

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Energy, AI and Intelligence

Above, former CEO of Google Eric Schmidt has some sobering news about the energy demands of AI, and the urgency to stay ahead of China in this race.

29 Gigawatts by 2027, 67 more GW by 2030.

I don’t want to live in a world where China dominates in AI. We have to find a way to site necessary infrastructure in a way that supports the grid and keeps rates manageable. I worry that opportunistic politicians on both the left and right are seizing on this issue, amplifying misinformation rather than seeking solutions.

Below, example of the challenge – Illinois state agencies have warned about increasing Data center demands.

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Rebutting Climate Denial’s Golden Oldies, Again and Again

Over the last 7 or 8 years my work has evolved from debunking climate denial misinformation, to debunking misinformation about climate solutions, and working, (with some success) to encourage more siting of clean energy here in the upper midwest. Now it looks like I’m being dragged back to the bad old days.

We’re in a new age of climate denial, and as disgusting as it is, we are still seeing the golden oldies recycled again and again.
So in this case, I had to dig out one of my more detailed videos from the Yale Climate Connections series and repost it
It’s a pretty detailed explainer of how you create and maintain a multi-century temperature record, reconciling measurements from buckets tossed over the side of sailing ships, all the way through satellites gliding overhead.
Climate deniers tell each other that temperature records have been “adjusted” and immediately assume they they are discovering a by the globalist climate cabal.
The truth is more interesting.

Science Breakthrough of the Year: The Rise of Clean Energy

As I was saying..

Science:

This year, renewables surpassed coal as a source of electricity worldwide, and solar and wind energy grew fast enough to cover the entire increase in global electricity use from January to June, according to energy think tank Ember. In September, Chinese President Xi Jinping declared at the United Nations that his country will cut its carbon emissions by as much as 10% in a decade, not by using less energy, but by doubling down on wind and solar. And solar panel imports in Africa and South Asia have soared, as people in those regions realized rooftop solar can cheaply power lights, cellphones, and fans. To many, the continued growth of renewables now seems unstoppable—a prospect that has led Science to name the renewable energy surge its 2025 Breakthrough of the Year.

That promise comes against a backdrop of downbeat news, highlighted at the U.N. climate meeting in Belém, Brazil, in November. Global carbon emissions continue to creep up as countries fall short of cuts pledged in the 2015 Paris climate agreement. The goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C—always a long shot—now seems completely out of reach. But Hannah Ritchie, a data scientist at the University of Oxford and a climate blogger, is among those who see hope. Thanks to renewables, the long-awaited decline of fossil fuels is in sight, she says. China is “just, just on the cusp … of actually starting to push out coal,” and fossil fuel use in the rest of the world is likely to follow.

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