What do you get when a scientific theory can't decide what it means, a political mandate distorts markets under moral pretenses, and media weather stories melt under scrutiny? This week's roundup.
The climate commentariat is again flipping definitions like pancakes, especially around greenhouse gases. CO₂ gets all the blame, while water vapor, by far the dominant player in the greenhouse game, is sidelined. Meanwhile, regulators are pulling anti-greenwashing rules, ESG skeptics are finally getting heard, and Ottawa braces for inevitable doom from heat… just like every other summer.
We pull together key research that challenges the prevailing narrative, point out economic policy absurdities, and take another look at just how little evidence supports the case for panicked transition planning.
CHART OF THE WEEK
SCIENCE
IPCC misrepresentations: comments made by former IPCC contributors after cutting ties with the politicized body — so scientists no longer subject to professional repercussions.
IPCC scientist #33 - Dr Paul Reiter: “As far as the science being ‘settled,’ I think that is an obscenity. The fact is the science is being distorted by people who are not scientists.”
Greenhouse gases are those in the atmosphere that are essentially opaque to long-wave radiation but virtually transparent to short-wave radiation (Simpson, 1928; Johnson, 1954). They filter out the long-wave component of solar radiation reaching the outer surface of the atmosphere but permit the short-wave radiation to warm the surface of the Earth. Since the re-radiation from that surface is predominantly long-wave, they prevent this energy from escaping.
In many recent research papers, the data has tended to be interpreted as though atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations were the only possible cause of climatic change. It is true that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, but even the most extreme estimates of the ability of potential man-made carbon dioxide increases in the next century suggest a warming of mean annual air temperature (MAAT) of under 4˚C, with most recent models suggesting an increase of less than 2˚C. This confirms that the gas is only a minor factor in climatic change (Table 1). In comparison, changes in ocean currents have resulted in a decrease in MAAT over Northern Ellesmere Island of about 30˚C in the last 2.5Ma.
The dominant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is water vapour. For every three parts of carbon dioxide, there are 500-750 parts of water vapour. The latter fluctuates continuously within these limits, depending on the ambient temperature and the relative humidity. Any excess is condensed into water droplets or ice crystals (clouds) which can lead to precipitation (rain, hail, sleet or snow). The clouds also act as layers of greenhouse substances in the atmosphere, modifying diurnal heating and cooling. Given the vast discrepancy in abundance between the concentrations of water vapour and carbon dioxide, it is surprising that so little attention has been paid to the role of water vapour. It would seem likely that the continuous and substantial changes in water vapour would dominate the relatively puny changes in carbon dioxide. Both gases are key elements for the survival of life as we know it since both are required for photosynthesis in green plants.
Our take: we like this paper for how it correctly connects greenhouse gases to life. We hold that life, human life, is the proper moral standard of value, yet it is almost completely ignored in the hysteria over human-emitted CO2.
In 36 years the CAGW proponents have not been able to come up with a GHE idea and stick with it. Their ideas keep changing and morphing into something different. Each time one idea gets falsified they switch to another. Any discussion with these people always ends up in a circular argument. They start with 1. When you falsify that they move to 2, then to 3 then to 4. When you falsify 4 they move back to 1 again. All the GHE ideas that have been put forward fail experiment and have been falsified in many different ways. The CAGW proponents have to keep changing them because they can’t validate any of them in an experiment.
Our take: shifting definitions is a common tactic of people trying to put one over on you. It prevents rational discussion and clear thinking. We are on the lookout for package deals that try to smuggle in unsuitable or even contradictory evidence into a definition.
Scientists are still debating the reasons for “global warming”. The author questions the validity of the calculations for the models published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and especially the future scenarios. Through spectral calculations, the author finds that water vapour accounts for approximately 87% of the greenhouse (GH) effect and only 10% of CO2. A doubling of the present level of CO2 would increase the global temperature by only 0.51°C without water feedback. The IPCC claims that a temperature increase of 0.76°C for 2005 was caused in part by water (about 50%), because relative humidity (RH) stays constant in their model. The calculations prove that CO2 would have increased the temperature by only 0.2 °C since 1750 and that the measured decrease in water since 1948 has compensated for this increase. This study has also produced results indicating a negative feedback for relative humidity. The simulations of this study propose that the IPCC’s model atmospheres could be approximately 50% too dry.
When a GH gas concentration increases, the absorption no longer increases in a linear fashion at a certain point; rather, the curve begins to bend downwards. This phenomenon is called saturation, which begins when a GH gas like CO2 or H2O has captured nearly all of the available photons within a certain LW band. There is no simple way to calculate the degree of saturation. The practical way is to carry out simulation calculations with different GH gas concentrations. These calculations are easy to do when using the SpectralCalc properties. Only CO2 and H2O are interesting gases. Surface temperatures have been calculated using eqn 2. Fig. 4 shows the results for the CO2 calculations. The linear part of radiative flux absorption is linear until approximately 50 ppm; thereafter, the saturation phenomenon increases.
The overlapping phenomenon of absorption bands is another inaccuracy factor existing in brief absorption calculations. It is a fact that the overall warming effect cannot be calculated by merely summarizing the warming effects on the basis of directly multiplying the concentrations and absorption potentials if they have overlapping bands.
We can see that the increase of water in the warmer climate means a bigger band area, resulting in higher radiation absorption. The CO2 concentration is an artificial choice and it illustrates that the increase in the CO2 concentration does not result in the so big change in its band area. Fig. 6 reveals also that H2O can almost totally (76- 100%) absorb radiation flux in the waveband from 13 to 18 μm without CO2. This means that these two major GH gases overlap heavily and it has a clear impact on the GH effect contribution.
Two other calculations were carried out for CO2: in the polar atmosphere without CO2, the change in absorption radiation is 23.3%, whereas in the tropical atmosphere the change is 5.9%. These results indicate that when humidity values are lower, the CO2 impact will be higher. They also indicate that the water content in the atmosphere defines what the CO2 levels will contribute to the GH phenomenon [emphasis added].
An important finding of this study is the saturation of CO2 absorption. An increase of CO2 to 550 ppm from the present level produces a temperature increase of 0.23 °C, whereas doubling the CO2 to a value of 800 ppm causes a temperature increase of only 0.53 °C without any water feedback effects. According to these results, global warming would be considerably lower than in the past because of increasing CO2 values, even though the only reasons for warming would be the GH gases.
Our take: this paper brings together and explains multiple factors we have examined before, including the oft-ignored concepts of a) the logarithmic relationship between CO2 and any warming effect, b) the consequent saturation effect, and c) the overlapping effects of CO2 and H20. You would think these known physical properties of greenhouse gases would figure prominently in any analysis, and it seems the way people avoid this is to assume the effect of H2O is a positive feedback of CO2, yet this is not so. We think global warming alarmists would do well to carefully read this paper.
The European Commission revealed on Friday that it plans to withdraw the Green Claims Directive just days prior to trilogue negotiations to finalize the proposed rules aimed at protecting consumers from greenwashing claims about the environmental attributes of products and services, following objections from lawmakers that brought its ability to be adopted into doubt.
In the lead-up to next week’s negotiations on the proposal, however, the European People’s Party (EPP), the largest political party in the EU Parliament, issued a letter requesting that the Commission “reconsiders and ultimately withdraws” the directive, arguing that the new rules would be overly burdensome and complex, in contrast to ongoing efforts to simplify compliance burdens on companies.
The EPP letter also criticized the lack of an impact assessment regarding the proposed directive, stating that the proposal does not “convincingly demonstrate that the expected benefits of the regime would outweigh the significant costs and regulatory uncertainty it entails.”
Our take: if only Canada had done the same. Instead we are saddled with irrational, unclear, free-speech stifling rules that cost money with negative benefits.
With growing numbers of extreme heat events driven by climate change, that work has taken on a new urgency.
Kenny warns that society needs to do a better job of understanding the impact of extreme heat and how to mitigate it because things are likely to get worse with potentially disastrous consequences.
Among his concerns is that while heat-related exposures and deaths are preventable by giving people access to air conditioners and cooling technology, the lack of government data on heat-related events makes it difficult to pinpoint where and what resources need to be allocated.
This week’s heat wave – with temperatures around 36 Celsius and humidex readings into the 40s in Ottawa – was just a taste of what is to come, Kenny says. For some people, especially the most vulnerable living on the streets and the elderly in hot, humid apartments without air conditioners, the temperatures and humidex reached dangerous levels.
More extensive heat waves driven by climate change are expected, and with them the risk of heat-related deaths and illnesses.
In Europe, some 55,000 people died during a series of back-to-back heatwaves in 2003. In British Columbia during a heat dome in 2021, more than 600 people died – many of them older adults living in overheated apartments. Temperatures in some parts of B.C. reached 50 degrees Celsius, an all-time record for Canada.
Our take: The portrayal of Ottawa’s “inevitable catastrophic heat wave” smacks of alarmism, ignoring both historical context and adaptation reality. It blames “climate change” in a catch‑all way, without presenting evidence that heat waves are more frequent than in the past or clarifying the critical distinction between natural variability and human influence.
Significantly, much of what’s labeled “extreme heat” in cities is amplified by the urban heat island (UHI) effect - built environments trap heat, raising temperatures by day and night compared to rural areas. Studies show UHI can prolong and intensify heat waves in cities, adding several extra hot days annually. Without acknowledging this, the article misattributes all warming to CO₂-driven climate change.
Moreover, it assumes heat is inevitably disastrous, ignoring that affluent societies adapt through abundant energy use. Reliable air conditioning, reflective roofing, and cool surfaces already shield the well-off. Meanwhile, poorer individuals and communities suffer disproportionately, not from climate change per se, but from unequal adaptation infrastructure.
True full‑context reporting would compare today’s heat frequency with mid‑century and pre‑industrial data, quantify UHI’s role, and highlight adaptation successes. Air conditioning alone solves most of the issue for seniors, and over the rest of this century it is expected humanity will be four times wealthier than today. As it stands, the article opts for bias and advocacy, not clarity.
today’s electric grids, as they have been twisted and turned to accommodate solar and wind projects in the name of a needless energy transition. And, the key to understanding the whole thing, if that’s possible, is to ask a simple question. Who benefits? There is but one answer: the green energy grifters.
The grifters have successfully perpetrated a fraud based this series of lies:
The planet is in a climate crisis.
CO2 is the cause of this crisis and a pollutant.
CO2 must be lowered by forcing it out of energy production.
Solar and wind energy production generate no CO2.
We must force solar and wind energy onto the grid by regulation and subsidy.
We must force our utilities to not only accept, but also adopt, energy transition.”
We must pretend solar and wind are economical and no threat to energy security.
Every single one of these lies is being continually recycled as evidence mounts that it’s all one big fraud on the consumer. The EIA post is simply titled “Solar and Wind Power Curtailments Are Increasing in California" and it includes this remarkable chart:
A curtailment is grid-speak for forcing energy off the system. It's not letting energy being produced to go into the system because it’s not needed and/or would destroy grid stability by being allowed in.
Anyone can see what a mess this is. Governments have subsidized solar to the point there is more than can be used, and disposing of it has become a real problem. It hugely threatens the stability of the grid by making coal, nuclear and natural gas plants, which are essential to ensuring dispatchable power, far less efficient, thereby raising costs to consumers. That's a cost on top of the tax credits employed to build the solar facilities and one no one wants to talk about. It’s the reason green energy is raising electricity around the globe, of course.
Our take: the core absurdity isn’t just policy incoherence. It’s the moral inversion. A system that prioritizes emissions reductions over affordability and reliability effectively mandates energy scarcity for the many, to satisfy the carbon sensitivities of the few.
The substance of their plot works like so: first, the federal and provincial governments threw mountains of taxpayer dollars in subsidies at automakers so that they’d come to Canada to manufacture EVs. Then Ottawa mandated that Canadians must buy those EVs — exclusively — by the year 2035. That way Ford and Trudeau could pat themselves on the back for “creating jobs,” while EV manufacturers could help themselves to the contents of our wallets twice over.
Meanwhile, our environmentalist-in-chief, Mark Carney, has maintained the Liberal Party’s commitment to the EV mandates, arguing that EVs are essential for his vacuous plan of transforming Canada into a “clean energy superpower.” How exactly? That’s never said.
…people should be able to invest their own money however they want and to advance any lawful values they hold through that process. But ESG theory and policy are often imposed from above, and in especially non-transparent and anti-democratic ways. That’s the primary problem, not that it is left wing or “woke” per se. A right-wing version of ESG would be just as problematic, which is why principled conservatives tend to prefer a “back to neutral” approach to corporate governance.
Secondarily, because a lot of ESG enthusiasm is simply political and social activism disguised as portfolio management, the movement spends a lot of its time cloaking its real motives and manipulating or misusing data. People who believe that ESG-adjacent environmental and social goals are obviously correct will have very little incentive to rigorously investigate the data behind them. When a disinterested research team actually does so, they often find the empirical case for ESG investing to be extremely weak or based entirely on faulty data. The multi-year work of Florian Berg, Julian F Kölbel, and Roberto Rigobon of MIT’s Sloan School (the “Aggregate Confusion Project”) is a good example of this. The debunking of the infamous McKinsey “Diversity Wins” study by Alex Edmans of London Business School is another.
But while the world of ESG theory and advocacy has plenty of internal contradictions that should make any observer cautious, it is the explicit involvement of government that creates the worst problems. In the chapter I argue that even people with progressive-left policy preferences – those most likely to be in favor of ESG – should be wary of mixing the world of business enterprise and public policy.
Our take: the writer delivers a comprehensive and principled takedown of top-down ESG mandates. His central critique, that imposing uniform ESG metrics through government or quasi-governmental bodies distorts market function and invites regulatory capture, is well-founded. Yet the deeper issue, as Epstein and Bettering Human Lives articulate, is moral clarity. ESG frameworks typically obscure the life-giving benefits of hydrocarbon energy and industrial development in favor of climate abstractions and social engineering. By redefining fiduciary duty through politicized metrics, mandatory ESG effectively punishes investments that actually advance human flourishing. It's not just bad economics, it's an ethical inversion.
The ESG era, though marketed as progress, has harmed investors, companies, regulators, and society. Nothing is new about companies and investors taking a wide range of factors into account in deciding how to allocate capital. The materiality framework of our U.S. securities regulatory regime elicits disclosure about issues determinative to a company’s long-term financial value, including, when applicable, ESG issues. Our framework distinguishes between what is material to an investment decision and what is not material even though some investors might care deeply about it. Only the former warrants mandatory disclosure.
The distinctive element that marks this new era is the presumptive categorization of anything bearing the ESG label as inherently material to long-term financial value. In doing so it departs from a near-century-old materiality-based disclosure regime. If ESG is treated as a short-hand for materiality, affixing the ESG label to something automatically justifies using it to drive capital allocation decisions. An ESG label substitutes for hard analysis by companies and investors about how something relates to long-term financial value. The thinking goes that if lots of people in society are talking about “fill-in-the-blank” issue, it needs to factor into all corporate and investor thinking and thus into regulatory mandates. That companies, investors, and their advisors may find certain ESG matters material to their decisions does not justify short-circuiting real analysis of what matters for the long-term financial value of a particular company or a particular investor’s portfolio. The current approach to ESG is harmful because it takes a one-size-fits-all approach to regulation. Instead of capital allocators performing individualized analysis of ESG criteria they are given a box-checking exercise composed of generic metrics and criteria concocted by a hodge-podge of interest groups. As a result, focused financial analysis is burdened by irrelevant and misleading red herrings which may lead to worse financial decisions.
Let’s start with societal harm. ESG initiatives—even when couched in terms of disclosure—attempt to shift capital flows to uses favored by politicians, regulators, and powerful interest groups as embodied in the taxonomies that drive corporate and investor activity. These favored industries and companies are more likely to correspond to lobbying prowess than to the ability to improve society. Capital diverted to pet projects of the politically powerful is not available for companies working hard to meet people’s genuine needs or to solve society’s most pernicious and pressing problems. As political power shifts, the nature of the favored projects does too. Regardless of whose ESG it is, something other than people’s genuine needs determines who gets capital.
The U.S. Department of Labor will engage in new rulemaking to rescind ESG rules adopted under the prior administration.[6] The SEC’s signature ESG rulemaking faces a court challenge against which the current SEC has decided not to defend,[7] and other ESG initiatives, such as an ESG proposal for investment advisers, have lost steam. Earlier this year, Commission staff rescinded guidance that had made it easier for certain investors and their representatives to inundate companies with proposals that had nothing to do with the company receiving them. In rescinding this guidance, the staff returned to an analysis that considers the “policy issue raised by the proposal and its significance in relation to the company.”[8] This change should help prevent shareholder proponents from forcing companies to focus on ESG issues that are wholly unrelated to their business. To help prevent a shift back to ESG as an excuse for a disclosure mandate, I recommend embedding in the SEC rulebook an explicit commitment to materiality as the governor of disclosure mandates.
Our take: Commissioner Hester Peirce’s remarks before the International Center for Insurance Regulation offer a rare moment of regulatory candor. Her warning against importing ESG mandates into insurance regulation is both pragmatic and principled. Peirce rightly notes that ESG-driven risk frameworks often elevate speculative climate models over actual solvency risks. In other words, they trade actuarial rigor for ideological compliance. As “Challenging Net Zero with Science” shows, the idea that climate policy reduces systemic financial risk is itself unsupported, and often contradicted, by empirical evidence. Peirce’s defense of pluralism and market-based experimentation stands in sharp contrast to the homogenizing logic of ESG. It’s a reminder that risk assessment should serve policyholders and reality, not the climate ambitions of bureaucrats.
According to CNN, “Scientists looked back in time to find the first signs of human-caused global warming. It’s far earlier than previously thought”. So much for settled science, you may sneer… though we beat you to it. But what makes this a classic illustration of how on climate you can say just anything is that it claims “Using a combination of scientific theory, modern observations and multiple, sophisticated computer models, researchers found a clear signal of human-caused climate change was likely discernible with high confidence as early as 1885, just before the advent of gas-powered cars but after the dawn of the industrial revolution.” So not, um, actual data from 1885 then? No. Instead they look at stratospheric cooling which the models say should accompany tropospheric warming though it’s all highly speculative. But if it were true, if the tiny amounts of CO2 humans were adding 140 years ago, could really make a measurable difference, then clearly the climate’s sensitivity to CO2 (aka ECS) is so high that it should be swinging disastrously all over the place faced by minor fluctuations and, certainly, blazing away by about 1940 with the wretched gas car invented and all. So naturally the researchers issue a clarion call for… more research money to go to them. Detected that early, didn’t you?
