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Some Thoughts on Our DOE Report Regarding CO2 Impacts on the U.S. Climate July 31st, 2025 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D. PREFACE: What follows are my own opinions, not seen by my four co-authors of the Dept. of Energy report just released, entitled A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate. Starting sometime tomorrow, the comment docket at DOE will be open for anyone to post comments regarding the contents of that report. We authors will read all comments, and for those which are substantiative and serious, we will respond in a serious manner....

The Trump administration has announced a plan to scrap a landmark finding that greenhouse gases are harmful to the environment, severely curbing the federal government's ability to combat climate change. Known as the "Endangerment Finding", the 2009 order from then-President Barack Obama allowed the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to create rules to limit pollution by setting emissions standards. ... The Endangerment Finding stemmed from a 2007 Supreme Court case in which the court ruled that greenhouse gases are "air pollutants" - meaning that the EPA has the authority and responsibility to regulate them under the US Clean Air Act....

... Extreme summer heat during baseball season is not only making games uncomfortably hot and sweaty for fans in the stands — it’s also posing a danger to the health of players and changing the physics of the sport. Since 1970, human-made climate change has driven up average summer temperatures in Chicago by 2 degrees, according to the climate science nonprofit Climate Central. That lines up with an average increase of 2.8 degrees across 26 Major League Baseball home cities in the United States — except Los Angeles. The home of the Angels and Dodgers has had no measurable change...

SEATTLE — A “No to Blue Angels” billboard just went up in Seattle’s Rainier Valley. The Blue Angels have been a fixture of Seafair for more than 50 year-- their thunderous roar could is the soundtrack to summer’s in Seattle. “I miss it more now because I don’t live on this side of town anymore,” said Carolyn Finney. She says she enjoyed the acrobatic show before moving to SeaTac. “Just seeing them fly around just close to the house down on, by the beach, that kind of stuff,” Finney said. “Yeah, it was exciting to see that.” However, a group...

Something strange is happening with California’s summer. While much of the world swelters or floods, California has been caught in a quieter kind of extreme, especially in places like the Bay Area. Here, stable conditions have dominated for weeks, with relentless cloud cover, cool temperatures and a stubborn marine layer. It’s not just a coastal phenomenon. Inland spots are running cooler than normal too, creating a rare kind of regional uniformity for July. Tuesday was the second consecutive day where not a single spot in the Bay cracked 80 degrees and every location was running below normal temperatures. This cool,...

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The United Nations’ top court in a landmark advisory opinion Wednesday said countries could be in violation of international law if they fail to take measures to protect the planet from climate change, and nations harmed by its effects could be entitled to reparations.Advocates immediately cheered the International Court of Justice opinion on nations’ obligations to tackle climate change and the consequences they may face if they don’t.“Failure of a state to take appropriate action to protect the climate system ... may constitute an internationally wrongful act,” court President Yuji Iwasawa said during the hearing....

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The UN’s highest court is handing down a historic opinion on climate change Wednesday, a decision that could set a legal benchmark for action around the globe to the climate crisis. After years of lobbying by vulnerable island nations who fear they could disappear under rising sea waters, the U.N. General Assembly asked the International Court of Justice in 2023 for an advisory opinion, a non-binding but important basis for international obligations. A panel of 15 judges was tasked with answering two questions. First, what are countries obliged to do under international law to protect...

What if Human Civilisation rose before, in Ancient pre-history? Is it possible? The evidence would suggest yes...The previous interglacial warming period, known as the 'Eemian' period, was 130 to 115,000 years ago. This period was longer than the current warm period, known as the Holocene, has been so far. Considering modern humans had already been around for at least 175,000 years by the start of the 'Eemian', why couldn't civilisation have flourished then as it has now? The conditions were optimal, it lasted more than enough time, we'd been around for 100s of 1000s of years already and according to...

Amid disastrous green diktats and crippling cuts to farmers’ livelihoods, the out-of-touch elites in Brussels seem to have forgotten where their food comes from. This afternoon, farmers from all over the European Union met outside the European Parliament to march on the Berlaymont, the European Commission’s HQ. Organised by COPA-COGECA, the umbrella body for 22 million European farmers, the demonstration should by all rights be a wake-up call for Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The unions will hand over a petition signed by 6,335 organisations, along with a symbolic pair of boots, in protest of the EU’s plans to...

Recently, nine underage girls were sexually harassed by a group of Syrian men at an outdoor swimming pool in Geinhausen, Germany.Shocking, isn’t it? I wish it was. The men touched the young victims’ hair, thighs, and breasts while they were in the water.Incredibly, the mayor of Gelnhausen, Christian Litzinger of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, attributed the assaults to "high temperatures" causing the migrants' tempers to flare. I knew it! Climate change is to blame! Those poor Syrians were driven mad by the German heat, not just the young fräuleins.The epidemic of sexual harassment and rape being committed by...

Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley announced Thursday that the Department of Energy (DOE) is canceling its Grain Belt Express project. Hawley’s X post announcing the DOE’s decision to cancel the project followed a conversation with President Donald Trump and Energy Secretary Chris Wright. The post also called the Grain Belt Express a “green scam” that is “costing taxpayers BILLIONS.” ... The Grain Belt Express was a $11 billion transmission line project designed to carry electricity from wind farms in Kansas across Missouri and Illinois to Indiana. “Energy demand is growing – our grid needs an upgrade,” the project’s website states,...

Thousands of businesses and households are waiting to connect to the Dutch grid, forcing network operators to ration power in an early indicator of what other European countries are likely to suffer as the speed of electrification increases. . . . The Netherlands is among the countries in Europe to have moved fastest to electrify critical parts of the economy after it in 2023 ended production at its giant onshore gasfield, Groningen.

As a warming planet delivers more extreme weather, experts warn that the Trump administration is dismantling the government’s disaster capabilities.In an effort to shrink the federal government, President Trump and congressional Republicans have taken steps that are diluting the country’s ability to anticipate, prepare for and respond to catastrophic flooding and other extreme weather events, disaster experts say. Staff reductions, budget cuts and other changes made by the administration since January have already created holes at the National Weather Service, which forecasts and warns of dangerous weather. Mr. Trump’s budget proposal for the next fiscal year would close 10 laboratories...

The climate science establishment is fond of lecturing us about the dangers of rising temperatures. With the return of Donald Trump as US President, however, it is rising scrutiny, not the rising heat, that has them most alarmed. In May, President Trump signed an executive order titled "Restoring Gold Standard Science," requiring federally funded agencies to ensure their work is accountable, reproducible, and subject to open debate. It was unremarkable in tone, bordering on mundane. Yet the reaction was swift and bitter. The clause insisting that scientists consider dissenting views and protect employees from retaliation for expressing them cuts across...

When the world’s top climate diplomats gathered in Bonn earlier this year to prepare for COP29, one issue cut through the noise, not just the usual challenges of finance and emissions, but something more intangible and potentially more corrosive: the rise of targeted misinformation and disinformation in the climate space. In 2024, the World Economic Forum identified misinformation and disinformation as the world’s top short-term risk. Disinformation doesn’t just delay climate action; it destabilizes the institutions, policies, and coalitions needed to deliver it. Dr. Fredrik Bertley president and chief executive officer of COSI, the Center of Science and Industry (COSI)...

The country that invented “flight shaming”, a concept championed by climate activist Greta Thunberg, has scrapped its air tax in a bid to boost its ailing economy. As of July 1, Sweden has dropped the levy of 76–517 kroner (£5.50–£37.40) per passenger per flight, an eco measure introduced by the centre-left government in 2018. The U-turn will be seen as a disaster by environmentalists, and it exposes a tension at the core of the aviation versus climate debate. When jumbo jets disappear emissions drop, but other things begin to dwindle too: regional growth, connectivity and – it appears in Sweden...

The quintessential ice cream flavour is under threat, and many other dessert staples along with it, according to climate change researchers at the University of Costa Rica and Belgium's KU Leuven university. Increasing climate extremes are changing the habitats of wild vanilla species — primarily found in the tropical regions of Central America — and their mainly animal pollinators, the researchers say. This, in turn, is putting global production of vanilla at risk. In some regions, the plants may find more favourable conditions, but the insects that pollinate them may no longer find suitable habitats, according to the study published...

Months worth of heavy rain fell in a matter of hours on Texas Hill Country, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said. The region is dotted with century-old summer camps that draw thousands of kids annually. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said about 23 girls attending Camp Mystic, a Christian camp along the Guadalupe River, were unaccounted for Friday afternoon. ... This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.

A deadly flash flood has left at least six people dead and thousands fleeing for their lives after the Guadalupe River burst, engulfing several Texas cities. The Guadalupe River rapidly rose overnight, breaking its banks and overtaking the small, rural towns of Kerrville and Hunt. At least one family is missing after their entire Kerrville home was swept away by the raging storm. Video shared by KPRC reporter Gage Goulding shows the rushing waves are carrying debris down the river as heavy rains continued to pound the region. The National Weather Service (NWS) declared a flash flood emergency for all...

The Founding Fathers who gathered in Philadelphia to adopt the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 picked a nice day to do their work. It was a Thursday, and the temperature at 6:00 a.m. was 68°F, going up to a warmish but still pleasant 76°F at 1:00 p.m., according to daily records kept by Virginia’s Thomas Jefferson. The planetary metabolism at the time was set more for such balmy days than it was for the increasingly suffocating summers we experience in the 21st century. It was in 1867 that scientists would first define the epoch that includes the late...