Trump Bribes Company $1 Billion To Stop Offshore Wind

Maybe he hates offshore wind projects because breezes
mess up his hair? In any event, Trump, having lost
court battles to stop offshore wind installations,
has resorted to basically bribery with taxpayer dollars.

As we've talked about here a few times, Donald Trump hates wind generation. Especially offshore wind. 

He tried new anti-offshore wind regulations and pronouncements, only to be repeatedly shot down by the courts. So, Trump has gone straight to corruption. He's now successfully stopped an offshore wind installation with what amounts to a $1 billion bribe. 

Here it is from CNN:

"The Trump administration announced it will pay nearly $1 billion to French energy giant TotalEnergies in exchange for the company abandoning plans to build offshore wind farms in the Atlantic Ocean and instead pursue fossil fuel project in the U.S." 

Yes, that's 'your tax dollars not at work. Trump is using tax revenue - and a lot of it to - pay somebody to not do something. 

It's not a direct raid on the treasury. Instead the Trump administration is paying back TotalEnergies for federal leases it bought during the Biden administration. So the money Biden raked in for the federal government is getting pissed away all because wind turbines are against Trump's aesthetics. 

The Trump gang has already stopped approving federal permits for renewable energy projects. That move killed offshore wind projects that were in early development. 

This goes against the wishes of numerous clean energy companies and several state governments. Those entities think offshore wind is a win-win: It generates badly needed electricity while also avoids the fossil fuels that contribute to ever-worsening climate change crisis. 

The more recent bribe, as I insist on calling it,  ries to make sure companies can't continue building under any future administration that has a friendlier attitude toward offshore wind, as CNN reports. 

In any event, Trump's bribe means 4 gigawatts of electricity will not be generated for houses and businesses in the U.S. 

TotalEnergies doesn't even get to decide how to spend the bribe money. To keep the Orange One happy, the company will develop a new liquified gas plant in Texas that will help export U.S. LNG overseas to Europe, per their agreement with the Trump administration.   

The company will also do some oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. and shale oil projects elsewhere in the U.S. 

Burn that fossil fuel, baby!  103 degrees during March in Kansas isn't nearly hot enough. Gotta get that climate really boiling. 

The deal is "an outrageous misuses of taxpayer dollars to prevent Americans from having clean, affordable power exactly when they need it the most," said Ted Kelly of the Environmental Defense Fund.

U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum says offshore wind is "one of the most expensive" forms of energy and is only produced when wind is blowing. I guess he never heard of batteries that store electricity and keep the juice flowing until the wind blows again. Which it almost always does in the wide open ocean. 

It's true offshore wind power is expensive because it's, well, offshore. But wind has no fuel costs. And CNN points out that states negotiate set power price agreements with offshore wind producers that don't fluctuate like natural gas and oil does. 

As with every stunt Trump and his minions pull, I see lawsuits coming with this. 

Canarymedia com explains:

"....offshore wind experts said that no process exists for Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM)  to return the funds it collects from leasing federally controlled waters.

'There are significant questions about under what authority Interior is doing this,' said Elizabeth Klein, who led BOEM from 2023 to 2025 during the Biden administration"

 This Orange Briberymight  create broader problems beyond encouraging fossil fuel consumption, which can only worsen climate change. As NPR points out:

"Industry analysts say the agreement threatens to undermine business confidence in the United States by exerting unprecedented executive power to influence the private sector,"

Back in the day, like it or not, Republicans preferred to leave business alone. Let them do their thing with a little regulation or government interference as possible. So much for that. MAGA has turned that on its head. 

NPR's reporting goes on to explain that by stopping projects he doesn't like, Trump risks messing up infrastructure spending across the economy, not just in offshore wind. The uncertainty this creates could make infrastructure projects move more slowly and become expensive. 

The uncertainly goes into fossil fuel plant and oil production projects, which Trump keeps telling us he loves so much.

"When you're building a power plant or thinking about oil production, you're thinking not just about the current administration, you're thinking about the next couple of decades.....And the pendulum swing is a real policy risk," said Timothy Fox of ClearView Energy Partners. 

All this is one of Trump's few "skills."  His chaos causes so much uncertainty that investors, companies, and just regular people don't know what the next best course of action is.  Ultimately, nothing gets done.

Except Trump and his oligarch friends get ever more richer at our expense.   

Trump Says Cuba Doesn't Have Hurricanes. Cubans Beg To Differ

Damage in Cuba last October from Hurricane Melissa.
Donald Trump's assertion that Cuba gets no hurricanes 
appears to be very untrue

 It seems like Donald Trump loves his conquests, or threatened ones. I've lost track of the nations he says he wants to take over, but one of his latest targets appears to be Cuba.  

Since this isn't so much a geopolitical blog, we'll get into another excuse to pick on our Orange One

As the Miami Herald reports:

"Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that Cuba would be ideal for the U.S. to take over because of pleasant weather and it is not prone to hurricanes."

The cockwomble's exact quote was:

"I think Cuba, in its own way, tourism and everything else, it's a beautiful island great weather. They're not in hurricane zone, which is nice for a change, you know? They won't be asking us for money of hurricanes every week."

The alleged lack of Cuban hurricanes might come as news for those living on the island.  

We have to harken all the way back to October, 2025, yes, a whole five months ago to find an example of Cuba being hit by a hurricane 

That was Hurricane Melissa. After it finished up in Jamaica, where it was tied for the strongest landfalling hurricane on record in the Atlantic Basin, Melissa roared on through Cuba.

It wasn't as strong as in Jamaica, but it was strong enough, with part of eastern Cuba seeing sustained was of 115 mph with a gust to 136 mph. Melissa wrecked an electrical grid in eastern Cuba that had already been trashed by previous hurricanes and not yet fully repaired

Melissa was definitely not a one-off

Cuba is historically one of the hardest hit countries in the Western Hemisphere during hurricane season.

Josh Morgerman, a veteran hurricane chaser and one of the world's leading hurricane experts, said on Facebook that he's been getting a LOT of questions about how many hurricanes hit Cuba. He didn't say why everybody's asking, but thanks to the Miami Herald and other media outlet, we now know.

Anyway, Morgerman has the stats:

"Just since 2000 the island nation has had 16 hurricanes, include a rare Category5 (Irma, 2017) and five Cat 4s. In Gustave, 2008, Cuba measured a sustained 1-minute wind of 135 knots (155 mph) gusting to a whopping 184 knots (212 mph) - one of the highest official wind readings ever recorded in a hurricane."

Our Orange Whopper has said he believes  he'll "have the honor of taking Cuba" soon. Oh, great. 

If he does somehow make Cuba part of the United States - good luck with that - Trump is probably right that Cubans "won't be asking for money for hurricanes every week."  

Trump still seems intent on reducing money for FEMA are giving up on it entirely. Which raises the possibility that nobody in the actually now-existing United States would receive disaster relief. 

Let's just make things more dystopian, shall we?

  

ICE Barbie Is Out At DHS; But I'm Not Optimistic About How Replacement Will Manage FEMA

ICE Barbie is out, and this guy, Markwayne Mullin is
nominated as the new Secretary of Homeland Security.
That position also oversees FEMA. It's unclear how
he'll do as that agency deals with an increasing
number of disasters, some of them climate-
related. These might be famous last words
but he likely can't do a worse job than
Kristi "ICE Barbie" Noem. 

As I'm sure you heard on the news, Donald Trump finally had enough and is firing Department of Homeland Secretary Kristi "ICE Barbie" Noem and is going to replace her with a dude named Markwayne Mullin. 

Mullin is a Republican U.S. Senator from Oklahoma and is definitely right up Trump's ally. 

Trump's statement was "A MAGA Warrior, and former undefeated professional MMA fighter, Markwayne truly gets along well with people and knows the Wisdom an Courage required to Advance our America First Agenda."

Part of the DHS Secretary's job is overseeing the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is why this news story landed in a weather and climate blog.

With an ever rising tide of weather and climate calamities, FEMA's role is incredibly important in helping people recover from those disasters. The nation's spring severe weather and tornado season this year appears to be gearing up to start literally today and tomorrow with a likely significant severe weather outbreak. 

Oklahoma is in the path of these storms, so I suppose Mullin will be at least a little sympathetic if the storms get too bad.

ICE BARBIE'S DEPARTURE

I'm definitely getting a "Ding dong the witch is dead" vibe coming from both Democrats and Republicans in Washington now that ICE Barbie is headed out the door. 

FEMA mismanagement was the least of the problems people had with Noem. She oversaw the siege of Minnesota by ICE agents this winter. Two border security officers shot and killed two American citizens. Noem lied about those deaths, and oversaw the chaos in Minneapolis and other cities in the past year, Chicago, Charlotte and Los Angeles and others come to mind.  

Pretty much everybody, including Trump, was getting more and more dissatisfied with ICE Barbie. It appears what finally drove Trump to dump Noem was all about him, of course. It always is.  

ICE Barbie testified in front of U.S. Senate and House committees this week and it did not go well.  The part that Trump didn't like, according to NBC News were her answers regarding her role in a $220 million ad campaign encouraging immigrants to self-deport. 

Funding for the ad campaign seemed shady, as is usual in this administration, but Trump was described as "pissed" that Noem said during the hearing that Trump new about her decision to approve the ads.

Speaking of pissed, that can describe likely thousands of disaster victims.  The FEMA work force is decimated, and the Trump administration is still trying to find ways to either get rid of the agency or gut it into near-nothingness. 

Even GOP political were annoyed by ICE Barbie's micromanaging, which seriously delays help for disaster victims. Barbie decreed that she must personally approve each expenditure amounting to more than $100,000. As you can imagine that created huge bottlenecks in getting help to people who lost their homes or livelihoods to extreme weather. 

Noem's interference with FEMA payments might have violated the law. 

ICE Barbie has also advocated eliminating or severely downsizing FEMA. 

WHAT ABOUT MARKWAYNE?

All eyes of course remain on immigration agencies and their lawless campaign to rid the U.S. of non-whites. But FEMA is also an important part of the DHS Secretary's oversight role. 

Frankly, I couldn't find much on Mullin or how he would deal with FEMA and disaster relief. I found a Fox News interview with Mullen in the autumn of 2024 where he said it's the neighbors that help during calamities like Hurricane Helene, and the response if there is any is too bureaucratic.

Reading between the lines, it felt to me like Mullin was advocating a far smaller role for FEMA rather than reforming its bureaucracy, which certainly needed and still needs reform. 

Climate change is driving many of our disasters, and Mullin's record there isn't great, to say the least. He has a 100 percent rating from Independent Petroleum Association of America. He was opposed to the Biden administration's rejoining of the Paris Climate Agreement, and presumably approved of Trump's decision to leave it. 

There is a bipartisan effort in Congress to take FEMA out of the control of DHS and make it an independent agency. It really has withered every since it was put under the DHS purview in the early 2000s.

Mullin needs Senate confirmation before he gets the job, though he could serve as "acting secretary" if confirmation doesn't happen by the end of the month. 

I've found Mullin to be a jerk at times on the Sunday morning news talk shows. But I can't picture him mugging for the cameras and cosplaying like ICE Barbie did all the time. I'll hope that he'll at least be a better administrator that Noem.

In interviews today, Mullin and both GOP and Democratic Congress creatures pledged to play nice during the confirmation process. Let's see how that turns out.  

Oligarchs' Horrible Plan To Turn Our Nights Into Never-Ending Days

Tech companies want to launch a bunch of satellites that
would reflect sunlight back to Earth at night over
specific locations. Taken together and adding in
proposals by SpaceX to put up perhaps a million
satellites would largely take away our ability
to enjoy the night sky

As dystopian as things seem now, the oligarchy class wants to take away our nights. 

 The Trump administration seems to be on a mission to make all of our lives more miserable, except for the billionaire oligarch class that is just loving life these days. 

I just found a new way the administration is set to make life even worse for humans, and everything else on Earth. And this one is especially horrible. 

Big companies, including Elon Musk's SpaceX, have plans that would fill our skies with a million or more little satellites, and also position a whole bunch of mirrors in orbit around the Earth to reflect sunlight down on us at night.

Sounds a little like depressing science fiction, but it's true. 

THE PROPOSALS

Per the Washington Post:

"Two little-noted applications under review by the Federal Communications Commission would, if fully implemented, fundamentally remake the night sky. But the FCC, the satellite regulator, appears to have fast tracked approval without much of a pass eo weigh the benefits of these proposals against the harms they could cause to life on the planet". 

The two proposals would essentially turn night into day, or something close to it. WaPo explains further:

"A start-up called Reflect Orbital proposes to use large, mirrored satellites to redirect sunlight to Earth at night, with plans to bathe solar farms, industrial sites and even entire cities in light that could, if desired, reach the intensity of daylight. 

At the same time, Elon Musk's SpaceX wants to launch as many as a million satellites to serve as orbiting data centers - 70 times the number now in orbit. We could have a million points of light streaking across our skies at night."

Space X only submitted its proposal on January 31. Per PC Mag:

"Usually, the FCC takes weeks or months to respond. In this case, it made a decision in days, even though SpaceX's proposal appears preliminary and even rushed, according to space experts, some of whom question the constellation's feasibility."

TEMU STARS

 The Washington Post concedes there is some benefit of moving data centers to space. It's better that consuming huge amounts to land water and energy on Earth.  Reflected sunlight could boost clean energy supplies and help with food production and even search and rescue.

But should we destroy night to accomplish these goals? Especially since we could solve all these problems right here on the ground. I'm rolling my eyes at the big building boom of AI data centers, that will use up huge amounts of energy and water. You'd think they'd be able to find a way to run AI that doesn't gobble up all the energy and water in the world. 

Aside from ruining the night sky, all this SpaceX satellites could end up colliding with other satellites and space debris. Some scientists worry this could lead to a chain reaction of colliding material.  Picture a high speed highway in a snow squall. 

One motorists swerves on the slick freeway to avoid debris on the road, crashes, and then all the other vehicles behind it pile up.t really is a war on nature waged by the oligarch class, egged on by the goons in the Trump administration. 

After all, to the billionaire class, nature is to be exploited for profit. Simply letting us serfs have calm, peaceful moments with the night sky is verboten. They should be working under grim, florescent lights for peanuts.  

Washington Post again: 

"...untimely light contributes to the loss of insect and bird populations. It disrupts migration, the seasonal patterns of plants and the circadian rhythms of animals ranging from sea turtles and mountain lions. Humans lose sleep because of artificial light, which potentially contributes to obesity and cancer. Light as faint as a full moon has been shown to alter our sleep patterns.

Reflect Orbital aspires to produce for its customers the high of up to 1,000 moons by 2028 and 360,000 moons by 2035. 

Then there's the philosophical questions: How will it feel if we can no longer gaze upward to see Orion, Ursa Major or the other constellations our ancestors have traced since Ptolemy? How will we perceive our place in the universe if we can no longer take in the twinkling starlight that began its voyage to us before the Pyramids rose in Egypt?"

Granted, Reflect Orbital does not propose lighting up the entire night sky at once. The reflected light from the mirrors would target specific areas. And under the lights, it would only have 20 percent or so of the sun's brightness. But the light pollution in areas surrounding the beam of night light would still be staggering. 

Especially combined with the zillions of SpaceX satellites up there that would essentially create a huge, ugly constellation of fake Temu stars 

The mirror satellites themselves would look like giant, artificial bright starts in the sky cluttering up and dimming the natural field of millions of stars so, so far away.  As you can imagine, astronomers are livid at this idea from Reflect Orbital.     

CAN WE STOP THIS?

 There's precious little standing between all of us who actually like it dark and night and the forces that would take that away from us. 

The FCC has pretty much exempted satellites from the National Environmental Policy act, which should require federal agencies to take into account environmental considerations. 

And, WaPo adds, the Trump FCC wants to strengthen the exemptions for satellite operations. And bipartisan legislation that recently got through the Senate Commerce Committee would further speed approval for satellites. 

I guess I'm one of the few left in the world who actually enjoys the night sky. I hope I'm wrong. An organization called DarkSky.org is of course opposed to this.

In addition to the harm the mirrored light would cause to birds, insects and our own circadian rhythms that regulate sleep, DarkSky.org catalogs other risks. People could be at risk of eye damage if they look at the light from the satellite mirror, like what would happen if people look directly at a partial solar eclipse. 

Moving beams of light from the mirrors could create sudden flashes, glare or weird illumination patters that could cause problems for airline pilots or even motorists, especially if these satellites and mirrors malfunction. 

"We also call on Reflect Orbital to demonstrate leadership by voluntarily commissioning a comprehensive, independent environmental impact assessment conducted by qualified experts - regardless of whether such review is required by the FCC," Darksky.org said in a statement.

In other words, even if nobody in charge wants to review dangers to the public, that review should be done anyway.

Public comment on SpaceX's proposal only lasts through Friday, March 6 . Click this link for information on how to do that.

I guess for now, we should find places away from cities to gaze up at the stars and the heavens. If the oligarchy class has its way, we might soon lose that simple pleasure. 

Michael Brown, an astronomy professor at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia put it this way: 

"I sort of ike the sky being sort of this shared wilderness. If you go somewhere where it's nice and dark and look at the night sky and have all these constant reminders of technology, I think that's a bit of a loss."

That's a huge understatement, but the man is absolutely correct. 

 

 

Trump To U.S And World Citizens: Drop Dead. Fossil Fuel Billionaires MUST Be Protected

EPA is dropping a 17-year old "endangerment finding"
that forms the basis of fossil fuel regulations in
the United States. Ultimately, it's a stupid and
dangerous move.

The Trump administration on Thursday got rid of a key Environmental Protection Agency rule that forms the basis for virtually all federal regulations related to climate change. 

The change won't just affect the Trump administration. His move will make it harder for future administrations to adopt climate rules and regs. I've seen getting rid of the so-called EPA "endangerment finding" described as removing a load bearing pillar of climate regulations.

Per the Washington Post:

"Nearly 17 years after the the Environment Protection Agency declared that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases threaten the public's health and welfare, the agency on Thursday rescinded the landmark legal opinion underpinning a wave of federal policies aimed at climate change. 

The agency issued its 'endangerment finding' in 2009, concluding that the government had a sound legal basis to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. In scrapping the policy this week, the EPA will seek to erase limits on emissions from cars power plants, and other industries that release the vast majority of the nations planet-warming pollution".

Trump has repeated declared change a hoax, most likely because it would help fossil fuel oligarchs, who in turn will feel obligated to help him.

"This is a big deal," EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said Thursday, which is the only thing I would agree with him on in this saga. 

At first, the main effect today's actions will have is to get rid of greenhouse emission standards on trucks and cars. 

But if the end of the endangerment finding holds up in court, no future EPA will be able to regulate CO2 emissions,  noted the Washington Post article. 

Environmental groups are up in arms, as you might imagine. 

One of the more succinct explanations of the ultimate result of what happened today came from Dan Becker, director of the Center for Biological and Diversity's Safe Climate Transport Campaign: 

"American families will suffer long-term harms so that giant auto and oil companies can pocket short-term profits."

Alex Witt of Climate Power was even more blunt: "This decision makes it abundantly clear that Trump is willing to make our families sicker and less safe, all to benefit a few billionaire polluters"

 For his part, Zeldin, the EPA administrator sarcastically called the 17-year old rule he's trying to get rid of the "holy grail of the climate change religion.' 

This decision will cost lives as it will hinder the worldwide battle against climate change. But then, the Trump administration thinks little of lives of people like you and me. 

Trump's administration has cut back on the National Weather Service's ability to forecast and monitor the weather. This at a time when climate change is generally making dangerous weather more complex and harder to predict.  The NWS cutbacks would have been worse if not for rare bipartisan efforts to keep more meteorologists on the job

At the behest of Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi "ICE Barbie" Noem, who also controls the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is doggedly working to cut back on FEMA disaster aid. So when those storms -  often climate related - hit, you're on your own if your house washed or blew away. 

 We haven't heard the last of this issue, though. I guarantee lawsuits that would attempt to restore the endangerment finding. It will probably make its way all the way up to the Supreme Court. The court is staked with Trump stooges, though, so despite an expected long battle, I'm not super optimistic here.

"This is going to be an ongoing struggle between rule of law and a corrupt fossil fuel industry that wants to be unbridled," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, (D-RI). 

Trump Says Climate Change Is A Hoax. But That's Partly What Got Him So Obsessed With Greenland

Donald Trump's desire to seize Greenland is likely less
about national security and more about mining the 
island's riches, and climate change. 

If I had a penny for every time Donald Trump said climate change is a hoax, I'd be as rich as he claims to be. 

And yet. Trump's latest foolishness with Greenland has been brought about in large part by the very climate change he denies. 

Let's set the scene: 

As you may have heard, Trump is insisting that the U,S. annex Greenland. He keeps yakking about "national security," that Russia or China will arrive in take over Greenland in about an hour unless the U.S. does so first.

In reality, it probably isn't so much about security. Existing security agreements, and NATO, preclude Russia and China from causing too much trouble in Greenland.

Remember, the basis of NATO is if one member is attacked, the whole organization is attacked. So in a world without Trump, if somebody invaded Greenland,  U.S. and NATO forces would defend the Arctic island. 

I don't believe China or Russia would take such a big risk. I've seen a lot of analysis out there that says the same thing. 

Of course, if the U.S. attacked Greenland, that would be a war against Denmark. As PBS notes, NATO has no obvious way of dealing with open conflict among its members. 

That's why an American invasion or non-consensual takeover of Greenland would probably end NATO.

Here's why Trump might want to see NATO go the way of the dinosaurs: 

Trump and his oligarch cronies really want to exploit the natural resources up there in Greenland, including diamonds, lithium and copper.  These minerals are super valuable nowadays because we need them to build things like batteries and smart phones.

I also surmise that Trump sees NATO as an obstacle to obtaining those riches. He's probably looking for a convenient way to put NATO into the garbage dumpster of history.

Or something like that. 

Trump doesn't even have to take over Greenland for "national security." 

A 1951 treaty with Denmark gives the U.S. military carte blanche to do pretty much whatever we want in Greenland's territory. We could send thousands of troops up there tomorrow if we need to. So, as futurism.com tells us, there's no national security need for us to take over Greenland. 

Which means "national security" is just a fig leaf for Trump and his gang to make more money off his presidency. It's all transactional. 

IT'S CLIMATE

The Washington Post had a nice analysis of the situation in Sunday's editions. This one paragraph helps crystalize the situation. And tells us why climate change matters in all of this.  

"The prospect of the United States using military force against the NATO ally, as Trump has floated, could end the decades-old defense pact. His bid for the territory is one of the most concrete examples of how climate change is influencing geopolitics. As the northernmost parts of our planet continue to warm, the effects could change the ways the international community operates."

 The Arctic is warming at four times the rate of the rest of the world. The extent of Arctic sea ice is declining. That, in turn is exposing some potential tantalizing sea routes on top of the planet. 

 Here's how WaPo lays out the stakes:

"'The freeing of the Arctic from sea ice, at least seasonally, will create an entirely new theater for economic and security competition,' said Joseph Majkut, director of the energy security and climate change program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 'And while we've know that is going to be the case for some time, it seems we're at an inflection point.'"

A study in the journal Nature said that if the planet warms by a total of 2 degrees Celsius over the average in the late 19th century, the open water period in the Arctic would increase to 63 days each summer.  If that warming goes above 3,5 degrees above the Victorian Age climate, the Arctic could be open for shipping at least three months out of the year.

Of course we don't know how long it will take to get that warm, so all bets are off. 

There's another issue related to the climate change that Trump says is a hoax. As Greenland's vast ice cap inexorably melts, the diamonds, lithium and copper Trump and his billionaire buddies covet become more accessible.  

"His fixation on Greenland is an admission that climate change is real," John Conger, and advisor to the Center or Climate and Security said in the New York Times, as futurism.com points out. 

Trump probably also wants Greenland so he can change the rules up there. 

The New York Times notes that Greenland has banned uranium mining. Uranium is often found right alongside rare earth minerals like lithium. The ban is already facing legal challenges, and if Trump takes over Greenland, that no uranium rule would be gone in a flash.

It turns out Trump thinks climate change is real. The "hoax" language he uses for our warming world is just one of many ploys to gin up his cup. 

 

Judge Overturns Trump Block On New England Offshore Wind Project

One of the turbines being built buy Revolution Wind, off
the New England coast. The Trump administration keeps
trying to shut it down, but the courts keep allowing
construction to continue. 

 Donald Trump keeps trying to shut down a huge wind energy project off the New England coast, but judges keep shutting down Trump. 

The latest hit came on Monday, when a federal judge overturned an Interior Department order that halted construction of the $6.2 billion offshore wind project.

It looks like Trump and his minions will need to come up with better excuses to shut down wind projects. 

 According to Politico:

"The injunction issued by Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia allows construction to resume at Revolution Wind, a 65-turbine project capable of powering 350,000 homes. It marks the second time Lamberth has overturned an Interior order seeking to halt construction of the project off Connecticut and Rhode Island .

In September, he rejected Interior's claim that the project constituted a threat to national security, calling it the height of 'arbitrary and capricious action."

His minions at Interior keep coming up with reasons they think will stick when it comes to shutting dow the windmills, like national security or messing with radar or they kill birds. As if Trump was the nation's Ornithologist In Chief or something. 

However, Trump's lifetime of literally tilting at windmills keeps failing because of his inability to keep his mouth shut. 

Trump keeps saying the quiet part out loud. Just last Friday, Trump bragged about stopping wind farms when he met with oil executives.  

Trump has also said, repeatedly, that he would never approve wind energy projects. "I've told my people we will not approve windmills.......Maybe we get forced to do something because some stupid person in the Biden administration agreed to do something years ago. We will not approve any windmills in this country," Trump has said. 

Trumps minion's are almost as bad at this. As Politico reports, "(Judge) Lamberth said his concerns were 'heightened' after Interior Secretary Doug Burgum criticized offshore wind projects in December 'for a variety of reasons unrelated to national security.'"

So, basically, Lamberth saw through all the smokescreens the Trump people were putting up. Lamberth said in his ruling that the government failed to come up with any new information to justify a halt to the Revolution project, which is already about 90 percent complete. 

Revolution wind said they were losing $1.4 million a day, and noted the Defense Department approved the project before Trump returned to office in January, 2025. 

New England states had solidly backed Revolution Wind and were obviously happy with Monday's ruling. "Federal interference has stood in the way of lower energy costs and good-paying jobs, but today's ruling puts Revolution Wind back on track," Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont said Monday. 

As USA Today explains, despite Trump's efforts, wind and solar were at least until recently two of the fastest rowing energy sectors in the U.S. Solar and wind produces as much s 17 percent of the nation's electricity in 2024. Land based wind turbines produce around 10 percent of United States electricity. 

Trump hates solar and wind power . He loves oil and coal. But the forces of commerce and business will keep overwhelming him. Probably with the help of the courts. 

Trump Pulls Out Of Climate Treaty, Continuing His Quest To Turn U.S. Into A Pariah Nation

Donald Trump is pulling out of a basic but hugely
important global climate treaty as he continues
his march to make the U.S. an economic and
political pariah basket case. 

 Donald Trump continued on with his desire to turn himself and the U.S. into a worldwide embarrassment Wednesday by announcing the United States is pulling out of a longstanding critical climate agreement. 

The agreement Trump is pulling the plug on is the overarching global treaty on climate change. It's called the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change or UNFCCC.  We will now become the only nation on the planet not part of this agreement. 

The agreement, ratified by Congress in 1992, doesn't force the U.S. to cut fossil fuels or reduce pollution. But it forms the basis and sets up the process for climate agreements like the Kyoto Protocol in 1995 and the Paris Agreement in 2015. Both the 1995 and 2015 accords are considered two monumental moments of global cooperation in the fight against climate change, as CNN notes. 

Trump has already started the process of pulling the United States out of Paris Agreement. The process finishes up this month, which leaves the U.S., Iran, Libya and Yemen as the only countries not committed to the Paris accord.  

 The U.S was the first industrialized nation to join the UNFCCC treaty and it will be the only nation ever to leave it. So it's another sign of how far we've fallen under Trump, as if we need more evidence.

The UNFCCC was one of 66 organizations the U.S. is abandoning, as the administration announced Wednesday. 

"Many of these bodies promote radical climate policies, global governance, and ideological programs that conflict with U.S. sovereignty and economic strength," said a statement from the White House.

Which is rich, since we've been stomping all over other nations' sovereignty lately. 

Trump and his minions are part of a small and ever-shrinking group of holdouts who still think climate change isn't happening, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. The years 2023 or 2024 were the world's hottest on record. As of this writing, the number crunchers were still trying to figure out if 2025 was the world's second or third hottest year on record. 

Pretty much everybody outside the MAGA sphere thinks pulling out of the UNFCCC is an incredibly dumb idea. 

Politico is among the many news organizations giving us some examples:

"Of all the wreckage Donald Trump is leaving in his wake, this one could be among the most consequential and damaging, particularly for future generations," said John Podesta, the climate policy coordinator for Presidents Obama and Biden.

World Resources Institute U.S. Director David Widawsky said withdrawal from UNFCCC is "a strategic blunder that gives away American advantages for nothing in return."

Other critics point out that the United States will now miss out on billions or even trillions of dollars in clean energy investments as the world moves away from fossil fuel consumption. Whether Trump likes it or not.

Like pretty much everything Trump does, we don't even know if withdrawing from UNFCCC is legal. The Senate ratified it, so we don't know from a legal standpoint if Trump can unilaterally pull the plug by himself. 

But since we have a MAGA-majority Congress and a MAGA-majority Supreme Court, both of which have given up their authority to Trump, it doesn't really matter.  We used to be a nation of laws. Now, apparently,  the law is just what Trump says it is. 

If sanity ever returns, getting back into the UNFCCC would also be complicated. So would rejoining other pacts, like the Paris Agreement.  (The Paris agreement is the one that pledges to keep global warming to within 1.5 degrees Celsius of pre-Industrial levels. It's getting more and more doubtful that goal can be accomplished, so now the goal seems to be shifting to 2 degrees).

As Politico tells us:

"Some legal experts say the Senate's consent does not operate in perpetuity after the U.S. leaves a treaty. Others argue that if a president can unilaterally leave a treaty, a future could rejoin it without a new vote.

Whatever happens, Trump is once again diminishing the nation's strength, influence and leadership, even as he somehow thinks he's increasing it. 

Trump is sort of the mascot of the Dunning-Kruger effect, part of which suggests that stupid people think they know a lot more about subjects than they do.  To Trump, as his narcissistic personality disorder rages out of control, thinks he alone is smarter than all of the climate experts out there. 

Plus he wants to keep his fossil fuel oligarch buddies happy, so there's that.  

Trump Marches On With His Goal To Make World Hotter, More Polluted, Less Safe

Energy Secretary Chris Wright seems to understand coal,
but doesn't appear to know what batteries are. He's demanding
to coal plants in Indiana stay open because he figures
solar and wind energy doesn't work because sometimes
the weather is cloudy and calm. Sigh. 

Donald Trump has been in the headlines lately for his attack on Venezuela, his threats to other nations and his long held wish to earn a Nobel Peace Prize by (checks notes) bombing, attacking and threatening other nations. 

But Trump is no one-trick pony, no siree! He's got to continue his mission to worsen climate change and make the environment less safe for both humans and wildlife. 

We've got yet another example, as if we needed it. Let's go to Indiana to find out more:  

E&E News by Politico reports:

"The Department of Energy ordered two Indiana coal plants Tuesday to postpone retirement and continue operating, expanding President Donald Trump's campaign to aid fossil fuels."

DOE had previously ordered two other coal plants to stay open. The new orders to keep the Indiana plants operating came less than a month before they were to close down permanently.  Energy Secretary Chris Wright said data center construction will create the need for more capacity. 

The orders to keep the plants open technically expire March 23, but you can bet a cloud of ozone air pollution that the Trumpsters will insist the plants stay open way past then. 

Then, as Wright often does, he either demonstrates extreme stupidity or he's such a cult follower of Donald Trump that he'll say things like this:

"Keeping these coal plants online has the potential to save lives and is just common sense. Americans deserve reliable power regardless of whether the winds is blowing or the sun is shining during extreme weather conditions."

Wright still hasn't heard of batteries? A little alarming, considering he's the Energy Secretary.  

Wright's critics, and there are a lot of 'em, say that keeping the tottering old coal plants running would actually drive up electricity prices while doing nothing to increase reliability. Environmentalists and consumer advocates point to a Michigan coal plant that was previously ordered to stay open by the Trump administration.

The big old coals plant in Michigan has cost ratepayers $80 million. I wonder how much a few wind turbines or solar panels would cost in comparison

In this current mess, the 800-megawatt Schahfer plant in Indiana was set to close Northern Indiana Public Service  Co (NIPSCO) was planning on getting out of the coal generation altogether and replace them with solar and gas facilities. 

The utility was planning to install 2,600 megawatts of gas generation at the site of Schahfer to serve new Amazon data centers. 

Which sounds more efficient and able to keep up with data center demands than an old coal plant. So I'm not sure why the Trump gang is so wedded to coal here. NIPSCO hasn't really addressed how the "you must burn coal' directive will affect their ability to supply electricity to the data centers.

NIPSCO did say that it is essential stuck. 

"Compliance with this directive is mandatory. We are carefully reviewing the details of this order to assess its impact on our employees, customers and company to ensure compliance," the utility said in a statement. "While this development alters the timeline for decommissioning this station, our long-term plan to transition to a more sustainable energy future remains unchanged."

What has changed is any attempt to go toward a more sustainable future has to wait until Trump and his minions disappear and are replaced by a government that actually follows both the law and logic. 

In the meantime, air pollution will increase or at the very best not get worse. And once again, Trump will contribute to one of the few things he's good at: creating more intense climate change.  I don't know what's worse. The hot air out of his mouth or the hot air created by his quote, unquote policies. 

Trump Administration Screws Hurricane Helene Victims Again

FEMA is dragging its feet in approving buyouts
for North Carolina homeowners whose property was
wrecked by Hurricane Helene 15 months ago. 

A popular Federal Emergency Management Agency feature is the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program. People whose homes were wrecked in disasters and are at risk of being hit again after repairs can apply for a buyout. 

Qualfied applicants under the voluntary program can get the pre-storm value of their home. Then they can take the money and move somewhere that's less disaster prone. 

The damaged home is torn down, and the site would never be developed again. The community benefits because they won't have to deal with that property in the next disaster, since there would be no house there.  

More than 800 Hurricane Helene victims in western North Carolina applied for buyouts, some of them as long ago as this past February. North Carolina officials, having vetted the applications, sent nearly 600 of those to Washington for processing. More will likely get approved in North Carolina.

But so far, the only thing FEMA has heard in response is crickets. FEMA has not so much as approved one of the buyout applications.  

Reports the Washington Post:

"So far...not a single approval has come through. North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein has called the paralysis 'absolutely unacceptable,' and has pushed for answers. Earlier this month, he wrote to FEMA's acting administrator, detailing the startling number of applications that 'remain without a final decision.'"

By the time the Washington Post published the story more than a week ago, nobody from FEMA responded to requests for comment. 

However, once the story was published, the agency sent a short statement, saying it "remains committed" to North Carolina Helene recovery. The FEMA statement said many applicants had not been approved yet "because they do not comply with federal regulations." 

That's news to William Ray, the director of North Carolina Emergency Management, as NPR reports. "we do not have anything in hand that says that officially things are ineligible. We are not able to get a good answers from FEMA as to why they are not moving forward."

Join the club, William.  

Maybe the problem is Homeland Security Director Kristi "Ice Barbie" Noem, whose department has authority over FEMA.  She has a rule in which she personally approve every expenditure over $100,000.

My accusation is all conjecture and sarcasm on my part, but it wouldn't surprise me if Ice Barbie is gumming up the works with FEMA assistance because she's so busy kicking non-whites out of the country and cosplaying some sort of weird ICE assassin or something.  

 In the best circumstances, these buyouts take awhile to arrange. A 2019 study found that it takes a median of roughly five years to complete a buyout from start to finish. However, FEMA says it usually takes two years to complete. 

However, the Trump administration has deeply cut staffing at FEMA this year, so who's left to manage the buyout process. Plus, the very existence of FEMA is in question, as its future is being debated both Trump Powers That Be. 

Which leads us to another broken Trump promise. He had said that he would "slash through every bureaucratic barrier" and said "every single inch of every property will be fully rebuilt, greater and more beautiful that it was before."

So far. Trump's administration hasn't even been able to tear down damaged properties, never mind build everything back. North Carolina is still a mess, 15 months after the hurricane. 

I'll let WaPol handle this:

"The reality is that local governments continue to wait for large sums in federal reimbursements for debris cleanup and other projects. Roads still need repairs. Renters and homeowners remain displaced."

Click on this link to read the entire, very worthwhile WaPo article. 

     

Trump Administration's Obnoxiousness With Greenland Is Tacit Acknowledgment Of Climate Change

The United States is again making dumb noises about
annexing Greenland, diplomacy and legality be
damned. While the Trump administration denies
climate change exists, this whole mess
is largely about climate change. 

Greenland is back in the news again, as the Trump Administration is ramping up its efforts to take control of the big Arctic ice heap.  It's a move that practically nobody else wants other that Donald Trump and his not-so-merry band of MAGA cultists. 

One irony is that Donald Trump denies the existence of climate change, yet that very real warming of the planet is a big part of what's behind all this. 

To back up here, Trump last week appointed Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry as his envoy to Greenland. Landry said he would travel to Greenland to convince people living there to become part of the United States. 

Good luck with that. 

Greenland is a self-governing Danish territory. Officials in Greenland, Denmark and the European Union unanimously condemned Trump effort to annex Greenland.  A big majority of Greenlanders want increased independence from Denmark, but they really, really don't want to become part of the U.S.

Somebody from MAGA always says the quiet part out loud, and the ever-reliable Fox host Brian Kilmeade gave us this:

"Greenland has been ignored by Denmark for decades. Now they're not, because we have shown interest. They have about 60,000 people there and we have a huge military base. Look, we are going to need their natural resources to mine them - you'll (Denmark) be able to get some of that. But in the meantime, we have to expand our base there and access to the waterways, because the Arctic is melting and we need access there. 

Russia and China is (sic) trying to dominate. Plus, what are we in, the era of the Viking? What is Denmark doing in our backyard?"

Phew! There's a lot to unpack there. Our "need" for natural resources, as if we could just go in and take them.  Sure, Donald Trump said we need Greenland for security, not minerals. But it's about the minerals as much as it is about security. Especially in the sense of  how much money the grifters associated with Trump can make from exploiting Greenland.  

Kilmeade seems to think it's horrible that puny little Greenland wants to control its own future and puny little Denmark should have the gaul to be in control of Denmark.

Greenland is in our backyard, since it's hooked on to North America. Trump is like the homeowner who sees a ball accidentally thrown into his yard by neighborhood kids. He's the type that would keep the ball instead of throwing it back over to the kids. 

CLIMATE CONNECTION

But since this is a climate and weather blog, there's one piece in Kilmeade's screed that I want to focus on. It's where he said "the Arctic is melting."

I thought all the MAGA types deny human-caused climate change. They say it's a hoax. So why is the Arctic melting? It's true that Greenland is pretty steadily losing some of its massive ice cap to a warming world. 

Maybe Kilmeade will sputter that the climate changes "naturally," but how do you explain such a massive melt that developed over decades, not centuries like most of Earth's past episodes of natural warming and cooling?

Ultimately Trump's one-sided crush on Greenland is about the climate change that he publicly denies exists. 

As Al Jazeera tells us:

"Climate change and a rapidly melting ice sheet are the main reasons the Arctic has become a geopolitical hotspot

The Arctic is heating at a rate four times faster than the global average, increasing its accessibility for maritime trade routes and resource exploration - including by non-arctic countries as well as those with an Arctic presence. 

China has deployed vessels capable of serving both military surveillance and research functions in the region. The purposes are to collect data and secure access to resources and shipping lanes, which are emerging as a result of melting ice."

In addition, Russia is deploying missile systems and weapons testing in the Arctic, and has grown its naval presence near the top of the world. Canada is planning to shore up its military and diplomatic presence in the Arctic because of those Chinese and Russian moves in and near Greenland. 

So the security risk is real, but as usual, Trump's bluster, lies and utter untrustworthiness is botching it. 

Russia and Chinese military and espionage geeks are undoubtedly loving all of this.

What probably would have made a lot more sense was to light a fire under the European Union over the Arctic security threats, then negotiate some sort of alliance involving Denmark, the U.S. and other European nations as a counterweight to Russian and Chinese threats in Greenland and elsewhere in the Arctic.  

But nope! Trump just has to be a clownish bully to appease his own fragile ego and the expense of the rest of the world. 

For years we've been told that a warming planet would make political, social and military conflicts more likely. It's too bad Trump is working os hard in aiding and abetting the "hoax' climate change to make all that happen sooner and more dangerously than most of us thought.   

A Follow-Up To Donald Trump's War On Colorado: Now Denying Disaster Aid

The NCAR building in Boulder, Colorado. There's been
more fallout related to this, including Donald Trump
denying disaster relief from Colorado, and a 
looming brain drain from the United States. 

You might remember my post a few days ago, in which the Trump regime is breaking up an important and renowned climate and weather research center in Colorado. 

The Trumpsters said they plan to break up the National Center For Atmospheric Research or NCAR which conducts a wide array of meteorological and climate research. 

The Trump people said they want to break up the science center because they are guilty of "climate alarmism," whatever that is 

The timing of the announcement was interesting, to say the least. 

Former Mesa County, Colorado Clerk Tina Peters is still cooling her heels in state prison, having been found guilty in a state court for giving Trump supporters unauthorized access to a voting machine after the 2020 election. 

Trump earlier this month tried to pardon Peters, but he can't do that because she's convicted on state charges. Colorado refuses to touch Peters' nine-year prison sentence. So, it appears Trump might be exacting revenge on Colorado for this unforgivable slight - insert major eye roll here).

Well, there's even more signs of possible revenge by the Trump folks. President Trump has rejected requested disaster declarations for two wildfires and a serious flood earlier this year in Colorado. 

The denials got strong responses from Colorado's governor and the state's congressional delegation. 

"President Trump's decision to deny Colorado's request for critical federal assistance is unacceptable," said Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colorado. "Trump continues to use Coloradans for political games; it is malicious and obscene. A disaster is a disaster, regardless of what state in the country in took place."

Gov. Jared Polis said: "Coloradans impacted by the Elk and Lee fires and the flooding in southwestern Colorado deserve better than the political games President Trump is playing."

Colorado will appeal Trump's decision.  

Trump's denial of disaster assistance echoes what he's done in other blue states where he is especially unpopular. In October, Trump denied federal assistance for flooding in Illinois, Maryland and Vermont, all blue states. But Trump did approve disaster aid in red states like Alaska, Nebraska and North Dakota. 

In their joint statement today, Colorado's Polis, Bennet and Sen. John Hickenlooper hinted that they could play Trump's game, too. 

The three pointed to a recent study that showed that for every $1 Coloradans pay in federal taxes, the state only receives $0.90 in federal investments.  

Meanwhile, the potential breakup o NCAR could well contribute to a brain drain from the U.S. brought on by Trump's virulently anti-science agenda. 

Canadian climate scientists say dismantling NCAR would not only harm climate science worldwide, it would also cause a loss of expertise on emergency responses, and innovations in weather forecasting.

But as CTVnews.ca reports, Trump's actions could be an opportunity for Canada and Europe. American scientists have already left the U.S to work elsewhere. Canada has already announced funding to attract top talent to the nation, including U.S. researchers. 

"This is an opportunity for Canada to really establish itself as a leader," said Anna Soer, co-president of the Environmental Studies Association of Canada.  

Trump Administration Breaking Up Renowned Climate Center; Retribution Against Colorado Governor Suspected

The National Center for Atmospheric Research in
Boulder, Colorado. The Trump administration
wants to break it up saying the scientists there
are "climate alarmists" with no evidence to back
that up. It appears the announcement might
be related to Colorado refusing to release
from jail a 2020 election conspiracy theorist.

One of the world's leading climate research centers, in Boulder, Colorado, is targeted for closing because Donald Trump has his head in the sand. 

And also probably because he's still butthurt that Colorado won't release a 2020 election conspiracy theorist from jail.

At issue is the National Center For Atmospheric Research, or NCAR. It was founded in 1960 and has resources like supercomputers, data sets and high-tech research planes that conduct meteorological and climate research. It's also an educational center for future scientists. 

As you'd expect, scientists are almost uniformly outraged by the plan to dismantle NCAR. 

Katharine Hayhoe, a Texas Tech University professor and chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy, called the center "quite literally our global mothership," and said "Dismantling NCAR is like taking a sledgehammer to the keystone holding up our scientific understanding of the planet."

Hayhoe also said on her post on the social media platform X: 

"(NCAR) supports the scientists who fly into hurricanes, the meteorologists who developed new radar technology, the physicists who envision and code new weather models and yes, the largest community climate model in the world" 

Casper Amman, a former research scientist at NCAR, told the Washington Post the center plays a unique role by bringing together soiled specialists to collaborate on some of the biggest climate and weather questions of our time. 

"Without NCAR, a lot could not happen....A lot of research at U.S. Universities would immediately get hampered, industry would lose access to reliable base data."

Weather and climate services around the world use NCAR modeling and forecasting tools. It also supplies real time data to people dealing with events like big wildfires and floods. 

Of course, the Trump camp has a completely different view about their plans to dismantle NCAR.

 Here's a Trump minion on X:

"The National Science Foundation will be breaking up the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado......This facility is one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country."

One of Trump's favorite whines is climate change. Every chance he gets, he says climate change is a hoax and a con job, his words. He apparently thinks that he's smarter than the vast majority of scientists who tell us climate change is real. Those scientists are growing increasingly alarmed about that warming. 

 USA Today, which first reported this development, reported:

"The administration plans to identify and eliminate what it calls 'green new scam research activities' during an upcoming review of the center, according to the White House while 'vital functions' such as weather modeling and supercomputing will be moved to another entity or location. 

Efforts to dissolve the National Center for Atmospheric Research will begin immediately, the official said, with the plan being to fully close the center's Mesa Laboratory in Boulder."

NCAR's staff consists of 830 employees who are part of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, a nonprofit consortium of more than 130 colleges and universities. Those universities focus on earth system sciences. We don't yet know how many jobs or programs this dismantling would affect.

THE REAL REASON

There's almost certainly more to all this than just Trump's aversion to any true information about climate change. Trump's focus seems to be suddenly all about Colorado 

 As USA Today reports:

"The move to break up the National Center for Atmospheric Research comes after the Trump administration earlier in the day announced the cancellation of $109 million environmentally focused transportation grants in Colorado that sought to boost electric vehicles, rail improvement and research into hydrogen and natural gas-powered trains."

Amid these announcements, and on the same day the NCAR breakup was announced, Trump called Polis "weak and pathetic" and "incompetent" because he refused to release former Colorado County Clerk Tina Peters from prison.

And there it is: Revenge. 

Peters was once the top election official in Mesa County. She's part of the election 2020 conspiracy gang, convinced the election that year was "stolen" by the Joe Biden campaign. There's no evidence that ever happened. 

Eventually, in 2024,  a Colorado jury convicted Peters of giving Trump supporters unauthorized access to a voting machine after the 2020 election. She's serving a nine-year sentence on those state charges. 

Recently, Trump said he is pardoning Peters. There's one teeny, tiny problem with that. The president can only pardon people who were convicted on federal charges and are in federal prisons.

Peters was convicted on charges brought by the State of Colorado and is in a state prison. 

"Tina Peters was convicted guy a jury of her peers, prosecuted by a Republican District Attorney and found guilty of violating Colorado state laws, including criminal impersonation. No President has jurisdiction over state law more the power to parse a person for state convictions," said Colorado Gov. Jared Polis. 

How dare Polis stand up to Glorious Leader Trump!  So the Trump people brought out their usual mob boss schtick. "Nice state ya got there. Would be a shame to see anything happen to it."

Here's the quote to prove it:

"'Maybe if Colorado had a governor who actually wanted to work with President Trump his constituent would be better served,' a senior White House official told NOTUS in an email on Wednesday."

NOTUS.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan digital news outlet.

The Washington Post said an unnamed White House official declined to say how Polis is not cooperating with the administration, but denied the move was in response to Polis and his team not releasing Peters from prison.

Sure, Jan. 

Colorado is already fighting back 

According to Politico,  the U.S. Senate adjourned for the holidays this past week without passing a government funding package that would prevent a partial government shutdown starting January 30. 

One big part of the holdup are Democratic Colorado Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, who said they would hold up the spending package because of the plan to dismantle NCAR.  

Trump appears to be in a weaker position politically than he was earlier this year. Stay tuned at this bat channel to see whether the plan to end NCAR really happens.

We should all hope not. 

EPA Scrubs Mention Of Human Caused Climate Change From Its Website

The EPA in recent weeks has scrubbed their websites 
of pretty much any information that climate change
is caused by humans. It's denial, and a way to 
help the fossil fuel industry. 

Once again, the Trump administration has wildly concluded that eliminating mention of human-caused climate change will somehow "prove" that it doesn't exist. 

Never mind that anybody with half a brain understands that by far the main driving force behind our warming world is us humans. 

The latest censorship and anti-science move is on an EPA website, on the page that explains the causes of climate change. Though it no longer accurately does that. 

Oh, on this page, climate can change, alright, the EPA admits. But whoever revised it is Mr. or Ms. Excuse coming up with all kinds of reasons the climate changes. Like these:

The Earth's orbit and rotation can change.

There's variations if solar activity.  

The Earth's reflectivity changes.

Volcanoes can blow up and the stuff they belch into the atmosphere changes the climate

There might be natural changes in carbon dioxide concentrations. 

They're so, so, close on that last one. As everybody except the Keystone Kops of the Trump administration know, humans are increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide, and that's making the world warm up. 

There's even a chart, right there, under their reasons for climate change list, that shows atmospheric carbon dioxide rocketing upward like mad since the Industrial Revolution started.   

On the social media site Bluesky, climatologist Daniel Swain wrote how he was able to compare the EPA web site that was up on October 8 with the current iteration. 

Human-caused warming was removed from the causes of climate change page that I described above. Swain also noted that there used to be "indicators of climate change" pages on the EPA website that have been scrubbed entirely. "The pages no longer exist; there are numerous dead links on the current/live EPA site, and no indications they have been moved to a new URL" Swain said. 

Other pages that describe how climate change can affect children's health and low income populations are also now gone, as the Washington Post notes. 

Not only is climate information deleted from the EPA sites, the web pages out and out lie. Earlier versions of the web site say the buildup of greenhouse gases have resulted in "dangerous effects" to humans and the ecosystem. Now, the pages say the greenhouse effect "is natural and necessary to support life."

Sure. unless you let the greenhouse effect spiral out of control via all us humans belching fossil fuel emissions. 

 Swain, wearing his Captain Obvious hat, had this to say:

"...it is still profoundly alarming that the primary regulatory body for environmental protection and pollution control in this country is not actively ignoring scientific evidence. This will end poorly."

The response at the EPA of these questions raised by Swain, the Washington Post and others is typically juvenile and nonsensical of the Trump administration. 

Hold your nose as you read this missive from EPA press secretary Brigit Hirsch. :

"Unlike the previous administration, the Trump EPA is focused on protecting human health and the environment while Powering the Great American Comeback, not left-wing political agendas.... As such. this agency no longer takes marching orders from the climate cult."

It's always a projection from Trump and MAGA, isn't it?  Our minion Brigit describes solid science as a cult. Meanwhile, MAGA seems to be like the ultimate cult.  

The recent revisions on the EPA site might well be an effort to tee up a move to get rid of something called the endangerment finding. 

That's a legal and scientific foundation for standards and rules put in place back in 2009 that serves as a legal basis for regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. 

That's because Trump, and by extension EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, want to gift the oil and gas industry with more ways to make money atop their already record profits. 

The EPA, at Trump's behest. also wants to roll back controls enacted in 1990 that limited sulfur dioxide pollution. Sulfur dioxide in the air causes smog and acid rain. 

By the way, I did see little "oopsie" they left in at the top of their "climate change causes' page:

"Natural processes are always influencing the earth's climate and can explain climate changes prior to the Industrial Revolution of the 1700s. However, recent climate changes cannot be explained by natural causes alone."

Looks like one of the climate deniers over the EPA didn't proofread as much as Trump might have hoped.