The EPA has announced its final* ruling on the CO2 Endangerment Finding.
*not even close to final.
Notably, they have completely abandoned any reliance on the DOE’s CWG report.
The EPA is not relying on new findings by the Administrator with respect to global climate change concerns under CAA section 202(a)(1) as a basis for the rescission or repeals and is not finalizing the alternative basis set out in section IV.B of the preamble to the proposed rule.
…
With respect to commenters’ precautionary arguments, the EPA is not finalizing the proposed alternative basis for rescission and repeal based on a new climate science finding by the Administrator.
…
Although the Administrator continues to harbor concerns regarding the scientific determinations underlying the Endangerment Finding, the EPA has decided not to finalize this scientific alternative rationale at this time.
…
For similar reasons, and in light of concerns raised by some commenters about the draft report authored by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Climate Working Group (CWG), the EPA is not relying on the May 27, 2025 CWG draft report entitled “Impact of Carbon Dioxide Emissions on the U.S. Climate” or the July 23, 2025 CWG report entitled “A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate” for any aspect of this final action.
This is good news, since it leaves them with only a legal argument that for some reason the law is different now than it was when Mass. v. EPA was decided in 2007. That ruling forced the EPA to conduct the Endangerment finding in the first place, and still stands as legal precedent. The EPA argument now is that recent rulings (Loper-Bright and W.V.) from the Supreme Court mean that the original ruling can no longer be relied on. However, only the Supreme Court really has the power to overturn previous SC rulings and so the next set of lawsuits (in D.C. District Court) will likely find for the plaintiffs and possibly enjoin this ‘final’ rule. If this then goes to appeal to the SC, they would have to agree to hear it, and then folks would basically have to re-litigate the whole thing. Only lawyers are likely to gain from this.
Science will still play a role in this since a) the fact that CO2 and the other five greenhouse gases (the Kyoto gases – CH4, N2O, CFCs, etc.) do endanger public health and welfare is now unchallenged, and b) EPA is now relying on a de minimus argument (which will likely also be challenged) about the impact of regulations on motor vehicles (which isn’t really a valid part of the endangerment finding) that comes from climate modeling. The CWG folks will likely not play any further role in any of this.
The ruling is long and legalistic, and so interested parties will need to take some time to digest what it says and what to do. As they say on Broadway, this one will run and run…
How can an educated layman contribute to the effort to overturn Trump’s EPA nonsense?
May be by sending a clear message at the mid-term elections?
Maybe, if Trump doesn’t issue an executive order and Pam Bondi’s Justice Department doesn’t harass or blackmail the states.
As Trump did in 2020 he’s intentionally raising doubts now in order to contest close Congressional elections. This time he has an entire Administration of willing foot soldiers and Congressional Republicans to cause chaos.
You could support the public health NGO’s and the environmental NGO’s that plan to bring the lawsuit challenging the nonsense. As of today some of the public health ones are the American Lung Association, the Alliance for Nurses for Healthy Environments, and Physicians for Social Responsibility> Some of the environmental ones are the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resource Defense Council, the Sierra Club, and Earthjustice. It’s early and which ones will file a suit and the roles they will play are up in the air.
Litigation is expensive and as a businessman the trump routinely dragged out lawsuits to financially exhaust his opponents and force they to settle or quit. There is every reason to think that the EPA will pursue this strategy. Donations could help the NGO’s with this. I’m on the mailing list for several environmental NGO’s and they are asking for donations for this lawsuit.
It has never been demonstrated that anthropogenic CO2 has any effect on temperatures.
EE,
That’s a pretty broad statement. Have you done a peer reviewed survey and assessment that backs that up?
So CO2 levels have no effect on temperatures? Is that what you are saying? Or is it only anthropogenic CO2 levels …
This is simply and demonstrably not true. It’s not worth going back over the vast information on this point.
This belongs in the bore hole or crank shaft.
I coild recomend reading i.e “A first course in atmosperic radiation” by Grant W Petty. It provides a basic insight in why CO2 and other gasses absorb EMR of certain frequencies and the consequences thereoff.
You could find it at ebay for ~$30.
I coild recomend reading i.e “A first course in atmosperic radiation” by Grant W Petty. It provides a basic insight in why CO2 and other gasses absorb EMR of certain frequencies and the consequences thereoff.
You could find it at ebay for ~$30.
Do you mean the temperatures inside your home? Please, turn off the air conditioning?
To re-use a quote from 1650, made in an entirely different context.
“I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.”
The money quote from Cromwell’s speech is
“ Go get you gone, make a Way or more honest men!”
You are wrong.
1) The radiative properties of the CO2 molecule – as for any other gas molecule – are exactly the same independent of the chemical processes which produced the molecule.
2) “In order to continuously measure the extent of the greenhouse effect, infrared measurement devices, so-called pyrgeometers, are used. The long-term reliability of these measurements has now been significantly improved. This has been made possible by calibrating the pygreometers with a new reference device developed by PTB, which is described in the current issue of the scientific journal Metrologia.
The measure for the greenhouse effect is the atmospheric longwave downward radiation, which is the radiation that is reflected from the “greenhouse roof” back to Earth. For years, it has been continuously measured using pyrgeometers located on Earth. These infrared measurement devices cover a broad spectral band, i.e., they capture many wavelengths. Also, they cover a very wide angle so that they can monitor almost the entire hemisphere of the sky. To ensure the informative value and the comparability of the measurement data over the long term, pyrgeometers need to be regularly calibrated, i.e., metrologically traced to standards.” https://nachrichten.idw-online.de/2023/03/22/measuring-the-greenhouse-effect-accurately .
3) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kwtt51gvaJQ .
4) “Radiative forcing – measured at Earth’s surface – corroborate the increasing greenhouse effect”, Philipona et al. 2004 – https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2003GL018765 .
Etc.
So you’re contending that anthropogenic CO2 runs around with a little t-shirt identifying it as “not climate active”?
Because it’s definitely been demonstrated that CO2 has an effect on temperatures.
Yes it has.
https://bartonlevenson.com/CO2%20Evidence.html
It has never been demonstrated that the explosion of a nuclear device over Manhattan would do damage to the cityscape. Should we try it out, just to be certain?
Seriously, read the science and there is no doubt!
in Re to Edmund Esterbauer, 13 Feb 2026 at 6:42 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2026/02/epas-final-ruling-on-co2/#comment-845103
Sir,
As far as I know, it is really well-proven that CO2 in the atmosphere exhibits the greenhouse effect – absorbs the longwave infrared radiation from Earth surface and thus effectively increases thermal insulation effect of the atmosphere.
Some direct evidence for this effect has been recently summarized by b fagan on 8 Feb 2026 at 5:51 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2026/02/koonins-continuing-calumnies/#comment-844865
It is further well-proven that the rise of the atmospheric CO2 concentration during the industrial era has an anthropogenic origin. The available evidence has been recently discussed in another thread of this blog as well:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2026/01/2025-updates/#comment-844844
Under these circumstances, I think that if you wish to express your doubts about effect of anthropogenic CO2 emissions “on temperatures” (in my understanding, on global mean surface temperature), it would have been fair to propose a physical mechanism that could cancel the proven warming effect of the rising CO2 concentration and thus leave a space for another, yet unidentified cause for the observed global warming.
In other words, if you perhaps speculate about an alternative cause for the observed global warming (although you have not proposed any), it is not enough. You should be able, in parallel, to explain also why the well-proven accumulation of anthropogenic CO2 emissions in the atmosphere has NOT contributed to the observed global warming.
Do you have any idea in this direction?
Best regards
Tomáš
Edmund says: “It has never been demonstrated that anthropogenic CO2 has any effect on temperatures”
Yawn. Whack-a-mole gets boring. But hey, please take a moment to document how CO2 behaves differently in the world if it is “anthropogenic” because a molecule is a molecule is a molecule and the carbon isotopes tell the story of our fossil carbon habits. It would be really cool if you could explain how nature detects that it’s a “people molecule” and operates on it differently. I’m picturing Maxwell’s demons, but with little -anthropogenic- detectors instead of energy detection. Then I guess the stuff that was ours somehow magically doesn’t cause unwelcome effects?
But here again the demonstrations you say never happened. I’d put these in the Koonin piece, too.
Two observational studies which document the increase in warming tied to increases in CO2 and from methane, directly measured in work spanning eleven years for the CO2 and ten years for the methane..
CO2 in a 2015 article from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory:
“First Direct Observation of Carbon Dioxide’s Increasing Greenhouse Effect at the Earth’s Surface”
“They found that CO2 was responsible for a significant uptick in radiative forcing at both locations, about two-tenths of a Watt per square meter per decade. They linked this trend to the 22 parts-per-million increase in atmospheric CO2 between 2000 and 2010. Much of this CO2 is from the burning of fossil fuels, according to a modeling system that tracks CO2 sources around the world.
“We see, for the first time in the field, the amplification of the greenhouse effect because there’s more CO2 in the atmosphere to absorb what the Earth emits in response to incoming solar radiation,” says Daniel Feldman, a scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Earth Sciences Division and lead author of the Nature paper.
“Numerous studies show rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations, but our study provides the critical link between those concentrations and the addition of energy to the system, or the greenhouse effect,” Feldman adds.”
https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2015/02/25/co2-greenhouse-effect-increase/
A 2018 article on methane, also from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory:
“First Direct Observations of Methane’s Increasing Greenhouse Effect at the Earth’s Surface”
“Scientists have directly measured the increasing greenhouse effect of methane at the Earth’s surface for the first time. A research team from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) tracked a rise in the warming effect of methane — one of the most important greenhouse gases for the Earth’s atmosphere — over a 10-year period at a DOE field observation site in northern Oklahoma.
These findings were published online April 2 in the journal Nature Geoscience in an article entitled “Observationally derived rise in methane surface forcing mediated by water vapour trends.” The paper indicates that the greenhouse effect from methane tracked the global pause in methane concentrations in the early 2000s and began to rise at the same time that the concentrations began to rise in 2007.
“We have long suspected from laboratory measurements, theory, and models that methane is an important greenhouse gas,” said Berkeley Lab Research Scientist Dan Feldman, the study’s lead author. “Our work directly measures how increasing concentrations of methane are leading to an increasing greenhouse effect in the Earth’s atmosphere.””
https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2018/04/02/methane-greenhouse-effect/
The CO2 and the methane in the atmosphere, between us and space, are acting the same way they did before mammals even evolved – a change in concentrations generates a change in climate conditions. Nature isn’t giving us a special “no harmful effects” break – that’s the magical thinking that EPA decided is too risky to try depending on.
Ladbury’s comment on Brandolini’s law: Brandolini was WAAAAAY too optimistic.
One demonstrable moron makes an obviously false and stupid statement sthat probably even he doesn’t believe consisting of a single line. In response, people of good will expend over 120 lines patiently explaining to said imbecile why he is wrong.
The human species doesn’t deserve to survive.
I’m with you, Ray. If this had been framed as a sincere question, someone really seeking to understand, fine. But as a declarative statement standing by itself, it doesn’t belong here. Like Susan, i’d send it to the Bore Hole.
Maybe/probably said Edmund Esterbauer is just a moron/provocateur etc. His sentence points in that direction. But I think it’s a bit too harsh to condemn and doom the whole human species because of the existence of morons like Trump, Musk, Thiel, Reagan, Sarah Palin, Putin, Netanyahu, Wernher von Braun, Stalin, Mao, Goebbels, Herbert Spencer etc. etc. Surely there are far too many of these types around, they are far too dominant and the future of mankind thus seems dark indeed.
On the other hand one could also argue that the reason why the abolishing of the consumption of fossil fuels is so difficult to achieve is that nature here resembles an ecological trap for mankind: while making the energy density of fossil fuels so seemingly magically high (the chemical energy of just one litre of gasoline builds on nothing less than the solar energy absorbed by 23,5 tonnes of plant material more than one hundred million years ago, according to the excellent research published by Jeffrey S. Dukes in 2003 – “Burning buried sunshine – human consumption of ancient solar energy” ), nature here has presented humans with a *seemingly* low-hanging energy fruit which advantages in driving big machinery occur almost immidiatly, while at the same time making the use of this low-hanging fruit very dangerous in the longer run, but making it *all too easy for the lay man not to understand how dangerous this is, before it’s far too late*: because the disadvantages are hidden from plain sight, you neither can smell, see nor otherwise naturally detect the danger from CO2 etc. in ways that are easily understandable. Also the grave threat to the ozone layer stemming from the use of hydrofluorocarbons was only detected by accident but because these chemicals rather cheaply and easily could be substituted by other chemicals, it was rather easy to find a commonly agreed solution. This unfortunately isn’t the case with the fossil fuels: they *seem* cheap, because the huge costs will only occur in a for humans lifelong time-perspective of many tens of years after the fossil fuels were bought and burned. Thus these costs are invisible to the neoliberal/neoclassical way of economic thinking/”thinking” – (they are defined as “externalities”).
Therefore the fossil fuel industry find it very easy to “do a goebbels”, which is precisely what they are doing now, with first and foremost Trump, Putin, Musk, Thiel, bin Salman, Netanyahu etc. as their political proponents and propagandists (but this began with Reagan).
The only way around this is James Hansen’s proposal for a carbon fee and dividend: a political price on fossil fuels, socially equalizing by the equal redistribution among all citizens of the fee, while the fee must be determined by the climate scientists.
*Mankind has reached and crossed the limits to growth*, almost exactly as predicted in 1972 by Meadows et al.
The main political obstacle isn’t the trumpists, it’s the “lukewarmers” as Michael E. Mann calls them, it’s the Clintons, the Bidens, the Obamas, the EU etc., because they *pretend* and have for forty years *pretended to understand the climate science, while at the same time avoiding any kind of effective policy to reduce the fossil fuel consumption and hiding this behind purely symbolic, greenwashing policies. *The expansion of wind and solar energy etc. has been only a further expansion of the total energy consumption, it hasn’t been an *alternative* to fossil fuels*. This the renewables can only be, *if the price of fossil fuels are made far higher than the price of renewables, and that this is done in a socially acceptable way – otherwise Trump etc. will always win.*
So this is the real conondrum: why on earth are Sanders, Octavio-Cortez etc. against carbon fee and dividend? I think it’s because they still really don’t understand how dangerous the use of fossil fuels is. Most lefties I know, really understand far too little of physics, chemistry, critical economics etc.
KVJ, just very briefly Obama tried to legislate a cap and trade scheme and Clinton tried to legislate an energy tax. Both passed in congress but we’re defeated in the senate by republican opposition. Details easily googled. So they did at least try something meaningful.
Agree carbon fee and dividend is a good idea. Dont know why the Dems are against it although maybe they think it would have the same fate as those earlier attempts.
KVJ,
It’s not on me to “condemn” all human kind. I’m sure that Darwin’s ghost will get around to doing that soon enough. After all, 99% of all species that ever lived are now extinct, and based on what I am seeing, human’s ain’t scoring in the top 1%.
In nature if the vast majority of a species is unable to perceive and avoid a mortal threat, the species gets a Darwin award. The overwhelming majority of humans have shown themselves incapable of perceiving long-term threats like climate change, and such threats have proven to be rather common as it turns out. And as it turns out, such threats usually demand changes by a large proportion of humanity. We’ve gotten by so far because there are a few bright humans who come up with amazing technological innovations that circumvent the threat–the green revolution, for example. Eventually, though, if you rely on luck to survive, luck will run out.
So maybe climate change may not be the threat that takes out the human species, but if not, it’ll be the next one or the one after that. Humans just aren’t smart enough to survive long term. Our demise is ensured by Carlin’s Law: The average person is an idiot, and 50% are stupider than that.
Or are humans too smart to survive long term, meaning human intelligence has created all this incredible wealth and technology but has generated massive over confidence and feelings of invincibility as a result.
Although the wealth and technology is largely a result of millions of dumbarses specializing in being good cogs in the machine.
Seems to me what is really lacking is wisdom, not intelligence per se. Perhaps that’s what you meant. Definitions and all that.
Don’t be such an optimist, Ladbury. Something might go wrong.
n: Humans just aren’t smart enough to survive long term. Our demise is ensured by Carlin’s Law: The average person is an idiot, and 50% are stupider than that.
BPL: Well, technically, that would be the median rather than the average. :D I think the problem is not intelligence per se, but education–I’m much more strongly for public schools than I used to be, and I would like to see mandatory courses in civics, logic, and data analysis. Plus reformed government… I could go on all day. But I favor structural fixes, in general.
Smart, dumb–the evolutionary term is unfit. But the issue really is that human cognition is flawed in its ability to perceive reality–especially as concerns risks that are mortal but not imminent. It’s why people continue to smoke, to drink and drive. And the obverse, to over-react to spectacular threats that actually pose little risk.
The thing is that smart humans have developed tools for countering these tendencies–probabilistic reasoning and risk assessment, the scientific method… And the stupid portion of humanity (not the less intelligent, but those who use their intelligence to deceive themselves) have spent all their effort attacking these remedies with cries of “Debate me, Bro,” and generally lying through their teeth. If humans could correct their flawed perception using the methods developed specifically to do that, then they might actually have a lifetime measurable as more than a dark streak in the geologic record where a whole lot of fossil records terminate.
The thing is that we won’t, because ultimately there are more people who hate science than who love truth.
Ray Ladbury
“The thing is that smart humans have developed tools for countering these tendencies–”
Ray, even people who *are* scientists are just as likely to ignore things that are scientific in origin, if it suits their purpose or need. The existence of scientific (or logical or quantitative) reasoning isn’t in itself going to counter the “tendencies” of the human animal.
In a sense, you are engaging in the practice yourself here… it ain’t physics, but the various “behavioral” sciences tell us a lot about what’s going on. And I find that people just want to ignore very solid analysis of things like Authoritarian Psychology, or how our behaviors correlate with our close genetic counterparts in the natural world.
Is being righteously indignant how you feel about the metaphysical vagaries of modern physics? I’ve even seen that, now long after Einstein complaining about God’s crapshoot.
Zebra,
Actually, I think you are making my point for me–that human cognition and perception is inherently flawed. If we are smart, that means we just have more brainpower with which to fool ourselves–Freeman Dyson being a classic example. Correcting those errors and biases formed much of the original motivation for Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum–so the original motivation of what was to become the scientific method was correcting flawed human perception as much as reliable knowledge of the natural world.
And the original motivation of probability was overcoming the fallacy of “luck” in games of chance, all of which ultimately led to the discipline of probabilistic risk assessment and mitigation that we are ignoring so studiously when it comes to climate change.
Ultimately, my point is that we have developed lenses to correct our flawed vision of the world, and we–all of us–resist it as if it were poison.
Ray Ladbury, being very objective and Spock like can be a lonely existence as it means constantly criticizing the views of one’s own political tribe or other groups one belongs to. I suppose that’s why everyone hangs onto stupid beliefs. Its the fear of being an outcast or losing friends Its also avoiding the pain of having to confront one’s own errors. I try to be objective and unbiased but its hard at times. Yet we really do have to keep on trying.
Ray Ladbury,
Ray, thanks for acknowledging that you are guilty of the same thing you are complaining about in others.
But I was pointing out the error you make in suggesting that human survival depends on being “smart”. In fact, you seem to contradict yourself in what you said just now.
Have a look at what Radge Havers said on UV, his reference, and my response. The point is that the decision-making is orthogonal to any reality science (or logic or numbers) might predict. That’s not being stupid; that’s being humans… who are motivated by scientifically well-established phenomena.
This is like the common question: Why do they vote against their self-interest?
Well that’s a ridiculous question. Their vote is by definition an expression of their self-interest. They just don’t care, however precisely we can predict GMST. They care more about status and power. Science tells us that!
Zebra,
Again, I don’t think you are following–smart isn’t about whether one’s IQ is above room temperature. It’s about whether they use the tools available to benefit them. Vaccinations are tools to circumvent disease–or at least its worst consequences. The scientific method is a tool to avoid the pitfalls that are embedded in human perception and cognition.
Knowing this and actively fighting against use of those tools is dumb. And blind pursuit of status and power without counting the cost thereof is also dumb. Trump’s base have gained nothing in status or power despite sacrificing their interests. A perusal of Novum Organum might have helped them avoid this fate…well, if they could read.
So on a whim, I asked the Google AI thing, “Can you train humans not to be stupid?” And it spake, hedging thusly:
It went on with that, and then politely asked for specifics, so I threw in Trump. It got a little snippy about calling voters stupid, but it did go into greater depth saying that “research highlights several methods to train for more rational, evidence-based voting.” However, it didn’t discuss systemic options like ranked voting, or maybe the FCC shutting up the asshats at Fox “News.”
Given the situation we’re in and the urgency, I’d say the task is depressingly monumental. People just don’t tend to acknowledge and respond well to incremental threats until it’s too late.
I think I’ll go listen to All Along the Watchtower now, the Hendrix version, only way to hear the wind begin to howl.
Ray Ladbury,
Ray, are you serious?? I think you are in denial. Trump voters have gained enormous status and power in their understanding. (And yes, there are real-world effects on those outside their identity groupings.)
I do suggest you read a bit of the science about Authoritarian Psychology. If you disagree with the science, explain your reasons, but don’t just make assertions without substance.
This is very basic stuff. Well studied since the last time… you know, around 1933 or so?
Zebra, wasn’t it kind if obvious Ray Ladbury meant Trumps supporters hadn’t gained any “meaningful” status or power? They are just as poor and stupid as they ever were.
And try playing another tune. We all know some people lean towards authoritarianism. We dont have easy ways of changing that. You arent saying anything of great insight. or suggesting any novel solutions.
Zebra,
Since Trump took office:
The dollar has lost 15% of its value.
Prices have risen, further eroding purchasing power.
The US has become isolated, if not a laughing stock on the global stage.
Conservatives are so universally reviled in society that the inability of conservative men to get a date has become a meme.
The employment situation in the US has deteriorated substantially.
The only Trump supporters who have actually benefitted are the billionaire class.
Indeed, many MAGAts are now saying they regret their vote–to the point where if the election were held today, Kamala Harris would win.
But by all means, tell us how the Trumpistas are now rolling in dough.
Idea 1. on asking voters to ask themselves:
Are you better off than you were 4 years ago?
Okay, but also, and more importantly:
How do you want things/the country/the world to be 4 years from now?
40 years from now?
400 years from now?
Whatever, Zebra, whatever. I’m going to go talk to someone interesting now.
Zebra, I cannot say “Point taken,” because you would need the James Webb Telescope to see the point zooming over your head.
This is how we win!
“11 Minutes of Kat Absolutely Owning the Fox 32 Chicago Debate | Kat Abughazaleh For Illinois” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHKpVRCP_wI
https://katforillinois.com/issues/ , https://www.youtube.com/@katmabu
https://katforillinois.com/issues/climate-change/ :
PS
“Why Are Some Democrats Trying To Be Republicans?” – Kat Abughazaleh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5Ly4umLprM
“No, We Aren’t Losing Over Wokeness: Explaining Why Dems Can’t Move Right With CNN’s Jim Sciutto” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6pP2aMZEFc
She is Awesome!
p o 27,
Smart as a whip, Kat is definitely a different kind of candidate with a very different and very modern kind of campaign. Sometimes she’s funny, sometimes deadly serious, occasionally completely counterintuitive. Love the attack ad on herself, Kat Comics, and all the rest.
Well worth keeping an eye on. If she’s any indication, make way for Gen Z! Gives me some hope.
So I was bummed about Kat Abughazaleh not winning, but as she states in her election-night speech, her campaign still accomplished things: (C&P from transcript):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpTG3VgBGcE
More information, not specifically about the politics of climate change, but lessons may apply there… [emph. mine]
“The District AIPAC Couldn’t Conquer” – “One of the most Jewish districts in the country appears set to forcefully reject the group’s influence.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-district-aipac-couldnt-conquer_n_69b86b61e4b09a39145e45a2?origin=article-related-nonlife
(AFAIK she never tried to hide that she *used to* lean conservative.)
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/big-money-illinois-democratic-primaries_n_69ba1fdde4b0ee54705122d6?utm_campaign=msn-recirc :
[ interjection: I was convinced to stop supporting Platner by the video here: https://skepchick.org/2025/11/graham-platner-is-an-embarrassing-liar/ I agree with the general idea that people can change and become better, and certainly *I* would not have known the meaning of that tatoo, but… it seems just too much in this case. ]
[ Also I like McMorrow but she made a problematic argument about healthcare…]
PS I support Ranked-choice voting; I’ve liked the idea ever since I learned about it. One of the stupid arguments against it is that, if you don’t rank all the candidates (or at least all but 1), your ballot could be exhausted before the winner is chosen, so you don’t get your full say. **But that’s what we have now (in voting for only one candidate)!** Somehow there’s a concern that it’s not transparent or voters won’t trust it – ?
Anyway, at least Biss is considered to be progressive. (I’ll have to check out his climate & energy positions)
“The District AIPAC Couldn’t Conquer” : https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-district-aipac-couldnt-conquer_n_69b86b61e4b09a39145e45a2?origin=article-related-nonlife
Clarification: I missed a point in that quote; in my mind, I connected the wealth to the time in the following paragraph, but missed the point about local news sources:
… [emph. mine]…
This gets into the matter of whether too many voters are stupid or bad or both; I tend to think of stupidity as being a lack of reasoning ability (or a refusal to use it, particularly when it would help a lot in important matters), which leaves memory (Jan 6, 2021) and misinformation (eg. about science, history, gender, race, immigration) as seperable matters. I tend to agree that a significant fraction of voters were not acting on their “better angels”, with some of that portion pursuing what I would call an evil agenda; then again, there may be a grey/gray area between evil and ignorance, where perhaps learning would lead to morality(?) in some matters. But certainly some stupidity was involved in Nov. 2024; I mean, why would anyone think Trump could or would do better than Harris in bringing down the cost of eggs (without raising costs/harm/ elsewhere)? ( PS “Trump judge cracks president’s plan to ‘enforce pecking order’ on chicken ranchers”: https://www.alternet.org/trump-sues-states/ ) It was asserted in a Parkrose Permaculture video (lost track of which one) that some voters just didn’t believe the warnings about losing our democracy (why? They couldn’t remember what happened ~4 years prior?)
re Ron R. (@ https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2026/02/epas-final-ruling-on-co2/#comment-845728 , just below here at time of typing)
I disagree with KVJ only in that it (CO2 tax/fee (& dividend)) is not the only solution, but IMO it is a good solution, maybe the foundation* of the best solution. From what I think I understanding of supply/demand dynamics, it doesn’t only force the market to take the externality into account at any one moment (assuming cost is accurately assessed), but in doing so it should make the market evolve, encouraging the development and increased affordability of alternatives (in technology, strategy, lifestyle, etc.). Explaining the logic was a major motivation of my writing this: https://scienceopinionsfunandotherthings.wordpress.com/2023/08/14/why-a-net-co2eq-tax-makes-sense-or-at-least-it-did-and-also-why-it-may-not-be-enough/ And of course the price signal helps guide consumer choices, although one wouldn’t necessarily know what accounts for changes in price of various goods/services, but it can be difficult anyway to know which choices have the least CO2 or other (CH4, fresh water demand, habitat destruction, labor pay and safety, animal welfare, wars etc. etc.) impacts… so one may fall for greenwashing, etc.
*-But additional policies may be helpful, even necessary, for guiding things along (eg. it makes sense for public action to play a role in public infrastructure (T&D), R&D and deployment for technologies/strategies in the public interest, and of course to aid displaced workers. And markets don’t always work well for everything. There are other things I hadn’t thought of on my own, but see:
“Sabine Hossenfelder is WRONG About Capitalism (hasn’t even done any research!!)” – Unlearning Economics Live https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfGgBfpD-Ao
“The New Case for a Green New Deal” – Unlearning Economics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsGQ6I_laA4
(on the limitations of our economic system): “Breadtube vs Economics #1: Response to Philosophy Tube on Housing” – Unlearning Economics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vfx1kQlmOk
There are also problematic local policies to deal with, particularly HOAs. And NIMBY stuff, – but I’m not pushing to mine or build in parks or backyards or wildlife habitats etc, I mean of course we have to balance all reasonable concerns and risks and costs… (but some have an inflated sense of what those are)
(“You are being misled about renewable energy technology.” – Technology Connections https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtQ9nt2ZeGM – linking to it for the 3rd time because it’s that good)
p o 27,
“This gets into the matter of whether too many voters are stupid or bad or both…”
So, IMO, “thinking for yourself” is a skill you cultivate over a lifetime. Clearly there are people whose thoughts are overgrown with weeds. Too many are vulnerable to appeals to their worst instincts and to politicized religion influenced by Christian nationalism. For example, single issue anti-abortionists alone account for a solid proportion of Trump’s base.
The system is upside down. Check out this video that RINO Adam Kinzinger dropped yesterday, it establishes the pattern:
Part 1, “Donald Trump’s Corruption Goes Back Decades.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JwUYQ5UAj4
One of the remarkable things about Kat Abughazaleh is how in this environment, a 26 year old woman with no campaign experience suddenly dropped into the race out of nowhere, and then how quickly she rose against heavy opposition to within striking distance of winning the election.
The the level of enthusiasm she generated extended well outside her district. and Is worth studying. While her supporters tend to be well educated, it seems to me that her approach and plain speaking has the potential to appeal across the board.
I guess we’ll see.
——
BTW, I’m curious if anyone has experience with the Ground News app, and what they think of it.
oops – “ I disagree with KVJ only in that it (CO2 tax/fee (& dividend)) is not the only solution,” – this was particular to policy prescriptions; on political parties/etc., see Nigelj’s points here https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2026/02/epas-final-ruling-on-co2/#comment-845626
– &:
• I appreciate that a couple of Disney movies were substantially different from the original Hans Christian Andersen works which inspired them, but I like those movies.
• I have become disillusioned by the Democratic party in the last few years (noting I still like the progressive wing); I may have been naïve in believing that the reason they often held back was because they were trying to not let the perfect become the enemy of the good (Voltaire?), ie they knew they would not have enough support among the people to get all they and their base wanted. Maybe that was/is true sometimes, but lately I’ve come to be more concerned about the role of big donors (AIPAC and industry/etc.)… and it seems like there is an appetite for progressive policies among the people – but I’m not as informed on all that as I’d like to be**. I still think most Democratic politicians are better than most Republican politicians – by a very large margin in some issues-, so where you can only vote for one option and a third party is not viable, etc.; but then vote in the primaries so that you can try to get a better option.
see: Why the Democrats Keep Leaning Right https://skepchick.org/2026/02/why-the-democrats-keep-leaning-right/
***
I had thought that a/the Green New Deal (GND) (would) include(d) a CO2 price, but I may be wrong:
https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/publications/green-new-deal-and-carbon-taxes-can-work-together/ (Not all emissions are as easily addressed with a tax as those from fossil fuels; so a GND could cover those sources; in my own writing I’ve tended to consider some other policies for other relevant polluting activities as part of a CO2 price policy (which would also include corrective tariffs).)
Related but I haven’t read them:
https://www.wri.org/insights/5-things-look-green-new-deal
https://www.rff.org/publications/all-publications/the-green-new-deal-and-the-future-of-carbon-pricing/
https://www.sei.org/perspectives/can-a-carbon-tax-replace-the-green-new-deal/
re Radge Havers – Thanks you.
re Susan Anderson (below https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2026/02/epas-final-ruling-on-co2/#comment-846396 ) – (were you responding to KVJ or me or both of us?) Thanks you. I will just note that things don’t happen until they do.
PS I just recently watched:
Unlearning Economics:
“Everything Was Already AI” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km2bn0HvUwg
“Thomas Sowell Is Worse Than I Thought” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZjSXS2NdS0
“Free Stuff is Good, Actually” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQIxbwfMVlM
“Value” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z2LCNAVfMw
“Thomas Sowell and the American Dream” (~ 1:20 so far) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yC0dsTtRVo
Karsten V. Johnansen, The only way around this is James Hansen’s proposal for a carbon fee and dividend: a political price on fossil fuels, socially equalizing by the equal redistribution among all citizens of the fee.
No. If the average person had the chance and better alternatives had been available (which really means affordable) to them I believe they obviously would have taken it. Iow, If as soon as we understood the hazards of using FF we had embarked on a plan to use clean alternatives think of how much farther along we would have been in their implementation.
I blame the Titans who decided that, ‘What do I care. I’m not going to be around when the SHTF anyway’. They should pay (money wise) for the pouring of hundreds of millions of years worth of carbon into the skies and using liars for hire to meme it to the world for decades. They knew carbon warms the world. I believe will show that they “conspired to deceive “. To drag progress for personal gain. A shame.
This danged little phone left out the words “also” as in “(which really also means affordable)”.
And “history” as in “I believe history will show”.
Whatever
OK, Zebra, one last try to get my point across.
I don’t dispute that people–all people–are stupid and believe what makes them feel good. You don’t even need science to show that when you have the entirety of human history as evidence.
Where you and I evidently differ is that I see this as a bad thing–and one that is likely, eventually, to put humans among the 99% of critters who have gone extinct rather than the 1% who have survived long term.. What is more, I am not alone in finding human stupidity to be undesirable. Smart people–those who desired to circumvent their drives to be stupid–developed science, probabilistic risk assessment…to help us overcome our stupid nature. So the point is that we have the wherewithal–the corrective lenses, if you will–to overcome our mental myopia. These tools have a record of power and success unrivaled in human existence. They have literally changed our species from a tribe of apes perpetually on the verge of extinction to a tribe of apes perpetually on the verge of destroying the planet’s ability to support life. These tools could, if we let them, become a smart species–one that could survive long term. The tragedy of humanity is that we would rather stupidly believe what makes us feel good even if it kills us rather than use the tools we have developed to survive and face reality as it is.
Ray Ladbury
“where you and I evidently differ”
No, Ray, I stated very clearly where we differ, but you choose not to respond to that:
“The point is that the decision-making is orthogonal to any reality science (or logic or numbers) might predict. ”
You and I think it would be “a good thing” for humanity to survive and perhaps achieve some happier state.
At least 40% of the US population that votes doesn’t give a shit.
If they all had degrees in climate science, but were psychologically the same people, they still wouldn’t give a shit.
Other things are more important to them than whether the human species becomes extinct in the future.
Do you really not understand the word orthogonal?
You are conflating two orthogonal factors. The scientific method helps us achieve goals; it doesn’t determine the goals.
The scientific method creates penicillin and it also creates nuclear weapons.
Duh.
It really does seem that for all your praise of science, you don’t think about this stuff like a scientist… objectively… and just ignore what science and history tells us about human behavior.
Ray Ladbury,
“Whatever, Zebra, whatever. I’m going to go talk to someone interesting now.”
Ray, most real scientist-types I’ve debated with would just politely say:
“Point taken.”
Zebra: as to science, I think Ray L understands more than you do. Your attacks are personal and slightly inaccurate, so I’d say this applies, at least in part: “you can dish it out but you can’t take it”
That said, I don’t disagree with much of what you have to say. I just think picking this fight is picayune and Ray’s response is not entirely off the wall.
Susan A
Susan, I suggest you have a look at this:
https://royalsociety.org/-/media/policy/projects/reimagining-science/Values/values-summary.pdf
Which was provided by Radge Havers over on UV.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2026/02/unforced-variations-mar-2026/#comment-845744
And maybe look at what I said in response.
Anyway, I really have no idea what you are talking about in terms of “personal attacks”.
Telling someone that they are making an error is not a personal attack; it’s called educating them. Likewise telling them that ignoring established science suggests a lack of objectivity.
We can’t address the problems of the human condition, whether it’s Fascism or AI, by being righteously indignant, and pretending we are so different from our fellow human/apes.
Zebra says: “Anyway, I really have no idea what you (SA) are talking about in terms of “personal attacks”.
Maybe its Zebras patronizing and supercilious statements and general put downs? Eg: “Do you really not understand the word orthogonal?….The scientific method creates penicillin and it also creates nuclear weapons. Duh. It really does seem that for all your praise of science, you don’t think about this stuff like a scientist… objectively… and just ignore what science and history tells us about human behavior.”
Stressful times all around. Sometimes it’s good to just chill and let the room breathe. You can always circle back, with a fresh eye and solidarity in mind, to make a point,
Ray and z.,
Am I wrong or are you talking about two different aspects of the same thing?
Getting down to cases, what’s happening now is an an attempt to rehash how Jim Crow functioned using racism as means of oppression. Under that system poor whites were given a psychological boost in that now matter how crappy their lives were, they had the satisfaction of believing that they were naturally superior to blacks, and that they had a right to freely vent at blacks expense.
Standing back and looking at the big picture, that clearly was against the economic best interest of, let’s face it, ignorant poor whites. The kind of addictive power they were handed was also a means of keeping them in their place at the bottom tier of society among whites — “poor white trash.”
Lest you forget:
Radge, you give a very good example of the Authoritarian paradigm. As I said, this has been scientifically well studied and is very basic. Being so “above” some group that you can kill them with impunity makes it perfectly OK to be so “below” the ruling class.
But the issue I raised with Ray originally is that he can’t accept that reality. He wants to pretend that Trump voters suffer from some kind of “ignorance” about what is going on. But he is wrong. It is their psychological needs and tendencies that determine their behavior, just as it is with Ray and you and me.
Now, are all Trump voters (and many non-voters) in the last election KKK types or Nazi camp guards? No. But if you had an election today, at least 40% of the population would still vote for him, because the negative of increased gas prices is far outweighed by the pleasure of putting those uppity women and blacks and browns (as well as a number of other categories) in their place. If some irrationality and violence is involved, so much the better.
And if you again ran a Black Woman against him, who knows what another 10.1% might do.
So sadly I would say that Ray just doesn’t want to deal with the science. I understand this stuff is scary, but it’s all too real.
z.,
Well, I don’t want read into Ray’s thoughts which aren’t transparent to me.
It seems that ignorance among the voters is necessary to help drive the visceral politics. It is certainly cultivated with that in mind. But, in any case, I think at some point the wheel will begin to turn, and the line of snake oil that Trump hawks will begin fai, as everything he touches dies. I don’t want to overstate it, because there’s a lot of wishful thinking out there, but I think cracks are starting to form in MAGA, so engagement is key, It will require a relentless push to break the line, and the smarts to mop up properly and rebuild better.
No guarantees.
The science as you say is pretty clear though, and easy to spot in Trump’s behavior. He runs around making a lot of noise, thrashing the shrubbery, making exaggerated sexual displays, and biting people. Seems pretty straightforward… if you believe evolution is real… and imperfect…
Z: “But if you had an election today, at least 40% of the population would still vote for him, (Trump) because the negative of increased gas prices is far outweighed by the pleasure of putting those uppity women and blacks and browns (as well as a number of other categories) in their place. If some irrationality and violence is involved, so much the better.”
Zebra makes a good point about the science of authoritarianism. But It’s stretching things to believe at least 40% of people are locked into voting Trump because of authoritarian leaning tendencies. A 2024 study the Public Religion Research Institute found 41% of Americans are susceptible to Authoritarian tendencies. But 7.5 % of people in America who have authoritarian tendencies lean left / liberal according to another study. So the number of “authoritarians” leaning strongly to Trump is probably significantly less than 40%. Providing The Democrats put up a strong candidate for president in terms of personality.
People who lean authoritarian will tolerate a certain level of poverty as long as they get psychological satisfaction out of seeing the immigrants, blacks and transgender people etc,etc put in their place. The question is how much poverty will they tolerate? I would suggest some or most people (?) will not tolerate extreme poverty. There will be a point where it hurts too much. This is why its important for The Democrats to still keep reminding people that Trump is making them poorer.
Radge, I think the problem here is words. How do you define “ignorance”?
We begin with “visceral feelings”. The visceral feelings determine our response to rational thought and knowledge.
Many very smart, educated people are racists and misogynists (and that includes women).
Many people who are successful at all the different levels of economic success also.
Many smart, educated people… me, you, Ray… are sometimes dismissive of objective realities because it frightens us, or interferes with our pleasures, or with our need to identify with an identity grouping.
So it’s not just Trump being an ape. What he does works with those more on the chimp end of the spectrum; what Bill and Barack did appeals more to the bonobo side. And it is a spectrum. Politics is about tipping the balance, and precise enough targeting to appeal to various subsets of the population.
People believe what makes them feel good.
So while I share your hope for a better future, I’m not clear on how it gets done.
Z.,
RE: “I think the problem here is words. How do you define “ignorance”?”
So the way I see it is that ignorance is basically a lack of good information, which is required, in turn, to create good understanding. Some of one’s inclinations may be more or less shaped by nature or nurture, but I think that plasticity in how and what we can learn is also shaped in such ways.
If ignorance is a kind of hole in one’s thinking, and one is naive, that can be can be exploited, due in part to built in vulnerabilities in the way we tend to think. Dunning-Kruger, for example is sort of self-defeating, A lack of situational awareness about how the society around you operates can also be a liability, and so on
Propaganda works, con artistry works. But so does a good education.
Well, since you included me in that I can assure you that you left out laziness, indifference, brain fog, distraction, exhaustion, and quite a number of other things among which I include ignorance, which can inhibit one’s ability tor recognize danger, and because filling that hole is a life long process.
You did mention pleasure, which is a good point since funding “bread and circuses” is a long standing method of pacifying and distracting a population.
Sure, and depending on circumstances they’ll believe “no pain, no gain.”
As for how to get to a better future, I plead ignorance.
¯\(ツ)/¯
Another healthy dose of Krugman today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVtcpMrge7s
“Deliberatly being dumb is not good policy.”
However it apparently resonates with a significant number of knuckleheads.
But not all!!
KVJ: I donated to Abughazaleh, she’s good.
Back to another of your complaints, fee and dividend was and is a practical solution, but in a society which won’t even put a price on carbon (quite the reverse, subsidizing it and putting a price on alternatives), it’s probably too complicated to enact into legislation.
Edmund Esterbauer wrote: “It has never been demonstrated that anthropogenic CO2 has any effect on temperatures.”
That is a crude, clumsy, clownish LIE, Edmund. It’s just plain old STUPID.
It’s like you are saying that gravity is a hoax because it has never been demonstrated that heavy objects fall when dropped.
Gavin, can’t posts like this be sent to the Bore Hole (if it is still in use)?
Nice Big Lie apparently typed with a straight face.
You’d have fitted right in to Himmler’s department of propaganda.
The sad thing about this admin is their propensity to lie utterly and completely blatantly with straight faces in so many cases (e.g., independently publicly filmed murders of citizens, climate “reports”, economic “reports”, etc.).
The somewhat happier thing, is at least some significant portion of the voters is finally getting sick of it as the lies become so obvious.
A consequence of this happier news is that the admin has had to back down in a number of cases (e.g., independently publicly filmed murders of citizens, climate “reports”, economic “reports”, etc.). But they won’t give up, you can count on that.
Notably, they have completely abandoned any reliance on the DOE’s CWG report.
This was made clear in the beginning that “climate science” references was not required to rescind the Endangerment Finding. The issue has always been political, economic, and welfare based. All the handwaving and production of multiple “climate science reports was a total waste of time and effort – a nothing burger indeed. You were told, were you not?
Notions of completely abandoned are completely spurious because what you guys believed was always wrong. They played you. They go you to overreact just like they expected you would.
Let’s summarize recent news
Oil extraction continues to rise, but Diesel, the most important component of oil, is getting harder to find. Diesel and Avgas prices continue to inflate above gasoline. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WmBxjEyEZH4
Record Crude Oil Production
Q4 2025 marks a new all-time high in crude oil plus condensate category. Which is truly oil [not natural gas liquids etc] The biophysical gauntlet is where prices that would benefit consumers are not high enough for oil producers to justify investment. So we had, near term peak, late last year, and now there’s, a decline and oil is again under $60 a barrel. There are not any more significant shale (light crude) resources in the United States after the Permian enters permanent decline.
https://youtu.be/_l3n3_gR1xE?si=qYB4nWWEprlsc7rZ&t=25
In other news Jan 16 Billionaire Harold Hamm, the founder and chairman of Continental Resources, announced he would halt new drilling in North Dakota’s Bakken shale formation. Reasons for the pause are Hamm stated there is “no need to drill it when margins are basically gone” due to low crude oil prices. This marks the first time in over 30 years that Hamm has not had active drilling operations in North Dakota.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-16/harold-hamm-to-halt-drilling-in-bakken-shale-on-lower-oil-prices
Note: US Shale Oil and Gas has passed peak production. There’s a deadline for the current US dominance and life of manipulations of the global markets visive Venezuela Ukraine Russia Iran constraints.
https://www.artberman.com/blog/requiem-for-an-oil-glut/
Which all transcends Climate Science issues and so feeds into the greater implications of the EPA Ruling and why they have been on this issue for years now.
As of 14 February 2026, the official status is that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has finalised the rule to repeal the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding.
President Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the final rule on 12 February 2026, describing it as the “single largest deregulatory action in U.S. history”.
https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/president-trump-and-administrator-zeldin-deliver-single-largest-deregulatory-action-us
Real Status & Implementation
The Decision is Finalised: The EPA has officially issued the final rule rescinding the 2009 determination that greenhouse gases (GHGs) endanger public health.
Immediate Impacts: The repeal effectively eliminates the legal requirement for the federal government to regulate GHGs under the Clean Air Act. It specifically targets and repeals emissions standards for light-, medium-, and heavy-duty vehicles for model years 2012 to 2027 and beyond.
Automakers Relieved of Duties: Under the finalised rule, vehicle and engine manufacturers no longer have federal obligations to measure, control, or report GHG emissions.
Legal Challenges Pending: While the administrative process is “complete” from the White House’s perspective, the rule faces immediate and certain legal challenges from environmental groups and several states (including Connecticut and Maryland). These lawsuits are expected to eventually reach the Supreme Court to test whether the repeal contradicts the 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA precedent.
https://www.wri.org/insights/endangerment-finding-repeal-explained
Only time will tell.
The Legal Basis Used
In its final ruling, the EPA shifted away from purely scientific arguments and instead relied on statutory interpretation. Citing recent Supreme Court decisions like Loper Bright (which overturned Chevron deference) and West Virginia v. EPA, the agency argues it lacks the “clear congressional authorization” to regulate global climate effects as “air pollution”.
https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2026/02/epa-repeals-vehicle-all-greenhouse-gas-standards-for-vehicles#:~:text=Although%20the%20August%202025%20proposal,and%20oil%20and%20gas%20operations.%22
I believe you were told that back in July or thereabouts. It was never a “climate science issue”. Check the archives if interested.
The DOE-CWG Report is what is known in the war games trade as a “feint”. :-/
The “DOE-CWG Report” (A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate) is indeed being described by critics and legal analysts in terms similar to a strategic “feint” or “distraction” in the lead-up to the final repeal of the Endangerment Finding.
As of February 2026, the strategy appears to have shifted in a way that aligns with your observation:
The Initial Use (The “Distraction”): When the EPA first proposed rescinding the 2009 Finding in 2025, it relied heavily on the Climate Working Group (CWG) report as its primary scientific justification. This report, authored by five climate-sceptic scientists, challenged the consensus on CO2-induced warming.
The Legal “Pivot”: After a federal judge in Massachusetts ruled on February 5, 2026, as expected the report became a significant legal liability–yet it successfully exposed the strength or otherwise of likely legal arguments based on the science. Legal experts warned that relying on a “tainted” scientific report would make the repeal vulnerable in court”. But what was learned as a result of the Feint has been useful preparation since last September for subsequent legal argument.
The “Feint” Result: By focusing public and scientific opposition on the controversial DOE report for months, the administration drew “fire” toward a scientific debate they ultimately discarded. This allowed them to finalize the rule using a narrow legal interpretation—specifically tailored to match recent Supreme Court precedents—which is much harder for lower courts to strike down on “scientific” grounds.
In summary: The DOE report served as a high-profile target for critics, but the final, implemented repeal relies almost entirely on the legal argument that the agency never had the power to regulate GHGs in the first place.
You’ve been “had”
Data: “This was made clear in the beginning that “climate science” references was not required to rescind the Endangerment Finding. The issue has always been political, economic, and welfare based…”
While the DOE report was not “essential” to overturning the endangerment finding, it was a powerful stand alone way of overturning the findings. It had to be debunked sooner or later.
Data: “The “Feint” Result: By focusing public and scientific opposition on the controversial DOE report for months, the administration drew “fire” toward a scientific debate they ultimately discarded. This allowed them to finalize the rule using a narrow legal interpretation—specifically tailored to match recent Supreme Court precedents—which is much harder for lower courts to strike down on “scientific” grounds.”
The idea that the scientists and other parties should have ignored the DOE report when it was put out for feedback, and concentrated on the EPAs other legalistic and cost benefit arguments doesn’t make sense, because the EPA didn’t put those arguments out for formal public feedback (to the best of my knowledge) and it wasn’t even clear what they were. Presumably people have lobbied against some of them in private anyway.
There will be legal challenges against the rescinding of the endangerment finding and its legalistic arguments etc, etc anyway. And at least scientists wont have to also deal with the DOE report because its already off the table.
Forgot to mention that Scientists are clearly not the best people to have tried to combat the EPAs legalistic and cost benefit arguments to get rid of the endangerment finding. This is just another reason why they were right to concentrate on debunking the DOE report, and it made sense to do that when it was opened up for public submissions. So I just don’t think that Datas comments have any real validity.
In the context of the Clean Air Act (CAA), preemption means that California is generally prohibited from applying its own vehicle emission standards unless it specifically receives a waiver from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The legal framework for this preemption is
General Prohibition (Section 209(a)): This section broadly prohibits all states from adopting or enforcing any standard related to the control of emissions from new motor vehicles.
The California Exception (Section 209(b)): California is the only state that can request a waiver of this preemption. The EPA is required to grant the waiver unless it makes specific negative findings, such as the state not needing the standards to meet “compelling and extraordinary conditions”.
Current Implications: According to recent 2026 legal analysis, the view that preemption “continues to apply by its own force” means that if the federal government repeals its own standards or revokes a previously granted waiver, California cannot simply continue to enforce its own rules. Without an active, valid EPA waiver,
If the EPA is successful against lawsuits and SCOTUS then California’s standards are legally unenforceable
This was never a pure climate-science fight. It was always a legal–institutional–political system fight, and the science community played the wrong game on the wrong battlefield.
Oh what a web we weave …..
“The EPA is not relying on new findings by ……….”
What is your quote source?
The quote? Keep it a secret if you must.
In the meantime the OP said:
– This is good news, since it leaves them with only a legal argument that for some reason the law is different now than it was when Mass. v. EPA was decided in 2007.
– However, only the Supreme Court really has the power to overturn previous SC rulings and so the next set of lawsuits (in D.C. District Court) will likely find for the plaintiffs and possibly enjoin this ‘final’ rule.
– If this then goes to appeal to the SC, they would have to agree to hear it, and then folks would basically have to re-litigate the whole thing. Only lawyers are likely to gain from this.
On June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court officially overturned Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) in a 6-3 ruling for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. This decision ended the 50-year-old federal constitutional right to an abortion, returning the authority to regulate or prohibit the procedure entirely to individual state legislatures.
More details are available everywhere.
Yes, Edmund, it has.
This made-up “debate” has been going on so long, propped up only by nonsense and lies from far right psychopaths that it’s no longer possible to look at it any way but this: it’s disgusting that so many people make such claims out of either egregious dishonesty or woeful ignorance. Even more disgusting is that at this point, 40 years after there was no reasonable doubt left, that all ignorance about it in adults is revealed as intentional ignorance, aka utter refusal to see or admit the truth. That means we’re back to the same question we always face, dealing with denying delayalists: lying, stupid, or crazy? It’s always all 3, and the logic of that is as inescapable as climate catastrophe.
The public aren’t stupid. Humans are extremely sensitive to epistemic sincerity over time: hedging and overconfidence, narrative rigidity, refusal to engage with hard questions openly, tone policing instead of argument, tribal loyalty framing instead presenting facts or genuine analysis that stacks up rationally. People might not articulate it, know the right words to apply, but they feel when someone is performing epistemic authority rather than practicing it. That’s why trust erosion is accelerating everywhere. Not least in regards to climate science and climate change policies. Israel or over Donald Trump. Same shit, different day. Rescinding the 2009 Endangerment Finding isn’t an outlier action nor an accident. It’s par for the course humanity is on globally.
When Epistemic Systems Collapse:
> mobs replace courts
> YouTubers replace journalists
> FOIA becomes vigilante intelligence
> names and victims get exposed
> conspiracies flourish
> institutions disengage further
> social trust collapses
This is not democracy flourishing. It’s epistemic anomie – aka the ‘shit hitting the fan’. Will this stop? Welcome to the new normal.
This is the part most analysts refuse to say out loud:
“Even if climate science is broadly correct, the ‘epistemic presentation and institutional behavior’ have been so bad that backlash becomes rational.”
People don’t just evaluate facts. They gauge and evaluate messengers, tone, incentives, respect given and perceived sincerity. No different than they will evaluate the behaviour of ICE Agents on the streets and make judgements on that which hold.
“Wankers, losers, nerds” is crude—but it captures the status signaling resentment that exists in those “572,000 public comments on the proposed rule.” Climate discourse often communicates it’s internalized moral superiority, contempt for peers, technocratic contempt, and framing the public as the problem. That constant mode destroys legitimacy regardless of any scientific correctness. The evidence of this is found across many years and many spaces.
It’s reflected in the forced withdrawal from Twitter/X due to harassment by the public. A loyalty imperative not a preferred choice. All these things are known and obvious to almost everyone even if they can’t articulate it. This is dead-on sociology of trust. Standard ‘epistemic signaling detection’ which humans evolved for long before Twitter.
Some people still think Trump is an anomaly. He’s not. He’s only another symptom of ‘epistemic legitimacy collapse’ across western society.
Most discourse today runs on moral identity signals of tribal loyalty:
Pick a team → defend team → attack the other team mode.
I say “both sides have points and both sides are messing up, badly!” Bifocal thinkers break the social contract of ‘tribal epistemics’. Neither side can handle it.
But it’s not my job, it’s Gavin’s job. Because ‘citizen epistemic debugging’ in a failing system doesn’t pay enough. That line matters more than you think because it crosses boundaries and domains. Decoded, this leads to finally accepting Team Trump’s response to the EPA’s Endangerment Finding is a rational predictable act after listening to ‘BS from the untrustworthy’ for decades.
Noticing ‘epistemic role inversion’ exposes the priors of:
Scientists should explain uncertainty honestly
Journalists should interrogate institutions
Policymakers should translate knowledge into rational policy
The Public should not have to debug epistemology.
Because it’s not our job!
What we are faced with today is ‘institutional epistemic surrender’. The system should have done this for you. For years many have intuitively noticed this pattern in climate discourse:
Institutions overstate certainty → critics overreact → institutions clamp down → critics radicalize → public distrust deepens.
Same with Epstein. Same in politics. Same in media. The same in Climate.
Epistemic failure → Trust erosion → Public investigation → Chaos → More institutional defensiveness → More trust erosion.
That is a positive feedback loop feeding runaway instability.
Basically today “Everyone hates everyone else and nobody trusts each other.”
You won’t believe me either, so you go figure it out. :-/
Data: “Scientists should explain uncertainty honestly.”
Yes clearly, but please give one specific example where Scientists don’t do that. Cite even one example where they have lied about the uncertainty and please provide proof they have lied. (Meaning deliberately spreading a falsehood.)
In my experience the scientific community has generally bent over backwards to honestly, accurately and clearly define uncertainty. The IPCC reports are a good example. They openly acknowledge uncertainty.
The scientific community have also bent over backwards generally to be honest, accurate, polite, civil, respectful, facts based. The IPCC reports are a good example. And scientists should be polite and civil as a general thing. Insults tend to alienate people and don’t usually change peoples positions. But everyone loses their temper occasionally and people know this.
???????
Good points. But we must bear in mind that the current administration (like some previous Republican administrations) will simply fail to enforce the existing regulations whatever the legal status. They are already turning a blind eye to violations and even blatantly telling polluters to go ahead (or at least to stop reporting what they’re up to).. People will have to initiate lawsuits directly against polluters, since the federal government will no longer take action. This is alas only one of many areas where the courts will be swamped.
Affirmer qu’il est “incontestable” que le CO2 et les gaz dits de Kyoto mettent en danger la santé et le bien public nécessite des précisions scientifiques que vous ne fournissez pas.
Le CO2 n’est pas un polluant toxique aux concentrations atmosphériques actuelles ( environ 0,04 %). Il est un constituant naturel de l’atmosphère et indispensable à la photosynthèse. Les effets toxiques du CO2 sur la santé humaine ne surviennent qu’à des concentrations des dizaines de fois supérieures à celles présentes dans l’air ambiant, dans des contextes confinés industriels ou accidentels.
Si vous évoquez un danger indirect via un effet climatique, cela relève alors d’une chaîne causale complexe (émissions – climat – impacts sanitaires ou sociétaux) qui reste sujette à discussion scientifique sur son ampleur, sa mesure empirique et ses incertitudes. Présenter cette chaîne comme un fait sanitaire direct et “incontestable” mélange des niveaux d’analyse différents.
Un débat scientifique sérieux gagnerait à distinguer clairement toxicité directe, effets environnementaux indirects et degré d’incertitude associé à chacun, plutôt que d’employer des formules globales qui prêtent à confusion.
What a total bore / snoozefest.
It is still a fact that gasolines and renewable biofuels are required in the vast majority of vehicles that are making the transition to renewables and EVs possible. Urgent reductions in CO2 emissions will endanger transportation and increase costs of the completion of this project. Phasing out emissions while phasing in alternative energies makes more sense along with infrastructure improvements and innovations to help survive and adapt to extreme weather events. What this means is more oil will be needed and used until the energy transition is closer to completion. Eight billion stakeholders will need transportation to be fed.
Your comment is nothing but a litany of unsupported and factually incorrect assertions, all used to justify continued and even INCREASED fossil fuel consumption. Troll.
Secular Anismist, I have a brilliant strategy designed specifically with you and those who believe like you in mind. Quit using fossil fuels! Checkmate! Game over! You win!
Or… we can recognize that energy transitions have always required decades and we can do what we can to speed this along. Nah! Too Gradualist! Boycott Big Oil!
As long as you don’t shove your insanity down the throats of the developing world, do what you want.
Excuse me, Tommy, but we’ve had decades–4 and a half of them since the evidence that we were altering the climate became overwhelming. Forty five years that we have pissed away listening to fossil fuel propaganda and allowing them to be the high bidder for our government. Hell, it has been 30 years since the climate hearings in the House famously led by Congressmen Doolittle and Delay–no I am not making this up!
And it is largely the developing world that is screaming the loudest for something to be done about the problem, because they know they will bear the worst consequences of continued warming and that the industrial powers will do nothing to help them. Maybe you can put aside your poutrage about those demanding action and find a little bit of compassion for the farmers whose crops are shriveled by drought or washed away by floods.
Excuse me Ray… But where would we be today had the world kept carbon in the ground for the last 40 years? Where will we be in the next 40 years if we keep carbon in the ground? That’s essentially what urgent reductions in CO2 emissions does. And none of the CO2 already added is taken out.
Ken Towe
Where would we be if the carbon were still in the ground? Much better off. Fewer billion $$ disasters. Fewer oil companies controlling governments. Fewer lung problems, Fewer turning points crumbling under our feet.
More renewables, mora ability to focus our energies on development and equity, more democracy, more income and wealth equity. Fossil fuels poison everything they touch.
KT, But where would we be today had the world kept carbon in the ground for the last 40 years? Where will we be in the next 40 years if we keep carbon in the ground?
Hmm, probably in a LOT better shape then we are in at the moment if the fossil fuel companies and their republican lapdog payees in congress and senate had let the free enterprise that they claim to support work out and stop fighting renewable energies. Just a small sample of articles.
Republicans Pledge Alligence to fossil fuels like it’s still the 1950s
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/07/republicans-fossil-fuels-coal
Conservatives in my party killed clean energy: It’s time to resurrect it https://fortune.com/2025/08/06/conservatives-killed-clean-energy-republicans-time-to-resurrect/
Meet the Republicans who killed solar subsidies — after using them https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/20/meet-republicans-who-killed-solar-subsidies-after-using-them-00631344
White House cancels nearly $8B in clean energy projects in blue states https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/white-house-cancels-nearly-8b-in-clean-energy-projects-in-blue-states
US oil giants top list of lobby offenders holding back climate action https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/nov/04/us-oil-giants-top-list-lobby-offenders-exxonmobile-chevron-toyota
Does co2 cause climate change?
Though there were uncertainties about exact details (it was early – 1996) Exxon knew the basic science back then,
Revealed: Exxon made ‘breathtakingly’ accurate climate predictions in 1970s and 80s https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/12/exxon-climate-change-global-warming-research and https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22122015/exxon-mobil-oil-industry-peers-knew-about-climate-change-dangers-1970s-american-petroleum-institute-api-shell-chevron-texaco/
Big oil and coal intended to target people like you with their doubts. You might read these statements marked in yellow.
“Average citizens “understand” (recognize) uncertainties in climate science; recognition of uncertainties becomes part of the “conventional wisdom”
“Strategies Reposition global warming as theory (not fact).”
“People who respond most favorably to such statements are older, less-educated males from larger households, who are not typically information-seekers, and are not likely to be “green” consumers. https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/07/The-Climate-Deception-Dossiers.pdf
Another,
The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied.
These three factors create the potential for a human impact on climate. The potential for a human impact on climate is based on well-established scientific fact, and should not be denied
https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/07/Climate-Deception-Dossier-7_GCC-Climate-Primer.pdf
Look at this, Did we aggressively fight against some of the science? Yes. – Keith McCoy, Exxon lobbyist
Did we join some of these ‘shadow groups’ to work against some of the early efforts on climate? Yes – Keith McCoy, Exxon lobbyist
https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2021/06/30/exxon-climate-change-undercover/
And now? How Trump is targeting wind and solar energy – and delighting big oil https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/03/trump-war-on-clean-energy-big-oil
Come on, it’s no secret that Big Energy knew that Co2 causes the temperatures to rise. People HAVE been trying to institute clean renewables for a long time. Man! It’s insulting to our intelligence to pretend otherwise. So where would we be if they had not been so targeted by the industry? I’d say In a lot better shape then we are now.
“Gridlock is the greatest friend a global warming skeptic has, cause that’s all you really want…. We’re the negative force. We’re just trying to stop stuff.”
https://midmiocene.wordpress.com/2016/11/09/hot/
https://www.desmog.com/marc-morano/
https://midmiocene.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/fullsizeoutput_adf.jpeg
TWF: snark solves nothing.
The ‘developing world’ is doing much better than we are at transitioning to clean energy. Of course, as I know you really care about the truly poor, those people don’t have much choice, but the options available to them include solar, wind, etc.
Lies and hatred of knowledge and solutions are taking us backwards. If we are to talk about ‘shove your insanity’ you just made an entry in those stakes, but you will never succeed in competition with Trump/Putin/Orban et al. and the whole universe of climate and other forms of science denialism.
Susan Anderson says
15 Feb 2026 at 2:52 PM
The ‘developing world’ is doing much better than we are at transitioning to clean energy.
Data: Your Scientific Academic electrical materials energy engineering economic references please [from about the developing world vs first world], if you don’t mind Susan.
Thank you. NO one reference, but multiple peer-reviewed references and/or credible global institutions IEA etc if you would be so kind.
Extraordinary claims require an equivalent of detailed evidence to support them.
Data and other interested parties. WRT renewables progress at home and abroad, a few good resources.
Peter Sinclair: https://thinc.blog/
Dave Borlace, Just Have a Think: [this is particularly useful on data and technology]
https://www.youtube.com/@JustHaveaThink
Yale Climate Connections: https://yaleclimateconnections.org/
Inside Climate News: https://insideclimatenews.org/
ProPublica: https://www.propublica.org/
The Guardian: https://www.propublica.org/ [not linked, BBC, NYTimes, WaPo]
News media are more wide ranging, but all fact-based news media report on climate progress from time to time.
I am not in favor of calling you ‘multitroll’ but you do troll a lot. I don’t know if it’s ego, vanity, obsession with claiming the high ground, but whatever it is it is not helping. You do make good points from time to time, but the volume of your output makes it hard to sort out the wheat from the chaff. You exploitation of RealClimate’s hosting is rude and your attacks often directed at people working on our common problems.
Oops, wrong link for Guardian (failure to notice duplicated ProPublica):
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/environment
in Re to Susan Anderson, 16 Feb 2026 at 12:03 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2026/02/epas-final-ruling-on-co2/#comment-845275
Dear Susan,
The person posting herein under nick “Data” presently appears as a convinced supporter of land and ecosystem stewardship, and seems to almost advocate for initiatives in this direction suggested for years in Real Climate discussions by poster JCM.
See recent Data’s posts in “Updates”, e.g.
12 Feb 2026 at 10:33 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2026/01/2025-updates/#comment-845059
13 Feb 2026 at 9:39 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2026/01/2025-updates/#comment-845106
16 Feb 2026 at 2:45 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2026/01/2025-updates/#comment-845246
I can hardly explain how this sudden sympathy for activities that require engaged citizenship fits with Data’s position still presented everywhere else, namely that any improvement in our society is hopeless because the West is corrupt and rotten and that with respect to climate, everything is lost anyway.
An interesting discrepance, isn’t it?
Greetings
Tomáš
Reply to Thomas W Fuller
The IPCC Climate Scientists, COP Governments, Politicians and the WEF are no more likely to stop global warming and systemic collapse than the UN was able to stop Wars.
I agree but I extend this beyond politicians to embrace everyone. I’m also not convinced that politicians “drive” industrial warming in the causal sense. Because people and their politicians do not possess the power to drive this level of global industrialized systems. Reversing it is blocked at every turn by systems inertia and thermodynamics not politicians themselves.
Industrial civilization is structurally locked into growth by infrastructure lifetimes, corporate consolidation, political legitimacy requirements, and thermodynamic constraints on energy and material throughput. These are system-level dynamics, not simple policy choices. The former drive the latter. Making transformative climate mitigation structurally infeasible rather than merely politically delayed.
Even if politicians were hyper-rational ecological saints the following would happen: 1) shutting down growth collapses legitimacy 2) which cascades into governance collapse and 3) infrastructure food water energy systems failure which 4) triggers political suicide for any regime. So the system selects against radical yet realistic responses. This is selection pressure, not stupidity, and not denial either.
In systems terms, capitalism functions as a positive feedback loop rooted in human cognitive drivers (status, fear, identity, narrative). Politicians operate inside this attractor rather than controlling it. It either constrains their choices or it will be political suicide in both a democratic or authoritarian system.
Tim Benton identifies three lock-ins (political ideology of cheap food, corporate consolidation, and infrastructural path dependency) demonstrating why complex industrial systems can only change at the margins. I agree that’s how it is, even when the risks are acknowledged. This again suggests climate mitigation is being blocked less by political will than by inertia and deep systemic issues.
Unfortunately Climate Discourse implicitly assumes political will can override system dynamics, however, political will is structurally suppressed by our global growth demand. Making any transition at scale insurmountable. Whereas thermodynamic and material constraints severely block any energy transition to a point of making it impossible.
I no longer believe in happy ending stories with solutions to problems. Predicaments don’t have solutions they have trajectories. So I instead see a future aligned with small, networked human commons — locally autonomous yet interconnected — that preserve knowledge, skills, wisdom, and ethical capacity through an unfolding systemic collapse.
These would echo traditional subsistence cultures and the back-to-the-land experiments of the 1960s, but with modern tools like solar and wind—just not at planetary scale. Politicians won’t drive this any more than they drove the Industrial Revolution or rock music. Systems change when underlying conditions shift, not when leaders issue declarations.
Resilience is the wise human response.
Datas analysis is fatally flawed: System inertia, whether it’s the capitalist system or energy systems is very real, but it obviously didn’t stop huge historical energy and transport transitions, because they happened and sometimes quite quickly, and they all happened under capitalism. Wood – coal – oil – gas. Horse – bicycle – car. So you can add renewables to the list. Data needs to do more studying and less typing.
Unsupported? Incorrect? Wrong… increased transportation fuels are absolutely necessary in the real world.. And yes, atmospheric CO2 levels will continue to rise. Starvation is an endangerment finding.
. Trolls are those who hide their real identity.
KT: increased transportation fuels are absolutely necessary in the real world..
BPL: Transportation fuels, but not “increased,” Transport, like everything else, needs to be run on renewable energy.
Ken Towe: “Phasing out emissions while phasing in alternative energies makes more sesne…”
This is what we are already doing, you complete idiot.
Yes.. that’s what we are doing. And it is adding CO2 to the atmosphere by NECESSITY. Try transitioning to renewables without using transportation vehicles to get it done. Even a complete idiot understands that reality, Nigelj.
Then why did you suggest we are not doing that? Where has anyone suggested we transition to renewables without transport vehicles? Nothing you say makes sense. Its incoherent nonsense.
Without vehicles using conventional fuels. The vehicles that are used daily around the world to help deliver and install solar and wind farm projects. Deliver your food. Not EVs. Coherent enough?
Ken Towe, no your incoherent nonsense continues. Obviously we are using ICE vehicles to transport things but we are slowly but increasingly replacing ICE vehicles and using EVs to transport goods. So we dont need as many ICE vehicles. Do you understand this simple thing? Yes or no.
Reply to Ken Towe
shorts fyi
Dwindling Diesel–Lifeblood of Civilization
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id6W4mTPlKA
Diesel is still the lifeblood of this civilization.
What this means is more oil will be needed and used.
There is no genuine mass scale energy transition underway.
Peak Oil (Not!), Peak Electricity Dispatchability, and WEF Risks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_l3n3_gR1xE
New record crude oil production in late 2025
Growth of non-dispatchable (unusable) RE electricity
Report recently released by the World Economic Forum assessing global risks.
@8:15 2026 Global Risks Perception Survey
https://youtu.be/_l3n3_gR1xE?si=zHMCA4nxghZF6O86&t=496
What will we do without diesel? Will the sky fall in? Do you think its possible we might use something else? Trucks run more efficiently with diesel engines, but they can still do the job with petrol engines or biofuels or electric motors or hydrogen fuel cells ! The zero carbon solutions would be preferable.
KT: Phasing out emissions while phasing in alternative energies makes more sense along with infrastructure improvements and innovations to help survive and adapt to extreme weather events.
MS: That is what the world is doing, Ken. Try typing this into your Google search box:
Is the world phasing out emissions while phasing in alternative energies?
Martin…Tell us how to improve infrastructures, feed people and adapt to extreme weather without using transportation fuels that add “endangering” CO2 to the atmosphere.
KT: Tell us how to improve infrastructures, feed people and adapt to extreme weather without using transportation fuels that add “endangering” CO2 to the atmosphere.
Use EVs wherever EVs can be used, while the process of replacing ICE vehicles with EVs continues. All cars and almost all trucks can be replaced with EVs now. Railroads can be electrified now. The world is doing this now.
The entire rail system in Norway is electric. They still have some diesel locomotives, but I haven’t seen one in years.
What about farm machinery?
Google AI: farm harvesting machines and agricultural equipment are currently being electrified, though the adoption is heavily segmented by the size and power needs of the equipment. While smaller tractors, specialized orchard machinery, and utility vehicles are already in use, large-scale, 24/7 harvesting machines are currently in prototype or development stages.
Key Developments in Electrified Harvesting and Machinery:
Harvesting Equipment: The industry is moving beyond electric tractors to specialized machinery. For instance, LINTTAS is developing a “groundbreaking” electric combine harvester, signaling a move toward fully electric harvesting. Another example is a hybrid-electric autonomous combine harvester developed by Zoomlion.
Smaller Machinery: Electrification is rapidly advancing in smaller machinery, such as electric orchard/vineyard tractors and utility machines.
Key Manufacturers: Major industry players are making significant progress:
John Deere: Developing a lineup of electric-powered tractors (E-Power) and aiming for fully electric, autonomous battery-powered models by 2026.
Fendt: Released the e100 Vario series, an electric compact tractor for specialized tasks.
Monarch Tractor: A leading manufacturer of intelligent, fully electric tractors.
CNH Industrial: Exploring hybrid-electric technologies for larger machinery, such as the Steyr hybrid tractor, which uses electric power for implement operations.
Operational Benefits: Electric equipment is prized for lower maintenance costs, elimination of diesel fuel costs, zero emissions, and significantly lower noise, which is beneficial for livestock.
Challenges: The primary hurdles for large-scale electric harvesters are battery density (weight), charging time, and cost. For instance, a 620-hp tractor, if electrified, would require batteries adding significant weight, making them too heavy for some field applications at the current technology level.
As of 2025-2026, the industry is seeing a mix of electric, hybrid-electric, and traditional engines, with the latter still dominating for heavy-duty, high-horsepower applications, though the trend is shifting heavily towards electric solutions.
Martin has specifically ignored and not addressed the CORE Constraint presented by Ken Towe and others all over the materials engineering and mining space. “without using transportation fuels that add “endangering” CO2 to the atmosphere.”
I’ll add Metallurgical Coal to the mix, the Steel cycle and global mining requirements. New high steel / materials content in electrified tractors, trains and trucks and mining equipment, batteries and grid system distribution require high levels of FF energy and transportation fuels throughout. This can only drive up GHG emissions, and it is, and with no guarantee such a electrification transition will provide the promised benefits or if it is even physically possible.
I and many experts know it isn’t possible. First people need to survive the transition to post-collapse. That’s the only real transition underway or available.
Data: “New high steel / materials content in electrified tractors, trains and trucks and mining equipment, batteries and grid system distribution require high levels of FF energy and transportation fuels throughout.”
Dats comments are misleading or false. Ignore them. Only steel manufacturing is heavily reliant on coking coal. Although alternatives are being explored. Other materials can be made using electricity and don’t care where the electricity comes from. Very few of these processes have to use ICE transport. They are viable with EVs.
Evidence is emerging that emissions are close to peaking in several countries or have peaked, proving the point that we are carrying out the transition to renewables and Ev’s, without endlessly or inevitably increasing the need for fossil fuels.
Data: Martin has specifically ignored and not addressed the CORE Constraint presented by Ken Towe and others all over the materials engineering and mining space. “without using transportation fuels that add “endangering” CO2 to the atmosphere.”
MS: ChatGPT and I have addressed it elsewhere: It is true but irrelevant because the transition is happening. KT’s point, that ICE machines are still doing most of the work necessary to feed the human race, is true, but irrelevant, because the transition to renewable energy and nuclear is underway.
Now you have introduced a second point with your claim that the transition is impossible. Well, first you have to prove that it is impossible, which is hard to do while it is happening. Keep it simple. Just prove that there is currently an excavation task being done by an ICE machine that can never be done by one or more EVs.
If you succeed, then I will reiterate my earlier statement that we don’t have to eliminate all ICE machines, just almost all. We can convert all cars, trucks, buses, trains, ships, farm machinery, short haul aircraft, and most excavation and construction machinery. If we have to keep a few behemoth ICE machines around, the environment can deal with them.
D: people need to survive the transition to post-collapse. That’s the only real transition underway or available.
BPL: Trying to prevent the collapse makes more sense.
KT: Tell us how to improve infrastructures, feed people and adapt to extreme weather without using transportation fuels that add “endangering” CO2 to the atmosphere.
BPL: You go on using them, but replace them more and more with electrified transportation and renewable fuels like hydrogen every year.
This has been explained to you before. Quit posting the same damn thing over and over.
The old hydrogen energy fallacy keeps reappearing like a zombie in a movie. Generally Human solutions to our “problems” always come down to more Mining. But now we’re hitting the limits.
Ecosystem and Materials Boundaries are being crossed as we speak. Industrial civilization is locked into growth by political ideology, corporate power, infrastructural path dependency, and thermodynamic constraints, making transformative climate mitigation structurally infeasible rather than merely politically delayed.
Democratic and authoritarian regimes require economic growth for legitimacy, stability, and electoral survival. Infrastructure, cities, agriculture, and energy systems have multi-decade lifespans, making rapid systemic change economically destructive. Which is socially and politically destabilising at global scale.
The entrenched Thermodynamic Lock-In means Economic growth correlates with energy throughput and material consumption (Garrett, Bartlett, Keen), severely constraining decoupling and rapid transition narratives.
Tim Benton identifies three lock-ins (political ideology of cheap food, corporate consolidation, and infrastructural path dependency) demonstrating why complex industrial systems can only change incrementally at the margins…. while non-stop Growth remains the Imperative.
Climate Discourse is always assuming political will can override system dynamics, however, political will is structurally suppressed by growth regime stability requirements. Making any transition at scale too complex all but insurmountable. Whereas thermodynamic and material constraints make it impossible.
We, as a species, need to get beyond wishful deliberations and adopting illogical myths to accepting the reality for what it is. Moving past todays civilizational constraints, dysfunctional goals, and normative behaviour is not a “problem” to be avoided but a future to be embraced wholeheartedly as pro-human futures.
So three experts claim we will run out of materials to build renewables, and rapid change towards renewables is impossible for certain claimed system constraints. However not all experts say that, and solar and wind power and Evs are following an exponential (rapidly accelerating) growth curve despite their pontifications. And that’s without trying really hard to build these things. Imagine what we could do with some effort.
a comment on “Data”, 17 Feb 2026 at 4:22 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2026/02/epas-final-ruling-on-co2/#comment-845335
One of Data’s predecessors in Real Climate discussions, namely “Thomas” on 22 Aug 2025 at 4:32 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/08/unforced-variations-aug-2025/comment-page-2/#comment-838109
also made quite bold claims about economic unfeasibility of recent civilisation, saying
“None of the new energy types, including nuclear give us anything like the 10-20 EROEI that’s needed for modern civilisation to operate, yet the older fossil fuel plants have given us a much higher numbers on average well in excess of what’s often cited as the required EROEI.”
and cited as a support an anonymous blog
https://un-denial.com/2025/07/12/by-hideaway-eroei/
operating with the term “exergy” in a quite strange accounting scheme.
I guess that this “thermodynamic” language might be behind the present Data’s term “Thermodynamic Lock-In”.
I am curious if “Data” will specify what has a correlation between economic growth and “energy throughput” to do with thermodynamics. I would like to note in this respect that
“Thomas” left my comment of 22 Aug 2025 at 4:45 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/08/unforced-variations-aug-2025/comment-page-2/#comment-838121 ,
questioning the scheme used by his reference, without reply.
Tomáš
KT: Urgent reductions in CO2 emissions will endanger transportation and increase costs of the completion of this project. Phasing out emissions while phasing in alternative energies makes more sense along with infrastructure improvements and innovations to help survive and adapt to extreme weather events. What this means is more oil will be needed and used until the energy transition is closer to completion. Eight billion stakeholders will need transportation to be fed.
BPL: Give it a rest. Your ideas don’t become more correct because you repeat them.
That’s correct. Barton… And they don’t become less correct because you want to ignore reality.
Someone once remarked that you can ignore reality but you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality. Isn’t that what is being done?
KT: Someone once remarked that you can ignore reality but you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality. Isn’t that what is being done?
MS: No, Ken, you are proof that you can ignore reality. You are ignoring the reality that the world is, in fact, converting ICE machines to EVs.
Yes Martin.. and during this lengthy conversion process (the energy transition) Ice machines are doing the lion’s share of the work. It cannot be avoided. That’s the reality. And the consequences are obvious. CO2 will be added while none can be taken out…very little. Not even one ppm.
KT: and during this lengthy conversion process (the energy transition) Ice machines are doing the lion’s share of the work. It cannot be avoided. That’s the reality. And the consequences are obvious. CO2 will be added while none can be taken out…very little. Not even one ppm.
MS: ChatGPT is useful here…
ChatGPT: What you’re describing is a classic case of a fallacy of irrelevance — more specifically, it most closely fits:
Red herring (often combined with “irrelevant conclusion”)
A red herring occurs when someone introduces a true but irrelevant point that distracts from the actual claim under discussion.
In your case:
• ✅ You: “The world is in the process of converting vehicles from fossil fuels to electric.”
• ❗ Opponent: “But fossil fuels still do most of the work in feeding and housing humanity.”
That statement may be factually true — but it does nothing to refute whether conversion is happening.
It shifts the discussion from trend and transition → to current dominance, which are logically separate claims.
⸻
Closely related formal label (even tighter):
Ignoratio elenchi — “irrelevant conclusion”
This is the technical philosophical term for:
Proving something that wasn’t in question, as if it settled the debate.
He’s repeatedly “proving”:
fossil fuels are still dominant
when the issue is:
whether a transition is underway
⸻
Why this tactic feels so frustrating (and familiar in climate debates)
It exploits a common mental shortcut:
If X is still big → then change away from X must not be happening
Which is false logic in every historical transition:
• Horses dominated transport long after cars appeared
• Landlines dominated while mobile phones were rising
• Coal dominated while renewables were growing
Dominance ≠ absence of transition.
⸻
A clean one-sentence response you can use online
If you want something crisp and logical:
“That’s a red herring — no one disputes fossil fuels still dominate today. The question is whether a transition is occurring, not what currently has the largest share.”
Or slightly sharper:
“You’re arguing an undisputed point as if it refutes a different claim — that’s an irrelevant conclusion.”
KT says: you can ignore reality but you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.
+1
Until a couple of days ago I didn’t know who “Ken Towe” is IRL. His cognitive bias against decarbonization is transparent, as so many of us have pointed out. I apologize if I’ve overlooked it, but AFAIK no mention of any credentials has been made, and I assumed he was just another denialist troll. I’ve since learned a bit more about him, in a slap-fight between us on Bill McKibben’s substack. As he comments under his real name, and has hectored me for commenting “anonymously” (which he incorrigibly confuses with “pseudonymously”), I feel free to disclose more of his identity here:
Kenneth M. Towe has a geology doctorate, and was a Smithsonian staff scientist, expert on ancient rocks and fossils, until his retirement in 1996. He’s been a reflexive contrarian in academic venues at least since the early 2000s. His determined denial of anthropogenic climate change appears proximally due to emeritus syndrome. AFAICT, as his financial security no longer depends on his peers, he imagines his own pre-Internet career as a petrologist and paleontologist makes him a climate expert, qualified to tell the 1000s of actual working experts, the US National Academy of Sciences, and the Royal Society of the UK they’re all incompetents mired in groupthink.
His oeuvre through 1996 notwithstanding: by his resolute rejection of the overwhelming, iterative, collective consensus of publishing climate-adjacent scientists worldwide, and his explicit contempt for scientific consensus itself, he merely evinces the Dunning-Kruger Effect. His decarbonization obstructionism is counter to Feynman’s dictum: “The first rule is not to fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.” IMHO, he hasn’t been trying hard enough not to fool himself since he retired. Sad – he really ought to know better. He may have deeper biases, i.e. ideology or religion. Meh.
Just for fun, try asking Google Gemini 3 ‘fast’ (i.e. ‘free’) the following: “When did ‘Ken Towe’ first starting commenting about climate change on the internet?” Heh. It’s “intelligence” for the political struggle to decarbonize the US economy.
Now ask it “When did ‘Mal Adapted’ first starting commenting about climate change on the internet?” It doesn’t give you the correct earliest date, but I’m quite evidently not ‘anonymous’! When I then asked it to discover Mal Adapted’s identity IRL, it failed, concluding my pseudonym was stable and secure. Not verifiable until somebody shows up at my door, but nice to hear the personal details I’ve disclosed on RC and elsewhere, can’t be linked to my real name. Dr. Towe, however, is determined to remain erroneous!
I’m still distrustful of AI by default, partly because even when I explicitly issue the “no sycophancy” prompt, Gemini always tells me I’m a freakin’ genius! Flattering, but I know I ain’t all that. This way lies madness, or at least NPD.
Regarding Ken Towes onging denialism. Old habits die hard, famous quote origins uncertain but popularized by Benjamin Franklin.
The current leadership of the EPA would like to rescind the endangerment finding, but they are not really doing what they need to do that.
As a political strategy to stop climate regulations in the U.S., it’s clever since it could completely cripple federal and severely hamper state and local regulations. To succeed at the political level though it must first survive legal challenges. Under the Clean Air Act (CAA) the administration would have to first show more likely than not that the largest source of GHG in the U.S. could not reasonably be anticipated to harm human health and welfare and then that EPA decision under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) was not arbitrary, capricious, or not in the accordance with the law.
Cass Sustain, a noted expert on government agencies and the law, discusses this here:
https://casssunstein.substack.com/p/the-endangerment-finding
It seems likely to fail in the first round of court challenges. The language of both the CAA and APA and the Supreme Court in EPA v Mass and new scientific data since that decision do not give lower courts much room to uphold the rescission. I think the current EPA’s hope is to get it to the Supreme Court, and barring that, to pause any climate regulation until the current president’s last term is over by tying it up in litigation.
The current SC is hard to predict, but their decisions are clearly judicial activism and anti-regulatory. They have already limited the EPA’s ability to regulation climate pollution in AEP v Connecticut. My opinion is that the SC will not hear the rescission case because it is not ready for SC review. Once climate regulations are proposed they will step in to limit the EPA’s ability to regulate climate pollution, but not until then.
Just remember that the goal of the fossil fuel industry — which now owns the EPA — is to perpetuate the use of fossil fuels for as long as possible, at any cost.
According to Google, “The global oil and gas industry has generated approximately $2.8 billion per day in pure profit on average over the last 50 years, according to an analysis by The Guardian based on World Bank data. These immense profits often exceed $1 trillion annually.”
Every single DAY of continued business-as-usual consumption of fossil fuels puts almost three BILLION dollars into the pockets of the fossil fuel oligarchs.
This is the context — DENY, OBSTRUCT, DELAY — for the Trump EPA’s actions. Keep those billions of dollars flowing, for as long as they can get away with it, at any cost.
And who is responsible for using all of this oil and gas? The energy that that has made our lives so much better.
KT: And who is responsible for using all of this oil and gas? The energy that that has made our lives so much better.
BPL: And is threatening to collapse our civilization. Don’t forget that part.
Reply to Secular Animist
According to Google, “The global oil and gas industry has generated approximately $2.8 billion per day in pure profit on average over the last 50 years, according to an analysis by The Guardian based on World Bank data. These immense profits often exceed $1 trillion annually.”
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2026/02/epas-final-ruling-on-co2/#comment-845167
Which happened simultaneously under all Democratic Party controlled White Houses and Congresses. Right Secular Animist? Yet suddenly it’s only about Trump EPA’s actions — DENY, OBSTRUCT, DELAY?
The truth, the whole truth ….. goes like this in fact:
Much of Obama’s message was directed at young people, whom he praised as both “sophisticated consumers” [ not human beings, but shoppers! ] and the source of the “most important energy in this movement”. He was clear: it’s up to all of us – but especially young people – to come together and keep the planet from warming beyond 1.5C. “Collectively and individually we are still falling short” he said, in the kind of grand, sweeping tones that built his career. “We have not done nearly enough to address this crisis. We are going to have to do more. Whether that happens or not to a large degree is going to depend on you.”
Who precisely is “we” in this scenario?
The young people who were children when Obama took office did not clear the way for a 750% explosion in crude oil exports, as he did just a few days after the Paris agreement was brokered in 2015.
Nor did they boast proudly about it years later, as ever-more research mounted about the dangers of continuing to invest in fossil fuels. Speaking at a Houston, Texas gala in 2018, the former president proudly took credit for booming US fossil fuel production.
“Suddenly America is the largest oil producer. That was me people,” he boasted jokingly to an industry-friendly crowd. “Say thank you.”
ref: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/10/barack-obama-climate-crisis-cop26-speech
On live video
‘That Was Me, People’: Obama Takes Credit for Oil Production Boom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDfHH8zAIUU
Data, Obama did an ok job at best on climate mitigation. You can be guaranteed he got some stern criticism in private by his own supporters for expanding oil exports. Some good policies didn’t get enough support to get passed. At least Obama didn’t destroy the EPA. It should now be called the environmental destruction agency. Next Trump will be proclaiming peace is war and love is hate, waving around George Orwells book 1984.
You are not only the stupidest MAGA troll that I have ever encountered, you are INTERMINABLY stupid. It takes you like 50,000 words to say “I’m rubber, you’re glue” and regurgitate irrelevant non sequiturs. You appear to believe that diarrheic verbosity makes your fatuous nonsense impressive. It does not.
Who, me? lol
Or were talking about Obama and the man that boomed US Oil and Gas production and exports leaving Trump to take most of the credit today?
‘That Was Me, People’: Obama Takes Credit for Oil Production Boom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDfHH8zAIUU
The truth, the whole truth ….. and nothing but the truth is what freaks out biased ideologues and their gullible patsies.
Signalled In Plain View:
President Trump’s Day One Executive Order 14154 “Unleashing American Energy” tasked EPA with submitting recommendations on the legality and continuing applicability of the 2009 Endangerment Finding in the first 30-Days of this term.
On March 12, 2025, Administrator Zeldin announced that the agency was kicking off a formal reconsideration of the 2009 Endangerment Finding and resulting regulations in collaboration with the Office of Management and Budget and other relevant agencies.
Administrator Zeldin formally announced the agency’s proposal to reconsider these actions on July 29, 2025, at a truck dealership in Indiana.
https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/president-trump-and-administrator-zeldin-deliver-single-largest-deregulatory-action-us
From July 2025 I Read the Federal Register, Not the Headlines
This is the key difference. Most commentators (including scientists and journalists) reacted to CWG report headlines, Koonin / Christy / McKitrick personalities. The same tired “Science vs Denial” framing.
I read:
FR-2025-08-01 (78 pages)
EPA statutory arguments
Administrative law framing
Regulatory impact logic
Comment record scaffolding
Legal history incl SCOTUS reasoning
Political History to 2009 in context
That’s where the real strategy always lives. The CWG report was theatre. The Federal Register was the battle plan. This was easy enough to foresee, so let me explain it.
When an agency intends to win on science, the proposal:
Buries you in climate attribution
Climate impacts
IPCC summaries
Risk assessment frameworks
Which Obama/Biden did in 2009/2023
When an agency intends to win on jurisdiction:
The proposal lacks science rigour
Enter DOE/CWG Report 2025
There’s a Focus on Evidence building for Litigation
They ran a nation wide ‘questionnaire’ got 527k replies
Since September AI LLMs have been scouring them for winning Legal Arguments
Those trucker DPF/EGR comments? Those are legal ammunition, not just MAGA venting.
The Comments Database Was Intelligence Gathering
The EPA can now honestly argue:
“Regulations harm public welfare, economy, energy security, and national defense.”
That phrase directly mirrors Clean Air Act welfare language.
Policy Impacts are Legally Relevant. They always were.
The 2009 finding leaned hard on climate risk.
The 2026 repeal leans hard on countervailing welfare risk.
Science is a two-edged sword.
CAA explicitly allows multi-domain interpretation.
My early intuition (July-ish 2025) was:
Chevron is gone or dying
Major Questions Doctrine is dominant
EPA will argue lack of clear congressional authority
That’s exactly what they did.
CWG Report was a show trial to flush out evidence and potential legal arguments.
Not ‘weak sauce’.
My Pattern Recognition Was Structural, Not Ideological
This was a jurisdictional power war disguised as science theatre
No matter how strong science is, if law doesn’t allow action, nothing happens.
Even Trump knows this.
His supporters definitely do and they employ trained Lawyers.
Why the CWG Report Still Existed at All
My “feint theory” fits bureaucratic practice
Trigger scientific opposition (predictable, useful)
Map epistemic attack vectors
Generate public debate distraction and hype
Flush internal dissent (via email discovery)
Create a Record of Contested Science (helps argue uncertainty)
Provides fallback justification if legal pivot failed
Then, when legally risky, discard it.
That’s not incompetence.
That’s Proper Planning
That’s redundant doctrinal layers.
Anyone fluent in administrative law, regulatory history, or military planning would have seen:
The CWG was noisy
Federal Register was surgical
SCOTUS alignment was obvious
Comment record was being weaponised
This was not subtle—but only if you looked where power actually writes.
That’s structural realism.
CWG was cheap, fast, controversial, and expendable.
Perfect feint material.
Scientists kept debating radiative forcing.
Rushed to publish multiple analysis reports.
While Trump Lawyers rewrote jurisdictional reality.
I was watching SCOTUS Trump Team signals.
Scientists were watching Nature Climate Change Documentaries!
A Sea of Red
https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2026-02/endangerment-rescission-ghg-redline-memo-2026-0206b.pdf
Collecting Substantial Public Input
Understanding the importance of this action, EPA conducted a transparent and inclusive rulemaking process. The agency held an extended 52-day public comment period, which included four days of virtual public hearings where more than 600 individuals testified. EPA received about 572,000 public comments on the proposed rule and made substantial updates to the final rule in response to comments.
A summary of public input and EPA’s responses to all comments can be found in the final rule preamble and accompanying documents, and all comments received, including entries summarizing several hundred mass-mailer campaigns, are available in the rulemaking docket.
https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/president-trump-and-administrator-zeldin-deliver-single-largest-deregulatory-action-us
For additional information on this rule and supporting analyses, please visit EPA’s website. https://www.epa.gov/regulations-emissions-vehicles-and-engines/final-rule-rescission-greenhouse-gas-endangerment
There was not any grand strategy at the EPA. This was not not some stroke of genius plan.
Yes the scientific community was focused on the science. The legal community was focused on the law. From the start, the legal community, particular lawyers familiar with administrative law, were dubious about the EPA’s legal reasoning for rescinding the endangerment finding. They still are.
The Trump administration of both terms and across the board has a demonstrated history of making fatally flawed legal justifications for its actions. Attorneys have even been disbarred for doing this last term, and an government attorney had a well publicized courtroom meltdown this month. They have lost literally hundreds of court cases and there have been mass resignations of government attorneys who did not want to be involved in these actions.
“EPA conducted a transparent and inclusive rulemaking process” is that what the court said when it found the EPA violated FACA? In that previous lawsuit the communications of the CWG, DOE, EPA, and political activists were exposed. It was anything but a well-oiled operation.
The notice and comment with responses was not some innovation. Its a legally required part of the agency rule making process that has been in place for decades. Just because a comment was made that is in favor of an agency does not mean it is a legally valid justification for an agency action.
I read the final rule and examined the legal arguments. Some are arguments that have been made before and been rejected by the courts. In 2023 the current Supreme Court declined to hear the appeals of those cases and let the EPA’s endangerment finding stand. The EPA cites the SC decision in Loper as supporting their action. Loper limited the discretion of agencies and instead gave it to the courts, but EPA is saying it has the discretion to overrule the SC’s decision in EPA v Mass. I am shaking my head at that one. The EPA cited other SC cases in support, but those in those the SC did not question the validity of the endangerment finding. It did limit the ways the EPA could regulate GHG but did not rule the EPA could not regulate them at all.
Finally. “When an agency intends to win on jurisdiction” to paraphrase the Princess Bride: You keep using the word jurisdiction. I do not think jurisdiction means what you think it means.
No evidence anywhere to be seen in the Reply by Joseph O’Sullivan
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2026/02/epas-final-ruling-on-co2/#comment-845211
Big assertions – “There was not any grand strategy at the EPA. This was not not some stroke of genius plan.” – Zero evidence to support it.
But much disinformation, false claims, dubious opinions and fabulous beliefs; eg
” “EPA conducted a transparent and inclusive rulemaking process” is that what the court said when it found the EPA violated FACA? “
This is all too easy. The EPA never violated FACA.
Quote: ” the EPA is dismissed as a defendant. ”
SEE https://library.edf.org/AssetLink/j0s1oj2lwi027ldk6y45xnnx3353t1y2.pdf
Joseph, seriously, I doubt you’d even qualify as cleaner in Lawyer offices.
Joseph says: “I read the final rule and examined the legal arguments.” and still does not understand them.
My conclusion about the EPA Ruling was and remains “Time will tell.”
My wide ranging analysis of the Trump Admin-DOE-CWG-EPA Rule Making stands
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2026/02/epas-final-ruling-on-co2/#comment-845172
The DOE FACA case is already on the record.
>DEFENDANTS IGNORE THE ALLEGATIONS RELATING TO FACA VIOLATIONS IN THEIR COURT SUBMISSIONS
>DEFENDANTS HAVE NOT DENIED SPECIFIC ALLEGATIONS CWG VIOLATED FACA REQUIREMENTS FOR ESTABLISHING AN ADVISORY COMMITTEE
>The Court declares Jan 30 2026 that CWG was not exempt from FACA; the Govt has remedied informational injury, the EPA is dismissed as a defendant.
Data> That’s it. A molehill of judicial significance.
SEE https://library.edf.org/AssetLink/j0s1oj2lwi027ldk6y45xnnx3353t1y2.pdf
This is my last word in this. I will provide evidence for my claims.
The trump appointees competency:
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/510130-trump-prizes-loyalty-over-competence-we-are-seeing-the-results/
Legal community’s view of the endangerment rescission before the final rule
https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/epas-proposal-to-eliminate-the-endangerment-finding-and-motor-vehicle-greenhouse-gas-regulations/
After the final rule
https://casssunstein.substack.com/p/the-endangerment-finding
Disbarred trump attorneys
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-lawyers-disbarred-law-licenses-suspended-chesebro-giuliani-cohen-1978351
Trump attorney meltdown
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/attorney-government-tells-judge-ice-case-job-sucks-rcna257349
Trump administration losing hundreds of decisions
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-lawsuits-against-trump-administration-apple-news/
No the EPA did not lose the FACA case the DOE did, a typo on my part. The CWG report was created for the EPA, so its a question of semantics.
The notice and comment period and responding to the comments is mandatory, not an innovative strategy and comments are not legally binding.
“Agencies must consider all “relevant matter presented” during the comment period, and they must respond in some form to all comments received. They are not, however, required to take any specific action with regard to the rule itself.”
https://www.justia.com/administrative-law/rulemaking-writing-agency-regulations/notice-and-comment/
And the rules of evidence still apply
https://www.acus.gov/document/use-federal-rules-evidence-federal-agency-adjudications
The finally analysis how this case will end is my opinion alone. I came to it after looking at the law, the proposed rule, and the supreme and lower courts previous decisions and based on my previous work at a the legal department of a regulated company, a government environmental agency, and a plaintiffs environmental law firm. According to Data, apparently my work as a cleaner there was substandard. I guess it was a mistake to ask for a professional reference from them.
Reply to Joseph O’Sullivan
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2026/02/epas-final-ruling-on-co2/#comment-845264
JOS: No the EPA did not lose the FACA case the DOE did, a typo on my part.
DATA: That’s understandable, you misspoke. Totally fine.
JOS: The CWG report was created for the EPA, so its a question of semantics.
DATA: More or less yes. It was a Trump Administration co-ordinated Plan using dual Departments and multiple political strategies.
You may not be interested naturally, in July 2025 onward I was saying the pushback by ‘climate science’ against the CWG Report would fail / be of no value — because EPA does not legally require “climate science agreement” for it to Rescind the Endangerment Finding.
This has been proven correct and fits what I have said the “Plan” entailed. CWG report played a key role, one being to put the climate science community off balance, to overreact and waste their time and energy. That tactics seem to have had the desired effect. Being off-balance is now self-evident to anyone paying attention and still able to view this issue objectively with nuance and not entrenched American party politics nonsense.
JOS: The notice and comment period and responding to the comments is mandatory, not an innovative strategy and comments are not legally binding.
DATA: I never said otherwise JOS. I was pointing out the facts of the matter. Still the EPA as a public service dept. is not given credit here for following the “rules”. Why not? :-/
That being said anecdotal interpretations figure the majority of “public comments” vs “institutional mailout collections” show support for Repeal. These comments will be used as evidence in the forthcoming court cases. A simple matter of fact.
And JOS of course you formed your own opinion/s based on what you chose to investigate read and reflect upon. This does not make your opinion correct nor well founded. If it wasn’t for different “opinions” places like RC and newspapers would not exist.
Lastly, the “According to Data, apparently my work as a cleaner there was substandard. ” matter a specific on your admitted EPA error/typo.
Objectivity and honesty is the better Policy.
Data @14 Feb 2026 at 6:27 PM
Data: “That’s where the real strategy always lives (the legalistic arguments and cost / benefit against the endangerment finding). The CWG report was theatre. The Federal Register was the battle plan. This was easy enough to foresee, so let me explain it.”
Data’s comments are a type of conspiracy theory. and are very speculative. The simpler explanation (Occams Razor) is The EPA used every argument they could think of to get rid the endangerment finding, including legalistic arguments, cost benefit arguments, and the CWG / DOE report, hoping something would stick. They specifically claimed any one of these arguments alone would overturn the endangerment finding.
But lets assume Data (Google Gemini?) is right and the release of the CWG /DOE report for public submissions was all a deliberate strategy to distract from the legalistic arguments, in other words a classic “bait and switch” operation. Blaming scientists for responding to the CWG / DOE report, and claiming its a waste of time still doesn’t make any sense. It had to be debunked sooner or later because it could overturn the endangerment finding. Obviously its better to do this sooner than later. Scientists were the right people to debunk the CWG / DOE report. They don’t have the EXPERTISE to debunk the legalistic arguments and cost / benefit arguments.
And we have to ask what could non scientists have done to combat the EPAs legalistic arguments at this early stage of things? I don’t recall the EPA asking for public submissions on the legalistic arguments. But given people broadly knew what the EPAs legal arguments might be, perhaps various interest groups lobbied the EPA anyway? This would be a reasonable assumption. And theres nothing more they could do. So I just don’t think Data’s claims amounts to anything significant.
The rescinding of the endangerment finding will now be challenged anyway, presumably by lawyers. Theres not a lot scientists can do on that. They have already played their part perfectly, by debunking the CWG / DOE report and as early as possible.
Data’s legal arguments remind me of the climate science Galileos who have found special scientific knowledge everyone missed. An attorney who heads the Harvard Law School’s environmental law program said this about the EPA’s changing strategy:
“So instead of disputing the science in its final rule, the administration leaned into the legal arguments. ‘They made the proposal look less crazy,’ said Jody Freeman, director of Harvard Law School’s Environmental and Energy Law Program. ‘That would have attracted a lot of judicial attention and made them look irrational.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/climate/endangerment-finding-legal-court-lawsuits.html
I wanted to get that quote into the discussion here. Now I’m really done.
J O’S: thank you for your comments. You make sense to me.
The annexation of Feynman and Hansen are particularly galling. The former had a sense of humor and perspective, and the latter is a hardworking advocate for knowledge. The endless regurgitation of their ideas fails to transmit their substance. I might not presume to agree or disagree with Dr. Hansen, but he would not appreciate these obscurantist efforts and their endless volume.
The fact that Data resents that some of his posts are removed is staggering, given the volume of material he gets published here on a routine basis.
Thanks Susan A. I haven’t commented much on RealClimate in years since it first started. I’ve always read the opening posts, but I did not have much to add on the science except for noise, so I kept quite. The past few months with the legal issues coming up, I could add to the regulation and environmental law discussion since I worked in those areas before I ran from the law (a pun among lawyers describing people who left the legal practice).
I’ve seen the voluminous posts from data and had not bothered reading them until he/she/they started commenting on the regulatory stuff. Data is either ill-informed or just obstinate. Either way data is not worth any serious engagement. Don’t feed the trolls, as the old expression goes.
Reply to Nigelj 15 Feb 2026 at 2:29 PM
“… not a lot scientists can do on that. They have already played their part perfectly, by debunking the CWG / DOE report and as early as possible.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2026/02/epas-final-ruling-on-co2/#comment-845214
Data: So when in doubt, when reality doesn’t match the expectations you prefer to apply a ‘make it all up’ approach? Pretend the facts are simply unavailable? When the EDF/UCS Court case against the DOE/CWG Report about FACA Rules had zero to do with the Science good or bad.
Therefore, logically the “Science” within the CWG report is irrelevant as is the degree to whatever debunking Dressler, NAS, AMS, RC commentary / reporting has occurred outside of it. And that’s why what I said in my objective wide-ranging evidence based analysis above never needed to address the Science. Which seems precisely why now you’ve had to pivot to the “Science debunking” in your follow-up response.
I’m sorry but your arguments make no rational sense because they do not match objective reality.
The EPA repeal ruling has not been made based on the Climate Science or the impacts of Climate Change. Therefore, logically, what Dressler, NAS, AMS, RC commentary has focused on is and was Moot.
My only “crime”, the overall complaints against me, seems to be that I was early and predicted that would be the outcome. Well then, shoot me. :-/
Data @ 17 Feb 2026 at 5:22 PM
I haven’t made anything up. Your reasoning (paraphrased) was that scientists were wasting their time fighting the DOE / CWG report on its scientific merits, because 1) it was allegedly just a cunning ploy to distract attention from the legal arguments against the endangerment finding and 2) it wasn’t essential to fighting the endangerment finding (your comments @14 Feb 2026 at 6:27 PM and elsewhere).
My correctly worded argument above page was no they weren’t wasting their time, because the report was a powerful stand alone weapon that could have destroyed the endangerment finding. So even if it was used as a ploy, and even although it was not the ONLY weapon the EPA had, it was important it was rebutted as soon as possible.
The fact you point out that the EDF/UCS court case was legally based and worked (to an extent) is not the point, because IT MAY HAVE FAILED. So it was still important for scientists to debunk the DOE / CWG report scientifically and ASAP. Astonishingly you don’t seem to understand that.
Mr. Ladbury: The last 45 years have seen an explosion in the take-up of alternative forms of energy and alternative ways to employ them. To the extent that the world has bypassed the worst case scenarios embodied in RCP 8.5 and is on a trajectory of below 4.5 watts per square meter. Solar power has grown in capacity from 1 GW in 2000 to 2,000 GW in 2025. Wind power has grown from 17 GW in 2000 to 1,100 GW in 2025. In 1990 the sale of electric vehicles amounted to about 100,000 per year. In 2024 they were estimated at 17 million
The world has done a lot in the fight against climate change. Obviously there is a lot more to do.
But here’s a tip for you and people like you: Instead of castigating the rest of us for not having finished the job yet, lift a glass and propose a toast congratulating us on a good beginning.
y
TWF: The rollback of that ‘good beginning’ is not matter for celebration. Nearly 50 years of obstruction is intensifying and destroying on its path of lies, hate, and profiteering. The billionaire evangelism is reaching peak insanity: https://www.desmog.com/2026/02/04/qa-tech-billionaires-ai-space-empire-fantasies-are-an-insidious-form-of-climate-denial/
All: there’s some fine material on DeSmog’s front news page today:
https://www.desmog.com/
Great, Tommy, but don’t sprain your arm patting yourself on the back! You don’t seem to understand that you don’t get graded on a curve. It’s pass/fail, and we’ve failed. Fossil fuels still dominate the energy landscape, and they dominate the political landscape even more now than they did when Ronny Reagan tore the solar panels off of the Whitehouse roof.
The climate system doesn’t care whether we made a valiant effort. It cares that the CO2 concentration is now more than 50% higher than it was when humans developed all of the infrastructure that underpins our civilization. We fucked around for over 40 years, so welcome to the Find Out phase of climate change.
But hey, next time you talk to someone whose house has been washed away in a hurricane or burned in a fire, make sure you show them that neato participation trophy!
You might want to read this–kind of a literary chill pill. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports on current and projected impacts of climate change and our contributions thereto. There will be impacts–mostly negative. It will disadvantage many–mostly in the developing world, if we don’t help them prepare (and yes that means pre-adaptation–please don’t faint.) But the academic literature the report draws on does not come close to foreseeing the disaster you describe.
Yep, we still use a lot of fossil fuels. Have you quit using them?
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-ii/
You’ve been watching too many apocalyptic science fiction movies.
TF: Yep, we still use a lot of fossil fuels. Have you quit using them?
BPL: Tu quoque fallacy.
So… no substantive response, then.
Tommy, I suppose that is true if you don’t care that your entire position is based on fallacies.
BPL: Tu quoque fallacy.
TF: “So… no substantive response, then.”
Nigel: I disagree. The Tu Quoque Fallacy is a logical fallacy where someone attempts to discredit an argument by accusing the speaker of hypocrisy rather than addressing the argument itself. Its a perfectly substantive response to mention that fallacy. Seems more like your use of the fallacy lacked substance.
Nigel: Schopenhauer’s 38 ways to win an argument [1896]
https://mnei.nl/schopenhauer/38-stratagems.htm
re nitpicking, perhaps look for something better to spend time on [me too: guilty as charged]
Susan Anderson @18 Feb 2026 at 11:03 PM
I don’t see how I was nit picking. Or did you mean the other guy?
Regarding Schopenhauer’s 38 ways to win an argument. They are mostly horrible sneaky debating tricks. They may win arguments in debating contests where people vote on the winner, but they do not progress us to finding truth. I avoid the temptation to use them, but make no mistake I can use them in ways that would have your head spinning if I wanted.
I’m not even that desperate to “win arguments”. I just like to point out weaknesses in what people say, and point out the facts hoping it will inform people in general. Even if it only informs one person that’s a plus. And its rather enjoyable. If I win the argument thats a bonus.
Tom- humans have built a commendable amount of renewable capacity. sadly, instead of deploying it to displace FF burning, we’ve just used it to support our addiction to rising energy use. better than doing that with FFs surely, but the “energy transition” is mainly imaginary. sure, if you squint you can see encouraging signs, but you do have to squint. energy use continues to rise and fifty years in, FF use continues to rise. will we show the political will to leave any of it in the ground?
RC: the “energy transition” is mainly imaginary.
BPL: I disagree. A greater and greater percentage of energy is renewable, especially in the electric power sector. Obviously we need to curb energy growth, and the damned AI data centers aren’t helping, but the transition is happening.
I’m sorry, Tommy, but Disney’s first law (wishing will make it so) is a piss poor approach to a threat whose consequence neither of us can bound. Estimates of the costs of climate change range from 7 to 38 trillion $$ per year by 2050. That ain’t chickenfeed. And that is the peer-reviewed literature.. Climate change is already having severe consequences–as folks from Palisades, CA to Ashville, NC can tell you.
And no, I have not quit using fossil fuels–the reason being that the world economy is currently structured–by fossil fuel companies and their lackeys in government–to make that impossible.
Look, Tommy. It doesn’t make any difference whether either of us think we’re doing a good job. There is one question–is CO2 still rising. If it is, we are making things worse. We are failing to address the crisis. We’ve been failing for 40 years. And eventually, our failures are going to bring us over some tipping point that makes all our future efforts useless. That is what I’d like to avoid–because given the slowness with which people address the current crisis, I really don’t want to see how they handle it once things really are hopeless.
Ray… CO2 is still rising because globally transportation vehicles need fossil fuels. If we stop using those fuels the CO2 already in the atmosphere will still be there and we won’t have finished the transition away from them. That’s what the EPA’s endangerment finding failed to consider. The effects on global economies of urgent emission reductions. The pandemic travel lockdowns were a dress rehearsal for rapid CO2 emission reductions on global economies.
Wall Street Journal…
Covid-19 shut many of the world’s biggest economies—grounding planes, closing factories and keeping drivers off the road. That sent demand for carbon-dioxide-emitting fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas tumbling. The International Energy Agency estimates emissions fell 5.8% in 2020, the steepest percentage decline since World War II..
KT: CO2 is still rising because globally transportation vehicles need fossil fuels. If we stop using those fuels the CO2 already in the atmosphere will still be there and we won’t have finished the transition away from them. That’s what the EPA’s endangerment finding failed to consider. The effects on global economies of urgent emission reductions.
MS: Ken, implementing urgent emission reductions does not mean we stop using the ICE vehicles we still need. It means we accelerate the process of developing EVs to replace those ICE vehicles. We also accelerate the process of converting to generating electricity with wind, solar, and nuclear.
Ken Towe,
Do you have some sort of medical condition that prevents you from seeing when you are basing your arguments on logical fallacies and outdated talking points. Because if you do, I don’t want to be too mean.
Do you see that the exact same arguments when the economy was transitioning away from horses or when we transitioned away from whale oil to light our homes? But just try finding a blacksmith these days.
KT : “The pandemic travel lockdowns were a dress rehearsal for rapid CO2 emission reductions on global economies. Wall Street Journal…Covid-19 shut many of the world’s biggest economies—grounding planes, closing factories and keeping drivers off the road. That sent demand for carbon-dioxide-emitting fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas tumbling. The International Energy Agency estimates emissions fell 5.8% in 2020, the steepest percentage decline since World War II..”
No, that is an apples and oranges comparison, that is without any meaning or relevance. The covid lockdowns were massive and done instantly or were phased in incredibly rapidly over a period of a couple of weeks in some cases, so of course factories closed and people lost jobs or were put on home leave. Even the most ambitious plans to transition to renewables are phased in over a period of DECADES! Net zero is 2050, so the economy has considerable time to adjust without causing factory closures and layoffs.
As noted previously, Ray, Smithsonian curator emeritus Dr. Kenneth M. Towe retired from peer-disciplined petrology and paleontology in 1996. He then seems to have gone emeritus on anthropogenic climate change. With Gemini’s unreliable help, I’ve verified a letter he published in Science in 2006 (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.313.5786.442a). It begins with:
The Netwatch item “Ozone tracker” (9 June, p. 1447) furthers the common misconception that the size of the Antarctic ozone hole is a function of ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).
I found another citation from 2007 on SCOPUS, but couldn’t access the text: a letter he published in Geotimes, titled “IPCC madness redux”, “https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/35449003710
His reflexive rejection of peer consensus is on display no later than 2007, IOW. His prolific Internet activity on behalf of Big Carbon emerges shortly thereafter. He appears to have spent time on ResearchGate. AFAIK, he was never paid for his obstructionism: he doesn’t show up on DesmogBlog, for example. His message is consistent: he seems simply to loathe the idea of collective intervention to decarbonize the US and global economies. Chalk his literally incorrigible false claims, and his persistently ludicrous misinformation on renewable energy, up to the pain of his irrelevance in the 21st century. Or else to “sheer bloody-mindedness”, like our pet lukewarmer TWF.
I’ve even pleaded with him to at least adopt a pseudonym, so as not to make a pathetic figure of himself for all to see, but he’s proud to have his name attached to the the biggest common-pool resource market failure in history. It’s too late now, anyway! At one point in our slap-fight on “The Crucial Years” (https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/an-el-nino-is-brewing/comment/219090065O, he declared:
Your MBE is still accumulating. Good science is never done by consensus. Those are the ones fooling themselves. You have joined in by believing that a half-degree F. increase since pre-industrial time is evidence of a climate crisis. That rapid reductions in CO2 emissions will solve the perceived problem without destroying economies like the pandemic travel lockdowns did. Get a grip on reality.
My Mass Balance Equation is accumulating? Tell me about it, I’ve had to start wearing drawstring pants! Meh. IMHO, Towe has irredeemably forsaken Feynman’s dictum: “The first rule is not to fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool”.
LOL! Try the following prompt on Gemini:
“On Realclimate, Ken Towe has irredeemably forsaken Feynman’s dictum: ‘The first rule is not to fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool’.”
Its response sounded pretty reliable to me!
I have implicitly recognized another category error in mainstream climate discourse:
“Policy narratives and scenario projections are being treated as empirical transitions.”
That is methodologically wrong.
The Core Scientific Bottom Line (Neutral, Brutally Honest)
What we can say with high confidence:
1) Renewables are expanding rapidly
2) Fossil fuels still dominate total global energy
3) Fossil energy has not declined globally in absolute terms
4) Therefore, a global full-system transition is not empirically demonstrated
What we CANNOT scientifically say yet:
1) That a transition will fail
2) That it will succeed
3) That exponential trends will continue
4) That future technological breakthroughs will or will not occur
Science cannot prove futures—only describe the present and current constraints.
Are we all having “fun” yet? I am. With immense pleasure.
This is a straw man. Nobody who is a serious scientist is doing this. Get serious.
Data @17 Feb 2026 at 8:59 PM
Thank you, Captain Obvious. And thanks for all the strawman statements.
Data should change his pseudonym to Words. It would be descriptive and accurate. He uses millions of them, trying to drown people with intellectual effluent.
The lawsuits have started. A coalition of public health and environmental groups have taken the first step in challenging the EPA.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/public-health-green-groups-sue-trump-epa-repeal-greenhouse-gas-climate-rcna25955
This is the formal declaration of the challenge and does not include the scientific and legal reasons for the it. Those will come in later filings.
https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/default/files/2026-02/filed-endangerment-petition.pdf
Here’s the mechanical consequences of your dream scenario, no spin, just math and system effects.
The World You Seek Has 70 Million Barrels a Day of Stranded Oil Waste Becoming the New Pollution
Toxic goo, soaring chemical prices, and industrial-scale bankruptcy — the hidden consequences of electrifying energy while Oil based plastics, bitumen, petrochemicals and industrial demand persist.
100% WWS Electrical Energy and Net Zero Emissions? Then this is the kind of world you want to make!
In a fully electrified world where water, wind, solar, and battery storage collectively supply roughly 80 percent or more of global energy needs, oil and gas would contribute only 5 to 10 percent, and only in rare or isolated cases. The remaining energy requirements — including electricity for buildings, transport, and all industrial processes such as cement production, steelmaking, mining, chemical manufacturing, and other energy-intensive industries — would be met through hydro, nuclear, and renewable electricity paired with hydrogen and battery storage, effectively replacing all coal and fossil fuel use.
Even in this scenario, demand for oil would remain for non-energy purposes: plastics, lubricants, chemical feedstocks, and bitumen. These industrial and chemical uses, along with the isolated energy demand cases, would then account for roughly only 20 to 30 percent of each barrel of oil extracted from the ground.
Today’s refineries, however, are engineered to process the full barrel, relying on the sale of fuel fractions — gasoline, diesel, aviation kerosene, and gas byproducts — to cover costs and maintain economic viability. With the bulk of the fuel fraction eliminated, 70 to 80 percent of the crude oil would effectively become a stranded, low-value waste byproduct — pollution. Handling this surplus — whether through underground reinjection, low-value combustion, or complex chemical conversions — would be costly and limited in scale, essentially impossible to do economically or physically.
Natural gas faces a similar fate. Large-scale industrial uses — most notably the Haber-Bosch process for ammonia/fertilizer production — would no longer need fossil-derived energy input in a fully electrified, net-zero world. Plants designed for fossil fuel heat and hydrogen would either require expensive electrification retrofits or be shut down, creating another example of stranded fuel and infrastructure.
The economic consequences would be systemic. The cost of producing plastics, lubricants, chemical feedstocks, bitumen, and fertilizers could rise three- to fivefold, because the energy fractions that previously subsidized refinery and chemical operations are no longer needed. Many upstream and downstream operations — including drilling, refining, chemical manufacturing, bitumen and fertilizer production — would become structurally unprofitable. In effect, the entire petroleum and gas-based industrial ecosystem becomes economically unsustainable, implicitly driving it toward industrial-scale bankruptcy. Even selectively using specific crude grades or gas sources would not resolve the structural problem, as chemical yields cannot be isolated without producing the unwanted energy fractions.
Ultimately, in such a world, the petroleum and natural gas system cannot survive at any scale. Stripping away the energy market while leaving chemical, industrial, and fertilizer demand intact transforms oil and gas from broadly viable commodities into high-cost, uneconomical, high-polluting marginal feedstocks. The processing infrastructure, operating costs, and market dynamics all point toward collapse: the industry is implicitly bankrupted, with only limited, expensive outputs able to meet ongoing industrial needs. This scenario demonstrates that without fuel demand, the traditional oil and gas sector is structurally unsustainable, incapable of self-supporting operations in a fully electrified global economy — a collapse that would simultaneously devastate the bitumen, plastics, petrochemical, and fertilizer industries.
Conclusion
The hard Data no one ever talks about. And no one wants to do a scientific research peer reviewed paper on it either. The Truth is a Career Killer! :-/
Not trying to fix broken institutions, win debates, heal fractured societies, or convert anyone — I’m only providing cognitive hygiene. The healthy way to think.
[Response: Oh no! Won’t anyone think of the refineries? Those poor little smol beans – they will be helpless! This is beyond stupid. – gavin]
You are dishonest, and you are a bore. Your comments are utterly worthless.
in Re to gavin, 20 Feb 2026 at 2:18 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2026/02/epas-final-ruling-on-co2/#comment-845472
Dear Dr. Schmidt,
As a chemist, I can confirm that the post is a total nonsense that should have landed in the Bore Hole or, if still available, in the Crank Shaft.
The entire text is indeed crazy, e.g. because the share of crude oil that is processed to petrochemicals in fact does not anyhow differ from the prevailing share that is processed to fuels. If oil becomes to be processed to petrochemical only, there will be no “stranded, waste by product”, this is a total bullshit.
It is also obvious that there is no threat of a global economy disruption due to sudden fossil fuel replacement with renewable energy. It may run relatively quickly during a few decades as soon as this replacement once becomes economically advantageous / profitable in its entirety. I believe that this desirable goal is achievable if we desist from suppressing technical progress by subsidizing economically uncompetitive technologies, such as obsolete nuclear energy exploitation that remains technically on the same primitive level as 50 years ago. This optimistic timeline is, however, quite in accordance with deprecation rate of existing petrochemical facilities and further fossil fuel-related infrastructure.
What have I not understood is why you published this crap herein instead of redirecting it instantly to a directory dedicated therefor?
Best regards
Tomáš
The claims about reduced petrol production leading to petrochemicals soaring in price and leading to bankruptcy of the oil industry are hugely exaggerated, and no source material is quoted. Analysists advise that as demand for petrol decreases, refineries will reconfigure their operations, and some refineries will close, and the net result will be some modest increase in the cost of producing petrochemicals but nothing huge.
The claims that the oil fraction that is used to make petrol will be reinjected underground, or will be wasted, or will cause pollution are not proven. That oil fraction can be used to make petrochemicals economically, although the process involves several steps and is not perfectly efficient. So the economic impacts are not catastrophic like Data implies. His comments are as usual misleading to put it charitably. Some sources:
https://www.bcg.com/publications/2025/future-of-refiners-dictated-by-costs-and-margins
https://www.mckinsey.org/~/media/mckinsey/industries/oil%20and%20gas/our%20insights/global%20downstream%20outlook%20to%202035/energyinsightsoutlook-2035-v7.pdf
D: Even in this scenario, demand for oil would remain for non-energy purposes: plastics, lubricants, chemical feedstocks, and bitumen. These industrial and chemical uses, along with the isolated energy demand cases, would then account for roughly only 20 to 30 percent of each barrel of oil extracted from the ground.
BPL: We use too much plastic; we need to reduce it.
D: Today’s refineries, however, are engineered to process the full barrel, relying on the sale of fuel fractions — gasoline, diesel, aviation kerosene, and gas byproducts — to cover costs and maintain economic viability.
BPL: Then we’ll just have to change the technology, won’t we?
Yeah, he really gave the game away with “Today’s refineries,”…
Good news, the technology already exists…
“How can we stop burning fossil fuels if we still need everything else they make?” – Just Have a Think https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYWLpdGgJe4 – (see ~ 7:30 – ~ 10:40)
Gavin on “Data”: “Oh no! Won’t anyone think of the refineries? Those poor little smol beans – they will be helpless!”
;-) . On that note – “Data, aren’t you supposed to be a doomer? You know, telling us how we are doing not enough to mitigate AGW, NOT taking the talking points from the deniers on the damage to the profits of fossil fuel industry this mitigation will do!
And haven’t you claimed that we can’t mitigate AGW until we overthrow capitalism? So
what is with this concern for the profit margin of the capitalist-owned refineries???
Data: “The Truth is a Career Killer!”
What career? ;-)
Words: Conclusion
The hard Data no one ever talks about. And no one wants to do a scientific research peer reviewed paper on it either. The Truth is a Career Killer! :-/
Not trying to fix broken institutions, win debates, heal fractured societies, or convert anyone — I’m only providing cognitive hygiene. The healthy way to think.
Gavin: [Response: Oh no! Won’t anyone think of the refineries? Those poor little smol beans – they will be helpless! This is beyond stupid. – gavin]
LOL! Schooled by the headmaster!
As usual, those who know nothing of how economics ACTUALLY works, who do not speak with materials scientists and cutting-edge economists, dismiss salient points as silly.
This is maladaptive.
Well, gosh, we’ll just retool!
Really? The world’s economy is already foundering on the systemics of ecosystem destruction and climate change, let alone all the geopolitical nonsense and simple realities of being on the downside of the complexity curve.
What happens in one area of the economy, as Data pointed out, does not just affect that area of the economy.
Well, shoot! It’s just a transition!
Huh. In the past, there was something obvious to transition to. And it was typically a more energy-intensive fuel/energy source. That does not exist this time. 1. “Renewables” aren’t. 2. To have a “renewable” economy that no longer destroys the ecosystem, we need recycling to expand by 10 ~ 20 fold and figure out how to recycle the 30% we are currently clueless about and the large majority that we CAN recycle, but don’t because that 10x greater capacity does not exist.
And this is far from an exhaustive list.
Sure, you can claim each barrel in the future will go to these other uses. But that also means FAR LESS OIL will be used. THAT means the end of the petrodollar. That is a MASSIVE shift that will in no way, shape or form run smoothly.
That means far less EROEI. It used to be said you need a minimum 3:1 ERoei, but some estimates I’ve seen now put that at 7:1. Good luck with that. A society in energy deficit? Hello, massive economic disruptions.
But, hey, there won’t be any big issues!
You all do not listen, never have, likely never will.
This is maladaptive.
Try two PhDs.
https://www.clubhouse.com/room/xoabL87o
K: “Sure, you can claim each barrel in the future will go to these other uses. But that also means FAR LESS OIL will be used. THAT means the end of the petrodollar. That is a MASSIVE shift that will in no way, shape or form run smoothly.”
True, and Killians “simplification” solution is also a massive shift, and in no way would that run smoothly either. But that is lost on Killian. Of course people get so committed to ideas they lose objectivity about them.
However it wouldn’t hurt humanity to embrace a less ambitious, slower, more easily managed version of simplification.
For anyone interested in finding out more about agency rule making and court challenges for environmental law cases, I recommend the book The Rule of Five: Making Climate Making Climate History at the Supreme Court. It tells how the landmark Supreme Court climate case Massachusetts v EPA played out with a lot of insider knowledge of the people, the organizations, and the procedures. It’s similar to A Civil Action, but it gets more into details and technicalities. I think it would be helpful to understand the coming litigation over the endangerment rescission.
I enjoyed it but I think my comments here on RealClimate demonstrate I am an environmental law geek.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv33wwtdm
Led by Massachusetts, 22 states, Cleveland and Columbus OH and Harris County, TX (Houston’s county) outside of those states have filed a lawsuit against the EPA over the endangerment finding rescission. This is important because Massachusetts v EPA would not have been won if a state wasn’t leading the lawsuit.
Press release from the New York State Attorney General
https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2026/attorney-general-james-leads-challenge-trump-administrations-climate-rollback
The actual filing, this is just a petition for review which is an intent to sue notice without any substantive arguments. Those will come later.
https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/court-filings/massachusetts-et-al-v-united-states-environmental-protection-agency-lee-zeldin-petition-2026_0.pdf
The toughest thing for most laymen when it comes to trying to decipher truth from fiction, fact from opinion, as well as the gaslighting and shaming associated from some ends of the scientific community is to try and discern who is being an honest scientist, and who is being the political hack.