The Worst Climate Stories of the Week—On the Cusp of Something Great

This column started almost two years ago, during the Biden regime that plunged America headlong into green insanity. The evolution of the stories in that time has been something to behold, and has created quite a dichotomy today. The climate cultists have lost the debate, lost court cases (we see you, Michael Mann), and lost elections. Now that Trump 2.0 has set about to reverse all of Biden's mistakes, the world has taken that cue to do a complete 180 on climate.

As that process unfolds, the stories we document here take on a divergent character. On one hand, we have the cultists realizing they've lost the public debate, and trying to foment a panic that doesn't match the evidence. On the other hand, in just a short time, America has refocused on technological advances that promise real, reliable energy abundance. As the two sides of the debate diverge, the world keeps spinning, the sun keeps shining, and the atmosphere maintains a stable but dynamic climate that fosters life on Earth. And humans keep on thriving—even as some of them try to convince the rest of us that doom is right around the corner.

This week, we have a picnic basket full of failing electric vehicle stories; another picnic basket full of stories around the implosion of "green" energy; an examination of the natural rights of inanimate objects; green insanity from a blue state; and more evidence of data tampering by climate scientists.

We also have several items in our Good News segment, including a true energy renaissance in America, a slow start to hurricane season, and the increase in global greening.

Let's go.

(DON'T MISS LAST WEEK'S COLUMN: More Inconvenient Ice Growth)

This Week in Imploding EVs

We finally have a resolution to the absurd notion that California can dictate automobile manufacturing for the entire United States. Because of California's size—the fourth-largest economy in the world, about 14 percent of the total economy of the U.S.—any regulation it imposes on industry can have an outsized effect on productivity. So it was with automakers. The California Air Resources Board (CARB), after getting a massive exception from the Biden-era EPA, mandated that 80% of vehicles sold in that state must be electric by 2035.

In a ceremony this week, President Trump signed three congressional resolutions to undo the damage:

The resolutions work to end California's plan to end the sale of gasoline-only vehicles by 2035, including one ending a waiver issued by the Biden-era EPA that mandated at least 80% of vehicles be electric vehicles in California by 2035, as well as another resolution ending the Biden-era EPA's approval of a plan to increase the number of zero-emission heavy-duty trucks in California, and another on California's low-nitrogen oxide regulations for heavy-duty vehicles, including off-road vehicles.

Naturally, the California Attorney General immediately sued. Democratic Governor (and presidential wannabe) Gavin Newsom called the signing of congressional action by Trump an "illegal action." This is, by the way, the 26th time California has sued the Trump administration this year.

One final note on the market for EVs, which continues to implode as federal subsidies dry up: energy expert David Blackmon has an item on his Substack about an absurd claim that global EV sales have grown 28 percent in 2025—a claim that relies 100 percent on the reports of sales in China. Just more propaganda with no basis in fact.

This Week In Imploding Green Energy

So many green energy bankruptcies this week, so little space. This calls for a bullet point list.

• A 1.5 gigawatt offshore wind project in New Jersey died, as Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, LLC, formally terminated its project with the state.
• A battery manufacturer called Powin, headquartered in deep blue Oregon, filed for bankruptcy and laid off all but 85 of its employees after reporting more than $300 million in debt. Powin makes large-scale battery storage units for wind and solar farms.
• Another "green" energy company, Sunnova Energy, filed for bankruptcy this week—remarkably, after receiving a $3 billion loan guarantee from the Biden administration in 2023. The Trump administration canceled that guarantee in May.
• An electric vehicle battery company "paused" construction on a $1.6 billion factory in South Carolina, citing "policy and market uncertainty."

Not to point out the obvious or anything, but the trends don't look good for the "clean" energy sector.

Update on the Klamath Dam Removal Project

A recent trend among the enlightened green cult has centered around claiming inanimate objects have natural rights. Those rights, so this theory goes, deserve protection in our judicial system, on the same level as inherent human rights. The American Spectator had a thorough examination of this theory as it relates to the Klamath Dam removal project. The article sums up the argument by saying, "In contrast to 'the doctrine of human supremacy' over nature, rights-of-nature advocates view human beings as 'entangled' in nature’s 'web,' lacking any inherent claim to superiority to other parts of that web." The proponents of this view believe that rivers have the right to flow, and trees have the right to grow, and the air has the right to blow, without the interference of humans. Thus, claims a columnist for the New York Times, the Klamath Dam removal has morality on its side.

Never mind the rights of the humans. One human, a rancher and journalist in Siskyou County, California, points out the reality of what dam removal has done to the region:

With the dams gone, the lives and properties of residents along the Klamath River are now at risk of severe flooding, wildfire, water pollution, well shortages and possible contamination, and even air pollution from toxic dried sediment. On March 26, 2024, Siskiyou County declared a state of emergency due to these conditions. An entire community alongside former Copco Lake was effectively destroyed. Businesses along the Klamath that relied on recreational fishing have been crippled.

The largest dam removal project in history has done more harm than good for the stated goal of restoring salmon populations, while also devastating the farming communities in the area.

Oregon Expands Pointless Ban on Plastics

Another crazy environmental story comes to us from Oregon, as the legislature passed a bill to expand the state ban on plastic bags. Under the new law, restaurants and businesses will be barred from offering any form of plastic bag to customers. Starting in 2027, the only legal option will be recycled paper bags—for groceries or takeout.

More Evidence of Temperature Manipulations

The "extreme heat records" touted in the mainstream media may have come from manipulated temperature stations and databases. More evidence comes to us from the U.K., which has fully embraced climate insanity:

Substantial evidence has emerged to suggest that the UK Met Office is promoting the political cause of Net Zero by using recently introduced sensitive thermometers to collect 60-second unnatural heat spikes. These pulses are used to promote constant clickbait ‘records’ and claim exaggerated atmospheric warming. Furthermore, it appears that these short-term ‘spikes’ are larger in junk sites with massive internationally recognised ‘uncertainties”. Almost eight in 10 of the Met Office’s nationwide temperature measuring stations are in junk CIMO Classes 4 and 5 with possible errors up to 2°C and 5°C respectively.

Now for our voluminous Good News segment.

Nuclear Renaissance, Power Plant Expansion

Finally, America will start making nuclear power plants again:

Nuclear equipment supplier Westinghouse is in talks with US officials and industry partners about deploying 10 large reactors, in response to presidential executive orders, the Financial Times reported on Sunday, citing the company’s CEO.

President Trump’s executive orders, which were published on May 23, directed the government to cut down on regulations and fast-track licenses for reactors and power plants to shrink a multiyear process to 18 months.

Currently, the United States has zero nuclear power plants under construction, so this comes as welcome news for expanding clean, reliable power.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has announced it will rescind all greenhouse gas emissions standards for "fossil fuel-fired power plants." In addition, the EPA will rescind the finding that "greenhouse gas emissions" from power plants contribute to air pollution.

At a time when demand for reliable electricity has skyrocketed, unshackling our ability to produce that power seems pretty important.

Quiet Start to Hurricane Season

The officially recognized hurricane season in the northern hemisphere began June 1. Of course, that doesn't mean we wouldn't see tropical storms before that date, but generally the activity picks up as ocean surface temperatures rise. This year, we set a record that the climate cultists have failed to acknowledge: The latest first hurricane on record, on June 8. According to Dr. Gordon Fulks, a director of the CO2 Coalition:

We finally have the first hurricane of the 2025 season in the Northern Hemisphere, named Barbara.  This is the latest first hurricane on record:

https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/graphics_ep2.shtml?start#contents

The previous latest hurricane was Ava on June 4, 1973.

What does this say about hurricanes and Global Warming?  Nothing!  But if you want to make something out of it, you would have to ask: "Where have all the hurricanes gone??"

His point? No discernable pattern in weather can demonstrate any actual effects of carbon dioxide that proves man-made global warming.

Global Greening Update

It's no secret that carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere have increased over the past 150 years or so. The questions remain: Did humans cause it, and is it harmful? The climate cultists assume the answer to the first question without considering natural inputs, and ignore any debate whatsoever on the second question. Any evidence of an increase in global plant growth generally gets explained away or ignored outright, despite the obvious fact that it represents an improvement in global environmental conditions and the ability to feed the planet's populations.

Case in point: A new study finds "robust quantitative evidence" of "widespread" global greening. From the Daily Sceptic in the U.K.:

This is the CO₂ story that dare not print its tale in the mainstream media. Recent dramatic world vegetation boosts are easily tracked by satellite, and estimates of growth range around 14-20% over just 40 years. Recent scientific work has found the rate of greening has actually been increasing since the turn of the century. Ask Grok for recent coverage of this important trend in the BBC and Guardian, and the answer comes back with none since 2016. Global greening heads a long list of taboo subjects for captured journalists promoting the political Net Zero fantasy. Also on the not-to-do list is the pause of the Arctic sea ice extent since 2007, the continued strength of the Gulf Stream, record growth for three years of coral on the Great Barrier Reef and North American wildfires in the last 100 years running at barely a quarter of those recorded back to 1600.

If the mainstream media didn't have doom and gloom as their motivation, they would cease to exist, and maybe we might be able to consume some good news for a change.

(READ MORE: New Film 'Blown Away' Wrecks the Myth of Wind Power)