The Worst Climate Stories of the Week (We Had to Invent a New Word For It)

The climate takes a hit, as the EV market gets so bad, we had to invent a new word for it.

In last week’s Worst Climate Stories, we republished a personal anecdote of a woman who rented an electric Ford Mustang, with predictably disastrous results. Well, she must not be the only one having those problems. Ford announced a gargantuan loss on the EVs it sold. Just goes to show nobody wants these things, at least not at those prices.

It’s not just Ford. The schadenfreude around electric vehicles (EVs) has gotten completely out of hand. We’re here for all of it, with three separate stories of EV market implosions. Speaking of speaking German, the greenies over there lied about environmental impact to shut down the nuclear power industry. Shocking, right? In other news, radical left-wing climate journalists inadvertently say the quiet part out loud and admit recycling doesn’t make sense. In cow fart news, scientists are trying to genetically engineer fartless cows, but farmers aren’t having any of it. Radicals keep trying to make Category 6 hurricanes a thing, despite zero evidence to support their wild claims.

Believe it or not, we actually have a bunch of good news this week. Natural processes will keep CO2 levels in the atmosphere stable, Gotion lost again in Michigan, climate kids lost in Oregon, and we have a video clip highlight of that national treasure, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) taking a climate activist to the woodshed.

(DON’T MISS: The Worst Climate Stories of the Week–Time Keeps On Slippin’, Slippin’, Slippin’ . . . )

Speaking of the woodshed, let’s take you to it.

The EV Implosion Gets Implodier

Is that a word? Let’s go with it. Anyway, EVs have had a rough ride this year. Ford’s “Model e” division, the one that bastardized the Mustang into an EV, reported a staggering loss for the first quarter of 2024. How staggering? How does $1.3 BILLION grab you? That pencils out to losing $130,000 on every EV it sold. Ford blamed “industry-wide pricing pressures” for its massive loss. The paltry $100 million in EV revenue for the quarter represents an 84 percent drop from the same period a year ago. Meanwhile, car rental company Hertz, which sold off half its EV fleet in January, reported another loss on its investment. They subsequently sold off more EVs, now ridding themselves of a total of 30,000 of their 60,000 fleet. Taking losses on each liquidation, they have now lost a total of $440 million on their EV investment. The CEO resigning probably had something to do with this.   

The German Green Movement Goes Nuclear to Kill Nuclear

Two German politicians apparently rewrote technical reports to make nuclear seem like an unsafe option. This action played a role in the shutdown of the last nuclear plants in Germany. So says an explosive new media report. This happened in 2022, just as Russia invaded Ukraine and threw Germany’s tenuous energy markets into chaos by threatening their reliance on imported coal and oil. All in an effort to make the country’s energy supply “greener.” Not having nuclear power available caused electricity rates to skyrocket ever more.

Climate Journalists Admit Recycling Is BS

Global leaders met in Ottawa in April to hammer out a global treaty to stop plastic pollution. Supposedly the plastic industry accounts for five percent of human carbon dioxide emissions. So says a report from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, anyway, which advocates for a “circular economy.” A group of radical environmental journalists has set about supporting this treaty, saying the “plastics industry” has engaged in “decades-long disinformation efforts,” by advocating recycling as the solution to plastic waste. They say the industry knows recycling is “not an economically or technically feasible solution.”

So there you have it. Even the greenies know recycling doesn’t work. Why do so many people continue to labor under the misconception that spending all that time separating out their garbage will do anything to help Mother Earth?

GMOs to Cut the Farts (Cow Farts, That Is . . . .)

A recent scientific study suggests genetically modifying organisms to save the world from methane. GMOs for Mother Earth!

Apparently breeders can breed the farts out of the cows. As they continually try to tell us, methane emissions have way more of an effect on global temperature than carbon dioxide. (Never mind that methane makes up a tiny fraction compared to carbon dioxide, which makes up a tiny fraction of the atmosphere.) The enviroloons have been trying to get rid of cows for decades, but maybe they’ve found a compromise.

Try telling that to a rancher. According to the Wyoming-based Cowboy State Daily:

. . . there are plenty of other contributors to climate change and greenhouse gas emission that are much more serious and impactful that flatulent cattle, Wyoming ranch industry experts say. Besides, there are many other factors ranchers have to consider for raising cattle besides their methane emissions.

“Every rancher selects slightly different attributes among the 20,000 different things that they look for,” said Brett Moline, director of Public and Governmental Affairs for the Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation. “Your goal is to produce a good-quality meat product.”

Good luck trying to convince those ranchers to breed for low emissions instead of higher profit.

How Long Until Hurricanes Go To 11?

Taking their cue from Spinal Tap, environmentalists keep trying to make Category 6 hurricanes a thing.

Meteorologist Joe Bastardi pointed out the desperation and futility of the scientists who want to add a sixth category to the hurricane scale:

The Category  6 crowd is at it again. We all know they would like to declare a climate emergency during the hurricane season. But the idea of Cat 6 is to make you think storms are worse now than ever.

If you want to do this, there are other storms from the past that should already be there. And on the power and impact scale, I advocate for several.  But it’s the usual worse-than-ever jibberish.

In short. 1) the bigger the storm, the more energy it needs, and is more likely to draw in conditions that will limit it. 2) There are limits to how strong a storm can get, such as friction. 3) The very fact the storm is so strong means it’s cooling the water it is over, also a self-limiting factor.

And now for some good news …

Carbon Dioxide In the Atmosphere Will Remain Stable

Much like the self-limiting factors of cyclonic tropical storms that keep them from raging out of control, natural processes also keep carbon dioxide in check. Few climate alarmists will admit that the atmosphere and oceans act as buffer systems that keep levels of all sorts of dissolved gases from getting out of control. This week, Dr. Roy Spencer, NASA scientist, published a pre-print article that uses climate alarmist computer models to prove natural forces keep carbon dioxide levels stable, and we have no need for Net Zero policies to cut human emissions.

Gotion and Climate Kids Lose Again

This week we have a double shot of lawfare defeats for the radical environmentalists and the commies who love them. First, in the ongoing saga of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI), the Biden administration, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) trying to build an EV plant in a tiny town in Michigan against the wishes of the townsfolk, the little guy(s) won another battle. The town council of Green Charter Township successfully formed its own Planning Commission, which blocks the Mecosta County Planning Commission from moving ahead with its attempt to grease the skids for the plant via zoning changes.

Meanwhile, a bunch of children in Oregon got conned by a radical non-profit into signing on to a lawsuit against the state for failing to “protect their right to a habitable earth.” This has gone on so long, many of them are no longer children (and yet, their future didn’t stop). The Ninth Circuit rejected their appeal of the original dismissal:

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals previously ordered the case dismissed in 2020, saying that the job of determining the nation’s climate policies should fall to politicians, not judges. But U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken in Eugene, Oregon, instead allowed the activists to amend their lawsuit and last year ruled the case could go to trial.

Acting on a request from the Biden administration, a three-judge 9th Circuit panel issued an order Wednesday requiring Aiken to dismiss the case, and she did. Julia Olson, an attorney with Our Children’s Trust, the nonprofit law firm representing the activists, said they were considering asking the 9th Circuit to rehear the matter with a larger slate of judges.

John Kennedy, National Treasure

Finally, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) has made headlines again. This guy has his own comedy show in the US Senate. This week, he dismantled a climate activist (**LANGUAGE WARNING**):

(READ MORE: How the Left’s Global Warming Ideology Wrecked Science—and How to Stop It)