Worst Climate Stories of the Week—A Crisis of Ignored Crisis Reports

Ok, that’s it, we've officially closed the nominations, and we’ve found our winner for the most unintentionally hilarious headline of the year. It required several rounds of verification to ensure it wasn’t satire. Even after confirming it came from Reuters, doubts remained. But it's real, and it's spectacular:

UN report finds United Nations reports are not widely read 

Reuters reports, "United Nations report seeking ways to improve efficiency and cut costs has revealed: U.N. reports are not widely read. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres briefed countries on Friday on the report, produced by his UN80 reform that focused on how U.N. staff implement thousands of mandates given to them by bodies like the General Assembly or Security Council."

Apparently, the United Nations is really, really good at holding meetings, and producing reports on those meetings—27,000 meetings by various bodies in 2024, and 1,100 reports produced. Guterres reported that "the top 5% of reports are downloaded over 5,500 times, while one in five reports receives fewer than 1,000 downloads."

The image of Michael Mann obsessively downloading the IPCC reports with his name in them leaps to mind, in what one imagines as an obsessive attempt to pump up the numbers.

As long as Mann and his ilk continue to obsess over climate doom predictions, reports of impending catastrophe will continue to emerge from the U.N. and other similarly ineffective bureaucracies. And we'll continue to write about them, while the vast majority of humans continue not bothering to read them.

We have all kinds of other stories this week as well, including our weekly check-ins on electric vehicle markets; new scientific studies undermine the climate doom narrative; a major U.S. news outlet blaming overdose deaths on climate change; checking in on the headlong plunge by Europe into climate madness; Yale tests out a new climate propaganda program; and a widely reported climate study in 2024 contained bad data. Shocker, right?

We also have good news this week—the Trump purge of green boondoggles continues, saving American taxpayers billions.

Let's get to it.

(DON'T MISS LAST WEEK'S COLUMN: The Endangerment Finding Is On Its Last Legs)

This Week in Imploding EVs

The EV market continues to crater, as federal subsidies dry up. This week, Honda made an underreported announcement:

Japanese automotive giant Honda is reassessing its strategy for electric vehicles as it navigates challenges stemming from the high costs of EV development, flattening EV demand, and the impact of U.S. tariffs.

In the first quarter of its 2025-2026 fiscal year (April 1 to June 30, 2025), Honda took a one-time charge of ¥113.4 billion (~$780 million) related to its EV-related troubles. In total, the impact of the EV charge and its exposure to tariffs took a toll on Honda’s operating profit during the quarter, as earnings fell to ¥244.1 billion (~$1.69 billion) from ¥484.7 billion (~$3.35 billion) just one year ago.

A company official stated that Honda is not optimistic about the future of electric vehicles.

This Week in Narrative-Busting Science

Not one, not two, but three studies appeared in peer-reviewed scientific journals this week that undercut important climate narratives. According to a summary by Disclose.tv:

Climate reports warn of rising sea levels and flooding due to melting ice caps. A recent opinion by the International Court of Justice highlights dangers to islands and coastlines. However, three new studies challenge the narrative of impending disaster.

One study indicates the Antarctic ice sheet gained mass for the first time in decades due to increased snowfall. Another study suggests current models may misrepresent ice sheet behavior under warming, potentially exaggerating sea level rise. A third study reveals uncertainties in temperature history, disputing claims of unprecedented warming.

These findings raise questions about the reliability of predictions that sea levels will rise. Despite claims from the IPCC, increased ice mass in polar regions creates doubt. Furthermore, 2025 has brought unusually cold temperatures, contradicting warming narratives.

The study on the behavior of melting ice sheets could have serious implications for the underlying assumptions of what will happen in a dynamic climate. The climate alarmists have always opted for the most extreme outcome in a range of possibilities, when the extremes represent the least likely outcome.

Newspaper Notices a Spike in Overdoses, and You Won't Believe What Happens Next

According to the Los Angeles Times, one month sees more drug overdose deaths in the calendar, which implicates human behavior and predatory activity by drug dealers. They conclude stricter enforcement and prosecution by the legal system would curb the problem.

Just kidding, they blame climate change:

July is the worst month for drug overdose deaths. Is heat to blame?

A professor at something called The Heat Lab had this to say:

With 1,894 drug-related deaths over the last decade, July was the decade’s single deadliest month for overdoses in L.A., according to the county health department.

“It’s very likely that a good chunk of those deaths are triggered by extreme heat exposure,” said Bharat Venkat, a UCLA professor and director of the university’s Heat Lab.

Certainly, the use of mind-altering substances changes the behavior of drug addicts, and could cause them to forget to stay hydrated. But even the L.A. County Department of Public Health, not known as a bastion of common sense, pushed back on climate change as a cause of overdoses:

In an email to The Times, a Los Angeles County Department of Public Health spokesperson wrote, “The issue is more about folks being moved indoors during inclement weather and those people using drugs alone, versus in groups, which puts them at higher overdose risk.”

The Times ran with this story anyway despite its complete lack of common sense, which tells you all you need to know about the current state of the corporate media.

European Vacation from Reality

Let's check in on the seat of Western civilization, shall we?

• In a fight pitting two competing environmentalist movements against one another, the environment lost. Spanish environmentalist group Adega sued to stop the development of wind farms in Galicia, over the right of the public to submit input on the projects. The European Court of Justice sided with the wind farms, potentially unfreezing dozens of projects that had faced similar lawsuits. Adega opposes wind farms for their potential negative effects on the environment, which they believe have not been properly assessed.
• Meanwhile, the U.K. signed a secret net zero agreement with China in March and refuses to release the full text of what they agreed to: "Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has declined to release the full text of a net zero cooperation agreement signed with China in March 2025, raising concerns about transparency. During his visit, Miliband committed to closer collaboration on green energy, including 'power grids, battery storage, offshore wind power, and carbon capture, utilisation and storage,' according to Chinese media." U.K. officials described it as "pragmatic engagement on the climate crisis," but refused to disclose the details, unlike agreements signed with Norway, Canada, and other nations.

Ivy League Developing New Propaganda Techniques

The Yale University Program on Climate Change Communication (YPCCC) sent a press release this week announcing a paper currently under peer review for publication in a scientific journal that advocates for scarier imagery in media reports about global warming:

Some of the imagery currently used by the media to depict extreme heat unintentionally decreases risk perceptions, putting Americans at greater risk of heat-related illnesses like heat exhaustion and heat stroke. This is the key finding of a YPCCC study that is currently in peer review. We expect this research to be published in the scientific literature soon, but applying this research insight can help keep Americans safe today.

Most Americans are interested in learning more about the impacts of global warming on their local community (78%) or the US (77%), but only 36% have heard about global warming in the last month. While Americans have grown more worried about extreme heat over the past 5 years, only 44% are even moderately worried that extreme heat will harm their local area.

They suggest media outlets "choose heat imagery carefully" to maximize their "teachable moments." "Images of fun summertime activities like crowded pools can unintentionally decrease risk perceptions," they admonish. YPCCC conducted experiments with mock Instagram posts about extreme heat, showing that "identical messages accompanied by either negative or neutral imagery increased perceived risk and strengthened beliefs that climate change is exacerbating heat waves."

And now you have a peek behind the curtain at the process academics use to create new propaganda.

Widely Reported Climate Study Had Faulty Data

Stop me if you've heard this one before: A major academic climate study used falsified data to amplify the conclusions of the author, leading to breaking news headlines across the globe, while the correction barely made a blip.

The only shocking thing here is that the Washington Post actually published the correction at all:

A 2024 climate change study amplified by the corporate press projecting up to $38 trillion in global climate damages by 2050 relied on inaccurate data, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

The study’s inclusion of Uzbekistan’s faulty gross domestic product figures skewed its results and cast doubt on its conclusion that global GDP could be roughly 62% lower by 2100 due to climate change than it otherwise would be, according to the Post.

Believe it or not, the faulty Uzbekistan GDP numbers were so skewed, it drastically changed the conclusions of this model—from a 62 percent reduction in worldwide GDP to 23 percent.

Even that 23 percent has deep flaws, relying as it does on biased computer modeling instead of observable proof. But overstating the negative economic impact by almost three times undermines the argument just fine.

Now for our Good News segment of the week.

Trump Cancels More of Biden's Insane Green Energy Spending

This week, the parade of canceled green energy projects rolled right along.

• The EPA has drafted dozens of termination letters to nonprofits and state agencies that got grants under Joe Biden's "Solar for All" program. The EPA said that Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill greenlit the EPA to start clawing back as much as $27 billion in such grants.
• The Trump administration canceled a gargantuan wind farm project set for Idaho. The Lava Ridge Wind Project would have constructed 241 massive wind turbines over 104,000 acres of land. The turbines would have stretched as much as 740 into the air.

Samuel L. Jackson was the hardest hit:

Samuel L. Jackson is defending wind farms in a video released a day after the Trump administration said it was considering additional hurdles for wind energy development.

“Motherf—ing wind farms: Loud, ugly, harmful to nature. Who says that?” Jackson said as he shook his head in a video released Wednesday by the European energy company Vattenfall.

“These giants are standing tall against fossil fuels, rising up out of the ocean like a middle finger to CO2,” the “Pulp Fiction” star said of windmills.

“Deep beneath the waves they can become artificial reefs, creating habitats for sea life to grow,” the 76-year-old actor said.

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