Worst Climate Stories of the Week—Happy Birthday, Global Warming!
As the global warming panic turns 37 years old, it seems to be going downhill rapidly.
This week, the CO2 Coalition marked the unofficial birthday of the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) with a trip down memory lane. We would fly some balloons, but the green cult members would probably get mad at us. Anyway, it was June 23, 1988 when then-Sen. Al Gore (D-TN) held a Senate hearing to start the "climate hustle." As the CO2 Coalition noted, the hearing featured bad temperature data, censored science that contradicted the narrative, and a PR stunt to turn off the A/C in the Senate building on the hottest day of the year.
The grift hit high gear soon after that, with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change—the Kyoto Protocols—setting up global action on global warming in 1992. Untold trillions in international wealth have been squandered on this idea ever since, with no perceivable change in the atmosphere.
But change seems to be in the air these days. States are pulling back on their Net Zero fantasies. Corporations have started removing climate declarations from their annual reports. Stocks in green tech have tanked as the federal government realigns its spending priorities under Trump 2.0. Voters steadfastly refuse to do anything about the theory, other than surface-level virtue signaling to maintain social acceptance by saying that they care about the planet.
Of course, the media, bought-and-paid-for by Big Philanthropy, refuses to budge. The NGOs, national news outlets, and far-left politicians are desperately flailing about to do anything they can to save the grift. We may very well be witnessing the death throes of a dying movement.
And yet we still have plenty of crazy to cover in our weekly roundup. Let's get to it.
(Don’t miss last week's column: A Deep Dive into Dams)
Oil Prices Plunge, Green Cultists Hardest Hit
A big meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee happened this week, and a lot of interesting stuff came out of it. It will be a recurring theme throughout this column. The first item comes from leftist Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who sparred with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) over green energy. In that exchange, Whitehouse accused Big Oil of driving up gas prices and foisting "dirty energy" on America. This follows the previous week's fearmongering by the media that oil prices would spike due to the air campaign against Iran and its nuclear weapons program.
Unfortunately for Whitehouse and the media, the oil price spike never happened.
As energy expert David Blackmon noted, the price of crude went down after the air strikes began, from $68 per barrel to $64. He attributes that to the strikes avoiding Iran's oil production and refinery facilities, and Iran's inability to slow oil transportation through the Strait of Hormuz. Overall, it's gone down around 13 percent since June 22.
.@SenWhitehouse just claimed that energy prices are skyrocketing.
— American Energy Institute (@4AmericanEnergy) June 25, 2025
FACT CHECK: False. Just yesterday, energy prices tumbled 6% following the Iran-Israel ceasefire.https://t.co/0byzkXJzWJ
NGOs Behind Dam Removal
The dam removal project in the Klamath River Basin in Northern California and Southern Oregon continues to produce an ecological disaster, and people have begun to notice. Now, ZeroHedge has started digging into the non-profits and NGOs involved in pushing this foolhardy campaign forward:
Over a decade after the Elwha Dam was removed - the claimed picture of success - fish populations have still not returned to pre dam removal levels after the sudden sediment release of 20 million tons resulted in a mass fish kill. Now blamed on climate change, experts have quietly acknowledged that it could be decades longer before salmonid populations return to pre-removal numbers—stressing a need for increased funding.
. . . .
The KRRC, a 501(c)(3) front formed under the Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement (KHSA), was backed by a who’s-who of green NGOs: American Rivers, California Trout, Klamath Riverkeeper, Northern California Council–Federation of Fly Fishers, Salmon River Restoration Council, Sustainable Northwest, Trout Unlimited, and the Institute for Fisheries Resources.
Not long after KRRC was appointed to oversee the dam removal, the board came under scrutiny for ties to the very environmental groups pushing for the project.
While the project itself was funded by $215 million from PacifiCorp ratepayers, $265 million from California’s Proposition 1, $15 million from Oregon taxpayers, and $50–$100 million from Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), Biden's Department of Interior shoveled out another “landmark” $72 million.
KRRC is the Klamath River Renewal Corporation. They seem to be swimming in money while commingling with activist groups, as is often the case with these campaigns.
The AP Doubles Down on AGW Pseudoscience
Instead of embracing the new trend away from environmental doom casting, the Associated Press (AP) has doubled down on its green reporting. They have a fully funded climate news operation to run, after all, complete with donations from radical NGOs to help keep the lights on. So they engaged environmental hack "reporter" Seth Borenstein to analyze the number of human deaths the Trump administration would cause by rolling back environmental regulations.
Their final tally found that the EPA-targeted rules could prevent an estimated 30,000 deaths each year and save $275 billion annually. Experts called the AP’s work solid, and likely an undercount.
The AP said experts said the AP reporting was solid, so who are we to object?
This Week in Imploding Green Energy
A bill introduced in the Senate this week would roll back as much of the Biden-era Inflation Induction Reduction Act green investments as possible, and environmentalists have started to panic:
Slashing clean energy tax credits, essentially the lifeline of the green industry, would unleash a tsunami of bankruptcies across the sector. Think of Solyndra's high-profile collapse under the Obama administration in 2011—but multiplied many times over.
"It's not final, but it looks very negative," said Carter Atlamazoglou, managing director at FTI Consulting, who specializes in renewable energy, referring to the Senate's latest draft of the tax bill.
Atlamazoglou told the Financial Times, "You're dealing with a lot of major uncertainty, which makes anyone considering residential solar—from homeowners to financiers—basically wait and see what happens next."
"Firms are under liquidity pressure and we're seeing real distress in the industry," he warned, pointing out that "Things are coming to a head."
FT cited bankruptcy data showing a sharp uptick in clean energy company failures—starting in 2022 and accelerating significantly by 2024. Many of these firms, heavily reliant on federal tax credits, are now collapsing as subsidies dry up.
To quote W.C. Fields, "Aww, that's too baaad. Verryy unfoorrtunaaate."
Spain-Style Blackout Narrowly Averted in Maryland
Legal Insurrection has the story of Maryland and its overreliance on green energy that nearly caused a blackout on the scale of what happened in Spain and Portugal in April:
Pennsylvania State Senator Kristin Phillips-Hill (R-York) noted in a Facebook post that surplus electricity from Pennsylvania was sent to Maryland during the peak demand period as temperatures in the region neared 100°F. She attributed the avoidance of a blackout crisis in Maryland to Pennsylvania’s reliable power grid, referring to Maryland as the “neighbor with green energy initiatives.”
Just a friendly note to our “green energy” neighbor – Maryland: You’re welcome. During this heat wave, Maryland consumers demand a lot more energy than it generates. If it was not for Pennsylvania – it would be lights out and air conditioning off.
Yet another real-world reminder that electrical grids require conventional energy sources to back up green energy, which by its very nature cannot provide consistent, reliable electricity to keep the grid running.
Sen. Cruz Exposes Chinese Influence on Green Groups
We return now to that Senate Judiciary Hearing for more fireworks. The aforementioned Sen. Cruz used his time to expose the Chinese Communist Party involvement in pushing green non-profits and NGOs to undermine America's interests.
In just a little under 14 minutes, Senator @TedCruz exposes how the CCP and the left have completely hijacked the ‘green’ energy movement to push for the complete destruction of American energy:
— American Energy Institute (@4AmericanEnergy) June 25, 2025
Roll the tape 🎥 pic.twitter.com/fQppA4gf7O
The entire 14-minute monologue is worth watching, but this is the money quote (courtesy of the Daily Wire):
Cruz in particular focused on Energy Foundation China, a group with ties to the Chinese Communist Party. The senator cited a report from State Armor, which found that “To secure U.S. dependence, the CCP has been co-opting the progressive American climate change lobby to push a transition from fossil fuels and other critical inputs…onto ‘green’ technologies controlled by China.”
By funneling money through the foundation, the report claims, the CCP has funded many climate advocacy groups in America, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, which is well known for its litigious character.
“Their lawsuits are designed to destroy the American energy industry, which happens to perfectly coincide with the political objective of Senate Democrats to destroy the American energy industry,” Cruz said.
It should not be controversial to say America needs to protect herself from economic warfare by her global adversaries.
Now for our Good News segment.
The Good News About Nuclear Is All Around us
All of a sudden, even leftists have abandoned their anti-nuke views. Those attitudes really are a holdover from the 1970s, a different time in America's radical protest history. Now, even the hard left has realized its Net Zero aspirations can only come to fruition with reliable electricity production, and nuclear power fits that bill. Case in point: New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) announced that her state will build its first new nuclear plant in over 15 years. Per Newsmax, "Hochul said she has directed NYPA to add at least 1 gigawatt of new nuclear-power generation to its aging fleet of reactors. That's enough energy to power about 1 million homes."
Also, did you know we harnessed fusion power? Seems like kind of a big deal, and yet it has not really made the news. The first fusion power plant will go in at a location near Richmond, VA.
Rogan Crushes Bernie on Global Warming
The Democrats have said since November 2024 that one reason they got crushed in the election was because they didn't go on enough podcasts, like Trump did. So they trotted out 83-year-old communist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to appear on the Joe Rogan Podcast this week. Rogan left him spluttering after he couldn't answer hard questions about global warming.
It’s not every day a major politician sits down with Joe Rogan.
— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) June 25, 2025
Bernie Sanders did, and now we know why most skip the invitation.
Bernie pushed the global warming narrative. Rogan crushed him with undeniable data.
Then it got worse.
Rogan made Sanders instantly regret saying… pic.twitter.com/pgxDqn03RW
Back to the drawing board for the DNC.
Trump Cuts Ties with Woke Scientific Journals
The Trump administration continues its quest to rehabilitate the moribund state of science in America. Fox News has the details:
The Trump administration has stopped key funding for Springer Nature, the retraction-plagued, controversial publishing behemoth of more than 3,000 scientific and medical journals.
Springer Nature publications have long earned subscription revenue from academic and government institutions, but the Trump administration has terminated one key contract and allowed three others to expire, a Trump administration official told Fox News Digital.
National Institutes of Health (NIH) and cancer research pacts were deemed "mission essential" and therefore will remain intact, Fox News Digital has learned.
The Trump administration has cracked down on organizations with perceived political bias, business practices that the president believes misuse U.S. taxpayer dollars and foreign control.
The German-owned Springer Nature was forced to issue 2,923 retractions in 2024, according to Retraction Watch. The publishing giant has also been accused of significantly downplaying the COVID lab-leak theory and censoring content to appease the Chinese government. It also has a "peer review" process that critics believe is dominated by woke groupthink.
The climate sector is a perfect encapsulation of the notion that agenda-driven science isn't science at all. Make America Scientific Again!
(READ MORE: EXCLUSIVE: NOAA Caught Manipulating Temperature Data to Advance the Global Warming Narrative)
