Worst Climate Stories of the Week: It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

As we roll into the most wonderful time of the year, we also have some truly astonishing stories, which make great gifts for snarky writers—and readers. This week’s stories are like toys from Santa’s workshop. You won’t believe it when you unwrap these things. The wonder of the season brings us magical thinking and ideas that stretch the imagination of even the most miserly of Scrooges.

It’s basically the Island of Misfit Toys.

This week, we have hot new shipping technology, a streetcar named denial, the outgoing Biden administration banning cars, new climate “rights” getting created out of thin air, hydrogen hubs facing headwinds, ominous new censorship policies, and polar bear poop news.

Our Good News segment reflects the spirit of giving—we have lots of stocking stuffers this week. We have the incoming Trump administration rejecting climate hysteria, and evidence the ocean has a cooling effect on the atmosphere.

Let’s see who made our naughty list—and our nice list.

(Don't miss our previous climate cultists column: Winter is Coming. Everybody Act Surprised)

19th Century Technology to Save the Atmosphere

This week, we have several stories that indicate the 1800s are back and better than ever. Transcontinental cargo ships are being fitted with sails to reduce their carbon footprint. Could the Jolly Roger be far behind?

Meanwhile, the city of Portland, Oregon, has long relied on mass transit supplied by electric light rail, a technology that went out of style over 100 years ago. The problem? Ridership has tanked over the past five years. A newly elected state representative in Southwest Washington compiled the ridership numbers in a convenient chart he posted to Facebook:

And of course, in order to make any of these old technologies pencil out, they have to ban the personal liberty and convenience created by the personal automobile. The EPA, which will look radically different after January 20, 2025, approved new rules granting California and 11 other states permission to ban the sale of new cars after 2035. Lest you think this will only affect those blue states, the ripple effects will spill over into sane states as well, affecting the direction taken by America’s automakers. They would strongly prefer to have a national standard for tailpipe emissions instead of a blue state vs red state battle for supremacy.

Kids Win Climate Suit, Court Declares Right to a Stable Climate

The state of Montana may not be the place most people think of when they picture child climate activists. But the decade-long trend of children filing lawsuits against the government for failing to protect their future from climate disaster also has a foothold in the Treasure State. Now the state’s Supreme Court has upheld a lower court decision declaring a “stable climate” a constitutionally protected right:

The 70-page decision, authored by Chief Justice Mike McGrath, comes 16 months after Lewis and Clark District Court Judge Kathy Seeley ruled in the landmark Held v. Montana lawsuit, explicitly stating that the state’s greenhouse gas emissions are “proven to be a substantial factor in causing climate impacts to Montana’s environment, and harm and injury to the youth plaintiffs.” Seeley’s decision also rolled back two laws enacted by the 2023 legislature that changed the Montana Environmental Policy Act.

These types of lawsuits have proliferated in states like Oregon, Hawaii, and others, backed largely by activist nonprofit groups in the Soros galaxy. The precedent set here could have far-reaching implications for similar suits winding their way through various states.

Hydrogen Hubs Off to a Slow Start

As part of the absurdly named Inflation Reduction Act—which really just ushered in the Green New Deal and trillions in new spending—President Biden created “hydrogen hubs” across the U.S., to develop a novel low-emission fuel source. Over a year later, and these hydrogen hubs have yet to get off the ground. News reports cite the skyrocketing costs of green energy as one obstacle, as they take a tremendous amount of power to produce usable fuel. They also face “a lack of demand, and delays and confusion over the federal tax credit.”

You Can’t Say That On TV—Or Anywhere Else

You may have missed it a few weeks ago, but the Group of Twenty (G20) economic summit of first-world leaders in Brazil created a new Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change. This new global initiative will give the UN and UNESCO the power to fund nonprofit organizations who will “root out climate disinformation” in the form of “public awareness campaigns.” UNESCO says:

Bringing together countries, international organizations, and stakeholders worldwide, it aims to promote and defend information integrity on climate change, address disinformation, and enhance climate change awareness and action. It includes a global fund which will finance research into disinformation on climate change and initiatives to promote information integrity.

The clues here are pretty obvious. “Stakeholders” will preserve “information integrity.” The factcheckers will be out in force in 2025, swarming us with all sorts of campaigns to suppress unapproved points of view.

Scientists Make Startling Breakthrough in Polar Bear Poop

One might have assumed only one question about bear poop remained, and that scientists would devote their time to answering it. Instead, they’ve spent an inordinate amount of time studying the contents of polar bear scat. What they found may shock you!

Or not.

The researchers went to Hudson Bay, Canada, and conducted a comparative study. They found that wild polar bears have different diets than captive polar bears, which proves global warming.

It’s difficult to know where to start in pointing out all the conclusions this study jumped to. But it got published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, so it must be true.

Maybe the polar bears just need to stick to Coca-Cola to keep global warming at bay. That hypothesis holds just as much legitimacy as the theory of AGW.

Now for the candy canes and popcorn balls in our Good News portion.

Trump Appointee Blows a Hole in Climate Hysteria

Politico has expressed DEEP CONCERNS that President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to run the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) wants to ditch a LANDMARK RULE put in place by the Biden administration. This super important landmark rule requires publicly traded companies to “divulge details about the risks that climate change poses to their businesses:”

Environmental groups and advocates for sustainable investing criticized Atkins’ selection and urged the Senate to reject him, saying he would gut efforts to promote investing based on environmental, social and governance considerations, known as ESG.

A popular meme based on Spider-Man 3 leaps to mind:

The Ocean Cools the Atmosphere More than We Thought

A new peer-reviewed study finds that the emissions of microscopic plankton containing dimethyl sulphide. When it hits the surface of the ocean, this gas oxidizes and creates aerosolized particles in the air that reflect sunlight back into space, which lowers the atmospheric temperature of the globe.

How much?

Apparently, far more than anyone could have guessed:

NORWICH, United Kingdom — When it comes to climate change, a new study finds that our fear over the planet’s health may be “greatly overestimated.” For the first time, researchers have found oceans help cool global temperatures more than anyone previously thought.

Specifically, sulfur gas produced by marine life emits a second compound that significantly cools the planet. The discovery will help create more accurate climate models and provide another tool to slow global warming.

With almost three-fourths of Earth covered by oceans, the waters capture and redistribute the Sun’s heat. The latest study in Science Advances shows the process goes much deeper than that. The oceans also create sulfur gases that create particles to cool the Earth, such as brightening clouds that reflect heat.

Why, it’s almost as if science has an incomplete understanding of the dynamics of our atmosphere, and their computer models are insufficient to make any conclusions about changes to average temperatures.

Someone ought to compile such junk science in a report for the world to review and make an informed decision.

(Learn more: How the Left’s Global Warming Ideology Wrecked Science—And How to Stop It)