Things pile up. The number of tabs open in my browser grows and grows. I mean to write separate articles on most of them. But time flies, I’m focused on urgent matters, and before you know it, things grow old. And my computer slows down!

So rather than ignore these completely, here are quick comments on a variety of issues.

Very big news: the federal Environmental Protection Agency announced its replacement for the power-grabbing, anti-federalist “Waters of the United States” rule promulgated by the Obama EPA. Now maybe “navigable waters of the United States” will mean navigable waters of the United States again.

A 2-1 majority of a 3-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a group of children exploited by climate activist organizations and their attorneys to file suit against the U.S. government for failing to protect them from climate disaster ruled that the kids lacked standing and tossed the suit out. Unfortunately, the majority opinion displayed the judges’ ignorance of climate science when it said that the children (through their attorneys) had demonstrated convincingly that “the record left little basis for denying that climate change was occurring at an increasingly rapid pace; … that the unprecedented rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels stemmed from fossil fuel combustion and will wreak havoc on the Earth’s climate if unchecked; … that the federal government has long understood the risks of fossil fuel use and increasing carbon dioxide emissions; and … that the government’s contribution to climate change was not simply a result of inaction.”

Our friend David Wojick is building an “education portal” on climate skepticism. One piece of it is a list of 42 videos featuring Cornwall Alliance Senior Fellow Dr. Roy W. Spencer. Absolutely worth visiting!

BBC News reported that President Donald Trump came out swinging at the Davos economic summit—blasting climate alarmists. “He called for a rejection of “predictions of the apocalypse” and said America would defend its economy,” presumably prompting Greta Thunberg’s later comment that the world, “in case you hadn’t noticed, is currently on fire.” Calling alarmists “heirs of yesterday’s foolish fortune tellers,” Trump also said, “These alarmists always demand the same thing—absolute power to dominate, transform and control every aspect of our lives.”

Former Republican Congressman Bob Inglis (SC), whose loss as incumbent in the 2010 primary was due in large part to his having jumped on the global warming bandwagon, is trying to resuscitate his “Energy & Enterprise Initiative.” There’s no indication that so much as a single member of the staff has the least understanding of climate science or the engineering and economics of energy production and distribution. Another silly attempt to provide a home for Republicans who want to embrace the follies of Democrats on climate change.

The Deep Green Alliance, an international organization of environmentalists, admits on its website that renewable energy won’t save the planet. ” Wind turbines, solar PV panels, and the grid itself are all manufactured using cheap energy from fossil fuels. When fossil fuel costs begin to rise such highly manufactured items will simply cease to be feasible. … From beginning to end, so called ‘renewable energy’ and other ‘green technologies’ lead to the destruction of the planet. … We are not concerned with slightly reducing the harm caused by industrial civilization; we are interested in stopping that harm completely. Doing so will require dismantling the global industrial economy, which will render impossible the creation of these technologies” (emphasis added). Well, there you go. At least they’re candid. (Thanks to John Eidson, writing at American Thinker, for alerting me.)

Climate-change propaganda and brainwashing advance in our public schools, exemplified by an obviously biased “science” curriculum in use in Colorado.

Michael Shellenberger, Time magazine’s “Hero of the Environment,” calls out climate alarmists for their hypocrisy. Why? Because they oppose nuclear energy—far and away the best low-to-zero-CO2-emission source of the electricity the world desperately needs.

Rhode Island and 13 other states are suing oil companies for ruining the world. Rumor has it they all travel solely by horse-drawn buggy. Wouldn’t want to be called hypocrites, after all!

Our friends Kevin Dayaratna, Ross McKitrick, and Patrick Michaels have published a new peer-reviewed paper demonstrating that the “social cost of carbon [dioxide]” is likely “negative” (meaning its benefits would exceed its costs) or at least far less “positive” (meaning its costs would exceed its benefits) than climate alarmists claim.

Ted Nordhaus, partner to Shellenberg in the Breakthrough Institute, which tries to straddle the fence on climate change, tells people, “Ignore the Fake Climate Debate,” arguing that a real consensus is that human-induced climate change is real but not an existential or even huge threat. There are lots of problems in his article, which I hope to address in a separate post before long, but at least it’s more moderate than that of most environmentalists.

Jonathan Small of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs reminds everyone that wind subsidies continue to be a big fat ripoff.

Photo by Paul Gilmore on Unsplash.