H. Sterling Burnett

Guest author H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D. is a Heartland research fellow on environmental policy and the managing editor of Environment & Climate News.

Climate Panickers Bemoan Realists’ Inspired Policy Wins

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I’ve written in prior Climate Change Weekly posts about President Donald Trump’s moves to rein in the regulatory state, promote sound climate science, advance U.S. energy dominance, and claw-back national sovereignty. It is one thing when I, a long-term advocate for such moves, discuss Trump’s actions, describing them in guardedly glowing terms. It’s another thing entirely when radical environmental activists and climate

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They Knew: Impossible Climate Model Scenario Widely Used, Despite Known Flaws

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For more than a decade, the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5), the high-emissions climate-model scenario, dominated climate research and policy, treated as the “business-as-usual” pathway. It projected global temperatures to rise by 4.3℃ or more by 2100. Many climate researchers were on the record noting from the outset that RCP8.5 was “implausible” and shouldn’t be

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Reliable Solar Has Larger Land Footprint Than Previously Thought

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In comparison with traditional electric power generating sources, such as coal, natural gas, nuclear, and hydroelectric, solar power has a tremendous land footprint per amount of electricity generated. In general, as discussed in “Energy at a Glance: Solar Power” and “Affordable, Reliable, and Clean: An Objective Scorecard to Assess Competing Energy Sources,” research shows solar power

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Congress, States Probe Attempts to Mislead Judges on Climate Change

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A friend and former colleague of mine, the late Jay Lehr, Ph.D., longtime science director at The Heartland Institute, used to say with regard to environmental lawsuits, “If the law is on your side, pound the law; if the facts are on your side, pound the facts; if neither are on your side, pound the

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Study: Net Zero Wind and Solar Buildout Needs Huge Amount of Land

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New research published in the journal Nature confirms what The Heartland Institute and our allies in the free-market environmental community have long argued: wind and solar power have low power density and thus impose huge environmental footprints. The new study acknowledges the environmental footprint of wind and solar is even larger than industry promoters have admitted. As

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Recent Headlines Prove Wind, Solar Still Aren’t Ready for Prime Time

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A colleague of mine, Chris Talgo, recently penned an op-ed titled “Windmills and Solar Panels Aren’t Ready for Prime Time,” a title similar to my own from CCW 462, “Green Technologies Are Dangerous, Not Ready for Prime Time.” Both articles, and others I have written periodically across the past couple of decades, make the point

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GAO Questions Biden’s Offshore Wind Effort, Vindicates Critics

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An April 2025 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) affirms what critics of President Joe Biden’s wind-energy spree have long argued: offshore wind is an expensive, environmentally damaging solution in search of a problem. Offshore wind is neither necessary nor justified to fight climate change or for any other purpose other than to

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Budget-Busting Climate Provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act Must Go

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The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden on August 16, 2022. The bill was badly mistitled and intentionally so. The Biden administration and Democrats in Congress took advantage of Americans’ desire for a response to high and rising prices for food, fuel, and other basic consumer goods.

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