The Worst Climate Stories of the Week (Bad Research, Unintended Consequences, and a Lying Energy Secretary—Oh My!)

Here at Restoration News, we live in sort of a paradox. Each week, documenting the climate crazy train gets simultaneously easier, and more frightening. Hard to know how to feel about that.

So, we have a cabinet member lying about investments in companies her agency regulates—no biggie, right? Meanwhile, the “unintended” consequences of geoengineering left one desert country flooded, which has layers of irony to laugh at. “Climate justice” requires Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) intervention to get out the vote, because obviously.

If that doesn’t sound crazy enough, what if they told you increased carbon dioxide causes more severe wildfires because of plant growth? Oil consumption is homicidal, they accelerated the deadline to stop the end of the world again, and Germans can’t drive on the weekend anymore. All because we haven’t gone collectively crazy enough about the climate.

Maybe that explains the Biden administration preparing to declare an “unprecedented” climate emergency.

We do have good news this week, as several red states have sued yet again to stop federal mandates for electric vehicles (EVs). One thing remains certain: lawyers will never go hungry.

Don’t miss last week’s crazy climate stories: Experts Say This Isn’t Crazy

Let’s get to it.

Conflict of Interest Watch—Caught Green-handed?

To paraphrase Desi Arnaz, Jr.: “Jenny, you have some ‘splainin’ to do!”

Who Could Have Seen This Coming

As we’ve repeatedly documented, the folks pushing for radical geoengineering solutions to a climate “crisis” that doesn’t exist don’t give a whit about the consequences, unintended or not. The irony this week centers around Dubai—the location of the latest United Nations (UN) climate meeting in December. The United Arab Emirates, a desert nation on the Arabian peninsula lacking in water, engaged in cloud-seeding to produce some needed rainfall. They went a little overboard:

The EPA Gets Into the Elections Business, Because That Makes Sense for the Climate

The Daily Caller reports the EPA engaged in environment protecting activities, in the form of $600 million in grant funding to “immigration-focused activist organizations” that push voter registration activities in blue strongholds.

What?

As part of a $600 million round of grant funding issued in December 2023 to advance “environmental justice,” the EPA gave out $50 million to a Fordham University-led coalition including the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) and the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice (NJAIJ). The NYIC explicitly engages in “nationally recognized” voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts and pushed for a New York City law that allows non-citizens to vote, while the NJAIJ has advocated for same-day voter registration and maintains a voter registration portal on its website.

Good luck trying to make those things intersect.

Biden Blocks Petroleum Reserve From Petroleuming

As expected, the Biden administration banned drilling for “fossil fuels” on a large swath of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPRA). The NPRA covers 23.5 million acres in northern Alaska, owned and maintained by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). President Harding created the NPRA in 1923 as a dedicated oil supply for the US Navy. Congress transferred it from the Navy to BLM in 1976, and subsequent congressional acts dedicated the land to oil and gas leases. Now the Department of Interior—pop quiz, name the Secretary of the Interior*—has removed almost 50 percent of the petroleum reserve from petroleum production. Alaskans expressed alarm at the loss of their livelihood and tax revenue, but the Biden administration forged ahead anyway.

No word yet on how this will affect oil and gas prices.

*If you had Deb Haaland on your bingo card, congratulations.

Plant Growth Causes Wildfires—Time to Ban CO2

A new study by the University of California, Riverside—published in a peer-reviewed journal—blamed carbon dioxide for forest fires. Despite fire’s need for oxygen, according to these experts, carbon dioxide actually fuels forest fires. The more CO2, the more plant growth, and thus the more kindling on the forest floor to fuel wildfires.

The study conveniently absolves any governmental agency that has failed to clear the underbrush that has led to more intense fires over the past decade. It fails to connect the dots, however, on another more beneficial effect of increased CO2, in the form of more plant growth.

The cognitive dissonance is a feature, not a bug.

End of the World Deadline Update

We gonna die, y’all. Quicker this time. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY), author of the Green New Deal, famously claimed global warming would destroy the planet by 2031. When that didn’t scare people enough, climate evangelist Greta Thunberg updated the deadline to 2023. Now that that deadline has come and gone without a climate apocalypse, a UN climate official has ratcheted it up even more.

A United Nations climate official issued a dire warning by claiming that only “two years” remain to save the world from an environmental crisis. 

“When I say we have two years to save the world, it begs the question – who exactly has two years to save the world? The answer is every person on this planet,” UN climate official Simon Stiell said Wednesday during a speech at the Chatham House think tank in London.

He said that other goals, such as ending poverty and hunger, are not “possible unless we get the climate crisis under control.”

Notice how no other problem facing humanity stands a chance at a solution.

It’s like these people have never heard of the term “moving the goalposts,” and don’t think it’s a bad thing.

Law and Order: Big Oil Unit

A coordinated media effort has advanced a novel legal theory, in an effort to backstop youth climate lawsuits in various states. This legal theory posits that new suits could hold Big Oil liable for homicide, because so many people die of global warming.

This follows the Camp Fire prosecution in California, in which a court found Pacific Gas and Light (PG&E) liable for the deaths of 84 people in wildfire. The company acknowledged the failure of 100-year-old equipment as the start of the fire. PG&E pled guilty to manslaughter in a plea deal, and set up a settlement fund after it filed for Chapter 11 reorganization.

With that precedent set, environmental radicals now want to sue Big Oil for homicide. While this sounds like something crazy only California would try, it could have nationwide implications should anyone try to advance such a legal theory.

Say Goodbye to Your Sunday Drive—For the Climate

The German transport minister recently came under fire for threatening to ban driving on the weekend in that country. Apparently, German law requires “underperforming sectors” to take immediate action to meet “climate targets.” For his part, the transport minister has resisted making those changes, saying instead the law must change to recognize that reforming transport is “more challenging” because it affects everybody’s daily lives. Absent such a change to the climate protection law, the minister says he may have no choice but to implement a weekend driving ban as soon as July.

In These Unprecedented Times (Drink)

If you started the drinking game during COVID lockdowns in which you took a shot every time a public official uttered that phrase, you’ve probably already died of alcohol poisoning. Nevertheless, we persist with the notion. ZeroHedge has the story about the new crisis that will lead to more wide-spread mail in voting to protect voters from the harms of living in this modern world:

How best to grab power when there’s no convenient emergency to use as excuse? Invent one!

That’s right: if you had ‘climate emergency’ on your ‘list of disasters to prompt mail-in balloting’ bingo card, you may soon be able to cross that square off. That’s because the Biden administration is reportedly renewing discussions “about potentially declaring a national climate emergency,” according to Bloomberg. 

Such an “unprecedented” declaration could “unlock federal powers to stifle oil development”, among other things, the report says. 

As many predicted during the pandemic, COVID lockdowns provided the template for further restrictions in future declared crises. You know, for your own good. Now, it appears the Biden administration will seriously consider the next lockdown to save us from global boiling. “This action could lead to restrictions on crude exports, a suspension of offshore drilling, and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, sources say.”

Good News for the Climate

This week, 25 state attorneys general filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration’s EV mandate, announced in March. The rule came in the form of extreme restrictions on tailpipe emissions, requiring a 56 percent cut by 2032. Critics called the rule a not-so-subtly hidden EV mandate. As The Federalist reports:

Daren Bakst, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center on Energy and Environment, called the new emissions rules “one of the most extreme rules ever finalized by a federal agency.”

“The EPA’s rule would restrict the ability of Americans to buy gas-powered vehicles, a chilling abuse of power and a wanton disregard for individual freedom,” Bakst said when the regulations were unveiled.

Now, attorneys general in half of U.S. states are suing to block the administration from forcing high-cost, low-energy electric cars on American consumers.

(READ MORE: How the Left’s Global Warming Ideology Wrecked Science—and How to Stop It)