Watts Up With That

The Independent turns a Fiji river flood into proof that Pacific islands are on the “frontline of the climate crisis.” A 122-year record shows no increase in major floods on the Ba River. The IPCC reports low confidence in global changes to flood frequency or magnitude. Tuvalu gained 2.9 percent more land area from 1971 to 2014 even as sea levels rose. What turns a tropical cyclone and heavy rain into a climate crisis instead of weather? wattsupwiththat.com/2026/11/…

Democrats won in Texas, Georgia and Michigan after promising to pause data center construction. AI costs are mostly energy. China has the edge, and its models surged to 57-67 percent of tokens on OpenRouter. Pausing US centers will not halt progress. It will send the work to countries with cheaper power. Which nation ends up with the switch to turn off AI access to US businesses? wattsupwiththat.com/2026/11/…

Humans accidentally canceled the next ice age — but it’s no reason to celebrate, scientists say. A Science study tracked the Laurentide Ice Sheet reexpanding 2,000 years ago until the 1960s reversal. Researchers link that flip to human fossil fuel use stopping the next glaciation. The Little Ice Age brought plagues, famines and millions dead from crop failures. Why treat averting another such period as bad news instead of good? wattsupwiththat.com/2026/11/…

A clean, green, and just world is not only possible — it’s being written into existence by this community. Grist launched Imagine 2200 with writers from more than 90 countries to reimagine hope through climate fiction. Alarm messaging has backfired into climate hushing, as recent elections show. The alternative view bets on energy freedom and adaptation rather than enforced green futures. What controls might come with stories that celebrate only one kind of future? wattsupwiththat.com/2026/11/…

Climate, Energy, and The Midterm Blue Wave — The Climate Realism Show #224 nitter.cf/i/broadcasts/2aWLMoXkP…

Democrats swept both houses and took offices in Texas this week, just two years after the red wave. Climate action was not a campaign issue, but it tops the list for the ascendent Democratic Party. The Climate Realism Show covers a space umbrella plan, links between climate change and domestic violence vulnerability, and the claim that fossil fuels threaten the American Dream. Which of these stories best shows how far the climate conversation has gone? wattsupwiththat.com/2026/11/…

Every climate disaster gets the Gilligan’s Island treatment. Something fails, the script blames climate change, and the solution stays the same no matter the details. Nepal saw a rock and ice cascade from bedrock failure, not a straightforward glacier collapse. The glacier accelerated from roughly 7.4 meters per year to about 55 meters per year as the rock beneath failed. The distinction vanishes once the story hits the news desk. When does the physical cause matter more than fitting the narrative? wattsupwiththat.com/2026/11/…

£188 billion is the six-year total for environmental levies and climate policy costs on energy bills. The OBR table lists renewables obligation, contracts for difference, capacity market and warm home discount among the main items. Adding feed in tariffs, ETS carbon tax and system balancing costs brings the yearly totals to between £24 billion and £30 billion. DESNZ capital spending adds another £36.1 billion by 2030, much of it on hydrogen. Why keep backing hydrogen schemes when the levies already hit these levels? wattsupwiththat.com/2026/11/…

Arctic proxies in the Pages 2k set put the years 750 to 850 AD warmer than today. The code groups non-tree-ring records by latitude band. Northern bands track the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age. The Antarctic band stays flat. Southern middle latitudes sometimes move the other way. Why fold all these different records into a single global reconstruction? wattsupwiththat.com/2026/11/…

Darwall calls the climate threat an artefact of the Western mind in thrall to ideology. His book shows how that view produced Net Zero laws passed in an 88-minute debate and left Britain with more generating capacity but 24 percent less electricity. On Russia he dismisses warnings from Kennan and Burns that NATO expansion crossed a red line. What makes one elite consensus manufactured and the other settled fact?

China nearly doubled output of some key chemicals in five years and now accounts for about half of global output. Europe opened three anti-dumping investigations into Chinese imports. China says its edge comes from Europe's energy crisis. The US faces similar pressure from Chinese competition. Does this mean tariffs will solve the problem? How many more industries will Europe lose before fixing its energy prices? wattsupwiththat.com/2026/11/…

World leaders discussed the climate health link in 66 percent of UN General Debate speeches in 2021, but only 26 percent in 2025. A kidney specialist claims the evidence is stronger than ever, citing 710,000 heat deaths in 2023 with 71 percent tied to human warming. He mentions heat risks to kidneys but says nothing about cold weather, which kills seven times more people even in India. Studies show warming since the 1800s has saved more lives than it has cost. Is this what you are teaching your students, Professor Peter Stenvinkel? wattsupwiththat.com/2026/11/…

$120 million is the cash MSCI paid for First Street this year. The outfit began as a 501(c)(3) charity around 2016. It restructured in 2024 with backing from Tom Steyer before the sale. It supplied models for the National Climate Assessment and over thirty agencies. Those models now support analytics sold to CalPERS. How did the original backers end up profiting from the warnings they helped create? wattsupwiththat.com/2026/11/…

Labour's new priority is cheaper energy, not the 2030 clean power target. Andy Burnham has ordered a halt to next year’s wind and solar subsidy auction. The contracts for difference scheme is being reformed after grid bottlenecks caused huge curtailment payments. Ministers have downplayed the 2030 clean power target. What happens to the rush for renewables when bills come first? wattsupwiththat.com/2026/11/…

"it's immediately clear that destruction, sabotage and occupation are acts of love" Jessie Kindig wrote this in a book now recommended to LSE first-year students on their climate course. Andreas Malm introduces the collection, having argued for destroying oil pipelines. The publisher Verso promotes it as hope in its purest form through militant action. Why is the London School of Economics recommending this to young students? wattsupwiththat.com/2026/11/…

EU chief science advisers say in Nature that democracy depends on trusted science, but they blame outsiders for the distrust instead of the institutions' own record. Nature ran an experiment showing its Biden endorsement lowered trust among Trump supporters and cut requests for its vaccine articles. Pew numbers show American confidence in scientists fell from 87 percent in April 2020 to 76 percent in 2024, with Republicans dropping from 85 to 66 percent. The advisers call for shielding high-level expert groups from dissenting voices. If the majority view on lab origins and lockdowns turned out wrong, what protects the public from the protectors? wattsupwiththat.com/2026/11/…

Researchers spent A$432,467 to interview 90 Queenslanders about who should sell climate action instead of environmentalists. The method was one researcher reading their own park chats and sorting remarks into themes, with no data released for review. Groups picked for surprise scored lower on trust. The paper never asked if the message itself might be the problem. Why spend that much to learn people trust people like themselves?

Lake Powell hit record lows by the end of summer, with worries about power and water supplies. Atmospheric rivers brought heavy precipitation to the Colorado River drainage. Water levels rose quickly behind the dam. The Yakima Valley got enough localized rain to end water restrictions. Upcoming forecasts show large precipitation for Northern California and the Pacific Northwest. How often do these timely rains arrive right when reservoirs need them most? wattsupwiththat.com/2026/11/…

Even with October at 0.69 C, the warming trend from 1979 through now is only 0.16 C per decade. It increased from September's 0.61 C. Land shows a faster 0.22 C per decade. Oceans lag at 0.13 C per decade. Why do claims of accelerating warming persist when the rate has not changed? wattsupwiththat.com/2026/11/…

The Commons committee wants to move all energy transition costs off electricity and onto gas bills. They admit this is because consumer costs are the biggest barrier to Clean Power 2030. The report proposes taxpayer support for those on gas and taking from network profits. Why not question the targets that are forcing these costs up? wattsupwiththat.com/2026/11/…