On February 12, 2026, the Trump administration repealed the EPA’s 2009 Endangerment Finding, which classified carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as threats to public health and welfare.
This action removed the legal foundation for federal regulation of carbon dioxide that was the basis for a number of mandates affecting the automobile, utility and energy industries.
The 2009 EPA Endangerment Finding stated that carbon dioxide, among other greenhouse gases, was an air pollutant under the Clean Air Act that endangered public health or welfare.
However, the reality is that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant and never was.
“Pollutant” has always meant something that causes immediate or near-term harm: sewage fouling water and spreading disease, smoke that chokes lungs or asbestos scarring lungs from heavy exposure.
Carbon dioxide is a basic building block in our world.
It is in our breath. It is what greens the planet and what feeds our trees and plants and improves crop yields.
Without it we would all die.
It also makes up an infinitesimal share of our atmosphere.
If you think about it, if government can decree that carbon dioxide is a pollutant there is no human or animal activity that cannot be regulated in some way.
In recent years, we have seen the United States, Canada and many countries in Europe issue scores of regulations and mandate untold policies in order to reduce greenhouse gases based on the argument that it was critical for our survival.
All of the was based not on hard science but on models that projected a warming planet years in the future if carbon emissions were not reduced.
This analysis by John Christy of the University of Alabama-Huntsville shows just how flawed the models have been.
Greenhouse gas emissions have increased over 5-fold in the last 100 years without any discernible threat to humanity.
The United States and Europe have actually reduced greenhouse gas emissions since 2009 by about 1.4 billion tonnes annually.
However, Asia has increased greenhouse emissions by almost 8 billion tonnes annually in the same period.
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| Source: https://ourworldindata.org/greenhouse-gas-emissions |
What has been the real world effect?
Since the global warming crusade started over 30 years ago there has not even been a one-tenth degree increase in average global temperatures.
There has also been no increase in temperatures in the 16 years since the EPA ruled carbon dioxide was a pollutant despite the global increase in emissions.
Moreover, consider this headline from 16 years ago that warned that within 10 years climate change was going to result in costs exceeding those of both world wars and render swaths of the planet uninhabitable.
The climate alarmists like to talk about the future costs of not acting to curb greenhouse emissions.
However, those are all fictional costs based on those flawed models.
What are the actual real world costs that we have already spent on green initiatives?
Consider just the recent write-offs of investments by auto manufacturers of their investments in electric vehicles.
$26 billion at Stellantis.
$20 billion at Ford.
$7.6 billion at GM.
$6 billion at Porsche.
Has any industry ever destroyed so much value in such a short period of time?
Why did they make such a bad decision?
In 2021, shortly after Biden became President, all the major automakers (except Elon Musk and Tesla) were invited to The White House and given $26.2 billion in government loans to make electric vehicles.
The decisions were made for political purposes above all.
What we are seeing now seems to be the inevitable result when the government attempts to mandate a result that should be left to the free market.
Of course, that is a mere drop in the bucket compared to what has been spent globally to get to "net zero".
As far as costs are concerned, consider what has been spent in the name of attempting to get to "net zero" in Europe, the United State and Canada.
One estimate is that at least $16 trillion has been spent in pursuit of "green" initiatives.
That cost is also increasing by at least $2 trillion per year.
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| Credit: https://x.com/BjornLomborg/status/2022644543695245490 |
For what benefit?
What else could that $16 trillion have been spent on that might have had more tangible returns on benefiting humanity?
On hunger? On housing? On healthcare?
We can only hope that Trump's reversal of the EPA ruling will signal a return to sanity and common sense.
Let's hope that starts first with journalists who have endlessly and mindlessly amplified the climate change narrative.
Consider these two headlines in The New York Times.
Two years ago it was reporting about the warm winter having all the hallmarks of global warming.
This year the question is what's up with this big freeze?
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| Credit: https://x.com/ChrisMartzWX/status/2020341736896360591/photo/1 |
I think that assessment still stands although the Covid narrative and the response to it is worthy of consideration on that score.
What is interesting between those two is the popular narrative is that climate change is man-made when it is almost certain humans cannot do anything to outweigh the forces of nature when it comes to the climate.
On the other hand, Dr. Fauci and all the rest spent all their time peddling a narrative that Covid was natural when all the evidence pointed to the fact that it was almost certainly man-made in a Chinese lab.
If all of this had not happened to us it would be hard to believe it.
I first wrote this passage in 2013. It is as true today as it was then.
Only in a liberal mind does it make sense to...
shut down your most cost-effective energy generating source,
shut-off your most abundant energy resource,
raise electricity costs on all Americans,
and risk losing hundreds of thousand of jobs in the process.
In an attempt to solve a problem...
that we are not even sure we have,
and if we do, we are not sure we can do anything about it,
because of natural or external forces that we cannot control,
that may overwhelm anything we do anyway,
that ultimately works to the advantage of your biggest trade partner,
that will undoubtedly result in more job losses for Americans over the longer term.
May common sense and sanity once again reign supreme.
"No temperature increase in 30+ years" — This is flatly false. Global average temperatures have risen roughly 0.2–0.3°C just since 2009, and about 1.1–1.2°C above pre-industrial baselines. The last decade has been the hottest on record. The claim of "not even one-tenth of a degree" since the "global warming crusade started" misrepresents the actual temperature data.
ReplyDeleteThe John Christy chart — Christy is a real climate scientist, but the specific chart the article uses has been repeatedly criticized by the broader climate science community. It cherry-picks satellite data and comparison baselines to make models appear to have overestimated warming more than they actually have. It's a contested piece of analysis, not a consensus-busting conclusion.
CO₂ as a "pollutant" — The article argues CO₂ can't be a pollutant because it's natural and plants need it. This conflates the legal/regulatory definition under the Clean Air Act with everyday meaning. Water is also natural and essential, yet can be a "pollutant" in regulatory contexts at harmful concentrations. The legal question of whether CO₂ endangers public health via climate effects is separate from whether it's directly toxic. The Supreme Court upheld the EPA's authority on this in Massachusetts v. EPA (2007).
Auto manufacturer write-offs — The figures cited are roughly in the right ballpark, but the framing is misleading. These write-downs reflect challenges in EV market timing and adoption pace, not evidence that the technology is fundamentally flawed. EV sales globally have continued growing.
The Tesla exclusion claim — The article claims all major automakers "except Elon Musk and Tesla" received Biden-era EV loans. blogspot This is misleading — Tesla received significant government support under Obama (a $465 million DOE loan in 2010) and has benefited from federal EV tax credits throughout.
Climate models being "not hard science" — The article characterizes climate projections as mere speculation, but this dismisses a body of science that has been largely borne out. The core prediction — that rising CO₂ causes warming — has been confirmed. Some early projections did overestimate certain regional impacts, but the overall warming trend has matched or exceeded projections.
Comparing two NYT headlines — Pointing to one warm winter and one cold winter as contradicting climate science is a classic misunderstanding of weather vs. climate. Climate scientists have long noted that warming can increase both extreme heat and extreme cold/snowfall events in certain regions.