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The United Nations Couldn’t Be More Wrong When It Comes To Climate Change

Published

1 year ago

6 minute read

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By JASON ISAAC

 

They still haven’t learned their lesson.

For decades, politicians and climate activists have been setting deadlines for humanity, brazenly preaching that we have just a few years left to stave off our fiery doom. In fact, we were supposed to have passed the deadline for taking dramatic action to save the world in 2000, 2012, 2016 2020, and 2023.

The United Nations is now ramping up their rhetoric again, with climate executive secretary Simon Stiell boldly (and, apparently, not rhetorically) asking: “Who exactly has two years to save the world? The answer is every person on this planet.”

As usual, the U.N. couldn’t be more wrong when it comes to climate change. In fact, the science to which it demands blind loyalty shows there has never been a better time in human history to be alive.

One Obama energy advisor described our culture’s understanding of climate change as having “drifted so far out of touch with the actual science as to be absurdly, demonstrably false.” He was not wrong. While celebrities, activists, politicians, and left-leaning CEOs are crying that the sky is falling, data shows that “[c]limate-related disasters kill 99% fewer people” than they did a century ago. Even though the world’s population has quadrupled over the same time period, the risk presented by mild warming has grown smaller and smaller.

Interestingly, our resilience to climate-related disasters is improving at a far faster rate than deaths from other natural disasters like volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Clearly, the weather isn’t the culprit here.

In fact, even if the U.N. and its climate cartel were right, there is remarkably little we could do anyway. The data models their scientists use to project future warming show that even cutting every drop of oil and every grain of coal from our society would change global temperatures by at most a few hundredths of a degree. Those models, by the way, have overshot warming every time, making them a highly suspect justification for spending trillions to force our society to make dramatic changes for climate change. 

In fact, new studies cataloging 420,000 years of historical geological and weather data suggest that manmade greenhouse gas emissions are not strong enough to affect global temperatures.

So many of us, in our comfortably air-conditioned and Wi-Fi-enabled lives — far removed from the blue-collar energy producers toiling every day to power our society — have forgotten just how essential fossil fuels are to our existence. Our agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare, transportation, public safety, utilities, banking, construction, entertainment and more would collapse without constant access to affordable, reliable energy.

Fossil fuels are the reason that the percentage of people living in extreme poverty has plummeted all over the world. In the pre-Industrial Revolution era, most of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty; 50 years ago it was about half the world population; today, it is less than 10%. Infant mortality, malnutrition and infectious diseases have plummeted while GDP, education, gender equality, economic freedom and life expectancy have skyrocketed.

The average child born today in any part of the world has a better chance at a long, healthy, and fruitful life than ever before — thanks, in part, to the life-saving and life-improving benefits of abundant energy.

We need only look to the pockets of the world still suffering from energy poverty to understand just how fortunate we are to live in 2024 instead of 1724. In communities without electricity — which nearly a billion people still don’t have and billions more have only sporadic access to — life expectancies still hover in the 50s and mere survival requires physical toil unimaginable to the average American.

Women walk for hours to collect unsanitary water and firewood or dung to burn in close quarters, exposing themselves to sexual assault and their whole families to deadly water-borne and lung disease. Children are fortunate to reach adulthood at all, let alone receive an education. Economic opportunity is close to nonexistent, even for men, outside subsistence farming.

Instead of protesting the fossil fuels that power our comfortable lives and spending trillions to possibly produce minute temperature change centuries from now, perhaps our world leaders should focus on solving the real problems facing real men, women, and children today. One of the easiest ways to do so is sharing the access to affordable, reliable energy we take for granted in the West.

I’ll keep embracing my high carbon lifestyle and hope that others get to do the same. See you in two years.

The Honorable Jason Isaac is CEO of the American Energy Institute and a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. He previously served four terms in the Texas House of Representatives.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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Environment

EPA releases report on chemtrails, climate manipulation

Published on July 11, 2025

By

MXM logo MxM News

Quick Hit:

The Environmental Protection Agency under Administrator Lee Zeldin has released new online resources addressing public concerns about geoengineering and contrails. Zeldin stated the EPA is committed to transparency, publishing everything it knows about these controversial topics.

Key Details:

  • New EPA Pages: Explain the science of contrails and debunk “chemtrail” claims, while outlining potential risks of solar geoengineering.
  • Zeldin’s Statement: “Americans have legitimate questions… they deserve straight answers,” noting EPA’s concerns about geoengineering health and environmental risks.
  • Legislative Context: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene plans to introduce a bill banning atmospheric chemical dispersals for weather modification purposes.

Diving Deeper:

The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday launched two detailed online resources aiming to give Americans what Administrator Lee Zeldin described as “total transparency” on contrails and geoengineering. In a video message, Zeldin said the pages were designed for “anyone who’s ever looked up to the streaks in the sky and asked, ‘What the heck is going on?’”

The EPA’s contrail page clarifies that condensation trails are a normal byproduct of jet aircraft exhaust, akin to car exhaust being visible on a cold day. The agency directly addressed claims that these are “chemtrails” — alleged intentional chemical releases for nefarious purposes like population control or weather modification — stating there is no evidence the federal government has ever used contrails to geoengineer or alter weather.

However, the agency acknowledged the reality of solar geoengineering research, particularly stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), which aims to reflect sunlight to cool the planet. Zeldin noted that enthusiasm for such experiments has “set off alarm bells” within President Trump’s EPA, as the practice could deplete the ozone layer, damage crops, alter weather patterns, and create acid rain.

Currently, only one private U.S. company, Make Sunsets, has experimented with SAI and marine cloud brightening, though these remain in early research phases. Meanwhile, traditional weather modification, such as cloud seeding, has been conducted at state or local levels to alleviate droughts, not to control climate or populations.

The EPA also highlighted past U.S. government weather modification projects, including Operation Popeye during the Vietnam War, which attempted to extend the monsoon season to disrupt enemy supply lines. Some states, like Florida and Tennessee, have since passed laws banning geoengineering or weather modification without explicit approval.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) recently pledged to introduce federal legislation criminalizing any injection or dispersal of chemicals into the atmosphere to alter weather or climate. Zeldin concluded that the EPA shares Americans’ concerns over geoengineering’s risks and emphasized that this marks the first time the agency has proactively addressed such public fears in this way.

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Canadian Energy Centre

Alberta oil sands legacy tailings down 40 per cent since 2015

Published on July 6, 2025

By

Wapisiw Lookout, reclaimed site of the oil sands industry’s first tailings pond, which started in 1967. The area was restored to a solid surface in 2010 and now functions as a 220-acre watershed. Photo courtesy Suncor Energy

From the Canadian Energy Centre 

By CEC Research

Mines demonstrate significant strides through technological innovation

Tailings are a byproduct of mining operations around the world.

In Alberta’s oil sands, tailings are a fluid mixture of water, sand, silt, clay and residual bitumen generated during the extraction process.

Engineered basins or “tailings ponds” store the material and help oil sands mining projects recycle water, reducing the amount withdrawn from the Athabasca River.

In 2023, 79 per cent of the water used for oil sands mining was recycled, according to the latest data from the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER).

Decades of operations, rising production and federal regulations prohibiting the release of process-affected water have contributed to a significant accumulation of oil sands fluid tailings.

The Mining Association of Canada describes that:

“Like many other industrial processes, the oil sands mining process requires water. 

However, while many other types of mines in Canada like copper, nickel, gold, iron ore and diamond mines are allowed to release water (effluent) to an aquatic environment provided that it meets stringent regulatory requirements, there are no such regulations for oil sands mines. 

Instead, these mines have had to retain most of the water used in their processes, and significant amounts of accumulated precipitation, since the mines began operating.”

Despite this ongoing challenge, oil sands mining operators have made significant strides in reducing fluid tailings through technological innovation.

This is demonstrated by reductions in “legacy fluid tailings” since 2015.

Legacy Fluid Tailings vs. New Fluid Tailings

As part of implementing the Tailings Management Framework introduced in March 2015, the AER released Directive 085: Fluid Tailings Management for Oil Sands Mining Projects in July 2016.

Directive 085 introduced new criteria for the measurement and closure of “legacy fluid tailings” separate from those applied to “new fluid tailings.”

Legacy fluid tailings are defined as those deposited in storage before January 1, 2015, while new fluid tailings are those deposited in storage after January 1, 2015.

The new rules specified that new fluid tailings must be ready to reclaim ten years after the end of a mine’s life, while legacy fluid tailings must be ready to reclaim by the end of a mine’s life.

Total Oil Sands Legacy Fluid Tailings

Alberta’s oil sands mining sector decreased total legacy fluid tailings by approximately 40 per cent between 2015 and 2024, according to the latest company reporting to the AER.

Total legacy fluid tailings in 2024 were approximately 623 million cubic metres, down from about one billion cubic metres in 2015.

The reductions are led by the sector’s longest-running projects: Suncor Energy’s Base Mine (opened in 1967), Syncrude’s Mildred Lake Mine (opened in 1978), and Syncrude’s Aurora North Mine (opened in 2001). All are now operated by Suncor Energy.

The Horizon Mine, operated by Canadian Natural Resources (opened in 2009) also reports a significant reduction in legacy fluid tailings.

The Muskeg River Mine (opened in 2002) and Jackpine Mine (opened in 2010) had modest changes in legacy fluid tailings over the period. Both are now operated by Canadian Natural Resources.

Imperial Oil’s Kearl Mine (opened in 2013) and Suncor Energy’s Fort Hills Mine (opened in 2018) have no reported legacy fluid tailings.

Suncor Energy Base Mine

Between 2015 and 2024, Suncor Energy’s Base Mine reduced legacy fluid tailings by approximately 98 per cent, from 293 million cubic metres to 6 million cubic metres.

Syncrude Mildred Lake Mine

Between 2015 and 2024, Syncrude’s Mildred Lake Mine reduced legacy fluid tailings by approximately 15 per cent, from 457 million cubic metres to 389 million cubic metres.

Syncrude Aurora North Mine

Between 2015 and 2024, Syncrude’s Aurora North Mine reduced legacy fluid tailings by approximately 25 per cent, from 102 million cubic metres to 77 million cubic metres.

Canadian Natural Resources Horizon Mine

Between 2015 and 2024, Canadian Natural Resources’ Horizon Mine reduced legacy fluid tailings by approximately 36 per cent, from 66 million cubic metres to 42 million cubic metres.

Total Oil Sands Fluid Tailings 

Reducing legacy fluid tailings has helped slow the overall growth of fluid tailings across the oil sands sector.

Without efforts to reduce legacy fluid tailings, the total oil sands fluid tailings footprint today would be approximately 1.6 billion cubic metres.

The current fluid tailings volume stands at approximately 1.2 billion cubic metres, up from roughly 1.1 billion in 2015.

The unaltered reproduction of this content is free of charge with attribution to the Canadian Energy Centre.

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