"More visitors are giving up on summer holidays in cities that feel like saunas and booking 'coolcations' in Iceland, Norway, or Denmark...."

"A 2023 European Commission study forecast 'a clear north-south pattern in tourism demand changes' that 'becomes more pronounced for higher warming scenarios,' signalling growing economic consequences for Madrid, Lisbon, Athens, and Milan. 'Travelling to European cities is about cultural experience,' Daniel Scott, a scholar of tourism at the University of Waterloo, in Ontario, told me. 'Whether it’s Paris, Barcelona, or Rome, you amble around, sightseeing, street shopping, taking a riverboat tour, going to a museum, a restaurant, a café. Most of that time, you’re outside.' Climate change increasingly turns pleasure trips into exercises in escaping pain. 'When I’m in Europe, I always notice how many people crowd under trees and shaded areas,' Scott said. 'But at some attractions, like the Acropolis, there’s no way to avoid the blazing sun. On especially hot days, they’ve got the Red Cross giving out water, medics pre-positioned because they know many people are going to be in trouble when they come down.'"

From "The End of the European Summer/As extreme heat overwhelms the Continent’s great cities, they are racing to transform themselves for a climate that they were never built to withstand" (The New Yorker).

"Installing AC simply wasn’t the British thing to do. He’d have to break a stiff-upper-lip mentality and make peace with a trade-off..."

".. that Europeans tend to view as taboo: Air-con accelerates global warming. Still, his mind kept wandering back to a Starbucks he had visited in Los Angeles. 'It was so temperate,' he moaned. 'So beautiful.'... In Europe, where homes tend to be older and climes fairer, residents mainly favored cross-ventilation over machines that leaders cast as pricey spewers of greenhouse gas emissions. 'It’s like living in a sealed jar,' one French columnist complained of AC in 1994. 'It’s unbearable.'"

From "European soccer fans enjoy a brief fling with America’s air-conditioned culture/Despite a deadly heat wave at home, many say they won’t permanently embrace Americans’ electricity-guzzling amenity" (WaPo).

Questions: 1. Who says "air-con"? 2. Wasn't that a movie with Nicolas Cage? 3. What would Americans do if they found themselves wrangling with guilt about global warming whenever they indulged in air conditioning.

Answers: 1. The British. 2. No, it was not. 3. Do what half their compatriots have already done and decide global warming is a hoax.

Bonus question: "'Con Air' won a Golden Raspberry Award in what category? Answer: "Worst Reckless Disregard for Human Life and Public Property."

"When scientists try to model how hot Earth could get this century, they typically look at a range of possibilities..."

"... for how much planet-warming pollution humans might pump into the atmosphere. These scenarios get updated every seven years or so. In this latest update, the researchers abandoned a dire — and often criticized — high-emissions scenario known as RCP8.5 that has been prominently cited in thousands of climate studies over the past decade. The authors said the scenario was now 'implausible' given recent energy trends.... For years, critics of the high-emissions scenario had argued that it was always unrealistic, in part because it envisioned that countries would burn coal at absurdly high rates. They argued that any studies or news reports relying on that scenario exaggerated the risks of climate change. Why, those critics now asked, did the course correction take so long?..."

I'm reading "Why Scientists Retired the Dire Climate Scenario Used for Over a Decade/While global warming is still a threat, the decision to back away from a worst-case outlook raises questions about whether some risks have been overstated" (NYT).

"The City Council in The Hague, the seat of the national government, passed the first law banning fossil fuel ads in 2024."

"The following year, a Dutch travel trade association and several travel agencies sued, arguing that the ban was an overreach that violated freedom of expression rules and European Union consumer law. But the judge sided with the city, ruling that the health of its citizens and the climate was more important than commercial interests. 'It is not up to the municipality to refrain from taking measures to promote the health of its residents in order to strengthen the future position of travel providers,' the judge wrote, according to Euronews.... Among the recent promotions that are no longer allowed in Amsterdam: Ads for Range Rovers. Marketing for flights to Zanzibar, Mauritius and Dubai, and getaways to Thailand, and even, gasp, New York City."

From "In Permissive Amsterdam, Ads for Fossil Fuels or Meat Are Now Verboden/The Dutch city has outlawed advertising that promotes lifestyles linked to high carbon emissions, which is a driver of climate change. It’s a first for a world capital" (NYT).

I blogged it 13 years ago: "If you really care about global warming, stop all unnecessary travel."

And, from 16 years ago: "If you really believed in global warming, you would turn off your air conditioning" — which had 6 more things you ought to do to avoid shame and hypocrisy (if you really believe). I ask you to review the list now and reflect upon how well you have done:

"Plants depend on carbon dioxide to perform photosynthesis — but that doesn’t mean they grow better when there’s more carbon in the air, scientists say."

"A sweeping survey of changes among 32 compounds in 43 crops found that nearly every plant that humans eat is harmed by rising CO2 levels. 'As a scientist, it’s really interesting,' said Sterre F. ter Haar, an environmental scientist at Leiden University in the Netherlands and lead author of the survey, published in November. 'As a person … you don’t want to see such a shift, because it’s so negative.' For the past several years, ter Haar and her colleagues have worked to compile a database of all existing research on nutrient changes linked to rising CO2.... Next the team used their dataset to calculate the nutritional densities of each crop under different carbon dioxide levels — and to predict how their composition could continue to shift in the future. On average, they found, nutrients have already decreased by an average 3.2 percent across all plants since the late 1980s, when the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was about 350 parts per million...."

From "Carbon pollution is making food less nutritious" (WaPo). That's a gift link, so you can figure out the science and whether this is a case of lying with statistics.

It occurs to me that percentages of nutrients would change if plants just contain more water, but a plant composed of more water might be more appetizing, so just eat a bit more of it. I'm always suspicious of articles that stir up climate-change anxiety.

"'This is about as big as it gets,' President Trump said at the White House as a smiling Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, stood by. "

"'We are officially terminating the so-called "endangerment finding," a disastrous Obama-era policy,' he said. Mr. Trump called it a 'radical rule' that became 'the basis for the Green New Scam,' a label the president gives to any effort to curb emissions or develop renewable energy. Mr. Zeldin called it 'the single largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States.' He accused Democrats of having launched an 'ideological crusade' on climate change that 'strangled entire sectors of the United States economy,' particularly the auto industry...."

I'm reading "Trump Administration Erases the Government’s Power to Fight Climate Change/The Environmental Protection Agency repealed the bedrock scientific finding that greenhouse gases threaten human life and well being. It means the agency can no longer regulate them" (NYT).

"Greenland is not for sale and will not be for sale, so you can forget about your plans for Greenland to become part of the USA."

"Nothing about us without us, and Greenland’s future is solely up to us. A majority does not want to become Americans, we do not want to be taken over by another country...."

Said Aaja Chemnitz, "a Greenlandic politician serving in the Danish Parliament," quoted in "Trump appoints Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry as special envoy to Greenland/The Danish territory has long been in the president’s sights. Trump said the Republican governor “understands how essential Greenland is to our National Security" (WaPo).

From the text of the article: "Trump has said repeatedly that the United States will 'get' Greenland, casting it as a national security objective for the U.S. His administration also covets Greenland for its untapped rare earth metals, an industry dominated by China globally. In April, The Washington Post reported that the White House was preparing an estimate of what it would cost the federal government to control Greenland as a territory."

"How big is Greenland?" — that question came up in a novel I'm reading. A child asks the question of her father who was telling her a story about the Greenlandic ice sheet melting and flooding the world and had said "Imagine, a slab of ice the size of Greenland!" The father "had no idea," only that Greenland "was notorious for being smaller than it looked on a Mercator projection, but he felt sure it was large, given that its melting would cause global sea levels to rise by something like seven meters."

The WaPo article offers an answer to the question: Greenland is "around three times the size of Texas."

"Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder who has spent billions of his own money to raise the alarm about the dangers of climate change...

"... sought to tamp down the alarmism he said many people use to describe the effects of rising temperatures. Instead, he called for redirecting efforts toward improving lives in the developing world."

I'm reading "Bill Gates Says Climate Change ‘Will Not Lead to Humanity’s Demise’/In a memo, the Microsoft co-founder warned against climate alarmism and appears to have shifted some of his views about climate change" (NYT).

If only the "billions" he's spent alarming people had been spent directly "improving lives in the developing world." Is he now spending his billions advising the rest of us to putting our efforts into improving lives in the developing world? He's still investing in businesses premised on climate change. I can't unravel the complexities, but I don't like the way people have been manipulated into feeling immense anxiety about an imagined apocalypse. 

"Pope Leo blesses a block of ice and then stands there while these communist freaks do some kind of weird pagan Earth worshipping hippy ritual."

That's Matt Walsh's interpretation. Decide for yourself:

Horrific. The whole thing. Pope Leo blesses a block of ice and then stands there while these communist freaks do some kind of weird pagan Earth worshipping hippy ritual. The leader of the Catholic Church shouldn’t be anywhere near this nonsense. What the hell are we doing here https://t.co/LEpC3u141T

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) October 1, 2025

"This is an outrageous assault on our free speech and ability to educate each other. It’s just bonkers to me that the federal government is imposing these kinds of restraints..."

"... that we’re taking away valuable information from our citizens who visit this park, and that we are trying to dumb everyone down and pretend real weather events don’t happen by not letting you read a simple sign."

Said Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), quoted in "National parks remove signs about climate, slavery and Japanese detention/The removals come after President Donald Trump issued an executive order in March seeking to remove 'improper partisan ideology' from federal institutions."

You have beautiful places, the best land and rocks and trees and waters of America, and because people want to come see these wonders of nature, you see it as opportunity to interpose human messages — negative, downer messages, propaganda — on eyesore signs. Let visitors think their own thoughts, read their own books, and speak to each other about what they think. That's the better free speech and shared education, not the speech by the government that is installed in the form of inert signs. 

Pingree complains that the new policy is "trying to dumb everyone down and... not letting you read a simple sign." But if I'm here for the landscape and the government has put up a political education sign, it's not letting me not see the government's speech.

"Flavour of gin and tonic could be impacted by climate change, study finds."

 The Guardian reports.

[Juniper] berries have their own regional “terroir” just like wine, depending on rainfall and sunshine, according to the findings, which have been published in the Journal of the Institute of Brewing....

“For a multibillion-pound industry, which is increasingly focused on consistency and quality for its discerning consumers, this represents a risk.”

Maybe you have enough toys.

I'm trying to read "Trump, on Tariffs, Says ‘Maybe the Children Will Have 2 Dolls Instead of 30’/At the end of a cabinet meeting, the president allowed for the possibility that trade war could disrupt supply chains" (NYT).

This reminds me of what those on the left used to say to us around the theme of global warming: We have too much stuff already. We should think small. Less plastic. Consume less. Lighten your carbon footprint. 

The NYT writer, Shawn McCreesh, is offended that ordinary people are asked to do with less by "the billionaire, crypto-salesman, golf-club-operating, Palm Beach-by-way-of-Fifth Avenue president with the golden office and the golden triplex apartment."

Reminds me of how righties would criticize the experts and celebrities for living in mansions and flying halfway around the world in private jets to hobnob at climate change conventions.

"Similar ice ridges appear elsewhere, including on Lake Mendota in Wisconsin."

I'm reading "In Japan, an Iceless Lake and an Absent God Sound an Ancient Warning/For centuries, residents in central Japan have chronicled a mysterious natural phenomenon in winter. They see its disappearance as a bad omen" (NYT).

First, people were awakened at night by a loud rumbling. Dawn broke to reveal its source: a long, narrow ridge of jagged ice that had mysteriously arisen across [Lake Suwa's] surface, meandering like the spiked back of a twisting dragon. 

This was the Miwatari, meaning the sacred crossing, which local belief held was left by a passing god of Japan’s native Shinto belief. 

Its appearance evoked feelings of awe but also reassurance among the residents, who ventured onto the ice to perform a ceremony honoring what they saw as a visitation from the supernatural. In the rare winters when the ice ridge did not appear, the god’s absence was viewed as a warning that the natural world was out of balance.... 

Only parishioners in their 60s or older remember when the Miwatari was still big enough to make a sound that could wake them at night. The last time an ice ridge formed, in 2018, it was barely six inches tall. “When I was child, the ice spikes rose higher than my height,” said Isao Nakazawa, 81, a retired auto company worker. “We knew when it appeared because it made a sound like a taiko drum, ‘Gon-gon-gon!’”

I've been out there observing our ice dragon, our sacred crossing, all winter for years on Lake Mendota. Here's a photo from January 18th:

I am deeply touched to see it connected to Shintoism. On March 6th, I happened to ask Grok: "If I wanted to become a Shintoist, would that even be possible? How would I do it? Is there a version of Shintoism available to the non-Japanese?"

But, of course, the NYT article is not inspired by nature's divine spirits. The devotion here is climate change.

"By overhauling massive rules on the endangerment finding, the social cost of carbon and similar issues, we are driving a dagger through the heart of climate-change religion..."

"... and ushering in America’s Golden Age. These actions will roll back trillions of dollars in regulatory costs and hidden taxes. As a result, the cost of living for American families will decrease, and essentials such as buying a car, heating your home and operating a business will become more affordable. Our actions will also reignite American manufacturing, spreading economic benefits to communities. The EPA will continue to protect human health and the environment while unleashing America’s full potential. That means reconsidering the regulations that have restricted every sector of the economy, such as the illegal Clean Power Plan 2.0, Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, and Particulate Matter 2.5 levels. Under President Trump guidance, the EPA also has ended the electric-vehicle mandate that threatened to destroy America’s auto industry and made cars cost more...."

Writes Lee Zeldin in "EPA Ends the ‘Green New Deal’/We’re keeping people and the environment safe while overhauling rules that stifled our full potential" (Wall Street Journal).

"The Biden administration used so-called 'climate equity' to justify handouts of billions of dollars to their far-left friends."

"It is my utmost priority to get a handle on every dollar that went out the door in this scheme and once again restore oversight and accountability over these funds. This rush job operation is riddled with conflicts of interest and corruption."

Said EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, quoted by Bari Weiss (at X).

Weiss writes: "The Department of Justice is investigating the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a $27 billion program that was part of Joe Biden’s $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act. Created in the spring of 2023, and managed by the Environmental Protection Agency, the fund was supposed to be a 'first-of-its-kind' program to address the climate crisis while revitalizing communities that it considered 'historically left behind.' But it appears little of the $27 billion revitalized anything—except the coffers of a range of environmental nonprofits associated with former Obama and Biden administration officials.."

The performance of power in the arena and in the Oval Office.

Trump had a busy day yesterday, but let's focus on the showmanship in the signing of all those orders. First, on a little red-carpeted stage in the Capitol One Arena, he is literally The Man in the Arena (as Theodore Roosevelt put it):

 

He's got the people surrounding him, watching him sign papers at a tiny table, and they're fully engaged in the show he's putting on, as if it's a big boxing match going on there in that little square in the center of the arena. Whoever thought of dramatizing order-signing like that and getting a rowdy crowd to cheer as if it's a sport? 

Later, in the Oval Office, he signed more orders, this time in front of the press elite, and when they ventured questions, he answered — calmly, chattily, seriously, and easily. Joe Biden couldn't even answer one question from the press or get to the end of a single sentence without stumbling, and here's Trump, signing orders — take that, Paris Agreement — and holding a press conference at the same time... and showing no strain, even at the end of a long day of events, and with the Inaugural Ball yet to come:

Is it dangerous — reprehensible? — this showmanship in the exercise of power? Those who hate him and who hate the substance of those orders will, I presume, denounce the theatricality. It's cruel! But he's out there in the open, letting the people see him do his work, using the power he asked them to give him, and doing what he said he would do. What a contrast to Biden who campaigned hidden away in 2020 and who occupied the position of President without ever letting us see that — if! — he was the one doing the work.

After 4 years of The Man in the Basement, we have, once again, The Man in the Arena.

ADDED: Here's how Biden looked, signing his first executive orders — yay, Paris Agreement! — in the Oval Office in 2021. Scroll to 2:30 to hear — muffled behind masks — the first questions from the press. Biden answers one question as we hear aides hustling the reporters out of the room:

"The Progressive Moment Is Over/Four reasons their era has come to an end."

Writes Ruy Teixeira (at Liberal Patriot).

The 4 reasons:

1. Loosening restrictions on illegal immigration was a terrible idea and voters hate it...

2. Promoting lax law enforcement and tolerance of social disorder was a terrible idea and voters hate it....

3. Insisting that everyone should look at all issues through the lens of identity politics was a terrible idea and voters hate it....

4. Telling people fossil fuels are evil and they must stop using them was a terrible idea and voters hate it....

That made me think of this TikTok I saw today, a woman describing what she thinks is "a new breed of conservatives": 

"The proposal would slash fuel burn by 5 to 7% and would reduce the 4% industry contribution to overall climate change, per the research, which is being presented to the United Nations."

From "Scientists want every flight to take up to an hour longer — they say slower speeds are better for the planet" (NY Post).

How about if people just fly 5 to 7% less often?

Or never.

"One celebrated offering is pigeon meat cured in a casing of beeswax and served suspended, like a ham, with the bird’s feathered head intact."

"Another is ice cream made from pig’s blood and filled with a ganache of juniper oil and deer-blood garum. ('Fatty, with a weird umami aftertaste,' in the judgment of a food blogger.) Not all diners appreciate being scolded during their meal. 'I care deeply about climate change, yet I don’t necessarily go to a restaurant to worry about it even more,' Jeff Gordinier wrote in Esquire. 'I go to a restaurant to get away from the awful news for a few hours.' One night, a guest threw the chicken cage across the domed room, declaring that he hadn’t signed up to be lectured by Greenpeace. But that was in itself a satisfying moment of theatre. On only three or four occasions has a diner walked out in disgust."

From "Can Your Stomach Handle a Meal at Alchemist? At the Copenhagen restaurant, diners are served raw jellyfish—and freeze-dried lamb brain served in a fake cranium—while videos about climate change swirl on the ceiling. Is it 'gastronomic opera,' or sensory overload?" (The New Yorker).

Ha ha. It's funny that the climate change propaganda is the most disgusting part.

I had to look up the word "garum," and I found "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Garum/A culinary star in ancient Rome, this fermented fish sauce transforms everything it touches" (Eater)("it has been called the ketchup of the Roman world"). Are we still doing that thing of thinking about Rome all the time?

"Even though electricity demand from A.I. is expected to at least double in the coming years, the efficiency of the technology could increase at an even higher rate...."

"After the mania has calmed down, other incentives kick in,' said Jonathan Koomey, a former scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who is now an independent researcher. 'here is a huge incentive for the industry to become more efficient.' The big tech companies are working on ways to streamline their software, hardware and cooling systems to reduce electricity consumption in their data centers. They are locating computing facilities in northern countries, pulling in cold outdoor air as a coolant to reduce electricity and water use. And they are investing in alternative energy sources. If those efforts are successful, and if we’re smart about how we use A.I., it might eventually offer a lot of environmental bang for the buck."

From "Will A.I. Ruin the Planet or Save the Planet? It’s a notorious energy hog. But artificial intelligence can also foster innovation and discovery, and it could speed the global transition to cleaner power" (NYT).

There's so little attention to this issue. If there were more, though, it would fuel suspicions about the seriousness of the climate change emergency. I see an occasional article like this, which really only says, don't worry, technology will find solutions... which is what is said by people who oppose taking strong action on climate change.