32 Comments

1. 

   jupiviv on February 24, 2026 at 10:25 am

   “92 [33.3C] Hollywood; 91 Fort Lauderdale; 90 West Palm Beach; 90 Lantana; 89 Miam Kendall; tomorrow they will switch from AC to blankets!”

   IIRC they approved teachers using climate denial vids as curricula. So what can I say, have fun with endless wet sexy summer madness Florida!

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewJXe_i7j5o

   Also, not that it matters but I think he meant to say ‘switch from blankets to AC’.

   • 

     Panopticon on February 24, 2026 at 5:38 pm

     I think ExtremeTemps has it the right way round there, Jupiviv, as Florida is swinging back to chilly again:

     “States including Alabama, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina could face temperatures 10-15C below normal for this time of year, bringing widespread cold and frosty
     nights…

     “In Miami, temperatures could plunge to about 7C on Tuesday morning – cold enough for iguanas to drop from trees.”

     https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/23/weather-tracker-spring-europe-france-noreaster-boston-blizzards

     That is another unlikely mash-up that works very well. Wonder what Elvis would have made of Marilyn…

2. 

   Flippr on February 24, 2026 at 11:39 am

   Quark, “The “bad” forecasts provided by the IEA”

   https://tinyurl.com/2khatbfx

   • 

     Bob Shaw on February 24, 2026 at 1:31 pm

     Hey Flippr, thanks for the link to Quark.

     Regarding the discussion to flagging Battery Electric Vehicles [BEV] sales worldwide: it is a commonsense result when you think about fueling an Internal Combustion Engine [ICE] versus charging up a BEV.

     Think of all mammals {us included!} as an ICE: we need to eat & breathe in order to move. So, we fuel-up on food and then continuously intake air to power our chemical engine for locomotion & more. We breathe out CO2 and release other wastes.

     We do the same with ICE cars: fill the tank and suck enormous volumes of air into the engine to power the chemical engine to ‘Do the Loco-Motion’. The output is CO2, carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide, and other crazy nasties.

     Now imagine if we never evolved lungs but we evolved the requirement to tote a big steel pressurized oxygen tank & intake facemask with tubing to move about. Food provides the Carbon [C] + air the O2 = CO2. Picture 8 billion humans scurrying about with very large scuba tanks strapped on their backs.

     Instead, to be much more efficient we ‘lung filter’ the needed O2 as we live & move, and an ICE inhales its required O2 through the air filter system. The result is that two-thirds of the combustion fuel we and the ICE need is never carried but instantly used! The O2 is two-thirds of the CO2.

     Now imagine every ICE from a chainsaw to a leaf blower, from a car to a giant 350-ton off-road ore-truck, from a long train to a supertanker. Picture an oxygen tank of appropriate giant size for each and every one of these machines. Instead, we install a small air filter intake system instead.

     Not so with a BEV. It has to carry ALL its ‘fuel’ inside the battery. It can’t suck electricity for free from the air as it moves along which is why BEVs are heavier than ICE cars. Imagine how much coal or other FF is burned along with a super-giant oxygen tank to make CO2 that powers an electric generator to ‘fuel-up’ a single BEV. The multi-continental supply infrastructure to power up a world of BEVs is just not efficient enough to continue Modernity.

     That power cord that gets inserted into a BEV, or to recharge the battery for your weed-whipper extends GLOBALLY back to every coal mine, every oil well, every natgas field, and every mined mineral open-pit hole across this planet.

     Bob Shaw Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

     • 

       Bob Nickson on February 24, 2026 at 3:42 pm

       EV sales aren’t flagging.

       Year,EV sales in millions:
       2015,0.5
       2016,0.8
       2017,1.2
       2018,2.1
       2019,2.3
       2020,3.2
       2021,6.6
       2022,10.5
       2023,13.7
       2024,17.8
       2025,23.7

       • 

         Panopticon on February 24, 2026 at 5:47 pm

         Bob N, it looks like 2025 sales were 20.7 rather than 23.7, but your point still stands. However, as the article Quark links to points out, sales flagged in January of this year:

         “The year 2026 has not started in the best way when it comes to electric car sales. Worldwide, 1.2 million were registered in January, which was a year-on-year contraction of 3% and a strong -44% compared to December 2025.”

         https://es.motor1.com/news/787389/coches-electricos-ventas-enero-2026/

       • 

         Bob Shaw on February 25, 2026 at 1:44 am

         Hello Bob Nickson, Thanks for your reply!

         About 94 million vehicles were manufactured globally in 2025, so the vast majority of them are ICE vehicles. It will take a long time for the estimated 1 billion ICE vehicles to be worn out, then replaced with more [gas & diesel] ICE and BEV vehicles.

         I grant you that we might see more BEVs if govt. mandates require their manufacture and/or a huge techno-breakthrough occurs, but I think the Law of Diminishing Returns applies. Time will tell…

         I think ongoing mineral & FF depletion will impact BEVs more than ICEs because they can always recycle the worn-out vehicles, then go back to building them to 1970s specifications of no electronics; a much simpler but still vastly adequate vehicle! A small starting battery of old-school lead & electrolyte is all you need versus the high-cost rare earth minerals and fancy tech-mfg. of a very much larger BEV battery.

         I suspect the diesel-powered vehicles like big trucks, ore trucks, farm tractors, and heavy equipment like bulldozers, earth-scrapers, locomotives, giant excavators, worksite generators, drill-rigs, and more will never be replaced by battery-power. We will be diverting all FFs to growing food and unfortunately powering the military in the not-too-distant future [2030 to 2035 according to some expert projections]. We will see…

         Bob Shaw Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

         I could foresee a need for many small ‘last-mile’ BEV delivery carts to rival all the people now riding E-bikes as the cost of gasoline becomes more unaffordable. In fact, I think USPS, UPS, Fedex are exploring this option now. Too many people drive their full size vehicles for very short trips like to the beer store and back, LOL!

         I think most people would be happy to have a cheap BEV golf-cart for those short drives, but I suspect the big automakers especially TESLA would lobby hard to prevent those from cannibalizing their market shares.

   • 

     George Kaplan on February 24, 2026 at 2:15 pm

     There are a couple of interesting charts in the ExxonMobil annual report (page 41). Without any investment (i.e. natural decline) production of liquid fuels will be down 90% by 2050 and natural gas by over 95%, with investment in existing fields but without new fields (and we’ve seen plenty of recent reports indicating new discoveries and new FIDs drying up) it will be down about 60% for liquids and 55% gas.

     https://ir.exxonmobil.com/static-files/a2f623ad-4ec2-4624-a059-297bbae77400

     • 

       Panopticon on February 24, 2026 at 6:35 pm

       George, thank you for picking that rather unnerving info out. Interesting that Exxon flags up financial crises as a potential threat to production:

       “Sovereign debt downgrades, defaults, extended government shutdowns, inability to access debt markets due to rating, banking, or legal constraints, liquidity crises, market bubbles and corrections, the breakup or restructuring of fiscal, monetary, or political systems such as the European Union, de-dollarization in global trade or the growth or use of alternative common currencies, and other events or conditions that impair the functioning of financial markets and institutions also pose risks to ExxonMobil, including risks to the safety of our financial assets and to the ability of our partners, suppliers, and customers to fulfill their commitments to ExxonMobil”

       • 

         George Kaplan on February 24, 2026 at 7:22 pm

         Oil supply and, maybe more so, gas seem to be suddenly more precarious than I’d previously thought. I’m still trying to understand how much worse the Gulf of Mexico recovery seems likely to be, even compared to my rough expectations, let alone the high numbers EIA and BOEM have proposed, but 15% annual natural decline to 2030 is beyond even that as a surprise.

         • 

           Survivalist on February 24, 2026 at 10:36 pm

           Wonderful info and insight George. Thanks for helping us keep an eye on the horizon.

3. 

   zip on February 24, 2026 at 1:01 pm

   Just a few more notes on degrowth and mobile phones.

   Because I worked for the Dutch television networks, I was among the first to get access to a mobile phone. That must have been around 1995, when nationwide coverage became available. It was convenient when you were stuck in traffic and dealing with that kind of “network stress.” Of course it was a Nokia, competing with Motorola for the market. When Nokia sold its billionth phone around 2005, in Nigeria, it gave me a reason to make a documentary about this exploding network. It became part of a series about Africa as a supplier of raw materials and, at the same time, a dumping ground for the surplus and disposable products of our consumer society — on a continent that could never quite escape chronic scarcity, while in the EU we experienced abundance as something self-evident and disposable. After thirty years of documentaries, that series was the one that truly shifted the balance for me.

   Right after the broadcasts, I resigned at the age of 55 and quite literally stepped into a degrowth model. Somewhere in remote Europe, my wife and I bought a dilapidated farmhouse in a small village. We completely renovated it ourselves, and I taught myself all kinds of survival and craft skills that I had only partially mastered before: woodworking, metalwork, welding. There was even a spring next to the house.

   I joined an energy cooperative whose goal was to make our living environment “energy neutral” through wind, solar, and pumped hydro storage. The project grew into a multi-million-euro undertaking and, partly for that reason, it ultimately failed, even though we had wind subsidies. We kept ourselves afloat by restoring furniture and recycling practically everything that “modern society” threw away. One could make a decent living that way, without, as in parts of Africa, having to search through landfills for plastic scraps and other toxic waste that we ourselves did not want to deal with.

   The first thing I literally threw in the trash after emigrating was my mobile phone — the stress of permanent reachability without purpose. I never bought another one. I have never sent a text message through an app, never even created one. I drive without navigation, and if I want to travel, I have to print out a physical map somewhere because I do not have a mobile screen. I pay as much as possible with real cash and follow similar habits.

   Sometimes this irritates my friends and children, who consider it a strange anachronism. But I do not mind, and sometimes I sense they are actually a little jealous. With difficult, highly digitized institutions such as the tax authorities, I persist in claiming that I live in a so-called “zone blanche,” which is only half a lie. To make a phone call without Wi-Fi, you have to go into the village anyway, because I happen to live just below a basalt rock on top of which the transmission mast is located. Even second-class, non-digital citizens still have to be served when it comes to taxes and payments.

   Now that I am finally worn down by all that physical labor — because make no mistake, degrowth is almost a medieval strain on the muscles — I have returned to my roots. In the late 1970s I once taught at the university in methodology and philosophy of science, and that now proves useful again at the end of this fossil era, with all its layered systems, paradigms, and complexities.

   In short, I am a supporter of degrowth, but one who is surrounded by highly complex care and pension systems that try, at all costs, to keep me alive and patch me up — much like I spent years rescuing other people’s discarded objects from inevitable entropy.

   But without a mobile phone… I can recommend it to everyone.

   • 

     Survivalist on February 24, 2026 at 1:26 pm

     Got a link to your 2005 documentary?

     • 

       zip on February 24, 2026 at 1:57 pm

       This series was recorded on analog media, on Betacam tapes, using a Fuji Betacam SP camera. So unfortunately there is no digital format conversion. The massive digital image world and archiving with links only really came later.

       You have to imagine that, as a broadcaster, we had a website with “messages from the maker.” That was something new at the time, and we contributed to it. Such a message would then be distributed worldwide along the so-called “digital highway,” and you would get around 200 views globally.

       The iPhone only appeared in 2007, and by then my Nokia had long since been thrown in the trash. That digital world is actually not that old at all.

       • 

         Panopticon on February 24, 2026 at 6:54 pm

         Zip, thank you – I do enjoy getting a sense of commenters as people.

         Being ever-contactable is a mixed blessing at best – I especially hate the way my day-job bleeds across into my evenings and weekends – so I have a lot of sympathy with the stand you’ve taken. My Samsung Android has deviously embedded itself in my life now to the point where the thought of doing without it gives me palpitations, so I guess I’ll be a mobile-user until the networks go down.

   • 

     Cassandra on February 24, 2026 at 5:27 pm

     Zip, very interesting to hear some of your personal story!

     PS you know of course that degrowth of our entire economic system is impossible. Unless by degrowth one means collapse.

   • 

     Heather B on February 24, 2026 at 7:33 pm

     I really dislike the term degrowth because those who are pushing it on social media use it to avoid using the term collapse. They also avoid talking about facts on the ground and they are very clickbait news. There is a deliberate use of terms that the media pushes around to push certain economic agendas by the rich techy ai media gangs. It avoids talking about reality. Right now with ai media bots on YouTube pushing fake accounts and other issues. They are trying to avoid the reality of the deeper economic and ecological issues we are facing here in the united states. Although right now we are at point where reality will it them square in face. The ongoing water reality will those in the Colorado basin this year. Not in my lifetime crowd or 10 years. This year! So i would suggest when the media pushes a term or phase use another one tlo best describes the shit will hit the fan sooner than later!

     • 

       Survivalist on February 24, 2026 at 11:13 pm

       Nobody is gonna like it when their bank account and their average daily caloric intake start to degrowth. It’s a bullshit word.

       • 

         Bob Shaw on February 25, 2026 at 1:48 am

         Hey Survivalist, I second that motion–>It is a bullshit word, LOL!

4. 

   VPK on February 24, 2026 at 2:03 pm

   “We’re Killing Our World: The Global Ecosystem in Crisis” is a notable, frequently cited 1987-1990 era address and paper by renowned biologist Peter Raven, Director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, which warned of massive, human-driven biodiversity loss, deforestation, and ecosystem collapse.
   Springer Nature Link
   Springer Nature Link
   +2
   Core Message: Raven argued that human activity was causing extinction rates thousands of times higher than natural levels, threatening the stability of the global ecosystem.
   Focus Areas: He highlighted the destruction of tropical forests, the loss of species, and the urgent need to preserve biodiversity for future generations.
   Context: This phrase and the accompanying report, often associated with the MacArthur Foundation, gained prominence around the 1990s as environmental awareness grew, aligning with the 20th anniversary of Earth Day in 1990.
   Significance: Peter Raven used this theme to push for immediate, large-scale conservation efforts, warning that the “killing” was not just aesthetic, but a threat to human survival.

   Remember reading this very article way back then and for some reason made its way back to me today to at least share this bit of it. Around then too Dr James Hansen was sounding the alarms too. Promoted me to explore the “sub-culture of living sustainably”, because Permaculture was taking root at the fringe of society by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren.
   So, not much penetration in the mainstream as Zip s post here eludes and a Catch 22 paradigm trap we find ourselves in, especially after reading

   https://energyskeptic.com/2026/john-howe-on-1-child-per-woman-still-too-high-to-stay-under-oil-depletion-curve/

   That was presented back earlier when I read that India had a program to offer sterilization procedures to its population as a social service, but abandoned it when was realized that the impact was minimal after a cost/benefit analysis

   BARUAN, India (Reuters) – India officially abandoned targets for its mass sterilization program in the 1990s, accepting they had put undue pressure on people to undergo surgery and failed to curb population growth sufficiently.

   Bob, are we yeast?

   • 

     Bob Shaw on February 24, 2026 at 3:18 pm

     Hey VPK,

     So far, I would have to conclude that we are still NO Smarter than Yeast trapped in a wine bottle. As Prof. Rees would say, “We are precisely maladjusted to survive in our novel environment of the one-time Carbon Pulse”.

     Full Credit to Flippr on February 23, 2026 at 8:58 pm in C & E:

     Bill Rees latest essay, ‘Civilization’ and the human maladaptation syndrome:

     https://tinyurl.com/5amvdyj8

     • 

       VPK on February 24, 2026 at 3:33 pm

       We agree, the Family Guy showed me so…too funny

       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ8KjkyBZbg&t=12s

       Family Guy – Quagmire Discovers Tinder

       I need Cellphone Jesus as a shirt
       Suppose we’ll just continue yapping about it all

       • 

         Panopticon on February 24, 2026 at 7:15 pm

         😂 Family Guy has brought me many hours of pleasure over the years. Thank God for comedy.

     • 

       Panopticon on February 24, 2026 at 7:13 pm

       Thanks, Bob and Flippr. It is another great piece by Prof Rees.

       “…the really important point is that these toxic modern tensions are not normal as defined; they were totally absent from the social, physical and emotional environments of our paleolithic ancestors. Almost all contemporary stressors are emergent phenomena of modernity.”

       This is actually quite a comforting framing. It, at least partially, obviates the need for blame and upset, as the whole species has basically been driven nuts by our self-domestication, ie not guilty by reason of insanity.

   • 

     Panopticon on February 24, 2026 at 7:05 pm

     Vince, I highly doubt we will see much in the way of organised population curbs before things fall apart.

     “The public must realize that extra children born today will not only compete with everyone else for resources, but their parents will be there to see them suffer in a world which will get a whole lot uglier.”

     As a Dad, this preys on my mind from time to time.

5. 

   Rob on February 24, 2026 at 7:44 pm

   “Cities worldwide begin banning high-carbon adverts to cut emissions.”

   The collateral damage of which would be the damaged collateral of, for instance, Airbnb’s, whose owners were extended loans based on the amount of tourists, which, should the adverts prove effective, 😂,
   would plummet.

   When the domino theory is applied to geopolitics, it is rather ridiculous, as for dominos to fall in the manner that the theory suggests, they must first be set up that way, as anyone who has ever done so knows. But in leveraged finance, that is exactly what HAS been done. Once one topples, it of necessity knocks down its neighbors.

   The basis of a country’s GDP is its trade, the basis of its credit rating is its GDP, hence the unilateral imposition of arbitrary tariffs is a direct and deliberate sabotage of globalization, and makes one wonder, WTO where are you? Why is it the Supreme Court’s bailiwick to declare punitive tariffs unconstitutional when they are in flagrant violation of WTO rules? Of what use are such international bodies if they can’t restrain its signatories from their evil-minded me-first agendas?

   • 

     Panopticon on February 24, 2026 at 7:51 pm

     Rob, I think your question re the WTO is rhetorical but, for those who don’t know, the organisation is toothless now with its Appellate Body paralysed:

     “The Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is a standing body of seven persons that hears appeals from reports issued by panels in disputes brought on by WTO members… [It] has been termed by one journalist as “effectively the supreme court of world trade”…

     “Since 2019, when the Donald Trump administration began blocking appointments to the body, the Appellate Body has been unable to enforce WTO rules and punish violators of WTO rules. Subsequently, disregard for trade rules has increased…”

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appellate_Body

6. 

   Bob Shaw on February 25, 2026 at 2:41 am

   Interesting article from France’s SocGen Bank:
   —————————–
   Gold revaluation wouldn’t fix U.S. debt, but would reset fiscal optics

   …In its latest precious metals report, the French bank provided a historical look at how gold functions on central bank balance sheets, arguing that it is fundamentally different from government debt and other reserve assets.

   The analysts said gold will continue to play an important role in global foreign reserves. The analysis comes as official global gold reserves have now surpassed U.S. Treasury holdings for the first time since 1996.

   “Gold is not held as a fiscal financing tool, but as a strategic reserve asset underpinning credibility, confidence, and monetary resilience,” the analysts said. “Gold sits on central bank balance sheets as an anchor of trust—liquid, unencumbered, and free of counterparty risk—rather than as a pool of resources to be monetised for short-term budget management.”

   They added that gold’s value is its insulation from short-term political pressures. “For these reasons, gold cannot credibly be viewed as an instrument for debt reduction,” the analysts wrote. “Its value lies precisely in being held outside day-to-day policy decisions—as a reserve of last resort that supports confidence and stability in adverse scenarios, rather than as a stopgap for structural fiscal imbalances.”

   …Société Générale also examined the increasingly politicized debate surrounding U.S. gold reserves…

   …However, because the U.S. continues to value its gold at a statutory price of $42 per ounce, “the U.S. owes approximately $3,484.5 of debt for every dollar of gold it holds,” creating what the bank described as “a gigantic debt-to-gold price outlier on the world stage.”

   …However, analysts said a mark-to-market increase would not solve America’s fiscal challenges. They noted that even at $5,000 an ounce, it “would not solve the debt problem,” though it could “buy time, improve fiscal optics, and reset gold’s role in the monetary system, albeit while signaling systemic stress.”

   https://www.kitco.com/news/article/2026-02-24/gold-revaluation-wouldnt-fix-us-debt-would-reset-fiscal-optics-socgen
   ——————————–
   ME: So, if Central Banks are going to continue to hold their gold reserves [Not for sale!], yet allow their debts to get worse signaling systemic stress, then the public will continue to lose faith in fiat currencies and will want an alternative.

   As I have written before: I predict real silver coinage will be the answer for most people for small purchases. Gold, because of its high value, will be the coin of choice for the expensive purchase like a new vehicle or house.

   If PMs are the “Anchor of Trust” for a Central Bank, then PMs should be our “Anchor of Trust” too!

7. 

   Bob Shaw on February 25, 2026 at 3:15 am

   I don’t agree with this following article. Ruchir Sharma is chairman of Rockefeller International and the founder of Breakout Capital.
   ——————————
   The gold trade is now divorced from fundamentals: explained here

   …“We are caught in this very strange situation with no fundamental backing to the price of gold, yet nothing to stop its momentum either,” he added…

   https://www.tradingview.com/news/invezz:1279eb84a094b:0-the-gold-trade-is-now-divorced-from-fundamentals-explained-here/
   ——————
   ME: My guess is Mr. Sharma is unaware of the ongoing depletion of FFs & minerals which will eventually stop gold mining globally resulting in a fixed amount of gold. No more! That’s it Baby, what you see is what you got!

   If Sharma vastly expanded his mental time boundary beyond the next fiscal quarter or year, then he would realize that nothing is more FUNDAMENTAL than a fixed supply against an expanding demand to jack up the price of some item.

   Imagine a drifting lifeboat in the blazing sun with thirty people vying for the last gallon jug of water!

   Bob Shaw Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

8. 

   Rain Lewis on February 25, 2026 at 5:51 am

   Climate.. yeah Aussie land still getting drowned or fried in alternating roundabouts.. central Australia.. ie the ‘outback’ is bracing for 4 years worth of desert rainfall, to fall in just a few days..

   But now for something completely different.. this sorta tickled my funny bone…

   Theme song to a 60s Italian “spaghetti western”, starring Clint Eastwood, filmed in Spain but played by Danish orchestra…

   https://youtu.be/enuOArEfqGo?si=MXdF1otUyPeTIbui

   • 

     Cassandra on February 25, 2026 at 12:46 pm

     Yeah, Australia getting clobbered. 😬 I hope you fare OK.

     The music was a surprise – loved it!

9. 

   VPK on February 25, 2026 at 1:52 pm

   Think Trump was on for 2 hours and only watch a bit here and there for a spell.
   Doubt many here saw it and this confirms my feeling of it..

   Instead of trying to reach out beyond his base, he resorted to trying to bait Democrats, calling them “crazy” in an effort to position himself as “normal” on things like immigration, crime and transgender rights.

   And he turned the address into a show. The gold-medal winning Olympic men’s hockey team was there. So were veterans, who were decorated, live on-camera, with medals of honor.

   Trump may have missed an opportunity to speak to voters’ concerns, especially since presidents don’t get that many opportunities to speak to the nation in prime time.

   But, for Trump, no matter how things are going, the show must go on — and it will for roughly three more years.

   https://www.npr.org/2026/02/25/nx-s1-5717096/trump-congress-state-union-highlights

   Now I know why NPR was defunded by this Administration…
   Yes, it will be a rough three years..this Bozo nightmare will go on…