- Speaking of reality, the Democratic administration of Governor Kathy Hochul in New York state seems to be getting it. As does the editorial board of the Washington Post which admittedly has been ideologically disconnected from the rest of the paper by Jeff Bezos. In a recent editorial they note that Hochul has disconnected the requirement not to connect new buildings to natural gas, and agreed to the first natural-gas pipeline in the state in a decade or more. It is revealing that the governor, in explaining these changes, cites not just “affordability” but also reality. It’s a good thing, and if political reality is forcing her to acknowledge economic reality, well, that kind of thing really is the justification for democratic self-government, isn’t it?
- All carbon all the time: Canada’s upstart Juno News calculates that international green man of mystery Mark Carney is about to embark on his 32nd plane trip since becoming Prime Minister a mere nine months ago. Yes, you did the math right: he flies, often to other countries and indeed other continents, nearly once a week, spewing “carbon pollution” right in our faces. We may not get pipelines, or internal-combustion cars. But he’s chugging petroleum fuels at our expense in vast amounts. Including to drop by the WEF since he is on its Foundation board, and also to Beijing since given the choice between the hard work of deregulating Canada’s economy to make us richer, stronger and more influential in an increasingly uncertain world, or going to lick the Chinese communists’ boots, he is taking the easier course if not the more patriotic one. (Meanwhile the legislated registry of foreign agents operating in Canada is mysteriously delayed yet again.)
- From the “so you admit it” file, Climate Home News emails “Happy New Year from all of us here at Climate Home News and a warm welcome back after the festive period.” Warm good. Cold bad. Then it offers a sweepstakes opportunity, with five copies of “The Climate Diplomat: A Personal History of the COP Conferences to give away completely free!” Well, yes, you’d struggle to sell such a tome.
- Oh heh heh that factor-of-25 overestimate: The deep blue Washington State Department of Commerce just put out a press release saying things funded under the state Climate Commitment Act only achieved about 4% of what they had claimed. The Seattle Times says “The overestimate is the result of a simple error, state officials said. But it comes at a particularly sensitive time.” Riiight. The simple error being believing what you want to believe not what it makes sense to believe, and the sensitive time being as people are noticing in large numbers that the claims of climate alarmists are way overstated and their remedies don’t work. Awkward, that.
- Cor, that’s a classic. Canada has just banned the compact fluorescent bulbs it forced us all to use starting about 20 years ago by banning incandescents. As Blacklock’s Reporter reminds us, during a 2003 mass giveaway of the poisonous things a federal “Fact Sheet” sent to Canadian homes blared “Are compact fluorescent bulbs safe? Yes! They have a minute amount of mercury. If they break they do not pose a health risk.” Well, apart from the bit where you had to evacuate pets and children, open the windows and wait 15 minutes before venturing in with gloves, as they admitted in 2014. By now there are about 100 million of these little bombs that it is now illegal to make or import, many doubtless snuck into landfills in the regular trash because those various programs for taking back household electronic waste tend to shun them as too toxic. (Oh, and the same government also banned plastic straws, bags and so forth but has now decided they can be made here provided they are sent to the United States to kill turtles or whatever it is that makes them so dangerous, unless it was all just hogwash.) From the government and here to help… including now telling you not to buy an internal-combustion car but instead a perfectly safe (!) lithium-battery EV – until they ban those as toxic fire hazards or some such. But no matter how wrong they were last time, they do not lose any faith in their ability to manage your affairs way better than you could.
See Comments 
Tidbits
14 Jan 2026 | News Roundup
Second prize in the Climate Home News sweepstake is, of course, ten copies of “The Climate Diplomat: A Personal History of the COP Conferences" 😉
Regarding the banning of incandescent light bulbs in favour of the compact fluorescent ones, it may have seemed like the same government as the present one but it was actually done under the "me too" leviathan state Conservatives as opposed to the more "progressive" leviathan state Liberals.