Media & news
Climate Bias
Nov 3, 2025
A few weeks ago, New York City hosted “Climate Week NYC: 2025,” touted as its “Biggest Yet.” The theme was “Power On,” and it addressed climate progress across clean energy, climate finance, green jobs, technology and climate justice – demonstrating solutions already taking shape. Speeches, conversations, and calls for more action continued through the week.
Despite the celebrations, the recently announced intent of the Trump Administration to repeal the 2009 “Endangerment Finding,” which established the scientific and legal basis for the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act, cast a long shadow over the Climate Week Conference. In preparation for Climate Week and in an effort to support the EPA’s Endangerment Finding, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) released a report concluding that greenhouse gas emissions threaten the nation’s well-being and negatively impact human health.
Steven Koonin, author of What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters, wrote an excellent article published October 7, 2025, in the Wall Street Journal critiquing the study and the authors’ biased approach to addressing climate change.
Mr. Koonin states the NASEM report paints a dark picture of the consequences of the nation’s climate, health, and welfare. He says the report downplays or totally ignores evidence undermining the conclusions of the EPA’s Endangerment Finding.
He begins his critique of the report with a statement about its Preface, which recounts July’s catastrophic flooding of the Guadalupe River in Texas and its connection to increased greenhouse emissions. He notes that the report fails to mention that similar events and flooding have been recorded since the late 19th century and show no detectable trends despite increasing greenhouse emissions.
The NASEM report, Mr. Koonin states, describes a recent acceleration in the rise of global sea-levels observed by satellites. However, it fails to mention a comparable rise in the 1930’s before the concentration of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.
The report references recent U.S. heat waves and North Atlantic hurricane activity. It does not mention how evidence shows U.S. heat waves are no more common today than they were in the early 1900’s, and hurricanes show no long-term increases in frequency or intensity.
He also states the NASEM report bases much of its findings on models used to project changes in climate. Despite noting improvements in climate models, the report makes no mention of qualitative evidence proving how deficient even the better models truly are. There is certainly no mention that none of the climate models correctly predicted the current state of the climate.
Mr. Koonin contrasts the NASEM report with a recent Department of Energy (DOE) report, which he authored together with a number of other climate scientists, including my friend, John Christy. Koonin says the DOE report correctly places recent climate trends in the context of natural variability. “Our report was intended to bring attention to important topics in climate science that have been overlooked or played down in past assessments and are absent from popular and political climate narratives,” he says. “The National Academies’ report doesn’t refute the findings of the DOE report, it ignores them and the data they are based upon.”
Ignoring conflicting points and conflicting data is a grave disservice to science and an insult to the public that wishes to form intelligent opinions about climate change.
Mr. Koonin is correct in stating complete and transparent analyses of the risks of climate change are overdue. The DOE report deserves to be compared with the NASEM report. To do less is not science.
The attitude expressed in the NASEM report is consistent with the progressive left’s positions on the risks of climate change. That attitude is not new. President Obama stated the progressive position very succinctly in saying, “The science is over.”
Climate models are not proof of climate change, nor are they the results or findings of science. The models are merely the expression of a scientific theory that must be compared to the results of actual observations. Actual data proves none of the models have been correct in predicting current climate conditions, and there is no reason to believe they will be any more accurate in predicting the future.
The progressive left’s use of baseless reports and articles about the risks of climate change is not science. To demand that people suffer higher costs of living, give up high protein foods like meat and milk, change their choice of transportation, and give up basic comforts like air conditioning is just wrong. Mr. Koonin is right to call out the progressive left’s attempt to bolster their ideology with bad science and incomplete data.
The hypocrisy that the “science is over” is amazing.