“[New York Governor] Hochul’s shift could become a blueprint for Democrats across the country as they desperately try to convince voters they’re aggressively tackling cost-of-living concerns — including energy bills — ahead of the midterm elections.” – Politico, March 7, 2026

Next time you hear that climate policies are affordable or that wind and solar save money, look out the window. What are consumers saying? What are politicians under affordability pressure saying? No quantity of studies or fearmongering about climate can refute what is happening in the real world. Energy prices, energy economics, matter.

NY Governor Kathy Hochul

Democrat politicians today are retreating from heady climate goals of the past. Consider this article in Politico, “‘Hurting peoples’ pocketbooks’: Hochul pushes to pare back landmark climate law.”

“The New York governor is pushing for changes to the state’s landmark climate law because of affordability concerns, reflecting a national clash between high energy prices and environmental goals,” Marie French reports, adding:

It’s a major shift for Gov.

“The global climate elite are scrambling for relevancy and power. The poll-conscious wind and solar lobbies are disingenuously pitching affordability. And the climate zealots are getting nutty. Energy reality bats last.”

Let history note that the United States has issued a notice to withdraw from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), effective February 27, 2026. This withdrawal is broader than the previously announced (and started) withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015. The UNFCCC is the governing global network behind the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) “consensus” science (based on subjective climate-model interpretation), as well as the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 and the Paris Climate Accord of 2015.

The one-year window is running, with formal withdrawal set for February 27, 2027. As summarized by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI):

In January, President Donald Trump announced that the United States would be withdrawing from the UNFCCC.

This post excerpts energy and climate material from the Media Balance Newsletter, a free fortnightly published by physicist John Droz Jr., founder of the Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions. Droz is also the author of the popular Substack Critically Thinking About Select Societal Issues.

Greed Energy Economics:
*** Blue States, High Rates
Electricity Rate Increases

Unreliables: Energy Health and Ecosystem Consequences:
Minnesota green energy program fined for killing bald eagle: ‘National treasure’
Conservation Group Sues, Claims Feds Hiding Wyoming Wind Turbine Eagle Deaths

Unreliables (General):
*** Transition & Redundancy
*** Report: The Intrinsic Danger of Siting Utility Scale Lithium Based Energy Storage Systems In Densely Populated Areas
Charging ahead: $500M Dunkirk battery storage project seeks tax assistance
Letter to DOE Sec Wright re the Senate considering Carbon Taxes (!)…

“There is no evidence that UN COP meetings and more than $10 trillion spent on renewables over the last 30 years have affected the climate. The average atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, which is blamed for global warming, has been rising over the last 50 years without any change to the trend.”

World leaders are in turmoil. For 30 years, the United Nations, World Economic Forum, and International Energy Agency, among business and political leaders called for a shift from hydrocarbon fuels to renewable energy. Thousands of laws were enacted to try to force a net zero energy transition. But it’s now clear that green energy is unable to meet the needs of growing developing nations or support the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution in advanced nations.

Since the founding of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992, the UN has led efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to try to fight human-caused global warming.…