Candidates for governor in Florida, Georgia, Ohio and Texas want to pause or even ban new data centers, and some Republicans are on board. In Florida, Democratic nominee David Jolly says he'd halt new hyperscale data centers on his first day in office. The pitch: data centers will drive up your electric bill.

On this segment of The Climate Realism Show, the panel asks whether that's true. Linnea Lueken explains why many data centers build their own power plants and why communities should judge each project case by case instead of reaching for a blanket ban. Anthony Watts describes how data centers are reviving struggling rural towns with jobs and tax revenue. And Craig Rucker of CFACT explains why states packed with data centers, like Virginia and Texas, don't pay more for electricity. What drives your rates is how your state makes its power, not whether there's a data center down the road.

In Virginia's Loudoun County, data centers pay about a third of the county's tax revenue.

From The Climate Realism Show #223, "Paper Straws Suck: SCIENCE!"

#ClimateRealism #DataCenters #ElectricityPrices #EnergyPolicy #AI

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Show notes:

Story we're talking about: https://dailycaller.com/2026/10/26/democrats-governor-races-data-center-moratorium-amy-acton-david-jolly-keisha-lance-bottoms-gina-hinojosa/

Supporting evidence:

Have Data Centers Driven Up Electricity Prices? The State-Level Data Don't Support the Narrative (Institute for Energy Research): https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/the-grid/have-data-centers-driven-up-electricity-prices-the-state-level-data-dont-support-the-narrative/

Loudoun County budget hit by data center $60m tax revenue shortfall (Data Center Dynamics): https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/loudoun-county-budget-hit-by-data-center-60m-tax-revenue-shortfall/

Will Republicans maintain control of the U.S. Senate in the 2026 midterm elections? And which closely contested governor's races could deliver major surprises on Election Day?

The Heartland Institute's S.T. Karnick joins One America News Network (OAN) on October 27, 2026, to analyze the key races that could reshape America's political landscape.

With Election Day just one week away, Karnick examines several critical contests:

**MICHIGAN SENATE:** Republican Mike Rogers faces Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in a closely watched battle for an open Senate seat.

**MINNESOTA SENATE:** Former sports broadcaster Michele Tafoya challenges Democratic Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan in a race that could offer Republicans a pickup opportunity.

**MAINE SENATE:** Moderate Republican Sen. Susan Collins fights to retain her seat against Democrat Troy Jackson.

**OHIO GOVERNOR:** Republican businessman Vivek Ramaswamy faces Democrat Amy Acton, Ohio's former health director, in a surprisingly competitive contest. Could Acton's role in the state's COVID-19 lockdown policies affect the outcome?

**WISCONSIN GOVERNOR:** Republican Congressman Tom Tiffany battles Democratic Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley in a crucial swing-state showdown.

Karnick also discusses the broader outlook for Congress, including the possibility that Republicans retain control of the Senate while Democrats capture a narrow majority in the House of Representatives.

Learn more about The Heartland Institute at https://heartland.org/

#Midterms2026 #Election2026 #STKarnick #HeartlandInstitute #OAN #SenateElections #VivekRamaswamy

You've heard of the butterfly effect: one tiny flap of a butterfly's wings can set off something huge. Turns out it works in reverse, too.

Monarch butterflies are bouncing back in a big way. New reports from WWF Mexico and its partners estimate a 64% increase in the monarch population, along with less forest damage in their winter habitat in Mexico. And U.S. honeybee colonies started 2026 at 2.81 million, up 6% from the year before, according to the USDA.

So why haven't you heard about it? On this segment of The Climate Realism Show, the panel talks about why environmental doom gets wall-to-wall coverage while recoveries get ignored, and why Linnea Lueken expects the honeybee comeback to be spun as bad news for native bees any day now.

The bigger lesson: what people actually do matters far more than a fraction of a degree of warming. Monarch caterpillars eat only milkweed, so planting it in yards and along highways makes a real difference. Emptying standing water does more to control mosquitoes than any climate policy. And H. Sterling Burnett points out that the monarchs' winter forest in Mexico grew dramatically once deforestation stopped. Small actions, big results. That's the real butterfly effect.

From The Climate Realism Show #222, "California's Bullet Train: Speeding Into Absurdity."

#ClimateRealism #ButterflyEffect #MonarchButterfly #Honeybees #GoodNews

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Britain just approved a new North Sea gas field to help with soaring energy bills. Then the government turned around and said it won't lower energy costs. Huh?

On this segment of The Climate Realism Show, Lois Perry explains why Britain's energy policy is at war with itself: celebrating new gas jobs one minute and treating oil and gas as evil the next, while leaving huge reserves of homegrown energy untapped.

And there's a reason so much of that energy stays in the ground. In the U.S., if you own a home, you own what's underneath it. In Britain, the oil and gas belong to the Crown. H. Sterling Burnett explains why that one difference helped spark America's energy boom, and why most of the world never had one.

From The Climate Realism Show #222, "California's Bullet Train: Speeding Into Absurdity."

#ClimateRealism #UKEnergy #NaturalGas #Fracking #EnergyPolicy

Learn more about The Heartland Institute: https://heartland.org/

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A new United Nations report says the world is "losing ground" in the fight against climate change, and the Associated Press says the United States is a big reason why. But the U.S. stepping back from the global climate effort is estimated to make the world just 0.1°C warmer by the year 2100. That's an amount too small to even measure.

Meanwhile, UN officials have quietly admitted there's no way to hold warming to the 1.5°C goal they've been pushing for a decade. Their new plan: let temperatures climb to about 1.8°C, then somehow pull enough carbon dioxide out of the air to bring them back down.

On this segment of The Climate Realism Show, the panel from The Heartland Institute breaks down:

• Why the 1.5°C target was a compromise number pulled out of thin air at the 2015 Paris climate talks

• Why adding more CO2 to the atmosphere has less and less effect on temperature

• Why "pre-industrial times," one of the coolest periods in recent history, is a convenient starting point for climate alarm

• Why blaming America makes no sense while China builds a new coal plant every week and India keeps expanding its coal use

• Why the real complaint is that the U.S. stopped paying for the rest of the world's climate projects

From The Climate Realism Show #222, "California's Bullet Train: Speeding Into Absurdity."

#ClimateRealism #ClimateChange #ParisAgreement #GlobalWarming #ClimatePolicy

Learn more about The Heartland Institute: https://heartland.org/

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It turns out the green scolds’ war on plastic straws really sucked. A new study from South Korea’s Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment found that plastic straws have a smaller environmental footprint than plastic straws, and paper straws produce more than six times the carcinogens. Oops!

On Episode #223 of The Climate Realism Show, we will cover that bit of Crazy Climate News of the Week, and more. Just in time for Halloween a scary new map by something called The Climate Impact Lab claims more than 373,000 additional people will die between now and March because of this year’s Super El Niño.

We will also talk about the climate and energy angle to the cult-like opposition to the building of AI data centers. And we will preview next month’s COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye where some 100,000 politicians, bureaucrats and activists will work out how to pry trillions more out of the few wealthy nations still willing to pay to the United Nations’ host of grifters.

Join The Heartland Institute’s Anthony Watts, Linnea Lueken, Jim Lakely and CFACT president Craig Rucker for another weekly 90-minute dose of fun and spirited discussion on Friday, October 30 at 1 p.m. ET on YouTube, Rumble, X, and Facebook. Participate in the show by leaving your comments and questions in the live chat.

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Environmentalists in California pushed for, and got approved, a ballot initiative in 2008 to build a bullet train from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Instead of flying, which is a sin against the climate, Golden State residents could settle into their seats, look out the window, and feel good about themselves for being “green” as they were whisked to their destination. It’s now almost 20 years on and not a single track has been laid despite $15 billion being spent. And what’s the biggest holdup? Some of the most-absurd environmental roadblocks you can imagine.

On Episode #222 of The Climate Realism Show, we will examine what might be the world’s greatest climate grift, the California train that even Gov. Gavin Newsom said may never be built in our lifetimes, as well as other Crazy Climate News of the Week. Now that the U.S. is getting out of the global climate grift, how much will temperatures rise? We will report on a positive “butterfly effect” not reported by once-panicked corporate media. And now that even the Labour Party has opened up the North Sea to natural gas drilling again, they say it won’t do a thing to reduce energy costs. Is that true?

Join The Heartland Institute’s Sterling Burnett, Anthony Watts, Linnea Lueken, Jim Lakely and guest Lois Perry for another weekly, 90-minute dose of fun and spirited discussion about the climate on Friday, October 23 at 1 p.m. ET on YouTube, Rumble, X, and Facebook. Participate in the show by leaving your comments and questions in the live chat.

Learn more about The Heartland Institute: https://heartland.org/

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Remember when cows were destroying the planet with their burps? Now penguins are melting Antarctica with their poop. But wait! Other scientists say penguin poop might actually help stop climate change. So which is it? Should there be a federal program to fit penguins with diapers to save the planet?

On Episode #221 of The Climate Realism Show, we will waddle into that latest bizarre climate headline and other Crazy Climate News of the Week. The New York Times is blaming climate change for the “gentrification of seafood,” whatever that means. The Washington Post is sounding the planetary alarm yet again, warning that Earth’s “vital signs” are deteriorating and climate tipping points could be around the corner. We will debunk that, and more.

Join The Heartland Institute’s Sterling Burnett, Anthony Watts, Linnea Lueken, and Jim Lakely for another fun 90 minutes on Friday, October 16 at 1 p.m. ET on YouTube, Rumble, X, and Facebook. Participate in the show by leaving your comments and questions in the live chat.

Visit our sponsor, Advisor Metals: https://climaterealismshow.com/metals

SHOW NOTES:

1. THE GENTRIFICATION OF SEAFOOD
NY TIMES: How Climate Change Is Causing ‘the Gentrification of Seafood’: As environmental forces make fishing and harvesting more costly, the price of once-everyday fish has ballooned.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/13/dining/seafood-prices-shellfish-climate-change.html

2. CHECKING EARTH’S VITAL SIGNS
WASHINGTON POST: The Earth’s vital signs are concerning, a new report says:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2026/10/14/earths-vital-signs-are-concerning-new-report-says

3. CRAPPY FEET: PENGUINS AND CLIMATE CHANGE
NY POST: Too much penguin poop in Antarctica is accelerating snow melt and rising sea levels
https://nypost.com/2026/10/13/science/penguin-poop-could-be-accelerating-antarctic-decline-study/

4. AL ROKER IS WRONG
WUWT: Just the Numbers, Ma’am. Chris Martz on Isaias and Gulf Sea Surface Temperatures
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/10/12/just-the-numbers-maam-chris-martz-on-isaias-and-gulf-sea-surface-temperatures/

The Supreme Court on Monday heard arguments in the most-important climate case in many years, perhaps ever. Suncor v. Boulder may decide whether climate activists can sue modern society out of existence, or whether common sense, the proper application of the Constitution, and science will prevail. The questions asked by the justices on Monday don’t look great for the alarmist side, but you never know.

On Episode #220 of The Climate Realism Show we will break down this monumental case with Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, who was at the Supreme Court to hear the arguments, and Steve Milloy, senior policy fellow at the Energy and Environment Legal Institute.

We will also cover some of the Crazy Climate News of the Week, including the climate panic movie “Digger” shoveling Warner Bros.' money into a furnace, Virginia’s insane and environmentally destructive solar power plan, and debunking a so-called record wildfire season in the U.K.

Join us Friday at 1 p.m. ET on YouTube, Rumble, X, and Facebook. Participate in the show by leaving your comments and questions in the chat.

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For the first time in more than 100 years, no hurricanes formed in the Atlantic Ocean from the start of hurricane season through September. This is amazing, and great news for people who live in Hurricane Alley in the US, but this is not what the climate alarmists promised us. Humans would be punished for creating global warming with an endless parade of larger, stronger, and deadlier storms. So what happened? We have a couple of meteorologists to explain.

On Episode 219 of The Climate Realism Show the Heartland Institute’s Sterling Burnett, Anthony Watts, Linnea Lueken, and Jim Lakely will also discuss some of the Crazy Climate News of the Week, including the end of quest to eliminate the internal combustion engine, a critical climate case going to the Supreme Court, and climate change putting humans at risk of more mosquito bites, bat attacks, and being mauled by bears.

Join us Friday at 1 p.m. ET on YouTube, Rumble, X, and Facebook. Participate in the show by leaving your comments and questions in the chat.

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At the World Prosperity Forum in Zurich—held alongside the World Economic Forum in Davos—climate scientist Anika Sweetland delivers a provocative and deeply personal address that challenges the foundations of modern climate orthodoxy.

Drawing on her own education and professional experience, Sweetland recounts how climate science training fostered fear, despair, and unquestioned consensus rather than open scientific inquiry. She argues that generations of students have been indoctrinated with alarmist narratives that distort climate history, suppress debate, and justify sweeping political and economic control.

In this speech, Sweetland examines:

- The psychological impact of climate alarmism on children and students

- Media-driven climate narratives and shifting doomsday predictions

- Historical climate cycles, ocean dynamics, and orbital forces

- The role of international institutions and the concentration of power

- Why carbon dioxide is portrayed as a villain—and why she disputes that claim

- How climate policy, finance, and governance have become tightly intertwined

Presented as a counterpoint to the centralized, collectivist worldview promoted at Davos, this talk embodies the mission of the World Prosperity Forum: to challenge prevailing narratives, defend sovereignty, and restore open debate on climate, energy, and economic policy.

Whether you agree or disagree, this is a speech designed to provoke critical thinking and question what is taught, what is funded, and who benefits from the dominant climate narrative.

As the World Economic Forum convened in Davos, an alternative vision was taking shape just miles away in Zurich.

On Day 5 of the World Prosperity Forum, James Taylor, President of The Heartland Institute, delivered a data-driven challenge to the centralized, alarmist energy narratives dominating global policy discussions. His message was clear: prosperity depends on energy that is affordable, reliable, and genuinely clean—not politically favored, top-down mandates.

Drawing from Heartland’s landmark policy brief, Affordable, Reliable, and Clean: An Objective Scorecard to Assess Competing Energy Sources, Taylor presents a full-system comparison of coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, and biomass—factoring in real-world costs policymakers often ignore.

In this keynote, Taylor explains:
-- Why electricity demand is surging—and why blackouts are becoming inevitable under current policies

-- How wind and solar’s hidden costs drive higher prices, grid instability, and land destruction

-- Why natural gas remains the gold standard for affordability, reliability, and environmental stewardship

-- How rare earth mineral dependence and foreign supply chains create national security risks

-- Why voters are already punishing leaders who ignore energy affordability

This is not a theoretical debate. Rising electricity prices, grid fragility, and declining living standards are reshaping politics across the U.S. and Europe right now.

If you care about economic growth, energy realism, and policies grounded in evidence—not ideology—this presentation lays out the scorecard Davos won’t show you.

Watch. Share. Decide for yourself.

Ofcom called her "dangerous" because she was laughing at the net zero agenda—and the British people started laughing with her.

Lois Perry, Director of The Heartland Institute UK/EU and founder of CAR26, speaks at the World Prosperity Forum in Zurich to discuss the seismic political shift happening in Britain.

From being chased out of COP26 by security guards (and doing a live TV interview from a disabled toilet) to helping reshape the UK's political landscape, Lois shares how a "loud blonde Essex girl" took on the climate establishment—and won.

In this conversation:

🇬🇧 Why British citizens have "had enough" of net zero policies

🗳️ The rise of Reform UK and what it means for freedom

🤝 How Heartland UK is building bridges across party lines

📺 The media's failed attempts to silence climate skeptics

💡 How "follow the science" fatigue from COVID opened the door to questioning net zero

The World Prosperity Forum brings together leaders committed to freedom and prosperity as an alternative voice to the World Economic Forum in Davos.

For years, the World Economic Forum and its allies pushed the “Great Reset” as an inevitable future: lockdowns, net-zero mandates, ESG controls, digital currencies, food restrictions, and top-down global governance.

That future is now unraveling.

Speaking on Day 1 of The Heartland Institute’s World Prosperity Forum in Zurich, held alongside the World Economic Forum in Davos, Marc Morano delivers a sweeping, data-driven takedown of the Great Reset agenda, explaining why its momentum has collapsed in real time.

Morano walks through how COVID lockdowns became the blueprint for climate authoritarianism, why ESG and net-zero banking are imploding, how energy reality and AI power demands shattered green orthodoxy, and why even longtime climate activists, corporations, and governments are quietly backing away.

This presentation covers:
• The rise and fall of the Great Reset narrative
• How COVID destroyed elite “appeal to authority”
• Why ESG, net-zero, and climate finance are collapsing
• The energy reality confronting AI, tech giants, and governments
• Why public resistance is stronger than ever
• The ongoing danger of climate being merged into public health

The World Prosperity Forum exists to challenge the centralized, collectivist, and alarmist worldview promoted in Davos. This talk captures that counter-argument in full.

In this World Prosperity Forum speech, Linnea Lueken, Research Fellow at The Heartland Institute, examines the growing gap between mainstream climate alarmism and what measured climate data actually shows.

The World Prosperity Forum exists to provide counter-arguments to the World Economic Forum’s overly centralized, socialist collectivist, and alarmist worldview, bringing data, realism, and open debate back into global policy discussions.

Lueken contrasts headlines warning of “unprecedented,” “rapid,” and “dangerous” warming with observed trends that, in her view, do not support an emergency narrative. She explains the difference between climate model projections and real-world measurements, and why rapid single-event attribution claims are often treated as settled science before the evidence warrants it.

Topics covered include:

- Observed warming rates compared to hotter climate model projections, and why the “hot model” problem matters

- U.S. temperature trends and how measurement location and station siting can skew record claims

- Historical climate context using proxy records

- Drought and precipitation trends, including what the IPCC reports about Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes

- Wildfires, including global burned-area trends and European examples using European Space Agency and Copernicus satellite data

- Hurricanes, including frequency and intensity metrics such as accumulated cyclone energy

- “Billion-dollar disasters” and why rising costs do not necessarily indicate worsening weather trends

- A critique of rapid event-attribution studies and how outlets like CNN, BBC, and the Associated Press often frame them

- The human impact of alarmism, including fear, climate anxiety, and the case for energy resilience

Subscribe for more talks and debates from the World Prosperity Forum, along with weekly episodes of In The Tank and Climate Realism Show.