Authored by Edward Ring via American Greatness,

So far this century, worldwide energy use is up nearly 60 percent, and, as anyone living in Western industrialized nations knows all too well, we have spent trillions of dollars to “decarbonize” our economy. And guess what? Our dependence on fossil fuels is unchanged.

To make this assertion, we may cite the world’s most authoritative source for comprehensive information on global fuel consumption, the Statistical Review of World Energy. For more than 75 years, an updated annual report has been released, and with the 2026 issue now available, we have the latest information on what forms of energy are most critical for maintaining human civilization. And in 2025, 86 percent of global energy came from fossil fuels: 33 percent from oil, 25 percent from natural gas, and 28 percent from coal. Nuclear power added 5 percent, hydroelectric power added 3 percent, and all renewables—biomass, biofuel, geothermal, wind, and solar combined—contributed 6 percent.

What’s most remarkable about these statistics is how little they have changed in 25 years. The Statistical Review reported that total fossil fuel consumption in 2000 represented, get ready, 87 percent of the total. Our global civilization’s reliance on fossil fuels has declined by 1 percent over the past 25 years. That’s not even a rounding error.

In the United States, the shift is greater, but not anywhere close to the trajectory demanded by the net-zero lobby. In 2000 we relied on fossil fuels for 89 percent of our total energy, and in 2025 that percentage was still 83 percent. More notable, perhaps, was that total energy consumption in the United States actually dropped slightly, from 95.8 exajoules in 2000 to 93.8 exajoules in 2025.

As the table shows, there are many additional, and very big, nuances to this story. Perhaps the biggest is the contrast between trends describing energy use in the United States compared to what happened in the world over the last quarter-century. To begin with, as noted, even though the U.S. population grew from 282 million to 343 million and U.S. GDP in inflation-adjusted dollars nearly doubled from $13.9 trillion to over $24.1 trillion, total energy consumption actually dropped.

Overall, total world GDP increased from an estimated $79 trillion in 2000 to roughly $180 trillion in 2025, more than doubling, while global population grew by 33 percent, from 6.2 billion to 8.2 billion. At the same time, global energy consumption is up 58 percent in the past 25 years, from 381 exajoules to just over 600 exajoules. But where is this energy coming from?

In the U.S., while total energy use declined slightly, the energy mix changed significantly. Consumption of oil stayed about the same, only dropping 3 percent from 37.6 to 36.4 exajoules. But use of natural gas jumped by 35 percent, while coal consumption dropped by a precipitous 63 percent. In 2000, coal and natural gas contributed almost equally to U.S. energy consumption, at 24.4 exajoules and 23.7 exajoules, respectively. By 2025, the contribution of natural gas to total U.S. energy jumped to 32.9 exajoules, while the use of coal plummeted to 8.7 exajoules. Also during the previous quarter century, nuclear energy in the U.S. actually grew a bit, from 7.5 to 9.0 exajoules, while hydroelectric power generation fell dramatically, from 2.6 exajoules in 2000 to only 0.9 in 2025. Hydroelectric power generation, however, is volatile because it depends on annual rainfall and snowpack.

Which brings us to renewables, which in the U.S. grew from virtually nothing in 2000 to supply 6 percent of the energy used in 2025.

For renewables to go from 0 to 6 percent is impressive, but the big story here is the persistence of fossil fuels. In the U.S., while we reduced our use of fossil fuels a bit, as noted, from 89 percent to 83 percent, for the most part we just flipped sources. We replaced coal with natural gas. But worldwide, the consumption of fossil fuels as a percentage of total energy didn’t change at all, barely dropping from 87 to 86 percent, while in absolute terms the use of fossil fuels exploded. And how the total world mix of fossil fuels changed tells a very different story from what happened in the U.S.

Worldwide consumption of oil dropped in percentage terms, from 39 to 33 percent, but the industry logged huge increases in actual production. In 2000, oil was the dominant source of energy in the world at 147.3 exajoules, and in 2025 it retained that distinction with ease, with consumption rising to 201 exajoules. In absolute terms, the use of gas and coal also grew sharply. Natural gas consumption jumped from 90.3 exajoules in 2000 to 150.7 in 2025, an increase of 67 percent. Coal experienced even greater growth, increasing 79 percent from 92.8 exajoules in 2000 to 166 in 2025.

These are a lot of numbers, but they tell an unequivocal story. If we regard the basic proportions that matter, fossil fuels power human civilization as much in 2025 as they did in 2000, despite trillions of dollars invested in renewables. Compared to fossil fuels, everything else combined is still relatively insignificant. Worldwide, as noted, nuclear power offers 5 percent of global energy; hydroelectricity offers 3 percent, and all renewables combined add another 6 percent.

It is pertinent to wonder how renewables, all of them, can possibly be poised to rapidly replace fossil fuels. Over the past 25 years, renewable sources of energy altogether went from zero to delivering to humanity 35.4 exajoules of energy. During that same 25 years, just the increase in fossil fuel consumption was 187 exajoules; that is, it went from delivering 331 exajoules in 2000 to delivering 518 exajoules. As human population moves toward its predicted peak of 10 billion people around 2050, we are going to need more energy to ensure a prosperous civilization, even if our capacity to efficiently convert energy into wealth improves even more than the U.S. was able to do over the past few decades.

These basic proportions are undeniable and lead to an inescapable conclusion. Fossil fuels are indispensable and are going to be with us for a very long time.

It’s important to recognize that the growth in renewable energy, particularly solar (photovoltaic) electricity, has been impressive. The gains have been exponential. Worldwide photovoltaic output—converting terawatt-hours to exajoules—increased from 1.76 exajoules in 2024 to 2.32 in 2025. Photovoltaic energy output is eleven times greater today than it was only ten years ago. But do we have the resources to accommodate another few decades of exponential growth?

Equally pertinent, total global battery storage capacity, despite 60 percent per year growth over the past ten years, is still, as of 2025, only equal to 1.2 terawatt-hours (ref. page 65 in the 2026 Statistical Review, “Grid-scale battery energy storage systems”). In the context of world energy, that’s nothing. It takes 278 terawatt-hours to equal one exajoule. It’s worth reflecting on this fact.

It means that even if we increased our photovoltaic output by another two orders of magnitude—roughly what would be required to even begin making a replacement-level contribution to global energy production—could we also increase our electricity storage capacity by four orders of magnitude from what it is today? Even multiplying today’s worldwide storage capacity by ten thousand would equal only 45 exajoules. Notice those battery farms going in all over? Imagine 10,000 of them where one of them now stands. That’s what it will take, at a minimum, if the world’s energy economy electrifies and does it while relying on intermittent energy sources. Does the earth have the resources to sustain such growth, and what would be the environmental impact?

These are questions everyone must ask who advocates for a net-zero future. There may be answers to these questions, but to date we don’t know what those answers are. Continuing to develop renewable energy has to take into account its own environmental impact. Biofuel cannot possibly grow much beyond current production unless we want to convert millions of square miles of farms and forests into monocultures of sugar cane and oil palm plantations. Wind energy as well is problematic; it’s a resource hog, a visual and auditory nuisance, and it wreaks havoc on the local environment. Hydroelectric power generation also has limited potential to add much more to our energy mix. Geothermal is a wild card. There are other paths, but they will take time—advanced nuclear fission, artificial photosynthesis, space-based power, fusion.

Meanwhile, policies designed to rapidly phase out fossil fuels are based on wishful thinking, and everyone familiar with basic energy statistics knows this. If proponents of net-zero cannot moderate their position against using fossil fuels, then we must justifiably question their motives.

The number of measles cases this year has become the highest since 1991, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on July 24.

Forty-five states have confirmed 2,318 cases through July 23, the CDC said this week.

That’s up from 2,289 cases in 2025 and the highest since 1991, when 9,643 cases were recorded.

Outbreaks are ongoing in central Virginia and Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

As Zachary Stieber reports for The Epoch Times, some doctors said the jump in cases stems from lower numbers of people receiving vaccines against measles.

“High vaccination coverage has protected even the un- and undervaccinated because of herd protection, keeping measles at bay for the past few decades,” Dr. William Moss, executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said in a statement. “But in communities with pockets of susceptible individuals across a broad age range, measles has been able to take hold, infecting those who are susceptible and spreading rapidly.”

“Measles vaccines are extremely safe and effective,” said Moss, whose center helps build “knowledge and support for the value of vaccines,” according to its website, and partners with vaccine manufacturers.

“Getting you or your child vaccinated is the best way to protect against disease.”

The measles vaccination rate among kindergartners in 2024 and 2025 was 92.5 percent, down from 95 percent in 2019 and 2020. Rates for some states that have seen outbreaks in 2026, such as South Carolina, are less than 90 percent.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said during a hearing this week that the high number of measles cases was “due to deliberate attempts to undermine faith in traditional public health measures by those who know nothing but push their ignorance as fact.”

Of the patients this year, 93 percent either were unvaccinated or had unknown vaccination status, according to the CDC. The agency has not responded to requests for separate percentages for the categories.

Another 3 percent had received one dose of a measles vaccine, and another 4 percent had received two doses.

About half of the cases occurred among people aged 5 to 19, and another 31 percent were in adults aged 20 and older.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the CDC’s parent agency, told The Epoch Times in an email that Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. “has been clear that vaccination remains the most effective way to prevent measles infection” and that the CDC continues to recommend two doses of a measles vaccine.

“Under the Secretary’s leadership, HHS has mounted an aggressive outbreak response, providing more than $8.5 million to states and local partners, expanding technical assistance, and surging CDC personnel and resources to support containment efforts where needed most,” the spokesperson said.

“Currently, U.S. measles incidence remains below that of several peer countries. As of July, Canada’s measles incidence was 3.9 times higher than the U.S., Mexico’s was 13.8 times higher, and the United Kingdom’s was 1.9 times higher,” the spokesperson said. “HHS focused its response where it can have the greatest impact: rapidly supporting affected communities, strengthening state and local response efforts, and communicating the ways in which measles transmission can be slowed, including through MMR vaccination, and ways that measles can be treated.”

Seven percent of the patients have been hospitalized. No deaths have been recorded.

President Trump has repeatedly said that China’s President Xi Jinping has directly assured him that Beijing will not supply Iran with weaponry or military support.

But this week these ‘assurances’ have been called into question by an Reuters investigation. “Iran is expected to receive within weeks a first shipment out of up to 400 Chinese-made shoulder-fired air-defense missile launchers, three sources familiar with the deal told ​Reuters, as it rebuilds its defenses amid war with the United States,” the fresh report says.

“The purchase, valued at $60-70 million, is one of Tehran’s largest-known efforts to strengthen its short-range air ‌defences since the outbreak of its war with the U.S. and Israel, which exposed gaps in Iran’s ability to protect military sites and strategic infrastructure,” it adds.

The fresh report cites three anonymous sources and did not receive comment from the Iranian side. Some of the assertions of the Reuters report are surprisingly specific, such as in the following:

The contract covers the purchase of between 300 and 400 man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS), including Chinese-made QW-12 and FN-16 missiles, the sources said.

The deal was signed with Zhongqing Baoshang International Investment, a Hong Kong-based company that the sources said was acting as an intermediary between the Iranian ​side and the Chinese supplier.

The reporting even explores options being considered for delivery of the weapons, at a moment Iran is urgently seeking to replenish its air defense supplies after months of grinding tit-for-tat conflict with the US military.

“Two Western intelligence sources and an Iranian official said Tehran had also explored the use of overland routes to move Chinese military supplies and dual-use components ⁠more discreetly and ​reduce the risk of disruption,” Reuters continues.

MANPADS could prove especially dangerous for US helicopters and other low flying aircraft, and for Iran can serve as layer of short-range protection.

The opening days of Operation Epic Fury saw much of Iran’s anti-air units get taken out, especially across the Western part of the country, giving US-Israeli jets air superiority. However, at times the Iranians have claimed to shoot down some aircraft, and since then the US has seemed to operate from further afar.

Trump wrote on Truth Social just last week that “President Xi, at our recent meeting in Beijing, China, told me that he would not, under any circumstances, give or sell Weapons to the Islamic Republic of Iran — And that statement included Chinese Companies.”

“Considering our relationship, I take him at his word and, besides, l am doing him very big favors, also. Likewise, President Putin … told me that he would not sell Weapons to Iran,” he stated. Trump continued, “Therefore, two major Countries that people speak of often in terms of Iran are, in my opinion, not participating. If they did, it would be very bad for them — Certainly not in their best interests.”

As for Reuters’ findings, Beijing as expected has blasted them as lies. China’s Foreign Ministry said in response: “The relevant reports are completely groundless. China has consistently played a role ⁠in promoting peace and ending the conflict.”

Microsoft walked into tonight’s fiscal fourth-quarter earnings report carrying the most bearish positioning it has seen in more than a decade, and it does so on an afternoon when the Fed – now run by a chairman who has made a point of telling markets nothing – triggered significant volatility in stocks and bonds.

The positioning data tells the story first. According to S3 Partners data reported by CNBC, roughly 92 million Microsoft shares are now sold short, or 1.27% of the public float – the highest short interest as a percentage of float since May 2015, and the largest short-interest build anywhere in the Magnificent Seven. More telling than the level is the behavior: S3 says there has been virtually no short covering into the print, which means the bears are not taking profits on a stock that is already down more than 18% year-to-date and, as GeekWire notes, sitting near a one-year low despite consistently beating estimates. They are holding, and they are holding into the report.

The reason is not mysterious to anyone who watched last week.

Alphabet delivered what would once have been a triumphant quarter – revenue up 24%, cloud up 82% – then raised its 2026 capex forecast by roughly $15 billion to as much as $205 billion, and for its trouble watched the stock fall 7% the next day and slip below its prior $4 trillion valuation.

Crucially, the lesson from GOOGL is that the market has stopped rewarding hyperscalers for spending money, which is inconvenient for companies whose entire strategic posture is spending money.

“Alphabet’s capex boost increases the odds of similar behavior” from Microsoft and Amazon, Evercore ISI’s Mark Mahaney wrote in a client note last week, which is precisely what the shorts are betting on.

And so, with all that in mind, what did MSFT report?

The headline is a strong top-line beat out of the gate:

• Microsoft Q4 Revenue was $90.01 billion, up 18%, and better than the consensus $87.7 billion.

• Q4 diluted earnings per share jumped 23% (on a non-GAAP basis) to $4.74 (but this is not entirely comparable to the $4.25 consensus thanks to $3.2billion gain from their investment in Anthropic and 7c/share loss from OpenAI’s investment)

Under the hood, MSFT’s cloud unit posted a larger-than-expected increase in sales, suggesting that the company’s computing infrastructure and artificial intelligence services continue to make inroads with businesses.

Azure cloud-computing revenue increased 43% during the fiscal fourth quarter, the company said Wednesday in a statement. That exceeded analysts’ average growth estimate of about 40%. 

Nadella highlighted progress on the “cost-to-outcome curve” and noted two major milestones

“We are advancing the frontier on the cost-to-outcome curve, ensuring every customer can turn tokens into business results,” said Satya Nadella, chairman and chief executive officer of Microsoft.

“This year, Azure revenue surpassed $100 billion for the first time, and Microsoft 365 Copilot reached over 30 million paid seats, reflecting the confidence customers are placing in us to power their AI transformation.”

All units beat on revenues:

• Microsoft Cloud Q4 revenue $59.3 billion, estimate $58.71 billion, up 27% YoY

• Intelligent Cloud revenue $39.31 billion, estimate $38.17 billion

• Productivity and Business Processes revenue $37.85 billion, estimate $37.27 billion

• More Personal Computing revenue $12.85 billion, estimate $12.17 billion

Net income was $35.8 billion and increased 31% on a GAAP basis, and was $35.3 billion and increased 22% on a non-GAAP basis

Finally, and perhaps most crucially, Capital expenditures (including assets acquired under finance leases) increased 70% to $41 billion in the quarter, which is notably less than the $42.5 billion expected, on track to meet their roughly $190 billion annual guidance, but Capital-spending details on the conference call are more important, given the metric exceeds 50% of calendar 2026 sales.

Following an afternoon of pain (thanks to Warsh), MSFT shares are bouncing modestly after hours – up around 3%…

Tonight closes the books on a fiscal year in which Microsoft guided capital expenditures and finance leases to roughly $190 billion – up 61% from the prior year – including, per CFO Amy Hood’s April guidance, a $25 billion hit from higher component prices as the global memory crunch feeds straight into the cost of building AI infrastructure.

The forward-looking problem is worse: BNP Paribas analysts are already penciling in $262 billion of capex for fiscal 2027. Cloud gross margin, guided to roughly 64% for the quarter, has been grinding lower as data-center depreciation piles up, meaning the spending is now visibly eating into the earnings it was supposed to eventually justify.

Along those lines, Bloomberg’s Brody Ford reports that Microsoft added more than $130 billion in new data center leases in the past quarter, signaling an accelerating pace of spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure.

The company’s total commitments for leases that have not yet commenced were $329.1 billion as of the quarter ended June 30, Microsoft said Wednesday in a regulatory filing. That’s up from $196.6 billion in the prior period.

“That’s really a signal of the continued demand strength that we see,” Jonathan Neilson, Microsoft investor relations chief, said in an interview.

“These leases are going to be there to serve demand for many many years.”

The future costs, which come on top of active leases, won’t appear on Microsoft’s balance sheet until it begins making payments on them. The company said they are “primarily” for data centers and some are “subject to certain contractual conditions being met.”

This represents Microsoft’s largest quarterly jump in data center leasing by far.

The software giant continues to be held back by a lack of data center capacity after taking a pause on its leasing activity through much of 2025.

However, as we detailed earlier, simply put, until MSFT demonstrates some more tangible progress in AI (Copilot progress, proprietary LLM, proprietary chip, etc. as OpenAI potentially steals institutional share), it will likely remain on the battleground.

Microsoft will give its sales outlook for the current quarter, its fiscal Q1, as well as details on actual FY2026 CapEx on the conference call with analysts tonight.

Houthis have entered the chat…

Already multiple Saudi vessels have been targeted in the Red Sea region, forcing a number of tankers to U-turn, and now Yemen’s Houthis are seeking to introduce their own ‘toll system’ for the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

“Yemen’s information minister said intelligence confirmed IRGC advisers were directly involved in designing a Houthi-enforced toll system for the Bab el-Mandeb, mirroring Iran’s contested claim to charge fees in the Strait of Hormuz,” European media reports Wednesday.

“The Houthi armed group is working with Iran to charge ships to transit the Bab el-Mandeb in the Red Sea, threatening another waterway after Tehran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a minister in Yemen’s internationally recognised government said on Wednesday.” 

The scheme is to be a mirror image of that Tehran is seeking to enforce in the Strait of Hormuz, where it continues to insist that it will settle for nothing less than its own vision of management, including fee collection for “navigation” “environmental” and safety assurance. According to more via Reuters:

Yemen’s Houthi group is considering imposing fees on commercial ships sailing through the southern Red Sea, a week after declaring a naval blockade ​on Saudi Arabia, regional sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

The Iran-aligned Houthis on July 20 declared a maritime embargo against Saudi ‌Arabia, opening a new front against the U.S. and its allies in the Iran war and expanding attacks on tankers carrying global energy and other supplies to waters beyond the Gulf.

The US and Saudi backed government in Yemen, which has for over a decade been at civil war with the Houthi rebels, has described the move as “a dangerous escalation aimed at transforming one of the world’s most strategic maritime corridors into a permanent source of funding for the militia’s military and terrorist activities,” according to Yemen’s Information Minister Moammar al-Eryani.

The pro-Saudi axis has said it recently obtained “confirmed intelligence” indicating that Iran’s IRGC were helping to manage the toll initiative.

“The intelligence indicates that IRGC experts and advisers are directly involved in designing the technical and administrative framework of the project,” Eryani added.

Eryani stated this would include “the establishment of a dedicated entity responsible for collecting payments from shipping companies and commercial vessels”.

Iran has been pledging to support its ground proxies in Iraq and Yemen, as both since last weekend appeared to begin launching attacks on Saudi Aramco facilities.

Overnight saw a rare joint US-Saudi response with attacks on Iraqi militias. In the case of Yemen, there’s not much the coalition can do given the Houthis have remained entrenched even after years of massive bombing campaigns, including strikes conducted solely by the Israeli Air Force at times.

China is said to be in direct talks with the Houthis to allow for passage of Chinese vessels, also based on prior precedent wherein the Houthis allowed Russian and Chinese ships to pass without incident, connected to the prior Gaza war.

Garmin shares jumped as much as 9.6% in premarket trading after the GPS-device maker delivered a broad beat on second-quarter earnings and raised its full-year outlook.

Garmin produces GPS-enabled electronics and wearable technology across five main markets:

• Fitness: smartwatches, running watches, cycling computers and activity trackers
• Outdoor: hiking watches, handheld GPS devices, satellite communicators and dog-tracking systems
• Aviation: cockpit displays, navigation systems, avionics and flight instruments
• Marine: chartplotters, sonar, radar, autopilots and fish finders
• Automotive: vehicle navigation systems, cameras and technology supplied to automakers

The company attributed the outperformance to “strong demand for advanced wearables,” particularly within its fitness segment:

Revenue from the fitness segment increased 25% in the second quarter with growth across all product categories, led by strong demand for advanced wearables. Gross and operating margins were 64% and 37%, respectively, resulting in $277 million of operating income.

During the quarter, we launched the Forerunner 70 and Forerunner 170, easy-to-use GPS running smartwatches designed to help runners of all levels reach their goals. In addition, we celebrated Global Running Day and Global Cycling Day with the release of our running and cycling data reports, highlighting how athletes around the world are recording runs and rides. More recently, we announced the CIRQA Smart Band, a screenless wearable that offers rich wellness and fitness insights without requiring a subscription and further expands our addressable market for wellness devices.

Hottest watch on the golf course is the Garmin Approach S70 Golf GPS Watch: 

Here’s a snapshot of second quarter results:

Pro forma EPS $2.81 vs. $2.17 y/y, estimate $2.28

Revenue $2.02 billion, +11% y/y, estimate $1.92 billion

• Aviation net sales $268.7 million, +7.8% y/y, estimate $265.4 million
• Fitness net sales $756.8 million, +25% y/y, estimate $670.5 million
• Outdoor net sales $482.7 million, -1.6% y/y, estimate $477.6 million
• Marine net sales $341.4 million, +14% y/y, estimate $322.4 million

Operating income $615.5 million, +30% y/y, estimate $486 million

• Fitness operating income $277 million, +40% y/y, estimate $196.8 million
• Outdoor operating income $163.6 million, +3.5% y/y, estimate $142.3 million
• Aviation operating profit $72 million, +14% y/y, estimate $66.7 million
• Marine operating income $100 million, +59% y/y, estimate $66.6 million

Gross margin 62.4% vs. 58.8% y/y, estimate 58.8%

Here’s a snapshot of the full-year forecast:

Sees pro forma EPS $10.00, saw $9.35, estimate $9.62 (Bloomberg Consensus)

Sees revenue about $8.05 billion, saw about $7.9 billion, estimate $7.99 billion 

Sees gross margin 59.7%, saw 58.5%, estimate 58.8%

The report offers a positive outlook on consumer hardware demand, with folks increasingly gravitating toward wearables. It also highlights a growing divergence within the technology sector: while the AI selloff pressures memory-chip producers and hyperscalers, consumer-device companies with strong demand and earnings momentum continue to outperform.