Free Republic

<p>DENVER — A spokesperson for the radical Santa Fe-based anti-coal group WildEarth Guardians showed no regard and no respect for the families and communities in Colorado who have everything to lose if the Colowyo mine is shut down.</p>

<p>A group of climate change activists staged a protest on one of London Heathrow airport's two runways on Monday, causing minor delays to flights, the police and airport officials said.</p> <p>"A group of people have breached the airport perimeter fence and are currently staging a protest on the northern runway," the airport said in a statement.</p>

The Earth could be headed for a 'mini ice age' researchers have warned. A new study claims to have cracked predicting solar cycles - and says that between 2020 and 2030 solar cycles will cancel each other out. This, they say, will lead to a phenomenon known as the 'Maunder minimum' - which has previously been known as a mini ice age when it hit between 1646 and 1715, even causing London's River Thames to freeze over. The new model of the Sun's solar cycle is producing unprecedentedly accurate predictions of irregularities within the Sun's 11-year heartbeat. It draws on...

A prominent left-wing group helped formulate Environmental Protection Agency talking points designed to sell a controversial regulatory scheme to skeptical journalists, internal emails show. The emails show Joseph Goffman, the senior counsel of EPA's Office of Air and Radiation, circulating talking points from Center for American Progress climate strategy director Daniel Weiss among EPA colleagues attempting to sell the agency's controversial power plant regulations to a New York Times reporter. Weiss emailed Goffman in September 2013 with a series of suggestions for convincing the Times' Matt Wald of the commercial viability of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology, a vital...

Bill Gates recently noted that the cost of decarbonization using today’s technology is ‘beyond astronomical.’ On June 30, one day after the Supreme Court struck down the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulation of mercury emissions from power plants, resident Obama committed the United States to the goal of generating 20% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030. This would nearly triple the amount of wind- and solar-generated electricity on the national grid. The EPA ran afoul of the law by failing to conduct a cost-benefit analysis before it acted to reduce mercury emissions from coal-power plants. There is no objective...

It’s easy to point out which tactics won’t work to get American conservatives engaged in the fight against climate change. Recently I’ve critiqued arguments that climate hawks should extend a welcoming hand to right-wingers and that Pope Francis’s climate change encyclical will move any Republicans to embrace the issue. But merely knocking down others’ arguments is insufficient when they are trying to solve a real problem. And this problem is quite real: In order to pass comprehensive climate change legislation federally — and to get the right policies also working in tandem at the state and local levels — some...

Accelerated modern human–induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction There have been papers which show that species and area relationships always overestimate extinctions. Ehrlich became well known for his controversial 1968 book The Population Bomb, which asserted that the world's human population would soon increase to the point where mass starvation ensued Among the measures he suggested in that book was population control, to be used in his opinion if voluntary methods were to fail.

Climate experts warn the amount of light and warmth released by the sun is nosediving to levels "not seen for centuries". They fear a repeat of the so-called 'Maunder Minimum' which triggered Arctic winter whiteouts and led to the River Thames freezing 300 years ago. The Met Office-led study warns although the effect will be offset by recent global warming, Britain faces years of unusually cold winters. A spokesman said: "A return to low solar activity not seen for centuries could increase the chances of cold winters in Europe and eastern parts of the United States but wouldn't halt global...

British scientists came to Iceland with a machine that reportedly keeps the weather temporarily sunny and dry, and it was used for the Secret Solstice festival. Vísir reports that this is actually the second year the scientists have come here with the express purpose of ensuring good weather at the festival. While it is unknown how the machine works, it allegedly changes the air pressure in an area for a limited time, thereby reducing the chances that clouds will gather. Jakob Frímann Magnússon, one of the organisers of Secret Solstice, would not comment in detail about what the device is...

The Senate is set to vote on the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) legislation the House passed last week that gives President Obama fast track trade authority to finalize his trade negotiations without Congressional amendments. Right now, Obama is finalizing negotiations on the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), and the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA). Under fast-track trade authority, Congress only gets an up or down vote on the final negotiation, and is not part of the negotiating process. The legislation passed the House because it did not contain TAA – Trade Adjustment Assistance – a...

Only 45 percent of all Americans -- regardless of their political leanings -- believe that the Earth is warming The Pew Research Center has released the results of a poll that examines the ideological divide over global warming in the United States. Only 45 percent of all Americans—regardless of their political leanings—believe that the Earth is warming and that the warming is caused mainly by human activity. This is a decline from 50 percent in 2006. The remaining 55 percent either don’t know whether or not the Earth is warming or what is causing the warming, don’t believe the Earth...

The ski season is now officially over in Colorado after Arapahoe Basin shut down their chairlifts on Sunday. ... This year’s season lasted 237 days.

It's a case of dueling press releases. But it deserves a minute of Minnesotans' time -- especially those Minnesotans who oppose the Sandpiper Pipeline and can't understand why their fellow residents keep rejecting their arguments. For those opponents, gaining this understanding is crucial. For indisputable evidence now has surfaced that the pipeline's backers are carrying the day -- evidence in the form of Friday's unanimous vote in favor of the pipeline by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission. How can that be? How is it that even in famously liberal and environmentally sensitive Minnesota, the Land of 10,000 Lakes, the commission...

Over the last two years, I’ve dabbled with paleo, cacao, almond milk, seaweed, aloe vera and coconut water. My friends tell me I’m a “health hipster”. And what’s wrong with that? But then I learned that my chia seed addiction might have a real impact on the global food industry: this year, analysts from Credit Suisse warned that the consumer migration from carbs to proteins would damage the baking and milling industry, all because people are having ham and eggs for breakfast instead of Shreddies or toast. And there’s worse: what about the environment? What if my taste for goji...

One of the largest companies to manufacture solar panels in the United States uses a surprising resource to keep costs low and compete against producers from China: prison labor. Suniva Inc, a Georgia-based solar cell and panel maker that is backed by Goldman Sachs Group Inc, farms out a small portion of its manufacturing to federal inmates as part of a longstanding government program intended to prepare them for life after prison. Suniva does not actively publicize its work with the prisons, saying it prefers to talk about its in-house factories in Georgia and Michigan, which handle most of its...

A recent survey by Rasmussen Reports reveals that 2/3 Americans are unwilling to pay even $100 / annum additional costs to prevent global warming.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists have found a solution to the 15-year “pause” in global warming: They “adjusted” the hiatus in warming out of the temperature record. New climate data by NOAA scientists doubles the warming trend since the late 1990s by adjusting pre-hiatus temperatures downward and inflating temperatures in more recent years. “Newly corrected and updated global surface temperature data from NOAA’s [National Centers for Environmental Information] do not support the notion of a global warming ‘hiatus,'” wrote NOAA scientists in their study presenting newly adjusted climate data.

The Age Of Disinformation I have been a professional meteorologist for 36 years. Since my debut on television in 1979, I have been an eyewitness to the many changes in technology, society, and how we communicate. I am one who embraces change, and celebrates the higher quality of life we enjoy now thanks to this progress. But, at the same time, I realize the instant communication platforms we enjoy now do have some negatives that are troubling. Just a few examples in recent days…

Florida International University’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication in conjunction with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Center have developed a web app, known as the Sea Level Rise Toolbox, which helps Miami-Dade residents visualize the possible impact of rising seas in South Florida on their neighborhoods. ...."Our goal with our app is to inform residents of South Florida about the potential impact of sea level rise where they live,”–­­ said Susan Jacobson, assistant professor of journalism at FIU and the web app project manager. “We want to help our fellow Floridians understand sea level rise and how it may affect...

As I've written previously , we’ve experienced the calmest Hurricane seasonin 30 years, the quietest tornado season in 60 years; the creation of 19,000 Manhattan islands worth of sea ice, and (again) the Arctic Ice Cap has grown by 533,000 square miles . In 2007, theBBC warned the cap could vanish by 2013. Oh, and we’re at the most industrialized point in human history–and air quality couldn’t be better, according to the EPA. Now, the polar ice caps aren’t melting. In fact, they haven’t retreated at all. James Taylor of Forbes reported that the 1979 baseline on polar ice...