Free Republic

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) is sending a memo Friday to her Democratic colleagues urging them to start talking about how climate change will hurt the federal budget. The memo, obtained by The Washington Post, details how global warming impacts will affect four key sectors of the federal budget: disaster relief; transportation and infrastructure; national security and agriculture. It comes three days after the Budget Committee held a hearing on the subject, and the White House published an economic analysis saying that delaying carbon emissions cuts will cost the U.S. billions.Warning that it "is not just an environmental issue,"...

One of the world's largest food companies says it's about to take a big bite out of global warming. General Mills, maker of Cheerios, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and Wheaties, said Monday that it will set a target to limit air pollution throughout its entire supply chain next summer. This marks the first time the food giant has pledged to measurably rein in greenhouse-gas emissions from its agricultural suppliers of ingredients like soy and sugarcane. Environmental watchdogs say the effort is significant. According to Oxfam, air pollution created by the agricultural industry makes up a quarter of total greenhouse-gas emissions worldwide....

Things are heating up on planet Earth. Average global temperatures shattered records this June ... for the second month in a row, according to a new report from the National Climactic Data Center. The NCDC, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, analyzed data from 2,000 weather stations scattered across the globe measuring both ocean and land temperatures and found that global average temperatures surpassed the previous record by 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit. That makes June 2014 the warmest June since record keeping began in 1880. If this trend continues, 2014 could top 2010 as the warmest year recorded.

Climate change skeptics have suggested a recent slowdown in the warming of the Earth is evidence that global warming is a farce and that climate models can't be trusted, but new research suggests the slowdown, or "pause," was not a significant disruption of larger trends. The planet has been slowly warming over the last century or more. But in the last 15 years, that rate of warming has slowed. Temperatures are still high by historical standards; but between 1998 and 2013 they were slightly below what climate models had predicted. A small number of scientists and policy makers have pointed...

People who say they are concerned about climate change use more electricity than those who say the issue is 'too far away to worry about', government-commissioned study finds

People who claim to worry about climate change use more electricity than those who do not, a Government study has found. Those who say they are concerned about the prospect of climate change consume more energy than those who say it is “too far into the future to worry about,” the study commissioned by the Department for Energy and Climate Change found. That is in part due to age, as people over 65 are more frugal with electricity but much less concerned about global warming. However, even when pensioners are discounted, there is only a “weak trend” to show that...

Speaking engagements are a common way for people to drum up some extra income after long stints in public office or attempts to reach public office. But depending on how much they’re charging, and who’s paying, speaking fees often lead to intense public scrutiny and criticism for politicos looking to make a buck. When accompanied by an unfortunate gaffe or an outlandish price tag, a politician’s speaking engagements can color them as greedy or simply out of touch. Including Bill and Hillary Clinton's speaking fee fortune and Donald Trump's eye-popping $1.5 million speeches, ABC News took a look at America’s...

Some climate change proponents are saying the huge amounts of methane gas, stored under the Arctic ice is a potential "ticking time bomb." They claim that we must stop extracting fossil fuels that put more CO2 into our atmosphere or face disaster. Methane is only one of a number of gases called greenhouse gases (GHG) that can absorb and emit infrared radiation, or in other words, this means they can trap and absorb heat. The most abundant GHG is water vapor, followed by carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone and CFC's. By measuring atmospheric infrared radiation, climatologists are able to...

When one thinks of the warming climate, the phrases that pop into mind probably aren't "nausea and vomiting," "sharp, stabbing pain," and "blood in your urine." Yet these awful symptoms could become more prolific in the coming decades, as hotter weather appears to be linked with the risk of growing a kidney stone. This disheartening prognosis comes from doctors at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and elsewhere who've completed a seven-year-long study of 60,433 patients in several major U.S. cities. When the temperature goes up, there's a subsequent spike in the number of people visiting hospitals for stone issues, they...

More than half of the country has a message for former Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin: enough. That's the result from a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Annenberg poll in which 54 percent of voters say they've heard enough from Palin and would prefer that she be less outspoken in political debates. That includes nearly two-thirds of Democrats, a majority of independents, and even nearly four-in-10 Republicans. And the results come as Palin has called for President Barack Obama's impeachment. (VIDEO-AT-LINK)But Palin isn't the only former politician voters wish would stay away from politics. Fifty-one percent of voters say they've heard...

Nine out of ten hospital wards may be at risk of overheating, increasing the dangers for vulnerable patients who are left sweltering in temperatures of more than 26C (78.8F), government advisers have warned. Poor ventilation, thin walls, low ceilings and big windows that can barely be opened are contributing to temperatures far exceeding acceptable levels during hot weather, according to the Committee on Climate Change. One fifth of domestic properties could also already be overheating, with flats especially vulnerable, it finds. The number of people dying prematurely from overheating could triple to 7,000 per year by the 2050s as global...

BBC report: “Impartiality in science coverage does not simply lie in reflecting a wide range of views, but depends on the varying degree of prominence (due weight) such views should be given.” LONDON, July 7 (UPI) --In an internal report released today by the BBC trust addressing the broadcaster's impartiality in science reporting and the gender balance of its contributors and presenters, the BBC has officially taken the position that it will be giving climate change deniers less airtime in an effort to provide more accurate reporting that better reflects the weighted view of the scientific community. When they set...

Palmer is offering to vote for Tony Abbott’s Direct Action Plan as long as he gets “his” Emissions Trading Scheme as well (the one he didn’t want eight weeks ago, to solve a problem he didn’t believe existed). None of it makes sense on its face. Clive Palmer, the coal miner and die-hard unbeliever, appears to “want” an ETS, the Climate Change Authority, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and direct action to reduce CO2 as well as the RET.  (And some say that Gore lost?)Is Palmer just playing games with both the Coalition and the media, holding cards for negotiation-sake,...

A DNA expert has has made the bold claim that ginger hair gene could die out if Scotland climate improves. REDHEADS could become extinct as Scotland gets sunnier, experts have claimed. The gene that causes red hair is thought to be an evolutionary response to the lack of sun in Scotland. Redhead colouring allows people to get the maximum vitamin D from what little sun there is. Only one to two per cent of the world’s population has red hair but in Scotland the figure is about 13 per cent, or 650,000 people.

Allahpundit touched on this idea briefly this week in an article primarily to do with Mitt Romney in specific and the general question of whether or not there are second acts for losing party nominees in the 21st century. But apparently the idea has taken root in a few places, and as he noted in the article, the Daily Caller (or at least Mark Halperin) talked about it without being entirely tongue in cheek. Mark Halperin, the senior political analyst for “Time” magazine, appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Thursday and boldly reiterated his Wednesday Twitter assertion that Al Gore —...

AL Gore, the world’s most famous global warming guru, last week used Australia to trash what’s left of his reputation. The Nobel prize-winning alarmist didn’t just tell his disciples here more astonishing falsehoods about the climate of the kind that’s good for his business. (See Gore’s truth for his latest whoppers.) Gore also meddled in our climate politics to the undisclosed benefit of his business partners, and against the interests of Australians. And in return for a favour, he falsely praised coal baron Clive Palmer as a planet-saver, when Palmer was in fact destroying our biggest schemes to tackle global...

Imagine if in America there were a coal mining magnate as famous as Donald Trump who was the founder of a political party named after himself (Trump United Party?). In addition, this well known person would be strongly opposed to a carbon tax. Obviously such a person would be considered an enemy by environmentalists. Well, think of the shock if none other than Al Gore held a friendly joint press conference with such a person. Many would suspect that money was the motive for such a strange alliance. Guess what? Something like this happened last week in Australia where Al...

LIBERAL MP and climate change sceptic Dennis Jensen claims Al Gore will personally profit from Clive Palmer’s new climate policy, saying the Nobel laureate “would do anything and say anything for a buck”. Dr Jensen also likened the former US vice-president and leading climate activist to a member of a fictional, profit-obsessed alien race in the Star Trek movie and TV series. Mr Gore last night commended the Palmer United Party’s policy of abolishing Labor’s world-leading carbon tax, while retaining the Renewable Energy Target and Clean Energy Finance Corporation. Dr Jensen, speaking in parliament, said the joint media announcement proved...

WHAT on earth possessed climate change champion Al Gore to share a stage with mining baron and — at least until yesterday — climate change dinosaur Clive Palmer? Does the former US vice-president realise that, with his 12 minutes on stage, he has helped dismantle the toughest climate change response on the planet, leaving Australia, in all likelihood, without any carbon abatement scheme? Gore has either been duped into thinking Palmer is an environmentalist or he has been handsomely paid for his bizarre appearance. Or both. What is certain is that the man who refashioned himself as a cel­ebrity by...

Fighting climate change would help grow the world economy, according to the World Bank, adding up to $2.6tn (£1.5tn) a year to global GDP in the coming decades. The findings, made available in a report on Tuesday, offer a sharp contrast with claims by the Australian government that fighting climate change would “clobber” the economy. The report also advances on the work of economists who have argued that it will be far more costly in the long run to delay action on climate change. Instead, Tuesday's report found a number of key policies – none of which included putting an...