Free Republic

The White House is finally addressing a serious, and misunderstood, problem with a new “bee plan.” The bee plan is a federal strategy to stop the sharp decline of pollinators, most notably bees, and restore pollinator populations to their previous buzzing glory. Can the White House end a problem that has alluded scientists and policy makers for over a decade? The bee plan is focused on habitats… and bureaucracy. The first step of the plan is form a task force. The group will include representatives from 14 major federal departments (click here for the full list).

And while tea party groups and talk radio hosts are celebrating the downfall of a Republican member of Congress who came to symbolize the “establishment,” there are indications that this enthusiasm is misplaced. In the wake of his victory, Brat joined MSNBC host Chuck Todd on Wednesday where he received a gentle grilling and was asked for his position on a variety of policy matters. Brat seemed entirely unprepared to have to speak on issues of substance. In fact, he suggested – perhaps (hopefully) jokingly – that he thought Todd invited him on the program merely to celebrate his victory....

Carbon dioxide and climate change will lower the quality of food in the future, claims a new study. Wheat, rice, maize and soybeans are key sources of nutrients for more than 2 billion people residing in poor countries. But with the rising amount of carbon dioxide in the air combined with climate change, nutrient level in crops is set to drop. The study was conducted by Harvard University researchers and colleagues who fear that several major crops - such as wheat and rice - with good nutrient value will have low levels of proteins and zinc in the future.

Skeletons of second world war soldiers are being washed from their graves by the rising Pacific Ocean as global warming leads to inundation of islands that saw some of the fiercest fighting of the conflict. On the day Europe commemorated the 70th anniversary of the storming of Normandy beaches in the D-Day landings, a minister from the Marshall Islands, a remote archipelago between Hawaii and the Philippines, told how the remains of 26, probably Japanese soldiers, had been recovered so far on the isle of Santo. "There are coffins and dead people being washed away from graves; it's that serious,"...

President Obama warned Friday that storms like Hurricane Sandy will become more frequent as climate change intensifies. While being briefed by emergency response officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) headquarters, Obama urged the public to prepare now for this year's hurricane season. "The changes we’re seeing in our climate means that, unfortunately, storms like Sandy could end up being more common and more devastating," Obama said. "And that’s why we’re also going to be doing more to deal with the dangers of carbon pollution that help to cause this climate change and global warming. And that’s why we’re...

KATHMANDU, May 20 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - M ountaineering tourism in Nepal faces a threat from global warming as melting glaciers feed the risk of more deadly disasters such as the avalanche on Mount Everest that killed 16 people last month, scientists said on Tuesday. More than 2,000 foreign mountaineers flock to the Himalayan nation sandwiched between India and China each year, mainly to climb the world's highest mountain, generating revenue of $3.4 million in permit fees for the impoverished country. Rising global temperatures have shrunk the total area of Nepal's glaciers by almost a quarter between 1977 and 2010,...

WASHINGTON >> The devastating wildfires scorching Southern California offer a glimpse of a warmer and more fiery future, according to scientists and federal and international reports. In the past three months, at least three different studies and reports have warned that wildfires are getting bigger, that man-made climate change is to blame, and it’s only going to get worse with more fires starting earlier in the year. While scientists are reluctant to blame global warming for any specific fire, they have been warning for years about how it will lead to more fires and earlier fire seasons.

Washington (CNN) -- Flooded rail lines. Bigger, more frequent droughts. A rash of wildfires. Those are some of the alarming predictions in a White House climate change report released Tuesday, part of President Barack Obama's broader second-term effort to help the nation prepare for the effects of higher temperatures, rising sea levels and more erratic weather. "Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present," the National Climate Assessment says, adding that the evidence of man-made climate change "continues to strengthen" and that "impacts are increasing across the country." "Americans are noticing changes...

If you think Washington is scary now, consider this: Al Gore is not ruling out a 2016 run for president. Al Gore 2000 was awful, proving himself willing to divide the country and put it through hell during his attempt to sue his way into the White House. Al Gore 2016 would be many times worse. He would be a single-issue president, and that issue would be the total destruction of the economy in the name of the debunked global warming hoax.

Another insane cold wave — not the infamous “polar vortex ” but its evil twin — is bringing sub-zero and single-digit temperatures to much of the nation. And global warming may be even more extreme, and potentially more catastrophic, than climate scientists had feared. This is, of course, no contradiction. The rallying cry of the denialists — “It’s really cold outside, so global warming must be a crock!” — can be taken seriously only by those with a toddler’s limited conception of time and space. They forget that it’s winter, and apparently they don’t quite grasp that even when it’s...

The next time you hear someone dispute that human activity is destabilizing our climate, remember this pie chart. It represents geochemist James Lawrence Powell's review of 2,258 peer-reviewed scientific articles about climate change, written by 9,136 authors, published between Nov. 12, 2012 and December 31, 2013. Of all those hundreds of papers and thousands of researchers, Powell found one article, authored by a single scientist, that attributed climate change to something other than human actions: "The Role of Solar Activity in Global Warming," by S.V. Avakyan, appearing in the Herald of the Russian Academy of Science, Vol. 83, No. 3....

The Golden Age of Antibiotics is Over!! Exclusive: Limited Time Coast to Coast Listeners... Sign Up Below to Get One of My Best Selling eBooks for FREE! Secure & Confidential WE GURANTEE YOUR PRIVACY. We hate spam as much as you do. For 60 years we have lived protected by these CURE ALL drugs. Lives have been saved… Billions of lives. True, there have been complications, but that's because of abuse, not because of the wonderful life-saving properties of antibiotics. But NOW it's over: Antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria are spreading like wildfire. There are dozens of deadly antibiotic resistant...

Whatever became of Glenn Beck's announcement to name a Republican Senator that was calling FreedomWorks members traitors?

Glenn Beck told his audience on Monday that the following morning on his radio program, he will reveal the name of a Republican lawmaker who said anyone who stands with FreedomWorks or the Senate Conservatives Fund is a “traitor” to the Senate.

Say what you will about us millennials—we’re a wilting bouquet of narcissistic, socialistic, overeducated, underemployed, tatted-up hipsters who still live at home—but, from this day forward, don’t you dare say we’re climate change deniers. A strong majority (66 percent!) of young independent voters, ages 18 to 34, accept as dogma that man and his dirty deeds are causing, and will continue to cause, climate change—this according to a study conducted by a bipartisan pair of political strategy groups for the League of Conservation Voters.

Wells dry up and underwater tables fall so fast in the Middle East and parts of India, China and the US that food supplies are seriously threatened, a leading resource analyst has warned. Lester Brown, head of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, claims that 18 countries, together containing half the world's people, are overpumping their underground water tables to the point – known as "peak water" – where they are not replenishing and where harvests are getting smaller each year. The situation is most serious in the Middle East. According to Brown: "Among the countries whose water supply has...

After five years of referring to climate change as a long-term climate and humanitarian problem, President Obama is trying a new strategy. In a speech Tuesday to sell a package of regulations to limit greenhouse gases from power plants, Obama will list the ways a warming planet impacts human health now, White House officials say. The strategy may have legs. The administration has directed several government agencies to work together on a wide-ranging effort to try to quantify the "social costs" of climate change, including health effects. How is climate change expected to affect human health? The Centers for Disease...

EXCERPT Lee’s argument is not based on the NSA or its monitoring of the nation’s communication. Rather, Lee said, there are indications that Roberts originally intended to vote against the act, but that a public “campaign of intimidation” made him change his mind. First, the senator claimed “the opinion was written in a way to suggest he switched his vote,” and that the dissenting opinion reads like it was originally written as the majority. He added that several news outlets reported that Roberts did change his vote, based on insider information. Not only that, he said, but the court performed...

Why must Republicans always play defense? Seemingly on the wrong side of any argument? Education; you? The pending sequester cuts have the President and his minions, like a flock of Chicken Littles, running to and fro, spinning tales of planes falling out of the sky.  For some reason - whether they’re too polite, too incredulous or just too inept - I barely hear a peep from the loyal opposition. So I wrote this little story to help Republicans explain the scale of sequester cuts to their constituents and hopefully help them put things in perspective: George Finds Out He’s getting...

Mag 6.2 - 96km ENE of Miyako, Japan. 2012-10-01 22:21:45 UTC 39.853°N 143.047°E depth=9.7km (6.0mi)