Free Republic

On Good Friday, President Obama made a bad call. The State Department announced that it would delay its decision on the Keystone XL pipeline until after the Nebraska Supreme Court rules in a case involving the route. The administration insists the decision to punt has nothing to do with politics. Pretty much everyone else thinks otherwise. Obama, who is rarely reluctant to act unilaterally when it benefits him politically, and who regularly brags about his red-tape cutting, is paralyzed by perhaps the only big shovel-ready jobs project he's been presented with. He welcomes the Keystone red tape because he's trapped...

The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has just completed a series of landmark reports that chronicle an update to the current state of consensus science on climate change. Its conclusion: On our current path, climate change could pose an irreversible, existential risk to civilization as we know it, but we can still fix it if we decide to work together. But in addition to the call for cooperation, the reports also shared an alarming new trend: Climate change is already destabilizing nations and leading to wars. That finding was highlighted in last week's premiere of Showtime's climate change docu-drama...

Government funded, peer-reviewed study concludes biofuels worse than gasoline for the environmentThe $30 billion or so wasted each year on the federal government’s biofuels mandates and subsidies needs to end now. The program is a complete disaster, and now has been shown to harm the environment, something anti-warmist skeptics (aka, deniers) have warned about for many years.  Even the left wing UK Guardian reports via AP: Biofuels made from the leftovers of harvested corn plants are worse than gasoline for global warming in the short term, a new study shows, challenging the Obama administration's conclusions that they are a much cleaner oil...

Of all the many absurdities of the great climate change non-crisis which has been pointlessly obsessing our planet this last three or four decades, surely the most egregious is the way it has ignored one basic fact: global warming is good. No really, it is. As a few bold heretics - such as Australian geologist Ian Plimer in his book Heaven And Earth - have long been trying to tell anyone prepared to listen, the human species is designed for warmth not cold. Ice ages are something we should naturally fear; warming periods are something which for which we should...

What stops the Earth from looking like Pluto is energy from the Sun. The quantity and type of energy coming from the Sun varies over cycles that range up to 1,500 years long. The cycle we can see with our own eyes, in our own lifetimes, is the sunspot cycle that is normally eleven years long. A decade ago there was a wide range of predictions from the solar physics community about how strong the current cycle, No 24, would be. One list of 45 predictions ranged from a sunspot number of 50 at the low end to 190 at...

Slowest start to #tornado season on record through 4/17 http://twitpic.com/e1huhr based on inflation adjusted tornado trends. https://twitter.com/wxbrad/status/457374046020440064

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Biofuels made from the leftovers of harvested corn plants are worse than gasoline for global warming in the short term, a study shows, challenging the Obama administration's conclusions that they are a much cleaner oil alternative and will help combat climate change.</p>

Full title: FIRST THE GREEN GESTAPO CAME FOR OUR LIGHTBULBS, THEN OUR ICED DRINKS AND HOT SHOWERS. NOW THEY'RE AFTER OUR MEATBALLS... A truly emetic announcement from the grim but indispensable Swedish flatpack furniture emporium IKEA: they are considering changing the recipe of their most popular food line - meatballs - in order to help save the world from global warming. Says the company's head of sustainability Joanna Yarrow: "We have been working with WWF looking at meatballs and various other food items that we sell and looking at how we can tweak our recipes to give great taste but...

In U.S., Most Do Not See Global Warming as Serious Threat ___ Nearly two in three believe global warming will happen during their lifetimes

There's a reason why overwhelming evidence hasn't spurred public action against global warming. In the run-up to Earth Day this year, two major reports were released by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the largest such body in the world. On March 31, Working Group II released its report, Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, and on April 13, Working Group III released its report, Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. Both reports cited substantially more evidence of substantially more global warming and related impacts than past reports have, and they did so more lucidly than in...

The UN is trying to scare us into believing we have only 15 years left. It looks ridiculous doing so, considering all the similar declarations that have come and gone. A brief history of “climate tipping point” declarations discloses that the only scary hot air comes from warmist blowhards. Marc Morano at Climate Depot debunks the fake hysteria being generated to jjstify a massive tax and power grab: According to the Boston Globe, the United Nations has issued a new climate “tipping point” by which the world must act to avoid dangerous global warming. The Boston Globe noted on April...

Look for a Climate Credit from the State of California on Your April Utility Bill This month your electricity bill will include a credit identified as the "California Climate Credit." Twice a year, in April and October, your household and millions of others throughout the state will receive this credit on your electricity bills. The Climate Credit is a payment to Californians from a program designed to fight climate change by limiting the amount of greenhouse gas pollution that our largest industries put into the atmosphere. This program is one of many developed as a result of landmark legislation called...

"In 1989 when I first climbed Everest there was a lot of snow and ice, but now most of it has just become bare rock. That, as a result, is causing more rock falls, which is a danger to the climbers," said Apa Sherpa, a Nepali climber, as quoted in Discovery News.

'Veg balls' to be launched as eco-friendly alternative to famous Swedish meatballs, which Ikea admits are damaging the planetIkea is developing a new 'green' version of its famous Swedish meatballs in order to cut carbon emissions and help tackle climate change, the retailer has revealed. The flat-pack furniture giant sells an estimated 150 million meatballs, made from beef and pork, in its cafes each year. But the popular snack is also the least environmentally-friendly item on the Ikea menu, because of high carbon dioxide emissions involved in the farming process and high methane gas emissions from cattle. Ikea is so...

The man who was almost president graced Honolulu with his presence Tuesday and walked us through a "seminar of sustainability." By turns a university professor, a wry observer, a recovering politician, a joke teller and a Southern preacher, Al Gore fired up an audience of thousands at the Stan Sheriff Center to believe that global warming can be stopped. But it's possible only if each of us does our part. "Ultimately, we are going to win this thing," he said, one of many statements met with hearty applause. He also managed to repeatedly gush over fellow Democrats Neil Abercrombie and...

The stakes are higher than most conservatives realize. When the fraud of man-made global warming finally dies, folks will start thinking: What else were we lied to about? How could the high priests of modern knowledge have confidently insisted something that was never remotely plausible? A key element of progressivism is having wise philosopher-kings who make benevolent decisions for the masses. It is a core element of conservatism that you can make decisions for yourself. But for progressives, it is essential to convince the public that the designated authorities know better than you do, including what to eat, how to...

The cult centered on "global warming" alarmism is getting hot under the collar. People seem to have stopped paying attention and polls show "climate change" barely registers on a list of voters' concerns. This can only mean, as losing politicians like to say, that their message isn't getting through. What to do? Why shout louder, of course. A recent story in The New York Times sought to help alarmists raise the decibel level: "The countries of the world have dragged their feet so long on global warming that the situation is now critical, experts appointed by the United Nations reported...

The cult centered on “global warming” alarmism is getting hot under the collar. People seem to have stopped paying attention, and polls show “climate change” barely registers on a list of voters' concerns. This can only mean, as losing politicians like to say, that their message isn’t getting through. What to do? Why, shout louder, of course. A recent story in the New York Times sought to help alarmists raise the decibel level: “The countries of the world have dragged their feet so long on global warming that the situation is now critical, experts appointed by the United Nations reported...

Climate change’s latest casualty appears to be fish — or more specifically, fish brains — as researchers say the carbon dioxide that’s being absorbed into the ocean is causing the scaly creatures to lose their survival instincts. In other words, the fish are losing their minds, The Daily Mail reported. The acid from atmospheric carbon dioxide seeps into sea waters, dissolves and ultimately lowers the pH balance, researchers said. The acidic waters then hamper the fishes’ sensory systems, so they’re not able to distinguish between smells any longer, the scientists went on.

"The heavens reek, the waters below are foul ... we are in a crisis of survival." That's how Walter Cronkite and CBS hyped the first Earth Day, back in 1970. Somehow we've survived since then, and most of life got better, although I never hear that from the worrywarts. Of course, some things got better because of government: We passed environmental rules that got most of the filth out of the air and sewage out of lakes and rivers. Great -- but now we're told that we're in big trouble because greenhouse gases cause global warming. I mean, climate change....

It's been a long suspicion among some local meteorologists that the thermometer at the airport has been running a bit warm over the past few years, frequently reporting temperatures 1-3 degrees warmer than surrounding sites. NOAA went and replaced the thermometer and then, as if by magic, Sea-Tac's temperatures have been more in line with surrounding neighborhoods.

New federal dietary guidelines are due to come out next year, and critics say early drafts suggest they may represent a new nanny-state intrusion – calling for Internet-based "weigh-ins" and government text messages to overweight people meant to help them shed the pounds. Critics also fear the guidelines, which are subject to revision every five years, may go well beyond nutrition to address the planet’s health, too. At a March 14 meeting of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, committee member Miriam Nelson of Tufts University said: "The question that we're spending the most time on right now is really, what...

Even by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's own lamentable standards, its new report - by Working Group III of the Fifth Assessment Report - makes no sense whatsoever. Perhaps it never did but what definitely made it worse was the politicised meddling of the Obama administration. Before the report's formal release, US officials - who had seen an earlier draft - wrote to the United Nations demanding it be amended. "The discussion of the economic costs of mitigation is too narrow and does not incorporate co-benefits of action." Loosely translated this means: "If we admit how much we're spending...

The United Nations (UN) has delivered its latest verdict on the measures necessary to save the world from global warming and the news is as grim as it is predictable and wearisomely familiar: More regulation from "experts", technocrats and bureaucrats at supranational organisations, such as the one whose initials begin with U and end with N.More taxpayer subsidies for expensive, inefficient renewable energy.More nuclear power (with shale gas used as a transitional fuel to replace coal). The abandonment of fossil fuels. Less meat consumption.A single, globally-regulated price for carbon dioxide. More local-government-enforced walking, cycling and public transportation. More back-door wealth...

The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finally did their big reveal on Sunday of the already-leaked third installment of their four-part climate-change report jointly composed by every big-wig climate scientist, progressive economist, and globalist politician they can scrape together, and surprise: It includes just about every type of dire warning and urgent recommendation we’ve been hearing for decades on decades now. Nutshell version: The world is only a matter of years away from all-consuming calamity, but if every country could just bite the bullet and immediately commit to aggressively decelerating their own domestic economies in concert with global...

Yesterday, the United Nations released a startling report that concludes that “world leaders” only have a few years to drastically curb carbon emissions, else the world will face debilitating warming, which would lead to a rise in sea level that would dramatically change human life and natural habitats. The report also argues that the world is already beginning to see the effects of climate change: a higher level of disease spread in Africa, an increase in the number and severity of wildfires in North America, and the decrease of food production in South America. According to Kelly Levin, a climate...

A rapid shift to wind and solar power is needed if the world is to avoid catastrophic global warming, the United Nations warns in a crucial report today. Emissions of greenhouse gases need to be cut by up to 70 per cent before 2050 to control climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says. ‘Large-scale changes in energy systems’ are required, with coal power stations to be switched off and replaced by wind and solar. And the transformation needs to be made in the next 15 years or controlling climate change will become increasingly harder and more expensive....

NZCLIMATE TRUTH NEWSLETTER NO 312 JUNE 4th 2013CARBON DIOXIDEThere are two gases in the earth’s atmosphere without which living organisms could not exist.Oxygen is the most abundant, 21% by volume, but without carbon dioxide, which is currently only about 0.04 percent (400ppm) by volume, both the oxygen itself, and most living organisms on earth could not exist at all.This happened when the more complex of the two living cells (called “eukaryote”) evolved a process called a “chloroplast” some 3 billion years ago, which utilized a chemical called chlorophyll to capture energy from the sun and convert carbon dioxide and nitrogen...

For two consecutive days last week, the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the earth's atmosphere exceeded 402 parts per million (ppm,) higher than at any time in at least the past 800,000 years, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Carbon dioxide levels tend to peak in May, which means that they are likely to rise even more. According to an article in Mashable, a news and tech website, the latest figures "put humans into uncharted territory." Just last month, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a damning report that illustrated the growing dangers of...

The son of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Rory Reid, is the primary representative for ENN Energy Group, a Chinese energy company seeking to build a $5 billion solar panel plant on a 9,000-acre Clark County desert plot in Laughlin, Nevada. ENN scored big when Clark County commissioners unanimously voted to sell the Chinese company the public land for just $4.5 million, despite the fact that it was appraised at $38.6 million. Sen. Reid has been one of ENN’s biggest supporters, having recruited the company during a 2011 trip to China. According to Reuters, last month Sen. Reid tried...

What’s even more dubious than claims of catastrophic warming? Claims that scientists know what to do about it.The IPCC released a report warning that unless a “rapid shift� to green energy is undertaken, we’re all going to die…or, something.And even that may not be enough. The group is saying that we “might even need to enlist controversial technologies that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.�We’ll get started right away on those gigantic atmospheric scoops to remove all those offensive greenhouse gases.It’s more of the same from the IPCC, with a little more hysteria to get our juices flowing.USA Today: “There...

(Reuters) - Following are main findings by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in a report on Sunday saying that time is running out to keep global warming within agreed limits. The 33-page summary, by leading scientists, is meant to guide almost 200 governments which have promised to work out a deal by the end of 2015 to slow climate change. Nations have promised to limit warming to a maximum 2 degrees Celsius (3.6F) above pre-industrial times, seen as a threshold for more heat waves, droughts and rising seas - temperatures have already risen about 0.8C (1.4F).

The ranch, which has been in Cliven Bundy’s family for more than a century, is ground zero for a growing showdown between federal authorities and individual rights activists.VideoAs a family in Clark County, Nev. continues to face an onslaught of heavily armed federal agents determined to kick them off of their ranch, reports have surfaced that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid might be behind the entire ordeal. The ranch, which has been in Cliven Bundy’s family for more than a century, is ground zero for a growing showdown between federal authorities and individual rights activists. Despite attempting to silence protesters...

A top building trades union is launching a midterm-election assault on House Democrats who oppose construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. A letter distributed Friday by the Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA) to the districts of 27 House Democrats calls for union members to make sure their representative "feels the power and the fury of LIUNA this November." Their crime: signing a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry last month urging him to reject Keystone, which would carry oil sands from Canada to Gulf Coast refineries.

Undeterred by facts, United Nations “scientists” will soon deliver their most ominous warning about the danger the world faces from “global warming.” Of course they don’t use the discredited phrase “global warming” because it produces laughter among sane people. Instead they talk about “climate change” as if the weather we experience is a static phenomenon. Predictions of civilizations destroyed by floods droughts, wars, economic collapse and of course carbon emissions are woven into this latest iteration of this never ending hoax. This time the fake whines of gloom and doom come from the...

A new report by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finds that solar facilities in California are acting like “mega traps” that kill and injure birds. As a result, “entire food chains” are being disrupted. USFWS’s National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory studied three solar farms in Southern California: Desert Sunlight, Genesis Solar and Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (ISEGS). Two-hundred and thirty-three different birds from 71 species were found over the course of a two-year study. The three main causes of death were: 1. Solar flux: Exposure to temperatures over 800 degrees F. 2. Impact (or blunt force) trauma:...

According to a fact sheet published by the White House late last month, part of the Obama Administration’s effort to curb greenhouse gases involves cutting “cow emissions.�The executive announcement has since boosted an interest in researching technology to accomplish the Administration’s environmental goals.The Financial Times reports that scientists now have a renewed interest in developing “a next-generation creature whose greenhouse gas emissions would be cut by anti-methane pills, burp scanners and gas backpacks.�The Cow of the Future Project, directed by Juan Tricarico, is looking for a “star athlete� of the bovine world, says FT. He says the Administration’s latest environmental...

This week, Exxon Mobil (XOM) laid out the facts of oil and energy demands and felt confident enough to say all their reserves will be exploited. Despite fear-mongering about climate, population, income-inequality and desperate efforts to redistribute billions of dollars from rich nations to poor nations, the world's thirst for oil will matter more. In fact, the world's thirst for oil will be driven by prosperity. The proposed policies portray nations that are on the cusp of rapid growth as feeble and inadequate, when they are anything but that. Not only should rich nations reject this rhetoric but so, too,...

People should eat fewer baked beans to reduce flatulence which can contribute to global warming, a minister suggested today. Fears were raised about the impact of ‘smelly emissions’ caused by Brits eating more beans than any other country in the world. Climate change minister Lady Verma said it was an ‘important’ issue and urged the public to ‘moderate our behaviour’. Concerns have previously been raised about the effect of methane emissions from cows on global warming. But in the House of Lords today a Labour peer raised questions about the impact of human diet on emmisions. Viscount Simon, 73, a...

Although it’s been going on for years, it seems lately there is an all-out assault by the nanny government to crack down on our liberties. Nowadays, when the people say no, our rulers just do the old end around, or sleight-of-hand. They cause us to concentrate on one thing while they regulate behind our backs. Lately it seems that even this tactic has changed and the Nanny State has begun to attack us from all sides. Take this global warming nonsense. With every passing year, the people are coming to realize what a hoax it has been. Every poll conducted...

The Obama administration released a comprehensive strategy document Wednesday aimed at reducing wildfires, which it says are being exacerbated by climate change. The strategy recommends preventive measures like controlled burns, municipal and state zoning to reduce the effects of sprawl and incorporating watersheds into local management plans. “As climate change spurs extended droughts and longer fire seasons, this collaborative wildfire blueprint will help us restore forests and rangelands to make communities less vulnerable to catastrophic fire,” said Jack Boots, acting chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality.

If you're poor, the only way you're likely to injure someone is the old traditional way: artisanal violence, we could call it – by hands, by knife, by club, or maybe modern hands-on violence, by gun or by car. But if you're tremendously wealthy, you can practice industrial-scale violence without any manual labor on your own part. You can, say, build a sweatshop factory that will collapse in Bangladesh and kill more people than any hands-on mass murderer ever did, or you can calculate risk and benefit about putting poisons or unsafe machines into the world, as manufacturers do every...

The professor who refused to sign last week’s high-profile UN climate report because it was too ‘alarmist’, has told The Mail on Sunday he has become the victim of a smear campaign. Richard Tol claims he is fighting a sustained attack on his reputation by a key figure from a leading institution that researches the impact of global warming. Prof Tol said: ‘This has all the characteristics of a smear campaign. It’s all about taking away my credibility as an expert.’ Prof Tol, from Sussex University, is a highly respected climate economist and one of two ‘co-ordinating lead authors’ of...

Most of us pay some attention to the weather forecast. If it says it will rain in your area tomorrow, it probably will. But if it says the same for a month, let alone a year, later, it is much less likely to be right. There are too many imponderables. The theory of global warming is a gigantic weather forecast for a century or more. However interesting the scientific inquiries involved, therefore, it can have almost no value as a prediction. Yet it is as a prediction that global warming (or, as we are now ordered to call it in...

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- U.S. and Canadian Coast Guard crews kept up their battle Monday to clear pathways for vessels hauling vital raw materials on the ice-clogged Great Lakes, where a shipping logjam forced a weeklong shutdown of the nation's largest steel factory. Traffic remained largely at a crawl after a winter that produced some of the heaviest ice on record across the five inland seas, where more than half the surface area remained solid this week. Icebreaking ships slogging across Lake Superior were still encountering ice layers 2 feet to 3 feet thick. In some areas, wind and wave action...

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) released a report claiming that CNN got climate science “wrong” in 30 percent of its segments on global warming largely because they allowed actual debate to happen on man-made global warming. UCS noted that allowing debate on the subject “suggests that established climate science is still widely debated among scientists” and allows global warming skeptics to confuse the public with their dissenting comments. “The biggest step that CNN could take to increase accuracy is to stop hosting debates about established climate science and instead focus debates on whether and how to respond to climate...

"America’s renowned climatologist, professor Lonnie Thompson in 2002 projected that the snow on the summit of Africa’s highest mountain would completely disappear between 2015 and 2020, thanks to global warming. But 12 years down the lane now, local ecologists who have been monitoring the trend say the ice, in fact, remains steady and it is nowhere near extinction"

Accuracy varies significantly across major cable news outlets. All of them can take steps to improve their coverage of climate science. To gauge how accurately these networks inform their audiences about climate change, UCS analyzed the networks' climate science coverage in 2013 and found that each network treated climate science very differently. Fox News was the least accurate; 72 percent of its 2013 climate science-related segments contained misleading statements. CNN was in the middle, with about a third of segments featuring misleading statements. MSNBC was the most accurate, with only eight percent of segments containing misleading statements * Mutual acceptance...

BERLIN (AP) — The head of the United Nations scientific panel on climate change urged diplomats and scientists to show "enlightenment" Monday, as they began a weeklong meeting aimed at spelling out in plain terms what options the world has if it wants to prevent catastrophic global warming. Delegates at the closed-doors meeting in Berlin need to tackle a number of sensitive issues, including how best to cut carbon emissions and how to share the cost of shifting away from the fossil fuels that are largely blamed for producing the gases that are heating the planet. Their conclusions will feed...

Most of us pay some attention to the weather forecast. If it says it will rain in your area tomorrow, it probably will. But if it says the same for a month, let alone a year, later, it is much less likely to be right. There are too many imponderables. The theory of global warming is a gigantic weather forecast for a century or more. However interesting the scientific inquiries involved, therefore, it can have almost no value as a prediction. Yet it is as a prediction that global warming (or, as we are now ordered to call it in...