Free Republic

WASHINGTON - US Secretary of State John Kerry has called on American ambassadors around the world to make the fight against climate change a top priority ahead of new UN talks next year. In his first department-wide policy guidance statement since taking office a year ago, he told his 70,000 staff: "The environment has been one of the central causes of my life." "Protecting our environment and meeting the challenge of global climate change is a critical mission for me as our country's top diplomat," Kerry said in the letter issued on Friday to all 275 US embassies and across...

Senate Democrats are about to burn the midnight oil to make their case on climate change. The previously rumored all-night session on the effects of climate change will take place Monday, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse confirmed. “It’s locked in,” the Rhode Island Democrat told CQ Roll Call. “An all-nighter is an all-nighter. We’re going to go all the way through to eight or nine in the morning or whenever they need to clean it up for the next day.” That would clearly meet the established definition of an all-night session. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and Whitehouse are coordinating the campaign. Whitehouse...

At least 28 Senate Democrats plan to spend hours Monday night and early Tuesday speaking on the Senate floor in a push for congressional action on climate change. It's a strategy that's been in the works for several months, organized by Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who've been seeking to raise awareness about their concerns on and off the Senate floor. Adopting a strategy used in the past year by some Senate Republicans, the Democrats will begin speaking Monday night after a series of votes and continue until about 9 a.m. Tuesday, according to...

Several stunning images captured by a Minnesota photographer illustrate just how cold it is at Lake Superior. The pictures taken by Andrew Krueger showed large sheets of ice piled up along the shore as temperatures remained below freezing this week. Scientists from the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory said ice coverage was at its highest percentage in 35 years, according to USA Today. “Persistent cold temperatures in the Midwest this winter have almost completely frozen over many of the Great Lakes,” the lab reportedly said in a press release.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s climate rules aimed at phasing out coal-fired power in favor of low-carbon fuels will come at a high cost, according to a newly released report. Over the next two decades, the EPA’s rules to fight global warming will cost the economy $2.23 trillion, raise energy prices and lower families’ incomes. Using economic models based on the federal government’s National Energy Model System, the conservative Heritage Foundation found that, by the end of 2023, EPA climate regulations will cost the U.S. nearly 600,000 jobs and reduce a family of four’s income by $1,200. EPA rules would also...

Boston Duck Tours could be the latest victim of a frigid­ and stormy winter that’s grounded flights, resulted in a road salt shortage and caused potholes galore. The 20th season of the company’s land-water tours could be delayed due to a frozen Charles River that could ground its fleet of nearly 30 former World War II amphibious vehicles. Boston Duck Tours has stopped ticket sales for its March 17 launch through March 20 — a first for the company — and general manager Cindy Brown said she’ll keep her fingers crossed about opening weekend. “The river is definitely still frozen,”...

Apple’s normally soporific annual shareholder meeting contained a glimmer of interest this year when a shareholder from a conservative think tank asked the company to stop worrying about sustainability, green issues, and climate change and concentrate instead on the bottom line of profitability. Tim Cook essentially told his interrogator from the National Center for Public Policy Research to go boil his head, which is nice of him and provides good copy. But this fails to elucidate the dilemma that Cook actually faces. He is indeed focusing on the bottom line by taking the actions that he does on these very...

Causes and Implications of the Growing Divergence between climate model simulations and observations For the past 15+ years, there has been no increase in global average surface temperature, which has been referred to as a ‘hiatus’ in global warming. By contrast, estimates of expected warming in the first several decades of 21st century made by the IPCC AR4 were 0.2C/decade. This talk summarizes the recent CMIP5 climate model simulation results and comparisons with observational data. The most recent climate model simulations used in the AR5 indicate that the warming stagnation since 1998 is no longer consistent with model projections even...

Chipotle lovers everywhere have been fussing and fretting over hints the company may have to cut the beloved green gunk from its menu due to global warming. Buried in the company’s 10-K filing from early February, under the “risks to business” heading, the company had this to say: “Increasing weather volatility or other long-term changes in global weather patterns, including any changes associated with global climate change, could have a significant impact on the price or availability of some of our ingredients,” said Chipotle CMG . That’s the buildup. The clincher came when Chipotle said if prices go up for...

Bad news for burrito lovers: Chipotle warned in its latest annual report that climate change might lead it to leave guacamole out of its burritos and bowls. The chain blames the possible change on higher prices. “In the event of cost increases with respect to one or more of our raw ingredients we may choose to temporarily suspend serving menu items, such as guacamole or one or more of our salsas, rather than paying the increased cost for the ingredients.” The company acknowledged such a move would be a massive disappointment to some of its customers. But, as ThinkProgress points...

Will the Supreme Court permit EPA climate decisions to stand?If it does, the impacts on our lives, livelihoods, liberties and living standards will be enormous Guest opinion by Paul Driessen The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in Utility Air Regulatory Group v. Environmental Protection Agency. The case will determine how far EPA can extend its regulatory overreach, to control “climate changing” carbon dioxide from power plants and other facilities – by ignoring the Constitution’s “separation of powers” provisions, rewriting clear language in the Clean Air Act, and disregarding laws that require the agency to consider both the costs...

The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in Utility Air Regulatory Group v. Environmental Protection Agency. The case will determine how far EPA can extend its regulatory overreach, to control “climate changing” carbon dioxide from power plants and other facilities – by ignoring the Constitution’s “separation of powers” provisions, rewriting clear language in the Clean Air Act, and disregarding laws that require the agency to consider both the costs and benefits of its regulations and what it is regulating. Put more bluntly, the Court will decide whether EPA may deceive and defraud the American people, by implementing regulations that...

In his job as Apple CEO, Tim Cook is mostly known for having a demeanor that's in some ways antithetical to that of Steve Jobs. Instead of bombast and bold claims, Cook's soothing Southern-tinged speech and steely temperament have marked him as a man whose head could be nothing but level. That is, unless you're a shareholder who thinks climate change is bogus.

Police on Sunday arrested around 200 people who strapped themselves to the White House fence to protest the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline. The protesters were mostly college students who participated in a peaceful march that began at Georgetown University and ended outside the White House. The marchers chanted “climate justice now” and carried signs such as “don’t tarnish the Earth” in their efforts to convince President Barack Obama to reject the pipeline. They say it will contribute to global warming.

2016: If Democrats really mean it when they say global warming is a bigger threat than terrorism, why settle for President Hillary Clinton? This is a job for superman Al Gore. Secretary of State John Kerry calls climate change "perhaps the world's most fearsome weapon of mass destruction." A billionaire hedge fund manager and Obama donor plans to spend $100 million this year on attack ads against Democrats who don't agree. If a warming climate is so important, why give Hillary the Democratic nomination? The only climate-linked achievement Clinton could cite in her 2008 campaign was an obscure 2007 amendment...

Tim Cook To Conservative Think Tank: 'You Should Get Out Of This Stock' Kyle RussellFeb. 28, 2014, 8:29 PM Tim Cook, Apple's famously calm and collected CEO, had a rare outburst toward a representative of a conservative think tank at its annual shareholder meeting. The National Center for Public Policy Research put forth a proposal to Apple shareholders that would force the company to disclose information about its programs to act more sustainably by using green energy and materials with smaller environmental impacts. The proposal was rejected by the vast majority of Apple shareholders, receiving approval from only 2.95% of...

The Ivanpah solar power plant stretches over more than five square miles of the Mojave Desert. Almost 350,000 mirrors the size of garage doors tilt toward the sun with an ability to energize 140,000 homes. The plant, which took almost four years and thousands of workers assembling millions of parts to complete, officially opened on Thursday, the first electric generator of its kind. It could also be the last. Since the project began, the price of rival technologies has plummeted, incentives have begun to disappear and the appetite among investors for mammoth solar farms has waned. Although several large, new...

With 15 years of flat temperatures invalidating the “models” climate-clucking “scientists” cherish, blame-mankind politicians resort to shouting down opponents, bogus doomsday scenarios, With 15 years of flat temperatures invalidating the “models” climate-clucking “scientists” cherish, blame-mankind politicians resort to shouting down opponents, bogus doomsday scenarios, false claims that scientific “consensus” favors their side and calls for economically ruinous “action” — as Secretary of State John Kerry did in a speech in Indonesia. He likened skeptics of man-made climate change to the Flat Earth Society, called global warming a weapon of mass destruction and warned against letting “a few loud interest groups”...

February 27, 2014 10:04 AM Climate Change Will Cause Rape and Murder and Assault and Robbery and Larceny and Make People Steal Your Car By Charles C. W. Cooke This, from Mother Jones, is what people who are losing the argument look like: Study: Global Warming Will Cause 180,000 More Rapes by 2099 Global warming isn’t just going to melt the Arctic and flood our cities—it’s also going to make Americans more likely to kill each other. That’s the conclusion of a controversial new study that uses historic crime and temperature data to show that hotter weather leads to more...

It looks like John Kerry's peace efforts may not garner him a Nobel Prize - so why not try Global Warming? "The science is unequivocal, and those who refuse to believe it are simply burying their heads in the sand. We don't have time for a meeting anywhere of the Flat Earth Society. And in a sense, climate change can now be considered another weapon of mass destruction, perhaps the world's most fearsome weapon of mass destruction." - John Kerry, in Jakarta on Feb 16, 2014 Our Secretary of State, John Kerry, sometimes known as "Ketchup Kerry," has serious ambitions...

More conservatives than liberals know that the earth revolves around the sun, that astrology isn’t real and that neither is man-made Global Warming.In a new poll, the majority of Americans sensibly rejected the man-made Global Warming hoax, while only 46% continued to believe in the discredited theory.Democrats, who in another poll were shown as 20% less likely than Republicans to know that the earth revolves around the sun, were also credulous enough to believe in man-made Global Warming by 66% to 25%.An earlier poll had also shown that 49% of Democrats believed that astrology was scientific and only 48% knew...

It might seem strange to say it, but I am a global warming skeptic because of Carl Sagan. This might seem strange because Sagan was an early promoter of the theory that man-made emissions of carbon dioxide are going to fry the globe. But it’s not so strange when you consider the larger message that made Sagan famous. As with many people my age, Sagan’s 1980 series “Cosmos,� which aired on public television when I was eleven years old, was my introduction to science, and it changed my life. “Cosmos&88221; shared the latest developments in the sciences of evolution, astronomy,...

Polluted Minds: Greenies think nature is bad for itself by Daniel Clark One of the things liberals remember best about Ronald Reagan is that he said trees cause pollution. The reason they remember this is that it makes them feel superior to him, and no wonder. Can you imagine anything that sounds stupider than that? It’s the kind of statement for which we’d expect Sarah Palin to be ridiculed, despite her never having said it. So why would Reagan say such a thing? Because trees cause pollution, that’s why. In particular, decaying leaves and pine needles produce organic compounds that...

Take that, spreaders of misinformation More Reading Climate ChangeGlobal WarmingExtreme WeatherHurricanesCyclones Evaluating the cost of a DDoS attack Proper climate scientists with PhDs in the subject and everything say they have "debunked" a climate change "myth" which is commonly repeated on the internet.The myth in question is the idea that global warming is causing an increase in the number of tropical cyclones/hurricanes. Certainly there's plenty of support among bloggers for that idea: "Global warming and the future of storms ... hurricanes will become more frequent" - The Guardian, "Climate Consensus""The North Atlantic Ocean Basin has been in a more active...

<p>Research from Stanford University in California holds out hope for hurricane protection that's better and cheaper than a seawall. The study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature Climate Change, uses computer models to estimate the reduction in hurricane winds and storm surge that results from installing huge wind turbine farms. For example, had there been 78,000 turbines spread across a wide swath of Louisiana coastline when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005, the turbines would have reduced the wind speed by between 80 and 98 mph and the storm surge by 79 percent, the study showed. For Hurricane Sandy, which hit New York and New Jersey in 2012, the model projected a wind speed reduction of 78 to 87 mph and up to 34 percent decrease in storm surge.</p>

A co-founder of Greenpeace told lawmakers there is no evidence man is contributing to climate change, and said he left the group when it became more interested in politics than the environment. Patrick Moore, a Canadian ecologist and business consultant who was a member of Greenpeace from 1971-86, told members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee environmental groups like the one he helped establish use faulty computer models and scare tactics in promoting claims man-made gases are heating up the planet. “There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are the dominant cause of...

Statement of Patrick Moore, Ph.D. Before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Subcommittee on Oversight February 25, 2014 “Natural Resource Adaptation: Protecting ecosystems and economies” Chairman Whitehouse, Ranking Member Inhofe, and members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify at today’s hearing. In 1971, as a PhD student in ecology I joined an activist group in a church basement in Vancouver Canada and sailed on a small boat across the Pacific to protest US Hydrogen bomb testing in Alaska. We became Greenpeace. After 15 years in the top committee I had to leave as Greenpeace took...

During his recent visit to Indonesia, Secretary of State John Kerry delivered 5,957 words on so-called “global warming.” As he told students at Jakarta’s American Cultural Center on February 16: “Terrorism, epidemics, poverty, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction — all challenges that know no borders — the reality is that climate change ranks right up there with every single one of them.” Kerry added, “Climate change can now be considered another weapon of mass destruction, perhaps even the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction.” He continued: “The science of climate change is leaping out at us...

Climate: Al Gore was at it again over the weekend, scaring people unnecessarily about global warming. He, and others like him, should be held accountable for constantly trying to terrify the public. Will they ever be? Preaching Saturday in Kansas City, the former vice president and current hysteric in chief declared while prattling on about the California drought that "the Dust Bowl is coming back, quickly, unless we act." About that first Dust Bowl, the one in the 1930s: Was that also caused by man-made global warming, during a time when human carbon dioxide emissions were much lower? Or was...

DAVID GREENE, HOST: … wealthy donors like Tom Steyer are putting a pistol to someone's head, forcing their pet issues on candidates. Steyer himself sees things very differently. He quit his hedge fund with $1.5 billion and now in his view he's fighting as hard as he can with money and passion to do something very noble - save the planet. .. With plans to pour $100 million into key elections this year, Steyer joins this elite group of wealthy individuals trying to influence politicians and voters. Steyer says he doesn't agree with the growing influence of money in politics...

This article originally appeared on heartland.org.U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry sunk to climate McCarthyism last week, calling scientists at NASA, NOAA, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Columbia, and other prestigious research institutions “shoddy scientists” and members of “the Flat Earth Society” because they don’t agree with Kerry and President Barack Obama on global warming issues. Fortunately for science, and unfortunately for Kerry, the Scientific Method encourages rather than blackballs critical inquiry and scientific debate. If that were not the case, people would indeed still believe the Earth is flat. Even so, more than 31,000 scientists have signed a summary of the...

Current schemes to minimize the havoc caused by global warming by purposefully manipulating Earth's climate are likely to either be relatively useless or actually make things worse, researchers say in a new study. The dramatic increase in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution is expected to cause rising global sea levels, more-extreme weather and other disruptions to regional and local climates. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that traps heat, so as levels of the gas rise, the planet overall warms. In addition to efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, some have suggested artificially manipulating the...

It appears that CNN is now going all in on its assertion that there is no climate change debate. Despite the absurdity of a news organization openly declaring that it is closed to any arguments to the contrary, the CNN Newsroom anchor Carol Costello has proudly declared her mind closed on this topic. In an opinion piece published at CNN.Com, Costello boldly took pride in her refusal to consider facts contrary to her belief in the very first sentence: "There is no debate." Got that? Cased closed and so is her mind as she went on to prove:

See the article at the link: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/volcanic-eruptions-contributed-to-global-warming-pause-scientists-claim-9147856.html Not excerpted here for copyright reasons. Synopsis: Reporter Adam Withnall provides quotes from scientists explaining that the cooling that isn't happening is caused, this week, by an increase in volcanic activity.

Charles Krauthammer says it right up front in his Washington Post column: “I’m not a global warming believer. I’m not a global warming denier.” He does, however, challenge the notion that the science on climate change is settled and says those who insist otherwise are engaged in “a crude attempt to silence critics and delegitimize debate.” How ironic, then, that some environmental activists launched a petition urging the Post not to publish Krauthammer’s column on Friday. Their response to opinions they disagree with is to suppress the speech. Brad Johnson (@ClimateBrad), the editor of HillHeat.com and a former Think Progress...

Editorial cartoons often aren't pretty, to paraphrase Steve Martin's observation about the perils of comedy. But one found in the Opinion section of today's New York Times is downright ugly. The cartoon, alluding to this year's brutal winter, suggests U.S. Department of Commerce "Strategies for Dealing With the 2014 Icicle Surplus." Among them are using icicles as "locally sourced hydration devices," "temporary doorsteps," and "brainteasers for dogs." Then comes a suggestion that one immediately looks at again, in disgust and disbelief -- icicles can also be used as "self-destructing sabers for dispatching climate-change deniers." (Entire cartoon shown after the jump)...

Climatology has been falling on its face lately. In addition to the failure of global warming predictions to come true in the last 16 years of "pause," this year's severe winter for most of the country came as a surprise to the Climate Prediction Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That august taxpayer-funded climatology center "predicted that temperatures would be above normal from November through January across much of the Lower 48 states," according to Bloomberg BusinessWeek..... [SNIP].......The predictive models in use seem to have some major flaws. Climatology is a relatively young discipline, yet has received major...

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack did not link this winter’s frigid and snowy weather in much of the country to global warming, but said the “climate is changing” and the federal government wants to help the country’s food producers. At a press conference on Thursday at the United States Agriculture Department’s (USDA) annual Agricultural Outlook Forum, CNSNews.com asked Vilsack if global warming or climate change were to blame for the recent cold and snowy weather. …

Every side in the political debate has a natural tendency to appeal to freedom of speech when they feel threatened—but to ignore (or initiate) threats to the free speech of the other side. My favorite example is from the early 1990s, when the Yeltsin government dispossessed Russia's Communist Party of the vast holdings it had amassed in the decades when it controlled the state. The Communist Party screamed in protest, denouncing the supposed attack on its "property rights and freedom of speech." Which was pretty rich, considering that the Communists had just spent 70 years ruthlessly stamping out everyone else's...

I repeat: I’m not a global-warming believer. I’m not a global-warming denier. I’ve long believed that it cannot be good for humanity to be spewing tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. I also believe that those scientists who pretend to know exactly what this will cause in 20, 30, or 50 years are white-coated propagandists. “The debate is settled,” asserted propagandist-in-chief Barack Obama in his latest State of the Union address. “Climate change is a fact.” Really? There is nothing more anti-scientific than the very idea that science is settled, static, impervious to challenge. Take a non-climate example. It...

The Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to address climate change. That shouldn’t be a controversial statement, but in some quarters, it is. Indeed, it’s at the heart of a set of legal challenges that will be heard by the Supreme Court on Monday. As administrator of the EPA from 2001-03, I served in the administration of President George W. Bush. I may sometimes disagree with his successor on the best way to address climate change as a matter of policy, but I absolutely agree that the EPA has broad authority to issue regulations addressing climate change, including those being...

Industry groups and Republican-led states are heading an attack at the Supreme Court against the Obama administration's sole means of trying to limit power-plant and factory emissions of gases blamed for global warming. As President Barack Obama pledges to act on environmental and other matters when Congress doesn't, or won't, opponents of regulating carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases cast the rule as a power grab of historic proportions. The court is hearing arguments Monday about a small but important piece of the Environmental Protection Agency's plans to cut the emissions — a requirement that companies expanding industrial facilities or...

SANTA CRUZ -- UC Santa Cruz will host a major national conference, "Climate Science and Policy through the Looking Glass," Friday and Saturday. The goal of the conference is "to bring broad public attention to the challenges of climate change and provide compelling reasons why effective action is immediately needed," said UCSC Social Sciences Dean Sheldon Kamieniecki.

Top boffins from the British Antarctic Survey say that the Pine Island Glacier - famous as a possible major cause of global-warming-powered sea level rises - was melting just as fast thousands of years ago as it is melting today. “This paper [just published] is part of a wide range of international scientific efforts to understand the behaviour of this important glacier," explains Professor Mike Bentley, one of the leaders of a BAS effort to find out what's going on with the PIG. "The results are clear in showing a remarkably abrupt thinning of the glacier 8000 years ago," adds...

Many times, a given issue is defined by the rhetoric used to describe it. Its importance is determined by how well said rhetoric is accepted by the news media and the American people. Global warming, ie. climate change, is no different. The rhetoric abounds. Secretary of State John Kerry described those of us who disagree with the disproved theory that global warming and climate change are the greatest threats we face as akin to those who believe the earth was flat. As it is with almost every issue championed by the liberals, radical action is called for, if we are...

UPDATE: it seems the language was lifted from a “Skeptical Science” web page, see below. Steve McIntyre had a busy day yesterday. While yesterday there was an incorrect story called “Michael Mann Faces Bankruptcy as his Courtroom Climate Capers Collapse“ being pushed by John O’Sullivan at Principia Scientific International (aka PSI and The Slayers) claiming Dr. Tim Ball had defeated Mann’s lawsuit, Ball confirms through communications with McIntyre yesterday that while stalled, Mann’s lawsuit is still very much on. Also, for those who don’t know, we’ve heard that Dr. Mann’s legal bills are being paid by the Climate Science Legal...

Handing out his awards for "sustainability" at Buckingham Palace the other day, the Prince of Wales made a few remarks about "climate change" and attacked "powerful groups of deniers" as a "headless-chicken brigade" ignoring the scientific evidence. It's pretty funny to be called a "headless chicken" by a guy who runs around saying the sky is falling. In 2009 His Royal Highness gave a speech saying we had only 96 months left to save the planet. Ninety-six months? That would be July 2017 — which is only three and a half years off. On the other hand, it's almost twice...

Massive counterclaims, in excess of $10 million, have just been filed against climate scientist Michael Mann after lawyers affirmed that the former golden boy of global warming alarmism had sensationally failed in his exasperating three-year bid to sue skeptic Canadian climatologist, Tim Ball. Door now wide open for criminal investigation into Climategate conspiracy.Mann arrest photo Buoyed by Dr Ball's successes, journalist and free-speech defender, Mark Steyn has promptly decided to likewise countersue Michael Mann for $10 million in response to a similar SLAPP suit filed by the litigious professor from Penn. State University against not just Steyn, but also the...

Left-wing activist turned CNN host Van Jones ran to John Kerry's defense on Wednesday's Crossfire, after co-host Newt Gingrich slammed Kerry as "delusional" for recently hyping climate change as "the world's most fearsome weapon of mass destruction." Jones retorted, "It's not delusional to focus on climate disruption. It's delusional not to." Moments earlier, the former Obama green jobs czar himself made a doom-and-gloom prediction about the hypothetical effects of what he labeled "climate disruption:" [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump](VIDEO-AT-LINK)VAN JONES: Now, here's a good question: should serious people focus on global political instability – terrorism, failing states,...

Former NASA scientist Dr. Roy Spencer is sick of being labeled a global warming ‘denier’ by politicians and environmentalists. So sick of it, in fact, that he’s going to start calling detractors “global warming Nazis” until he is no longer called a “denier.”