Free Republic

Pesident Obama’s second term in office has been lacking in big achievements. Background checks for gun purchases didn’t make it through the Senate. Immigration reform isn’t becoming law this Congress, though the president is expected to take executive action on this front. And just last week, Obama’s party took a major drubbing in the midterm elections. But there is one potential second-term achievement that’s taking more and more shape -- on climate change. The big question, however, is whether Obama can keep it. Late last night, the United States and China announced they had “negotiated a sweeping agreement to cut...

“A few more decades of ungoverned fossil-fuel use and we burn up, to put it bluntly.” — Bill McKibben, leading environmental activist, 1989 I came across this quote, along with many others of comparable value, while reading Alex Epstein’s just-published book, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels. But Epstein’s book is much more than a fantastic collection of such delightfully mad environmentalist pronouncements — although that part alone is worth the purchase price. Rather, what Epstein presents is a powerful, systematic, and relentlessly logical philosophical case for the moral value of the fossil-fuel industry, and the fundamentally immoral basis...

The Obama administration is set to roll out a series of climate and pollution measures that rivals any president’s environmental actions of the past quarter-century — a reality check for Republicans who think last week’s election gave them a mandate to end what they call the White House’s “War on Coal.” Tied to court-ordered deadlines, legal mandates and international climate talks, the efforts scheduled for the next two months show that President Barack Obama is prepared to spend the remainder of his term unleashing sweeping executive actions to combat global warming. And incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will have...

With the spectacular cold event now spreading over much of the contiguous U.S. (and still expected to bring 30 below zero temperatures in Yellowstone Lake, WY tomorrow morning) the snow forecast for the next 8 days shows only 6 states that should miss snow (graphics courtesy of Weatherbell.com, click for full-size):

Bloomberg article, so just a link.

One of the greatest inanities that occurs in the climate wars is the claim that skeptics are lavishly funded by “big oil” or other political interests. t is a claim that is made multiple times daily and blogs and newspaper articles and magazine articles and yet where is the evidence that such a thing is a reality? I’m often targeted as being in the pay of one of those interest and yet when you look at my reality I had to beg for help to get to Bristol, to visit the Mann and Cook lectures. I relied on the good...

It's finally happening. The time of the Cruz-pocolypse is nigh. We tried to pretend it wasn't going to happen. After all, the Republicans gained control of both the House and the Senate and there was talk that Congress might actually do things going forward, instead of just constantly fighting. That would mean that everyone, even Sen. Ted Cruz, would have to stop yammering, sit down and actually do some legislating. But then we read some tea leaves and examined the astrological signs and all the other harbingers and forced ourselves to face the inevitable: Cruz isn't going to slide back...

**SNIP** Dr. Schuiling’s idea is one of several intended to reduce levels of CO2, the main greenhouse gas, so the atmosphere will trap less heat. Other approaches, potentially faster and more doable but riskier, would create the equivalent of a sunshade around the planet by scattering reflective droplets in the stratosphere or spraying seawater to create more clouds over the oceans. Less sunlight reaching the earth’s surface would mean less heat to be trapped, resulting in a quick lowering of temperatures. No one can say for sure whether geoengineering of any kind would work. And many of the approaches are...

Gullible journalists are swooning today with more and glorious prophesies of disaster.This from the team that relies on simulations that not only fail on global scales1, but they can’t predict regional2, local3, short term, continental, or polar effects4 either. They are also wrong about humidity5, rainfall6a,6b,6c, drought7 and clouds8, as well as the all-important upper tropospheric patterns too.9, 10 Speaking to the BBC earlier, Dr Pachaudri said today’s announcement was, categorically, the “strongest, most robust and most comprehensive” document that the IPCC has produced.  — BBC They are robustly, comprehensively, and consistently wrong.  But it’s OK, they only want 0.06%...

Climate Sensitivity and Droughts: Landscape Changes and Ocean Oscillations vs CO2On October 15, 2014 in Berkeley CA, I was invited to speak to the LIfe Members of the International Electrical and Electronic Engineers and speak about my insights to climate change as presented in my book Landscapes and Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism.Here, the first 2 parts of a 4 part presentation can be viewed via Youtube. I’d greatly appreciate all feedback, good and bad, as I prepare for a few future talks.Part 1: Climate Sensitivity and Drought: Landscape Changes vs CO2www.youtube.com This segment discusses my personal...

I was hoping to find a ping list for us heretical climate deniers. Does one exist?

Election results? We don’t need no stinkin’ election results. If Barack Obama sounded defiant — as well as out of touch with reality — in his post-election press conference, the rest of Democratic leadership hardly sounds any more aware. Nancy Pelosi signaled full steam ahead for another term as leader of the House Democratic caucus, but Politico reports that some members wonder when Pelosi and her clique will take a hint from voters … but probably not enough of them to matter: No Democrat is gearing up to challenge Nancy Pelosi in public, but behind the scenes some Democrats are...

Venezuela is hosting a meeting that's meant to be a unique chance for environmental activists from around the world to talk. But the conference has been marred by logistical mishaps. And some groups say they're concerned the host government is using the meeting as a platform for anti-capitalist decrees. A last-minute change in venue forced participants to scramble. That led several would-be participants to drop out, including White House climate envoy Todd Stern.

The GOP's Senate takeover means the chamber's leadership positions will be filled with Republicans next year. That's bad news for the environment: The Senate’s worst climate change denier, James Inhofe of Oklahoma, will likely chair the Environment and Public Works Committee. But it's also bad news for science: Texas Senator Ted Cruz, another climate denier, may be next-in-line to become chair of the Subcommittee on Science and Space, which oversees agencies like the National Science Foundation, NASA, and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. In a February interview with CNN, Cruz said he doesn’t think the Earth...

There are many reasons to celebrate the Republican party surge in the US mid-term elections but for me they boil down to two words: "Tom" and "Steyer." If you had to pick one person who embodied everything that is most irritating and wrong about the Obama administration - the Solyndra-style crony capitalism, the war on free markets, small business and cheap energy, the hypocrisy, the injustice, the dogged pursuit of suicidal leftist causes - then liberal billionaire Tom Steyer is your man. And this is what is so good about the US mid-term results. Not only did they personally cost...

Alex Sosnowski November 5, 2014 The atmosphere is preparing to send part of the polar vortex southward toward the US next week with an outbreak of arctic air and lake-effect snow. The polar vortex is a large pocket of very cold air, typically the coldest air in the Northern Hemisphere, which sits over the polar region. Occasionally, this pocket of very cold air can get dislodged farther south than normal, leading to cold outbreaks in Canada and the US. The main blast of cold air associated with the plunging polar vortex will swing southeastward into the Central and Eastern states...

On Tuesday night, Republicans won big: They picked up governorships in blue states like Maryland, Massachusetts, and Illinois, and they held House seats in competitive districts with embarrassing incumbents like Michael Grimm of New York, who physically threatened a reporter and is under indictment for tax evasion. But their biggest win by far was taking control of the U.S. Senate. As of this writing, Republicans had already secured 52 Senate seats, thanks to knocking off Democratic incumbents or replacing retiring Democrats in Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Montana, North Carolina, South Dakota, and West Virginia. Another GOP pick up is probable in...

Climate change is real, predominantly man-made and more urgent a threat than ever before, claims the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "Science has spoken. There is no ambiguity in their message. Leaders must act. Time is not on our side," said the UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon at the launch of the report yesterday in Copenhagen, Denmark. "Those who choose to ignore or dispute the science so clearly laid out in this report do so at great risk for all of us and for our kids and grandkids," said US Secretary of State, John Kerry. What...

Despite millions spent to make climate change a wedge issue during the midterms, environmentally friendly candidates didn’t fare well on Election Day. Green groups funneled an unprecedented amount of money into top Senate races that determined control of the upper chamber but fell short. The nation’s top environmental groups including the League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and billionaire Tom Steyer’s NextGen Climate spent at least $85 million on six Senate races. Out of those six races, only two candidates willing to take action on climate change won their races....

Sen. James M. Inhofe, an the Oklahoma Republican who once compared the Environmental Protection Agency to the gestapo, is likely to lead the Environment and Public Works Committee when the GOP takes control of the Senate next year. If approved, Inhofe would replace Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), an avowed environmentalist, producing one of the most stark post-election changes in the Capitol. Committee assignments will not be made until Senate party caucuses meet in Washington after the election recess. Inhofe, who has served in the Senate for two decades, is an iconic figure to both environmental and energy lobbyists. He chaired...