Free Republic

President Barack Obama kicked off a campaign to promote new restrictions on U.S. power plant emissions on Saturday by tying the fight against climate change with efforts to promote better health for children and the elderly. In his weekly radio address, Obama said the United States had to do more to reduce carbon emissions so that children suffering from asthma and other related ailments did not face further problems as a result of polluted air. Obama said the new guidelines would reduce smog and soot that threaten vulnerable populations such as the young and the aged and he said up...

What is the origin of the false belief—constantly repeated—that almost all scientists agree about global warming?Last week Secretary of State John Kerry warned graduating students at Boston College of the "crippling consequences" of climate change. "Ninety-seven percent of the world's scientists," he added, "tell us this is urgent." Where did Mr. Kerry get the 97% figure? Perhaps from his boss, President Obama, who tweeted on May 16 that "Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #climate change is real, man-made and dangerous." Or maybe from NASA, which posted (in more measured language) on its website, "Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that...

The war on climate change may soon be moving inside the kitchen. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy is set to unveil on Tuesday six federal grants to universities to fund research on clean cookstove technology. The announcement will put the EPA’s resources squarely behind a United Nations’ quest for cleaner burning stoves and an end to deadly cooking pollution. “This research will help to improve air quality, protect public health and slow climate change,” the EPA said in explaining why the agency chief will preside over the announcement on Tuesday. To make the case for why these grants are...

Studies warning of an Antarctic ice sheet collapse. A wildfire season that could shatter records. Shellfish eaten away by oceans turned more acidic due to greenhouse gases. U.N. and U.S. reports stating that climate change is advancing more quickly. Everyone gets down about their work from time to time, but for environmentalists, they can sometimes quite literally be dealing with the end of the world as we know it. “It’s hard to stay perky when scientists conclude that tragedy, such as the loss of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, is inevitable,” says Denis Hayes, a veteran activist who co-founded Earth...

Taxpayers paid more than $5 million to create climate change games, including voicemails from the future warning that “neo-luddites” will kill global warming enthusiasts by 2035. Columbia University’s Climate Center has received $5.7 million from the National Science Foundation for the university’s “PoLAR Climate Change Education Partnership,” to “engage adult learners and inform public understanding and response to climate change.” Based on the theory that games “motivate exploration and learning of complex material,” the school created “Future Coast,” a website that features hundreds of made up voicemails painting a dire picture of the future as a result of climate change....

Climate change threatens to undermine not only how much food can be grown but also the quality of that food as altered weather patterns lead to a less desirable harvest, according to a new study. Crops grown by many of the nation's farmers have a lower nutritional content than they once did, according to the report by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Research indicates that higher carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have reduced the protein content in wheat.

More than 40 members of Congress will hold a climate rally at the Capitol Wednesday afternoon, part of a drum roll to the Obama administration’s impending rule to tighten emissions on existing coal-fired power plants, a major source of carbon pollution. The rally is drawing an unusual number of Democrats who are following Obama’s lead on climate change, despite serious election-year hazards that could cost the party control of the Senate. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco will lead the rally’s House contingent, which will also include Bay Area Democrats Barbara Lee of Oakland, Jackie Speier of San Mateo...

In a "wake-up call," climate change scientists contend rising seas endanger America's newest and oldest landmarks such as the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral and the first English colony at Virginia's Jamestown, portending a new century of disasters if Americans don't act. Listing 30 at-risk sites, the Union of Concerned Scientists notes how heritage sites such as Liberty and Ellis Islands have already prepared themselves for "human-induced climate change." But many historic treasures from Florida to Hawaii will be imperiled in the 21st century to bigger oceans and more wildfires and floods, the group asserted.

A group of independent scientists, economists, and meteorologists has issued a pointed response to the scientific foundation of the Obama administration's claims that humans are drastically changing the climate by burning fossil fuels. With expertise in multiple disciplines, including climate research, weather modeling, physics, geology, statistical analysis, engineering, and economics, the 15 signers make the case that the foundation of the White House National Climate Assessment (NCA) is a "masterpiece of marketing" that crumbles like a "house of cards" under the weight of real-world evidence.

... For insurers, it’s not about the political machinations but rather, it’s about the potential economic losses. If even part of the predictions hold — the ones released by the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change that ascribe temperature change to humans with 95 percent certainty — then the rate of extreme weather events will only increase and the effects would be more severe. That, in turn, would lead to greater damages and more payouts. Meantime, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services just issued a report saying that the credit ratings of sovereign countries would be affected by global warming. It pointed...

... Think of it this way: Once upon a time it was possible to take climate change seriously while remaining a Republican in good standing. Today, listening to climate scientists gets you excommunicated - hence Rubio's statement, which was effectively a partisan pledge of allegiance. And truly crazy positions are becoming the norm. A decade ago, only the GOP's extremist fringe asserted that global warming was a hoax concocted by a vast global conspiracy of scientists (although even then that fringe included some powerful politicians). Today, such conspiracy theorizing is mainstream within the party, and rapidly becoming mandatory; witch hunts...

Global Warming: A noted researcher who questioned the climate's sensitivity to greenhouse gases says his paper is not being published for ideological reasons and because it might fuel doubt in the climate change story. First the climate change zealots tried to manipulate the data. Now they are trying to control the debate they claim is over. It's not over, though, and the science is not settled as true science never is. But those, such as Swedish climate scientist Lennart Bengtsson, who dare to challenge the climate change orthodoxy are being silenced in an organized campaign.

The fallout from the new government’s budget is still being seen in Australia, but it is already obvious that climate change is a loser when it comes to funding. The budgetary facts are inescapably grim for researchers and scientists based in renewable energies and research. The funding for all government programs related to climate change is set to shrink at an alarming rate, going from $5.75 billion this year to a scant $500 million in the next four years.

A major insurance company is accusing dozens of localities in Illinois of failing to prepare for severe rains and flooding in lawsuits that are the first in what could be a wave of litigation over who should be liable for the possible costs of climate change. Farmers Insurance filed nine class actions last month against nearly 200 communities in the Chicago area. It is arguing that local governments should have known rising global temperatures would lead to heavier rains and did not do enough to fortify their sewers and stormwater drains. The legal debate may center on whether an uptick...

Scientists have warned about climate change and its consequences for decades. Now, the military is taking a stand. “I think the days of isolation are over,” Donald Hoffman, a retired four-star general in the Air Force, said yesterday during a Columbus Metropolitan Club panel discussion. “We will be pulled into things ... because it’s the right thing to do and there’s no one else to do them.” Hoffman is one of 16 retired military leaders who contributed to a report on climate change and national security that was released this week. “The one thing we didn’t get right was the...

What keeps you up at night? That’s the question economist Gary Yohe, one of the architects behind the White House’s 2014 Climate Assessment report, posed to several of his co-authors during a May 6 panel in Washington D.C. Unsurprisingly, the assembled team of climate experts and other academics had no lack of answers, ranging from the possibility of more extreme weather events to the risk of climate-induced mental health degradation. But what keeps Iowa State University climate scientist Gene Wanker up at night is what climate change could do to one of humanity’s most basic needs. “I worry about food...

Kerry to warn of climate threats to national security in speech By Laura Barron-Lopez - 05/14/14 11:43 AM EDT Secretary of State John Kerry plans to give a major speech on the connection between climate change and national security this summer. In an interview with the New York Times, Kerry said the speech would also be an opportunity to build political support for President Obama's climate agenda. “We’re going to try to lay out to people legitimate options for action that are not bank-breaking or negative," Kerry said. A central part of that agenda are regulations to curb carbon emissions...

A slow-motion and irreversible collapse of a massive cluster of glaciers in Antarctica has begun, and could cause sea levels to rise across the planet by another 4 feet within 200 years, scientists concluded in two studies released Monday. Researchers had previously estimated that the cluster in the Amundsen Sea region of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would last for thousands of years despite global climate change. But the new studies found that the loss is underway now as warming ocean water melts away the base of the ice shelf, and is occurring far more rapidly than scientists expected.

Replacing fossil fuels with renewables as the world’s primary source of energy will not only save the planet from dangerous levels of warming – it will also save the global economy US$ 71trillion by 2050. This is the finding of a report, Energy Technology Perspectives 2014, released today by the International Energy Agency, which looks at the direction of the energy sector over the next 40 years. The changes needed to keep the world within 2C of warming— a widely agreed target in efforts to tackle climate change – will benefit the global economy, confirms the report, although a “coordinated...

When a team of researchers from the University of Delaware traveled to Africa two years ago to search for exemplary chickens, they weren't looking for plump thighs or delicious eggs. They were seeking out birds that could survive a hotter planet. The researchers were in the vanguard of food scientists, backed by millions of dollars from the federal government, racing to develop new breeds of farm animals that can stand up to the hazards of global warming.