Free Republic

The presence of John D. Podesta, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and now counselor to President Obama, at the recent United States-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Beijing was a surprise. He is not a China expert. But the Chinese like old hands, aides with proximity to the Oval Office, and Mr. Podesta fills that bill. In addition, Mr. Podesta is passionate about climate change. He returned to the White House this year to help Mr. Obama fulfill his ambitious agenda to reduce coal consumption in the United States, and to shape a new global climate treaty...

The Earth got its annual checkup, and according to climate scientists around the globe, it looks as though its fever is continuing to rise. NOAA released the 24th annual State of the Climate report, on July 17 2014, including data compiled by 425 scientists in 57 countries. According to Thomas Karl, director of NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, "The climate is changing more rapidly in today's world than at any time in modern civilization." When asked how he would rate the health of the planet, he compared it to how a person might look at unwanted weight gain over time....

MISSOULA, Mont. — President Obama will announce a series of climate change initiatives on Wednesday. The actions, involving a variety of federal agencies, were among the recommendations of the president’s State, Local and Tribal Leaders Task Force on Climate Preparedness, a group of 26 officials who have worked since November to develop the proposals. One of the projects involves shoring up the power supply during climate catastrophes, and the Department of Agriculture on Wednesday will award $236.3 million. The United States Geological Survey and other federal agencies will spend $13.1 million to develop advanced three-dimensional mapping data. The new initiatives...

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — John Christy, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama here, says he remembers the morning he spotted a well-known colleague at a gathering of climate experts. “I walked over and held out my hand to greet him,” Dr. Christy recalled. “He looked me in the eye and he said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘Come on, shake hands with me.’ And he said, ‘No.'  ” Dr. Christy is an outlier on what the vast majority of his colleagues consider to be a matter of consensus: that global warming is both settled science and a dire threat. He...

People who claim to worry about climate change use more electricity than those who do not, a Government study has found. Those who say they are concerned about the prospect of climate change consume more energy than those who say it is “too far into the future to worry about,” the study commissioned by the Department for Energy and Climate Change found. That is in part due to age, as people over 65 are more frugal with electricity but much less concerned about global warming. However, even when pensioners are discounted, there is only a “weak trend” to show that...

A top federal wildlife official said there's too much uncertainty about climate change to prove it threatens the snow-loving wolverine — overruling agency scientists who warned of impending habitat loss for the so-called "mountain devil." There's no doubt that the high-elevation range of wolverines is getting warmer, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Regional Director Noreen Walsh said. But any assumption about how that will change snowfall patterns is "speculation," Walsh said. She told her staff to prepare to withdraw a proposal to protect the animals under the Endangered Species Act. Walsh's comments were contained in a May 30 memo obtained...

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s most accurate, up-to-date temperature data confirm the United States has been cooling for at least the past decade. The NOAA temperature data are driving a stake through the heart of alarmists claiming accelerating global warming. Responding to widespread criticism that its temperature station readings were corrupted by poor siting issues and suspect adjustments, NOAA established a network of 114 pristinely sited temperature stations spread out fairly uniformly throughout the United States. Because the network, known as the U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN), is so uniformly and pristinely situated, the temperature data require no adjustments...

Penguins are on the front line of climate change, as rising global temperatures melt the ice the iconic and lovable creatures call home. Scientists who count the birds are finding that penguins are beginning to feel major impacts from the drastic changes to their habitat. But, perhaps surprisingly, the breeding populations of three brush-tailed species of penguins inhabiting the Western Antarctic Peninsula, where the temperatures are warmest, are not all falling as the ice is quickly melting.

A study sponsored by the American Psychological Association and ecoAmerica warns that climate change, including an expected increase in the global mean temperature, will cause increased “ecoanxiety” resulting in severe psychological and sociological consequences. The study, Beyond Storms and Droughts: The Psychological Impacts of Climate Change, led by College of Wooster psychologist Susan Clayton, warns that “we can expect a likely increase in mental health-related symptoms and conditions as a result of climate change.” Communities at risk include those with high levels of poverty, lower education levels, large populations of older adults, children and infants, disabled people, recently arrived immigrants,...

Climate change is happening in America’s national parks, and in some cases in rapid and concerning ways, says a new report authored by the National Park Service. The changes will have implications for what visitors see and experience and will require new approaches to the protection of natural and historic resources within parks, the report says. “This report shows that climate change continues to be the most far-reaching and consequential challenge ever faced by our national parks,” says National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis. “Our national parks can serve as places where we can monitor and document ecosystem change without...

Physics professor and climate change expert Dr. Christopher Keating is offering a $30,000 reward to anyone who can disprove that man-made climate change is real. Keating, a professor of two decades at the University of South Dakota and U.S. Naval Academy, has challenged climate change skeptics to prove that man-made global warming is not real. Keating is prepared to offer $30,000 of his own money for the “Global Warming Skeptic Challenge,” which has an application deadline of July 31. “I have heard global warming skeptics make all sorts of statements about how the science doesn’t support claims of man-made climate...

A recent NAACP Texas State Conference report declares energy and climate change as civil rights issues. The report assesses energy policy in the State of Texas from a civil rights lens. In a statement, NAACP Texas President Gary Bledsoe said “The poisoning of Latino Americans and African Americans living in the shadows of oil refineries and coal fired power plants from Houston to San Antonio; the children who are flooding across our borders sent by hopeful parents who pray that these children will have better lives than their own as their crops dry up and their communities are destroyed by...

Climate change is happening, and with that will come more deaths from heat-related illness and disease, according to a report released Tuesday. The report, spearheaded and funded by investor and philanthropist Thomas Steyer, former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, examines many of the effects of climate change for business and individuals. "One of the most striking findings in our analysis is that increasing heat and humidity in some parts of the country could lead to outside conditions that are literally unbearable to humans, who must maintain a skin temperature below 95°F in order to...

Barack Obama has turned up the political heat on climate deniers, making fun of Republicans in Congress for catering to “a bunch of fringe elements”. In a speech to environmental activists in Washington, Obama suggested Republicans were playing dumb on climate change to avoid a backlash from ultra-conservative Tea Party elements. Republicans actually recognised climate change was real, Obama suggested, but were afraid to admit it in public. “They ducked the question and said 'Hey I'm not a scientist,' which really translates into 'I accept that manmade climate change is real but if I say so I will be run...

... The president mocked those who question the science behind climate change or the urgency of addressing the problem, which has emerged as a legacy issue for his presidency and a polarizing topic in November congressional elections. "In most communities and work places, et cetera, when you talk to folks, they may not know how big a problem, they may not know exactly how it works, they may doubt that we can do something about it, but generally they don’t just say, no, I don’t believe anything scientists say," he said, to laughter. He likened evidence that human activity causes...

Annual property losses from hurricanes and other coastal storms of $35 billion; a decline in crop yields of 14 percent, costing corn and wheat farmers tens of billions of dollars; heat wave-driven demand for electricity costing utility customers up to $12 billion per year. Commissioned by a group chaired by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Secretary of the Treasury and Goldman Sachs alum Henry Paulson, and environmentalist and financier Tom Steyer, the analysis "is the most detailed ever of the potential economic effects of climate change on the U.S.," said climatologist Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University.

THERE is a time for weighing evidence and a time for acting. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned throughout my work in finance, government and conservation, it is to act before problems become too big to manage. For too many years, we failed to rein in the excesses building up in the nation’s financial markets. When the credit bubble burst in 2008, the damage was devastating. Millions suffered. Many still do. We’re making the same mistake today with climate change. We’re staring down a climate bubble that poses enormous risks to both our environment and economy. The warning signs...

Junk Science: Without evidence to back up their claims, climate zealots have taken to intimidation. They're blacklisting academics who have the nerve to question the "settled science" of climate change. The latest victim of climate McCarthyism is Caleb Rossiter, who, until his op-ed challenging the "consensus" on climate change was published in the Wall Street Journal, was a Democratic academic who briefly forayed into politics but was content to crusade against U.S. support for dictators and against the use of anti-personnel land mines. In that op-ed, Rossiter called himself an "Africanist." He not only questioned the science behind climate change...

President Obama, appearing emboldened after his recent move to cut carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants, on Saturday ridiculed members of Congress who deny climate change or plead scientific ignorance as an alibi for avoiding an inconvenient truth. Speaking in gleefully sarcastic terms to a commencement ceremony at the University of California, Irvine, Mr. Obama likened those who deny climate change to people who would have told John F. Kennedy, at the dawn of the space program, that the moon “was made of cheese.” He saved his most scathing words for lawmakers who say they are not qualified to judge...

Major negative effects of climate change are here now and they're only getting worse. We've gathered some notable effects of climate change below. 1. Climate change will be insanely expensive. 2. Hundreds of millions of people may be displaced by 2050. 3. Dengue and malaria could spread in the U.S. 4. Western wildfires could burn up to eight times as much land by 2100. 5. An additional 8% of the world population will experience water scarcity by 2100. 6. Hurricanes could become up to 11% more intense and 20% wetter by 2100. 7. Four times as many New Yorkers could...