Free Republic

Economists find bikers, motorcyclists and pedestrians are most at risk. (Inside Science) -- When gasoline prices fall or the economy grows, people may have more money to spend, but there can be an unexpected downside. Traffic fatalities often increase because additional drivers take to the roads. Now, economists have established that another seemingly auspicious occurrence has a dark side: nice weather. That's the surprising finding from a pair of economists, who investigated how climate change may affect traffic accident rates in the United States over the next century. In their analysis, the researchers predict that as the planet warms, there...

The developing world deserves reparations from wealthier nations as compensation for the harmful climate change effects that are mostly our fault. It's us who have tainted our global commons by emitting vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and us whose actions have led to extreme weather and other disasters in the world's most vulnerable regions. But a strictly financial mea culpa from rich nations won't be enough. Rich countries should also invest in geoengineering projects to provide solutions for those on the front lines of climate change: those who cannot afford to pay for more adaptive and resilient...

Scientists say cyclical changes in the Pacific Ocean have thrown Earth’s surface into what may be an unprecedented warming spurt, following a global warming slowdown that lasted about 15 years. While El Niño is being blamed for an outbreak of floods, storms and unseasonable temperatures across the planet, a much slower-moving cycle of the Pacific Ocean has also been playing a role in record-breaking warmth. The recent effects of both ocean cycles are being amplified by climate change. A 2014 flip was detected in the sluggish and elusive ocean cycle known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, or PDO, which also...

Oversight: A federal agency keeps stonewalling congressional efforts to access its internal communications. What's the problem here? If the agency's global warming claim was honestly arrived at, just turn over the documents.

Last month, we are told, the world enjoyed “its hottest March since records began in 1880”. This year, according to “US government scientists”, already bids to outrank 2014 as “the hottest ever”. The figures from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were based, like all the other three official surface temperature records on which the world’s scientists and politicians rely, on data compiled from a network of weather stations by NOAA’s Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN). But here there is a puzzle. These temperature records are not the only ones with official status. The other two, Remote Sensing...

More U.S. adults believe Fox News is a reliable source of information about climate change than believe President Barack Obama is, according to a new poll from St. Leo University. The March poll of 1,016 Americans found that 17 percent trust Fox News on climate change, while only 11 percent trust the president. Twenty-two percent of respondents said they trust print, online and broadcast media outlets, "such as CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, Associated Press, New York Times." Despite these poll results, Fox News and its hosts and commentators have received far more criticism for the accuracy of their climate change...

Another day, another attack on the integrity of the Harvard-Smithsonian astrophysicist Dr. Willie Soon, this time in the New York Times. I first became aware of Soon in 2009 when reading through the Climategate emails. One of them was a jocular suggestion by a warmist called Tom Wigley as to how best to smear Soon and his co-author Sallie Baliunas. Might be interesting to see how frequently Soon and Baliunas, individually, are cited (as astronomers). Are they any good in their own fields? Perhaps we could start referring to them as astrologers (excusable as…’oops, just a typo’). You might be...

When Science is Betrayed – and What Lessons We Should Learn By: Msgr. Charles PopeThere is a great reverence for science in our culture. On the one hand, rightly so. Science has made enormous strides that have changed life as we know it. Profound discoveries have eradicated diseases, improved health, increased the world’s food supply, led to a computer revolution, drawn us higher into outer space and deeper into inner space, revealed hidden mysteries of nature, and produced technologies unimaginable to even our recent ancestors.On the other hand, the reverence of science has tipped perhaps too far in the direction of a...

How can we believe in ‘global warming’ when the temperature records providing the ‘evidence’ for that warming cannot be trusted? It’s a big question – and one which many people, even on the sceptical side of the argument, are reluctant to ask.

Environmentalism: Re-upping on delusional climate-change fantasies, "Governor Moonbeam" asked in his inauguration speech Monday for the Golden State to meet half its energy needs with renewable energy by 2030. Gov. Jerry Brown, who leads the state that hosted Solyndra, embraces bird-chopping wind turbines and builds crispy critter-producing solar panel farms, is a leading advocate of renewable energy and environmental protection. As pollution from coal-fired plants and industries in China wafted across the Pacific, he took a deep breath at his fourth inauguration as the state's chief executive and doubled down on green energy's failed promise by tasking California to fight...

Junk Science: The high priests of the climate change religion decree in a recipe for global poverty that renewable energy must generate most of the world's electricity, with fossil fuels purged by the end of this century. In a report released in Copenhagen on Sunday that Secretary of State John Kerry has called "another canary in a coal mine," the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recycled its prophecies of doom. The document is titled "Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report." The "synthesis" refers to the report's being essentially the "greatest hits" of prior climate assessment reports that...

The unrestricted use of fossil fuels must end soon if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change. That is the central message of a stark new report from the UN-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC urges that by 2050, most of the world's electricity must - and can - be produced from low carbon sources. Fossil fuels, without carbon capture and storage (CCS), should be phased out "almost entirely" by 2100. It re-states many familiar positions: Warming is "unequivocal" and the human influence on climate is clear Since the 1950s the observed changes are unprecedented over decades...

As worsening drought and extreme weather devastate crops, you may begin seeing global warming when you open your fridge. According to David Lobell,deputy director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford University, “The general story is that agriculture is sensitive. It’s not the end of the world; but it will be a big enough deal to be worth our concern.” Lobell has already noticed the effect of climate change on some crops. For example, he says, yield data from corn and wheat production suggests that these two staples are already being negatively affected by the changing...

Wine and beer lovers face an uncertain future. While climate change is a distant consideration for many global businesses, grapes and grains are on the front line. The good news for those who like a tipple is that alcoholic drinks makers are among businesses leading the way in devising technology to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Experts say such mitigation and adaptation techniques are critical for a range of companies to prepare for a future that is hotter, drier and prone to extreme weather and consequences such as flooding.

For a good part of the year, the colorful rufous hummingbird can be spotted all over Portland. After nesting and breeding here in the summer and fall, these feisty hummers migrate some 2,000 miles southward to winter in Mexico. But over the next few decades, the tiny bird is expected to become increasingly rare in Portland. Climate change is likely to alter its travel plans, which include the longest annual migration of any hummingbird species. Its range is likely to shift northward, according to predictions in a new report from the National Audubon Society. The rufous, like hundreds of other...

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon on Monday released a report asserting decisively that climate change poses an immediate threat to national security, with increased risks from terrorism, infectious disease, global poverty and food shortages. It also predicted rising demand for military disaster responses as extreme weather creates more global humanitarian crises. The report lays out a road map to show how the military will adapt to rising sea levels, more violent storms and widespread droughts. The Defense Department will begin by integrating plans for climate change risks across all of its operations, from war games and strategic military planning situations to...

Fewer than half of American states are working to protect themselves from climate change, despite more detailed warnings from scientists that communities are already being damaged, according to a new online clearinghouse of states’ efforts compiled by the Georgetown Climate Center. Fourteen states have plans to prepare for the effects of climate change. California, New York and Maryland are among those that have made the greatest progress toward the dozens of goals their plans set forth, such as cutting statewide greenhouse gas emissions, improving infrastructure, securing water supplies, battling wildfires or coping with rising sea levels. Even those states have...

The world is warming. The beasts are dying en masse. The oceans are rising. The deserts are roasting. It's the survival of the fittest out there, guys. Who's going to win, evolutionarily speaking? Men or women? It turns out that warming temperatures may have a surprising gender bias—in favor of women. That's the conclusion of a team of Japanese researchers who have discovered a "statistically significant" association between climate change—including rising temperatures and extreme weather events—and the birth rates of boys and girls in Japan. Warmer temperatures have accompanied an increased proportion of female babies in the population, and a...

The rules put in place by the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency have dealt a severe blow to the economy of the Appalachian region. The most recent proposal could be the death knell if they are enacted. More than 500 active and retired coal miners from West Virginia and other parts of Appalachia delivered that message to Washington Tuesday. The protest is the most recent demonstration against the clean power rule which would change the rules for emissions on existing coal fired power plants in the United States. The rally, led by the United Mine Workers Union, called on the...

Environmental scientists want to introduce a new system to prove that adverse weather events are directly linked to climate change to counter global warming sceptics. Under the new plan, a heatwave or major storm will be linked scientifically to man made climate change immediately after the event to prevent critics from blaming it on natural variations in the weather. Scientists want to be able to provide proof of whether an event was caused by climate change within three day rather than the current system which can take up to a year. Experts claim that such a long wait for proof...