Free Republic

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) announced Thursday that he would pull out of a regional climate pact by the end of the year, delivering a political setback to the fledging effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming. In a news conference, Christie said the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a 2005 accord in which 10 states agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions from power plants 10 percent by 2018, would not be able to meet its goals. The program requires plants in the region that burn fossil fuels to buy pollution allowances for the carbon they...

In his weekly address Barack Obama told the country that green energy jobs are “the jobs of the future.” The president continued to push his green agenda this week. At least 7 oil rigs moved out of the Gulf area to other parts of the world since President Obama initiated his oil moratorium last year. Obama’s energy plan includes blocking domestic drilling here at home. According to international studies subsidizing renewable energy in the U.S. may destroy two jobs for every one created. A study by researchers at King Juan Carlos University in 2009 found that 2.2 jobs were destroyed...

Barack Obama: Clean energy will deliver the ‘jobs of the future’ By: MJ Lee May 7, 2011 09:22 AM EDT For the third weekend in a row, President Barack Obama used his weekly address to the nation on Saturday to promote his energy agenda, calling clean energy jobs the “jobs of the future.” Speaking from the Allison Transmission plant in Indianapolis, where he visited on Friday, Obama lauded the workers at the hybrid technology manufacturing company for doing “big and impressive things.” “The clean energy jobs at this plant are the jobs of the future – jobs that pay well...

At an age when most of his peers are worrying about driver's licenses and the SAT, Alec Loorz is tackling some weightier challenges. This week, for example, he's suing the U.S. government in an effort to fight climate change. And right after that, he'll lead what's being billed as a "Million Kid March" in 25 countries. "I think it's awesome," the 16-year-old environmental activist and founder of Kids vs. Global Warming said by phone from his home in Oak View. "We don't have political power. We don't have the money to compete with corporate lobbyists. We can't vote. All we...

Steven Chu, Obama's energy secretary, has called for higher and higher gas prices to force citizens to buy more fuel-efficient vehicles and live closer to work. "Somehow, we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe," Mr. Chu was quoted as promising. By the way, Mr. Chu's goal would equate to $7-$8 per gallon. Sure enough, the Obama administration has slowed down or stopped the future development of most of the vast U.S. energy reserves, onshore, offshore and in Alaska. That is despite the fact that the United States' oil shale deposits,...

Obama floats plan to tax cars by the mile By Pete Kasperowicz - 05/05/11 07:45 AM ET The Obama administration has floated a transportation authorization bill that would require the study and implementation of a plan to tax automobile drivers based on how many miles they drive. The plan is a part of the administration's "Transportation Opportunities Act," an undated draft of which was obtained this week by Transportation Weekly. This follows a March Congressional Budget Office report that supported the idea of taxing drivers based on miles driven. Among other things, CBO suggested that a vehicle miles traveled (VMT)...

A bill in Washington state would tax electric vehicle drivers for the gas they aren't using to power their cars. As Sarah Gardner reports, it's all about finding new ways to pay for growing budget deficits. An all-electric vehicle exhibited in Santa Monica JEREMY HOBSON: New legislation in Washington state has electric vehicle enthusiasts all charged up. But not in a good way. The bill would tax EV drivers for the gasoline they don't use. From the Sustainability Desk, Sarah Gardner reports. SARAH GARDNER: Gasoline taxes pay for road maintenance and repair. But cash-poor states are beginning to worry about...

Times of international turmoil are great moments for domestic governments to make important announcements they don’t want to be noticed. Especially if the announcement involves a sudden reversal in policy that could seriously embarrass the government. So Friday afternoon was an ideal time for Ontario’s Liberal government to take a big chunk of its alternative energy program and chuck it overboard. .. After years of touting wind projects as a critical piece of the alternative energy puzzle, the government let slip — very quietly — that offshore wind projects are no longer part of the game plan. Turns out there...

Rather than seeing WikiLeaks through the lens of morality or national security, let's look at it through an institutional lens. To those of you who've been reading this blog for a while, that may be second nature. But to the newcomers, let me explain what I mean. Perhaps the most basic economic institution is GDP. And unfortunately, it's also one of the most in need of radical institutional innovation. So at the Cancun climate talks, one country has already committed to updating it for the 21st century — by including the costs of environmental damage to make the numbers a...

Three Rutgers University scientists came to Trenton Tuesday to give Governor Christie a message: climate change is real, and it's man-made.  The State House forum, sponsored by several environmental groups, was held in response to Christie's recent comments at a Toms River town hall that he is skeptical that global warming results from human activity. "I've heard over 100 different arguments about why we shouldn’t accept global warming. They're all fallacious and I'd be happy to point out the errors in any of them," said Rutgers professor Alan Robock, a meteorologist.Responding to a question at the town hall last month,...

Three years after he led the charge to require consumers to ditch their comfortable old incandescent lights in favor of those twisty CFL bulbs, Rep. Fred Upton now wants to be the man to help undo that law as the next chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. That about-face is not unique among lawmakers looking to atone for stances they've taken over the past decade as they seek to gain top posts in a decidedly more conservative Republican Congress, but his reversal underscores how intent the GOP is on proving it has broken with past practices. "We have...

WASHINGTON — With energy legislation shelved in the United States and little hope for a global climate change agreement this year, some policy experts are proposing a novel approach to curbing global warming: including greenhouse gases under an existing and highly successful international treaty ratified more than 20 years ago. The treaty, the Montreal Protocol, was adopted in 1987 for a completely different purpose, to eliminate aerosols and other chemicals that were blowing a hole in the Earth’s protective ozone layer. But as the signers of the protocol convened the 22nd annual meeting in Bangkok on Monday, negotiators are considering...

Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) seeks the chairmanship of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee (CNSNews.com) – Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) may have some explaining to do to fellow GOP colleagues as he seeks the chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, given the incoming wave of new conservatives who may not appreciate some aspects of Upton's voting record.Upton joined with Rep. Jane Harman (D.-Calif.) in  2007 to co-author the legislation that effectively banned indoor incandescent light bulbs in the United States. In the last Congress, he an Harman teamed up again to offer new legislation that would extend the...

The military airlifted the suspected hijackers of the Arctic Sea and most of its Russian crew from Cape Verde to Moscow on Thursday, after the lumber freighter mysteriously vanished and reappeared in the Atlantic. Eleven of the 15 crew members arrived in Moscow, while the captain and three sailors remained on the ship, which was adrift about 200 nautical miles from the West African island nation of Cape Verde. Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said the freighter was sailing to the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk. The sailors and their suspected captors arrived in two separate Il-76 cargo jets at the...

(Reuters) - A German entrepreneur is bypassing a European Union ban on light bulbs of more than 60 watts by marketing his own brand as mini heaters.

South Korea's kimchi crisis has deepened, after the president was forced to step in amid fears that cabbage rustlers were descending on farms to steal the key ingredient in the nation's national dish. Kimchi is a fiery side-dish of pickled cabbage President Lee Myung-bak has this week ordered the government to block the price of staple foodstuffs from rising above international levels after the price of cabbage, which is used to make the fiery dish, increased sharply. "There is no reason for people on low incomes to purchase items that are necessary to daily life at higher prices than international...

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 15 (UPI) -- A California non-profit is urging sponsors to pull their ads from Fox News Channel, because of "a would-be assassin inspired by" Fox personality Glenn Beck. The Tides Foundation, which says it promotes human rights, justice, and a healthy, sustainable environment, has come in for frequent criticism on Beck's show. A suspect in a July 28 shootout with police, Byron Williams, told police in an affidavit he had intended to go to the Tides Foundation's office in San Francisco and kill founder and Chief Executive Officer Drummond Pike.

MOLALLA, Ore. -- A posting on a website that conveys information for the Animal Liberation Front says animal activists removed a large section of fencing at a deer farm at Molalla. The message says the raid last Saturday was intended to allow deer to escape into the surrounding forest. Owner Richard Bentley told KGW-TV he's raising 80 European Fallow deer for meat, but there were no animals on the land where the fence was cut. He wonders why animal activists would want to release tame deer during deer hunting season.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7awFypTnrOw

Tonight is the premier of this seasons "Whale Wars" where a fat guy takes a crew of volunteers thousands of miles into dangerous waters to make a big stink about the Japanese phony research whale killing. And what does he ever accomplish? Nothing, oh wait a second, I guess he just prompted Australia to take their best trading partner, Japan, to international court over the matter...... but he's stll fat! (s/)