Free Republic

Germany will pull the plug on three of its last six nuclear power stations on Friday, another step towards completing its withdrawal from nuclear power as it turns its focus to renewables. The government decided to speed up its phasing out of nuclear power following Japan's Fukushima reactor meltdown in 2011 when an earthquake and tsunami destroyed the coastal plant in the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl 25 years earlier. The reactors of Brokdorf, Grohnde and Gundremmingen C, run by utilities E.ON and RWE, will be shut down on Friday after three-and-a-half decades in operation. The last three nuclear...

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — If you have any gas-powered gardening tools, you may be forced to give them up soon. California is considering a statewide ban on the equipment. At least 60 cities in California have some kind of ban on gas-powered garden tools, but now state regulators are concerned about the impacts these tools could be having on the environment.

Summer travel season is officially underway. For many Americans that means road trips in the car or heading to the nearest airport to catch a flight. According to AAA, nearly 50 million Americans had plans to travel for Independence Day, and with several weeks until Labor Day the number of travelers is likely to remain high. Whether it’s a road trip or plane ride, travel during this time of year is a great reminder of how North American energy helps make efficient and easy travel possible for so many of us. Having reliable sources of safe, affordable energy sources here in...

The White House on Monday rolled out a new plan that would allow higher blends of ethanol in vehicle fuels, amid concerns that the change could lead to more air pollution. The administration’s memo calls to extend the sale of E15 -- consisting of 15 percent of ethanol blended into gasoline -- year round. The fuel was blocked between June 1 and Sept. 15, as science shows burning ethanol in warmer temperature leads to heightened ground-level ozone pollution and smog. A senior White House official said the plan was part of President Trump’s free market plan. “This action is basically...

A group of female activists in Oaxaca, Mexico, held a mass marriage ceremony where they each wed their own splintery groom to draw attention to illegal logging – a serious and devastating problem in the country. Around a third of Mexico’s land is covered by forest. Oaxaca is one of five states hit hardest by deforestation, mostly caused by criminal groups, Metro reports. The women are trying to take a stand against the practice and are hoping the mass marriage will get people more involved with saving the woodlands.|

The U.S. Marine Corps plans to spend $50 million moving some 1,100 turtles from its training base at Twentynine Palms, Calif., or about $45,454 each. The program includes a 30-year assessment of their efforts to monitor the desert tortoises that are listed as threatened under federal law.According to Marine Corps Times, the tortoises live on a section of the base that is to be used for training. The newspaper noted that the cost is half the price if an F-35B vertical takeoff jet.

Environmentalists have declared that global warming can’t be stopped without ending the “hegemonic capitalist system,” saying that cap-and-trade systems and conservation efforts are “false solutions.” “The structural causes of climate change are linked to the current capitalist hegemonic system,” reads the final draft of the Margarita Declaration, presented at a conference including about 130 environmental groups. “To combat climate change it is necessary to change the system,” the declaration adds. Environmental activists met in the oil producing, socialist country of Venezuela as part of a United Nations-backed event to increase civil engagement in the lead up to a major climate...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) A coalition of environmental groups is going after Iowa state Sen. Joni Ernst (R), tying her to former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) and Charles and David Koch in a new ad. The League of Conservation Voters, Sierra Club and Environmental Defense Fund are backing the spot, part of a planned $1 million push to help elect Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Iowa) to the Senate. The ad features footage of Palin's endorsement of Ernst during the primary, before attacking Ernst for her calls to shut down the Department of Education and abolish the Environmental Protection Agency. "That's why extremist Sarah...

A Greenpeace campaigner claims he was forced to live on bread and water while being held in a Russian prison because it didn't offer a vegetarian alternative. Antony Perrett arrived home yesterday after spending two months in prisons in Murmansk and St Petersburg for trying to hang a climate change banner on an oil rig. The former town councillor is one a group of environmental activists known as the Arctic 30 who were being held in Russia on hooliganism charges. Since being released under a new amnesty law, the 33-year-old has revealed he refused to eat some of the food...

MADISON – Gov. Scott Walker delivered a sternly worded statement Friday, demanding that environmental “extremists” disrupting preliminary work at a proposed northern Wisconsin mine site and destroying private property be held responsible for their actions. “These extremists – who are disrupting work and causing harm to law-abiding employees – should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Walker said of incidents last month. No More: Gov. Scott Walker on Friday said he wants protesters who disrupted and threatened workers at a proposed mine site to be “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” The governor, who is...

Normally when I see somebody upset with the EPA, it’s because they’re shoving their regulatory boot down on the throat of somebody else. That’s why it came as something of a surprise to learn that the agency may be facing a lawsuit from a coalition of very blue states. What on Earth, I wondered, might the EPA have done to these guys? Nothing, as it turns out, and that’s why they’re upset. The EPA has, in the opinion of the complainants, dragging its heels on ramming through new energy production standards which will effectively exterminate construction of any new coal...

The vast swirl of plastic waste floating in the North Pacific has grown 100-fold over the last 40 years, according to a research paper published Wednesday. And scientists warned the killer soup of microplastic -- particles smaller than five millimetres (one inch) -- threatened to alter the open ocean's natural environment. In the period 1972 to 1987, no microplastic was found in the majority of samples taken for testing, said the paper in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters. Today, scientists estimate the swirling mass of waste known as the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (NPSG) or the Great Pacific Garbage...

On the tenth anniversary of 9/11, P.J. O’Rourke described the mass murder as “an act of idealism.” Not idealism as we colloquially use the term to refer to the ability to place other values over one’s immediate self-interest, but rather “the concept that mankind and society could and should be perfected.” That vision of a perfected society causes O’Rourke’s idealists to ignore the human costs of the coercion required to create their ideal society. The 9/11 hijackers were driven by an older theological vision of a world-wide caliphate under the harmonious rule of Sharia. But most modern idealists derive their...

Legal documents indicate the Port of St. Helens is talking with a coal export terminal developer, the first sign that Oregon could be in the mix to export coal to meet ever-growing Asian demand. Evidence of Port of St. Helens interest in coal stems from a complaint filed by Columbia Riverkeeper, which opposes coal export, asking a judge to require the port to release coal-related documents. ... The activity has caught the attention of Gov. John Kitzhaber, a Democrat with strong backing from environmental groups. In a statement to The Oregonian Tuesday, Kitzhaber stopped short of taking a position on...

Earth Hour: A Dissent Ross McKitrick In 2009 I was asked by a journalist for my thoughts on the importance of Earth Hour. Here is my response. I abhor Earth Hour. Abundant, cheap electricity has been the greatest source of human liberation in the 20th century. Every material social advance in the 20th century depended on the proliferation of inexpensive and reliable electricity. Giving women the freedom to work outside the home depended on the availability of electrical appliances that free up time from domestic chores. Getting children out of menial labour and into schools depended on the same thing,...

One of the most embarrassing environmental facts of the 1930s was that between 60% and 70% of the German greens were Nazi Party members, compared to only 10% of the population at large. In fact, German greens outperformed even medical doctors and teachers, with Nazi foresters and veterinarians leading the charge. Somehow, the so-called independent German wandervogels (German word for "wandering free spirits") found themselves at the footstool of Der Führer. Their wandervogel attitudes about civilization and the wild forestlands found a political niche in the isolationist biology of the Nazi Party. Furthermore, their strong beliefs in holism found a...

Dear All: The local enviro-nazis in the Klamath Basin (southern OR, northern CA) are attempting to tear down 4 perfectly good dams on the Klamath River and have the power generation replaced with solar, simply because dams are displeasing to these folks. The local news is running a poll at http://www.localnewscomesfirst.com (lower right-hand corner of the screen) and the enviro side is winning. PLEASE PLEASE help turn the numbers our direction. Please vote against dam removal. It will destroy this region. Thanks.

Climate Change: As scientists confirm the earth has not warmed at all in the past decade, others wonder how this could be and what it means for Copenhagen. Maybe Al Gore can Photoshop something before December. It will be a very cold winter of discontent for the warm-mongers. The climate show-and-tell in Copenhagen next month will be nothing more than a meaningless carbon-emitting jaunt, unable to decide just whom to blame or how to divvy up the profitable spoils of climate change hysteria. The collapse of the talks coupled with the decision by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to put...

An environmental group is seeking to stop three logging projects on several thousand acres in northwest Montana, arguing that the timber sales would harm the area's fledgling grizzly bear population. The Alliance for the Wild Rockies filed a federal lawsuit Monday to block the projects in the Kootenai National Forest, which are designed in part to reduce fire danger and provide commercial logging opportunities.

LONDON (Reuters) - Organic food has no nutritional or health benefits over ordinary food, according to a major study published Wednesday. Researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said consumers were paying higher prices for organic food because of its perceived health benefits, creating a global organic market worth an estimated $48 billion in 2007. A systematic review of 162 scientific papers published in the scientific literature over the last 50 years, however, found there was no significant difference. "A small number of differences in nutrient content were found to exist between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs,...