Free Republic

Climate Change: Channeling King Canute, G-8 leaders agree to wreck the world's economy, and ours, by pledging to prevent temperatures from rising more than 4 degrees by 2050. What if the Earth has other plans?Canute was the legendary king whose sycophantic followers praised his power and wisdom. He was The One of his time. He once stood on the shore and commanded the waves to halt. As the story goes, he was exercising his ego when in fact he was giving his followers a dose of reality — the power of man over nature is finite and inconsequential. We were...

Al Gore suggested the fight against climate change is comparable to that against the Nazis. Watch as Hannity takes a crack at Gore...

The recent decision by the House of Representatives to administer a cap-and-trade tax on carbon emissions is an example of an ill conceived and poorly thought out bill from the house. First of all, before even getting into the policy of it all, it is inconceivable to me that a group of people can justifiably understand and make decisions on a fifteen hundred-page document in only a few days. Under a cap-and-trade system, government sets a cap on the total amount of carbon that can be emitted nationally; companies then buy or sell permits to emit CO2. The cap gets...

Temperatures dropped to a record low in Prince Edward Island overnight Tuesday, with reports of frost throughout the province.Bob Robichaud, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, said that to his knowledge, frost has never been reported before in July in P.E.I. “That 3.8 we got last night kind of sticks out as being lower than some of the other records for anytime in early July,” Robichaud told CBC News on Wednesday. “So we’re looking at a significant event,” he said.

Alternative Energy: A government report says reliance on electric cars will do little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and may merely shift our dependence on foreign sources from one set of dictators to another..."If you are using coal-fired power plants, and half the country's electricity comes from coal-powered plants, are you just trading one greenhouse gas emitter for another?" asks Mark Gaffigan, co-author of the GAO report. The report itself notes: "Reductions in CO2 emissions depend on generating electricity used to charge the vehicles from lower-emission sources of energy."

Below is a simple explanation of what Cap and Trade is. It removes all of the administration propaganda and cuts to the heart of what is involved in a "Cap and Trade System". Emissions trading (or emission trading) is an administrative approach used to control pollution by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants. It is sometimes called cap and trade. A central authority (usually a government or international body) sets a limit or cap on the amount of a pollutant that can be emitted. Companies or other groups are issued emission permits and are required...

Henry Waxman is now saying the GOP is "rooting against the country" because of their opposition to Waxman-Markey and to the health care takeover...Waxman should understand that opposition to a job crippling energy tax and opposition to nationalized health care is not a personal vendetta against Obama. If denying Obama success means opposing those policies which I believe to be detrimental to American values and conservative priciples then I guess that's what I'm doing. But it's all about fighting for what I believe is a better path for the American economy and the American in general than a personal grievance...

Remember Nancy Pelosi standing in front of the House right before the vote? She was shrieking "Jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs!" As it turns out, and as we suspected, this bill will NOT create jobs. It will kill jobs. It will send jobs overseas. It will stop jobs from being created. If this bill was going to create so many jobs, why is there this provision to compensate people who will lose their jobs?.......We still need oil and gas in this country. Ethanol and wind won't cut it. The cap and trade legislation and the 2010 budget both work against those...

Vatican City, Jul 7, 2009 / 08:56 am (CNA).- Pope Benedict XVI's highly anticipated social encyclical, titled “Love in Truth,” takes on the complex issue of what the global economy should look like. In his analysis, real development can be achieved by seeking to convert individual people, and not the economy, which is only an instrument. The global financial crisis places on display the “pernicious effects of sin,” the Holy Father said as he began the third chapter of his new encyclical. At the root of the current meltdown, the Pope explained that he finds three false convictions: that man...

We wrote here about the Environmental Protection Agency's scuttling of a report by one of its own scientists that says human activity has little or nothing to do with climate change. The Obama administration, the scientist's boss explained, "has decided to move forward on endangerment"--i.e., to make the false finding that CO2 emissions endanger human health and well-being--and therefore "your comments" can only have a "negative impact on our office."

The boys in green are coming as the Environment Agency sets up a squad to police companies generating excessive CO2 emissions. The agency is creating a unit of about 50 auditors and inspectors, complete with warrant cards and the power to search company premises to enforce the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC), which comes into effect next year. Decked out in green jackets, the enforcers will be able to demand access to company property, view power meters, call up electricity and gas bills and examine carbon-trading records for an estimated 6,000 British businesses. Ed Mitchell, head of business performance and regulation...

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW YORK NY 455 PM EDT WED JUL 1 2009 ...UNUSUALLY WET AND COOL JUNE FOR CENTRAL PARK... ...HERE ARE THE TOP TEN COOLEST AND WETTEST JUNES ON RECORD SINCE 1869 FOR CENTRAL PARK NY: COOLEST WETTEST AVG. TEMP. YEAR INCHES PRECIP. YEAR 64.2 1903 10.27 2003 65.2 1881 10.06 2009 65.7 1916 9.78 1903 66.8 1926/1902 9.30 1972 67.2 1958 8.79 1989 67.3 1927 8.55 2006 67.4 1928 7.76 1887 67.5 2009/1897 7.58 1975 67.7 1878 7.13 1938 67.8 1924 7.05 1871 DUE TO THE UNUSUALLY COOL AND WET CONDITIONS IN JUNE...HERE ARE...

The Supreme Court heard five environmental law cases in the term that ended Monday, and environmental groups lost every time. It was, said Richard J. Lazarus, a director of the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown University Law Center, “the worst term ever” for environmental interests. The court allowed Navy exercises using sonar that threatened whales off California. It limited the liability of companies partly responsible for toxic spills. It made it harder to challenge Forest Service regulations and easier to dump mining waste into an Alaskan lake. And it allowed the Environmental Protection Agency to use cost-benefit analysis to decide...

July 1, 2009 Dear William, Thank you for contacting my office about cap and trade legislation. I appreciate hearing from you about this important issue. I certainly appreciate the importance of keeping consumer energy rates as low as possible during these difficult economic times. I worked with my colleagues to include weatherization assistance funding and homeowner tax credits for efficiency and renewable energy projects in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. However, I feel strongly that Congress must act swiftly to curb the greenhouse gas emissions driving global climate change. In New Hampshire climate change is already altering the beautiful...

Liberals have noted with a fair degree of distress since January that the election results have yielded very few liberal policy implementations—the continuing wars abroad and on drugs, high defense spending, tax cuts, finance, environmental and national security stances, none of these are remotely liberal. Why not? An answer from the most excellent Mahablog is not an inability of the Executive to perform, but the inherent intended structure of Congress allowing a minority to obstruct. A better answer from the excellent O’Brien is not the current Republican ability to obstruct real progress, but that Congress itself is busted. For Californians...

It's not easy living in the DC area. The place is a 60 square mile enclave bordered by reality, where the phrase "I voted for George Bush" gets you looked at like you have two heads, while being a gay vegan is considered perfectly normal. No, really! You can imagine how irritating it gets when out trying to enjoy a beer and one of Al Gore's cult followers begins proselytizing to the cause of Global Warming. But I've discovered that like the followers of any other religion, debating someone's belief system is pointless. Pointing out how Climate Change is based...

The idea of wind generated electric energy is being sold by environmentalists as an overlooked opportunity to reduce greenhouse gasses. Global warming advocates claim that this discounted treasure could be a major part of an effort to reduce the burning of fossil fuels and eliminate the need for some of our nuclear power plants. Is it true that we are passing up on a gold mine of renewable energy in favor of unnecessary and harmful fossil and nuclear fuels? Let's start by looking at what we use to generate the power we use today. Renewables, such as wind, solar, biomass,...

GRANTS PASS, Ore. - A federal judge has struck down the Bush administration's change to a rule designed to protect the northern spotted owl from logging in national forests. U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken ruled from Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday that the U.S. Forest Service failed to take a hard look at the environmental impacts of changing the rule to make it easier to cut down forest habitat of species such as the spotted owl and salmon on 193 million acres of national forests. "I am hopeful that this is the last nail in the coffin to (President George W.)...

Regulation: Ignoring the first rule of holes, a bankrupt state passing out IOUs welcomes an EPA waiver allowing it to further kill its economy. Too bad the state can't stop the air pollution imported from a growing China. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday granted California its long-standing request — denied by the Bush administration — for a waiver to allow it to impose even more stringent air pollution rules than currently required by the federal government.The way is now clear for implementation of a 2002 state law requiring new cars to increase their fuel economy 40% by 2016....

Thanks to page 133 of H.R. 2454, I now understand where our esteemed President came up with the notion the U.S.A has 56 states: 2) in section 791(9), by striking ‘‘The term ‘State’ includes the District of Columbia.’’ and inserting ‘‘The term ‘State’ includes the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.’’ (3) in section 793(c)— (A) in paragraph (2)(A), by striking ‘‘51 States’’ and inserting ‘‘56 States’’; I encourage all visiting to download the bill and discover other gems of legislative detail in this insane piece of...

111TH CONGRESS 1ST SESSION H. R. 2454 AN ACT To create clean energy jobs, achieve energy independence, reduce global warming pollution and transition to a clean energy economy.

Giving Mother Earth a Facelift by: Mytheos Holt, June 29, 2009 The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) recently hosted a discussion entitled “Governing Geoengineering.” Lee Lane, a resident fellow and director of the AEI Geoengineering Project, moderated the discussion, which focused on a working paper written by Dr. Scott Barrett, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. The concept of Geoengineering developed in Barrett’s paper turns the premise of human-caused climate change alarmism on its head, arguing that if humans can cause climate change by emitting carbon, then they can counteract this same phenomenon through a...

And how will this bill affect you? It has regulations on every single aspect of your daily life. There are light bulb restrictions (no more than 60 watts in your candelabra); in fact there's a whole section that deals with lamps. If you decide to build a new home, it must meet new and specific energy requirements. If you decide to sell your existing home, a federal inspector must inspect your home, determine it's energy rating, and if your home is found to be unacceptable then you must retrofit and make changes before you will be able to sell. it.

On June 18, by a vote of 12-7, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed the Clean Water Restoration Act (S. 787). As with most government bills, you can bet that it has less to do with restoring clean water than it does with increasing the power of the federal government. The bill, if passed by Congress, would “provide protection to the waters of the United States to the maximum extent of the legislative authority of Congress under the Constitution.” Again, Congress’ view of what is Constitutional is very different than the view of most American citizens. In sum,...

I’m confused. I can’t figure out the high-and-mighty Democrats who rule our country. Either I’m dumb as a rock or they’re a bunch of hypocritical tyrants. Specifically, on the issue of federal land and energy development, what I can’t figure out is when is the environment sacred and when is it not? When is federal land of such untouchable environmental value that all energy exploration is banned – no matter what – and when can those protections be swept away as if they don’t exist? The only answer I can come up with: Whenever the Democrats want. I’m talking about...

Climate Change: A switch of four Republican votes would have defeated Waxman-Markey, the Democrats' global warming legislation. But like the Clinton Btu tax, the bill could die in the Senate and turn the House over to the GOP. What were these RINOs thinking? The GOP is supposed to be the party of low taxes and free markets. Rep. Mike Castle, one of the eight offered an explanation right off of President Obama's teleprompter...Illinois Republican Mark Kirk, who has senatorial ambitions to replace the choice of impeached former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Sen. Roland Burris, demonstrates why GOP fortunes in the Land...

There is so much misinformation on the subject of global warming and so little consensus -- as to what environmental changes are occurring, whether human behavior is contributing to them, whether they are causing significant environmental damage, and whether the proposed cap and trade legislation would do anything to alleviate any of this -- it is no wonder our freedom-hating majority in the House insisted on cramming it through before they could even read, much less digest, what it contained. It would be bad enough if they passed innocuous legislation to address an alleged problem (man-caused global warming) without first...

“I love America. That’s why it has to be destroyed.“ The quotation cited above comes from a liberal character in the 2008 satirical comedy “An American Carol.” David Zucker’s film skewered the American political left for its arrogance and its hypocrisy. Sadly, one can easily see President Obama or some member of his administration expressing a similar oxymoronic sentiment to explain its peculiar and destructive policies. Obama seems intent upon destroying the American love affair with the automobile by crippling the auto industry and laying waste to the larger economy. If no one can afford to drive a car, it...

Regardless of the scientific merit behind doomsday predictions of global warming, President Obama and Congress seem intent on instituting a U.S. policy regime to address the specter of climate change.The debate on the most effective way to "green" America--cap-and-trade, carbon taxes, tough energy standards and regulations, some hybrid approach, or sticking to open markets--will be a heated one. With affordable green technologies still in development, policymakers need to recognize that the economic cost of limiting U.S. production of greenhouse gases on U.S. consumers and companies will be high--high enough to question whether the costs are worth the equally uncertain...

Hello FreeRepublic. My name is Nathan I'm a GIS Mapping Technician in Ohio. I want to put my skills to good use in trying to restore America to its common sense roots. I created this map to show the votes of representatives on HR2454, otherwise known as Cap and Trade. If you are so inclined you can contact the representatives that voted for it and ask them to redact their votes. If you want to download the better PDF that better shows counties and congressional districts, go to my SkyDrive and download. Feel free to pass it on to anyone...

Well, the ugly cap and tax bill narrowly passed the House yesterday. And perhaps most aggravating of all is the fact that if two more Republicans showed up to vote NO (one of those being fiscal conservative darling Jeff Flake of Arizona) and just three of the eight GOP members who vote AYE changed their minds, then it would have been DOA. As irksome as this fact rightfully is to many conservatives, including many readers in this space, I unfortunately will offer a healthy dose of parade-raining by giving a look into just who of those eight members could really...

Remember how the Congressional Budget Office is supposed to be the gold standard. Well, the same folks that were touting the CBO as the gold standard when the CBO was analyzing health care reform are looking skeptically at their analysis of cap and trade (known as H.R. 2988 American Clean Air and Security Act, ACES). That's because the CBO found that ACES would have a negligible effect on both people's energy costs as well as government's revenues. There would be a net government revenue increase of about $20 billion over ten years and it would cost the average family about...

GOP candidate promotes working with Europe on climate change, but only wants to 'encourage' involvement of 'rest of the world.' BY DAN GAINOR Presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain is using the idea of global togetherness to promote “a cap-and-trade system” to battle climate change. He said “Americans and Europeans need to get serious about substantially reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years or we will hand over a much-diminished world to our grandchildren.” According to the Arizona senator, whose opinion column appeared in the March 19 Financial Times, the United States needs to work with Europe to create...

(06-27) 04:00 PDT Washington - -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke time and again of preserving "God's beautiful creation" as she mustered all the skills she learned, at her father's knee in Baltimore and in San Francisco's liberal salons, to muscle sweeping climate change legislation to narrow passage Friday. Pushing for the vote while uncertain she would win it was the highest-stakes decision of the San Francisco Democrat's career. President Obama, joined by former Vice President and greenhouse guru Al Gore, worked the phones to woo the backing of reluctant Democrats from coal states, farm states, manufacturing states and poor...

Despite strong opposition from agricultural groups and private property rights advocates, a bill that would expand the federal reach of the Clean Water Act, and that could have sweeping effects on everyday farming activities, passed out of a key U.S. Senate committee last week. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee voted 12-7 to advance S. 787, also known as the Clean Water Restoration Act, which now faces consideration by the full Senate. If adopted, the legislation would give the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers authority over nearly every wet area in the nation, including farm...

The House churned toward a showdown vote Friday on historic legislation to reduce pollution linked to global warming and power the nation with cleaner but more expensive energy. Democrats struggled to solidify a fragile coalition needed to pass the bill -- firmly opposed by Republicans who called the measure a "job killer" that would push families' energy bills higher and drive businesses overseas. The White House and congressional Democrats argued the bill would create millions of "green jobs" as the nation shifts to greater reliance on renewable energy sources such as wind and solar and development of more fuel efficient...

Scientists think they have resolved one of the most controversial environmental issues of the past decade: the curious case of the missing frogs' legs. Around the world, frogs are found with missing or misshaped limbs, a striking deformity that many researchers believe is caused by chemical pollution. However, tests on frogs and toads have revealed a more natural, benign cause. The deformed frogs are actually victims of the predatory habits of dragonfly nymphs, which eat the legs of tadpoles.

Fiscal Policy: The House of Representatives is preparing to vote on an anti-stimulus package that in the name of saving the earth will destroy the American economy. Smoot-Hawley will seem like a speed bump. Not since a misguided piece of legislation imposed tariffs that turned a recession into a depression has there been a piece of legislation as bad as Waxman-Markey. The 1,000-plus-page American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454) is being rushed to a vote by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi before anyone can seriously object to this economic suicide pact. It's what Janet Napolitano, secretary of Homeland Security,...

The vote on the cap and trade energy bill is coming up in congress. It does not look like supporters have enough votes at this time to pass the bill. It seems that some Democrats are worried about the bill putting a huge tax burden on the country that could cripple the economy. That is my concern. I don’t feel that the cap and trade bill is the best way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I got some good comments on my last article: Energy Cap and Trade is bad policy! I proposed a small carbon tax that would be...

Cost of Cap and Trade Bill by Congressional District By Bob Ellis on June 25th, 2009 j0401099The Heritage Foundation has come out with a new state by state analysis of the cost of the Waxman-Markey cap and trade global warming tax bill which will be voted on in the House tomorrow. Here’s an overall look at the big-picture impact to our country: An analysis of the Waxman-Markey bill (as reported out of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce) by The Heritage Foundation found that unemployment will increase by nearly 2 million in 2012, the first year of the program,...

The House could vote today on a measure to cap U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, with Democratic leaders predicting a tight victory for a behemoth bill that has grown more complex with each compromise. The heart of the bill, which now runs to 1,201 pages, is a plan to reduce emissions to 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. To do that, it would create a cap-and-trade system, in which polluters would be required to accrue buyable, sellable credits for all the greenhouse gases they produce. But the bill also contains a system of caveats, safety valves and rule changes meant...

The much debated Cap 'n Trade (aka Cap and Tax) legislation is up for vote tomorrow. The tension is palpable and the vote is critical. Do the Dems have the votes, or not? It's been said that this vote will have serious ramifications in 2010. All participants are nervous and there are numerous polls and opinions out there. ........... This is another case of Congress pushing through legislation so fast that nobody has read the bill. Mary Katherine Ham has made it her quest to read the whole thing - you can follow her findings here and here. She'll definitely...

ASSUAGING LIBERAL GUILT ... The left has successfully manipulated their collective angst and it will have a disastrous impact on the world around us in many ways. During the last two decades, liberals have developed a way to demonize fossil-burning fuels. This strategy included the turning of carbon emissions into a commodity which can be assigned monetary value. Former Democratic Vice-president Al Gore--who has become extremely wealthy in the process--has helped promote the idea of carbon offsets from which revenue, supposedly, can be used to help "save" the environment. Just one of Gore's palatial estates in Tennessee sucks up a...

The House of Representatives will vote Friday(Today) on the so-called “American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009” -- a.k.a the “Waxman-Markey” global warming bill. But whatever you want to call this legislative atrocity, if enacted into law, it will go down in history as the death knell of the American standard of living and way of life. If you hate America, this bill is for you. After decades of fierce battling between rabid greens -- that is, left-wingers masquerading as “environmentalists” -- and the global warming skeptics, few Americans seem to have bought into the bill’s premise ­ that...

It appears that years of debate about climate change and energy may now come down to a vote on an actual bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES). As I write this, the vote is scheduled for Friday. If it occurs, you will be asked to vote to implement carbon rationing in the United States.   Without regard to party or ideology, I believe that the evidence is clear that this law would be contrary to the public interest. Here is why, in a nutshell: 1.  It would be a terrible deal for American taxpayers. According to the...

Last week, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released their analysis of the Waxman-Markey climate change bill that had proponents of the bill claiming Americans could save the planet for just $175 per household. That was the figure CBO estimated cap and trade would cost households in 2020 alone.[1]Both the CBO's analysis and the subsequent legislation are troubled: The analysis grossly underestimates economic costs while the legislation will have virtually no impact on climate. Overall, there are a number of basic problems with CBO's analysis: Their allowance cost numbers do not add up; They ignore economic costs such as the decrease...

ASSUAGING LIBERAL GUILT ... The left has successfully manipulated their collective angst and it will have a disastrous impact on the world around us in many ways. During the last two decades, liberals have developed a way to demonize fossil-burning fuels. This strategy included the turning of carbon emissions into a commodity which can be assigned monetary value. Former Democratic Vice-president Al Gore--who has become extremely wealthy in the process--has helped promote the idea of carbon offsets from which revenue, supposedly, can be used to help "save" the environment. Just one of Gore's palatial estates in Tennessee sucks up a...

WASHINGTON – America’s third largest party urged the U.S. House Tuesday to defeat plans for a $1.9 trillion energy tax hike over eight years. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is attempting to rush H.R. 2454, the Waxman-Markey energy tax bill, to a vote this week. “With unemployment rising above and beyond what President Obama said it would be with the multi-hundred billion dollar stimulus bill, now is not the time to dismantle our economy with a multi-hundred billion dollar energy tax hike,” said William Redpath, Libertarian National Committee Chairman. “Libertarians urge House members to defeat this job-killing tax hike on Americans,”...

ABSTRACT: Democratic leaders in the House have scheduled a Friday vote on a climate change bill that would establish a complex cap-and-trade system to limit the nation's greenhouse gas emissions, a priority for President Obama. The House Rules Committee unveiled the latest version of the bill, which weighs in at 1,201 pages. It features new items such as $7.5 billion in "green bonds" for a new federal financing agency called the Clean Energy Deployment Administration, extra emission allowances for politically powerful rural electric cooperatives, greater flexibility for states that want to use free allowances for mass transit, and tweaks benefiting...

Is an imperfect climate bill (Waxman-Markey) better than no bill at all? Al Gore says yes.To bring environment supporters together, Gore will host a nationwide conference call on June 23 at 8 p.m. ET. The purpose, according to his Repower America e-mail sent to a selected audience, is “to build urgency around this bill and make sure it passes. We have to go to the grassroots – we have to continue building support in communities across the nation.”“As this climate legislation moves before the full Congress this summer, we have an opportunity unlike anything we’ve seen yet,” the e-mail concludes.Gore...