Free Republic

**SNIP** FOR THE RECORD: A Nov. 2 op-ed about dogs and the environment said that methane was 30% more powerful a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Recent research suggests that the effect of methane on climate change is at least 30 times that of carbon dioxide over a 100-year period. What, were you staring at your iPhone, dragging the dog behind? Daydreaming? Or are you with Sydney, Jason Segel's character in "I Love You, Man," thinking that dog doo actually benefits the environment. ("It's got tons of nutrients.") That's true, in a way. Dog poop does contain nutrients — the...

Democrats are famous for pushing the idea that the rich don't pay their fair share of taxes. So, why are many of them lining up to support tax breaks for Big Wind's millionaires?Under the leadership of Harry Reid, lawmakers are pushing to extend the wind-energy industry's cash cow subsidy, the Wind Production Tax Credit (PTC). Created in 1992, the Wind PTC was scheduled to expire at the end of last year. Now, wind industry cronies and their friends in the Senate are leading the charge to revive the PTC by ramming an extension package through Congress during this year's lame-uck...

The last thing Randy Sandifer imagined when he was working in the yard alongside his father was that one day he would find himself halfway around the world - in the midst of a war - and later nominated for a Noble Peace Prize. ---break--- Sandifer joined the Army Reserves in December 2001 and deployed to Iraq after his sophomore year at the University of Mississippi. He was sent as an administrative clerk with the 412th Theater Engineer Command, but he volunteered to work with the soil lab and the environmental team, cleaning up pollutants left by U.S. forces. It...

In the late 1960s through the 1970s, there was a panic that the Earth’s population, if not controlled, would lead to mass food shortages, water shortages, death, wars and the end of civilization as it existed. But much like the “global cooling” movement during the same period, it was proven to be horribly, horribly wrong. The book “The Population Bomb,” published in 1968, warned that by the 1980s there would be massive upheaval and starvation because of overpopulation. The 80s came and went, and even though the Earth’s population has nearly doubled, from 4 billion in 1974 to 7 billion...

Green billionaire Tom Steyer vowed to make the November congressional elections about climate change. Now he's talking about abortion and the economy to get his candidates across the finish line.... The reason is simple: climate change isn't a top concern for most voters. Only 3 percent think it should be the country's top priority, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling.

Environmental groups are on track to spend more than $85 million on key races this year, more than ever before, according to an internal memo. The record spending comes as green groups are worried about the fate of the Senate and the future of President Obama’s climate agenda, which they say is crucial to helping the U.S. and other nations curb greenhouse gas emissions and stave off disastrous climate impacts. A memo circulated among five of the nation’s top environmental organizations, and provided to The Hill, summarizes in detail the plan hatched by the groups to put climate change on...

Back in 1970, when I got involved in the first Earth Day and nascent environmental movement, we had real pollution problems. But over time, new laws, regulations, attitudes and technologies cleaned up our air, water and sloppy industry practices. By contrast, todayÂ’s battles are rarely about the environment.As Ron Arnold and I detail in our new book, Cracking Big Green: To save the world from the save-the-Earth money machine, todayÂ’s eco-battles pit a $13.4-billion-per-year U.S. environmentalist industry against the reliable, affordable, 82 percent fossil fuel energy that makes our jobs, living standards, health, welfare and environmental quality possible. A new...

How green were the Nazis? Probably as green and as controversial as our renewables are today. Mark Musser describes how “God granted Adam and Eve a substantial amount of autonomy over the natural world.” Some environmentalists believe that this Biblical command is one of the reasons why the planet is in ecological distress, coupled with the population explosion, the industrial revolution, the unrestrained pollution, our obscene wealth, and western living standards. (Musser, R. Mark, Nazi Oaks, pp. 10-11) Musser explores in his book the philosophical and practical roots of environmentalism and its potential connection to the modern version of the...

Seems Canada is tired of waiting – and waiting – for a decision on the Keystone pipeline and has come up with an alternate plan for moving the oil to market. As Bloomberg reports: It would be Keystone on steroids, more than twice as long and carrying a third more crude. Its end point, a refinery in the blue-collar city of Saint John, New Brunswick, operated by a reclusive Canadian billionaire family, would give Canada’s oil-sands crude supertanker access to the same Louisiana and Texas refineries Keystone was meant to supply. And: … if you’re a fed-up Canadian, like Prime...

The EPA is poised to “do an IRS” — similar to what the tax agency had to do with dismissed top official Lois G. Lerner — and officially notify the National Archives that it may have lost key electronic records, according to a think tank that’s suing to get text messages under an open-records request. Justice Department lawyers told a federal court on Tuesday that the alert will be coming soon, in a case that’s shaping up as a significant battle over whether government agencies are required to keep cellphone text messages as “official” records. In this case, researcher Chris...

“When the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard (DSL) was being considered for listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA),” Chris Bryan, agency spokesman for the Texas Comptroller, told me, “significant parts of the Texas economy were placed at risk.” On September 30, District of Columbia District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras ruled against the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Defenders of Wildlife. The groups brought litigation in the hopes of requiring the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to reverse its 2012 decision not to list the lizard as endangered. The 2012 decision was the first time that community engagement beat back...

s humans continue to transform the planet at an increasingly rapid rate, the need to inform and encourage change has become ever more urgent. The situation is becoming critical for wild species and for the preservation of human civilization. Recognizing this urgency, the Smithsonian Institution has formulated its first official statement about the causes and impacts of climate change. With special emphasis on the Smithsonian’s 160-year history and tradition of collection, research and global monitoring, the statement delivers a bold assessment: "Scientific evidence has demonstrated that the global climate is warming as a result of increasing levels of atmospheric greenhouse...

At least 35,000 walruses have beached themselves on a remote Alaskan coastline in a phenomenon blamed on the melting of arctic ice due to climate change, experts said Wednesday. Initially there had been only 1,500 of the tusked pinnipeds counted on one beach, but in recent days that number has exploded. "Our best estimate is almost a 24-fold increase," said Megan Ferguson of the Aerial Surveys of Arctic Marine Mammals.

The high cost of living in California just got a bit higher as Governor Jerry Brown heeded the call of environmental activists and Democratic Party leadership in signing a statewide anti-consumer plastic bag ban. The law forbids retailers from providing free plastic bag packaging to shoppers, forcing the consumer to pay for either paper or (yes) plastic bags or providing their own means of transport for groceries, sundries or other items purchased throughout the state. While environmental groups and the grocery industry hailed the decision, the law has been criticized by consumer groups and manufactures who expressed concerns on the added...

Nowadays, the Kochs, with their billionaire accomplices, secretly donate funds to their countermovement lackeys whilst operating in the shadows, like Al-Qaeda, operating out of caves, and, similar to how the Weathermen operated, aka: the Weather Underground Organization, circa 1970s, whose goal was overthrow of the U.S. government. In point of fact, they may eventually be classified as white-collar terrorists, but they have every appearance of honest, upstanding citizenship. On any given Sunday, you’d probably exchange a smile with them at church without suspecting in the least that you are acknowledging a terrorist.

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This week, coalition forces took the fight against ISIS to Syria where the Islamic State not only maintains most of its command and control infrastructure but also its petroleum-based sources of revenue. Ed Morrissey has the details on coalition strikes which for the first time targeted mobile petroleum refineries under ISIS control. “[CBS News reporter David] Martin says 12 small-scale oil refineries were hit in the eastern desert of Syria,” a CBS report revealed. “According to the Pentagon, the refineries produced between 300 and 500 barrels of petroleum a day, which ISIS used to power its own vehicles and...

It was a protest for the planet, or at least it was billed that way. Progressive activists marched under the “green” banner this week in New York City to call for “action” on climate change. But what was the “action” they were advocating? White the media covered senators, actors, and celebrities at the event, they stayed away from the masses. That wasn’t an accident. One idiot shows up at a tea party event with a Confederate flag and the media covers that person like they started the movement, but hundreds, if not thousands of violent, anti-capitalist, anti-American lunatics damn near...

Last weekend, an estimated 300,000 “climate change” evangelists flooded the streets of New York City, creating traffic jams and leaving the streets littered with trash and waste. Their publicly-stated goal? -- to raise awareness about "climate change," as if decades of yelling, bullying, and name-calling has not left the public well-aware of the movement's agenda. As expected, the march attracted its usual suspects clothed in their standard green hypocrisy. Al Gore left the march in an SUV. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer, got testy with a reporter when asked if he was going to “lead by example” and...

If there is one thing Chelsea Clinton is most worried about, it may be that her soon-to-be child will grow up in a world without elephants. Standing alongside her mother, Hillary Clinton, at the Clinton Global Initiative this afternoon, the very-pregnant former first daughter warned the plight of African elephants, killed for their ivory tusks, is an “existential” one, and said that if the current poaching rates continue, elephants could be few and far between within the next decade. If so, this means Chelsea Clinton’s favorite animal could be something her child would never know.