Free Republic

The agenda is a simple one, while President Obama called climate change a greater threat to America than ISIS, the unending supply of accidents continues to keep the assumed peril in the news Lulling Americans into believing that government can provide a safety net for everything from stocking a pantry and providing healthcare, to preventing administrative offices from “shutting-down,” boosting the stock market and de-stressing the environment through regulating virtually every activity, results in an opposite effect… It destabilizes the economy. As President Obama declared climate change to be the ultimate threat to national security, incidents stemming from the oil...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is counseling states to defy a key pillar of President Obama’s climate change initiative. But while it may be politically attractive for some states to heed the call to just say “no,” to the Environmental Protection Agency’s landmark limits on power plant emissions, experts say doing so could bring unwanted consequences. McConnell, a Republican from coal-rich Kentucky, reasoned in a column in the Lexington, Ky., Herald-Leader that states’ refusal to comply with the contentious rule could be a powerful display of protest against an administration he accuses of overreach. At the same time, he argues,...

In late 2014, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a rule that would further ratchet down national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for ground level ozone from the current level of 75 parts per billion (ppb) to a range of 65 to 70 ppb. Notably, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) declared the proposal to be the most expensive regulation ever imposed on the country. A study recently conducted by NERA Economic Consulting and commissioned by NAM confirms NAM’s earlier statement. Specifically, the study reveals that reducing the current ozone standard to 65 ppb would reduce U.S. gross...

After President Obama’s veto this week of legislation demanding the approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, congressional Republicans are charging him with once again flouting the will of the duly elected legislative branch. The charge has the ring of truth when it comes to energy and environmental matters, given how much the Obama administration has sought to circumvent Republicans with regulation and executive orders in that arena, most notably with the rules announced last year limiting carbon emissions from existing power plants. But there is a reason that Obama has chosen to go it alone on energy: The GOP’s...

The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) issued a 571 page report outlining its recommendations for transforming Americans' health. Citing persistent high levels of overweight and obesity, the report proposed "strategies across multiple settings, including health care, communities, schools, work sites, and families." First Lady Michelle Obama hailed the report as "the guiding light toward a healthier and happier America. The notion that individuals can be left on their own to choose what they eat and how much to exercise has proven to be a failure. DGAC's call for 'trained interventionists' to take charge is the right message at the right...

I stumbled across this website and just had to share it with my fellow FReepers. Back in the late 1980's I saw a documentary that scared the bubbles out of me. In this documentary, I was informed that, by the year 2000, more than half of humanity would be dead and the rest would be roasting and starving in a Mad Max type desert. Before that, I was told that we'd be freezing and that glaciers would reach all the way to Mississippi. Over the years, I've become immune to these predictions and I've learned to take such things with...

A new study to be published in the journal Advances in Political Psychology reveals that global warming alarmists do not understand climate science as well as the skeptics they hysterically condemn as "deniers."

Earlier this week, the American Gas Association released its 2015 Playbook. The report shows that natural gas continues to deliver safe, affordable, and reliable energy, while also providing environmental and energy efficiency benefits. Customers are deriving financial savings from using natural gas. For instance, households that use natural gas for space heating, water heating, cooking and clothes drying save an average of $693 per year compared to customers who use electricity to power these activities. Over the past five years, low natural gas prices have provided a total savings of almost $65 billion to natural gas customers, allowing this money...

Despite billions spent in investments over decades, solar energy will only make up 0.6 percent of total electricity generation in the United States, according to a report released by the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA). “In spite of government’s best efforts to encourage innovation by solar energy companies and encourage Americans to rely more heavily on solar electricity, solar power continues to be a losing proposition,” the report said. “American taxpayers spent an average of $39 billion a year over the past 5 years financing grants, subsidizing tax credits, guaranteeing loans, bailing out failed solar energy boondoggles and otherwise underwriting every idea...

College students who support divestment of fossil fuel stocks are passionate about their cause. Just look at their word choices. Though they could never function even one week without hydrocarbon energy, they call fossil-fuel companies “rogue entities,” assert that oil, coal and natural gas interests have the “political process in shackles,” and believe most of the world’s known fossil fuel resources must “stay in the ground” to avoid “catastrophic global warming.”Their over-heated hysteria over climate change is fanned by groups like 350.org and college professors who rehash doom-and-gloom forecasts about rising seas, dying species and other cataclysms that they insist...

"This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history. This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for the, at least, 150 years, since the industrial revolution." Those were the words spoken on Feb. 4 by Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), under the auspices...

Does Sea Salt Threaten the Environment? February 06, 2015 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Scott in Hampton, Georgia. I'm glad you called, sir. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello. CALLER: Hello. It's good to talk to you, Rush. Um, I wanted to make you aware, if you're not already, about an impending environmental disaster. It involves the oceans, and it's being caused by the tendency of the higher-end restaurants to use real sea salt on their tables as seasoning. It's taking too much salt out of the oceans and the result of course is gonna be a decreased salinity of the oceans....

Large fresh water supply discovered on Hawai'i Island ... The stable water table in the saddle is not 500 feet above sea level. It's more like 4500 feet above sea level.” Watch the video in the UH System News, Hawaii ... Alexandra Roth narrates: Video [aprox 4 minutes]

Cass Sunstein, Obama’s former regulatory “czar” and one of the smartest and most devious thinkers on the left, has a highly revealing Bloomberg column out this week reporting on the results of a study of the way China has attempted indoctrination in its school system. This column and the underlying study (it’s an NBER paper, behind a paywall unless you have academic access) are useful as background reading for everyone who is rightly concerned about how Common Core standards will likely become the means of nationalizing a liberal school curriculum. (What? You mean you aren’t reassured by the promises from...

Better go out and buy a gas fireplace and stove soon before federal regulations make them more expensive. Federal officials are looking to regulate the energy usage of fake fireplaces as part of the Obama administration’s effort to fight global warming.The Energy Department has proposed new regulations that would mandate that “gas-fired hearth products” like decorative fireplaces and stoves be more energy efficient and produce fewer carbon dioxide emissions. DOE says its rule would save $165 over the lifespan of the average hearth and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 11.1 million metric tons through 2030.The major change DOE demands is...

CONTRA COSTA COUNTY (Calif.) - A third dog died Thursday after exposure to toxic algae at an East Bay park, and broken-hearted dog owners say the park district's warnings have been too little, too late. "It's this green algae that's everywhere, it's fatally toxic to dogs, "warned Katie Stone, intercepting hikers at the Lake Chabot marina Friday evening. "She was healthy as can be, I walked her about five miles every day, " Stone says sadly, showing a snapshot of her five year old chocolate Labrador, Josie. "It's completely unbelievable, it was like a nightmare, like when am I going...

The American public and U.S. scientists are light-years apart on science issues. And 98 percent of surveyed scientists say it's a problem..... Scientists are far less worried about genetically modified food, pesticide use, and nuclear power than is the general public, according to matching polls of both the general public and the country's largest general science organization. Scientists were more certain that global warming is caused by man, evolution is real, overpopulation is a danger and mandatory vaccination against childhood diseases is needed.

The U.S. ocean, atmospheric and space agencies affirmed on Friday what the planet has been telling us every way it knows how: 2014 was the hottest year since record keeping began in 1880. That means average land and sea temperatures, worldwide, have never been hotter in modern times, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (the gold standard for global climate data) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (the guys who put a man on the moon). This isn't about whether we believe in science: It's about whether we believe the thermometer. In fact, the 16 hottest years...

Energy Policy: In spite of dramatically lower methane emissions from fracking, according to the EPA's own data, the agency wants to impose draconian regulations on the oil and gas industry similar to those on coal. The new rules that the White House announced on Wednesday aim to cut oil emissions of methane, a target of environmental groups, by 45% below 2012 levels, despite the fact that the emissions already show a sharp decline even as shale oil and gas production has skyrocketed. This war-on-shale action mirrors the administration's war on coal, with EPA rules impossible to meet economically and sometimes...

Taking direct aim at the oil-and-gas industry, President Obama on Wednesday put forth long-awaited regulations on methane emissions, setting an ambitious goal of reducing those emissions by 45 percent over the next decade and again drawing the ire of many in the energy industry. The move comes just days before the State of the Union address and underscores that, in the final two years of presidency, Mr. Obama is looking to cement his legacy on climate-change and environmental issues. Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jan/14/obama-hits-oil-and-gas-industry-demands-massive-re/#ixzz3Op4IqMql Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter