Free Republic

The Forest Service report cites climate change for the increased wildfires. Other government reports have concluded the same. "Climate change has led to fire seasons that are now on average 78 days longer than in 1970," according to the Forest Service report. "The U.S. burns twice as many acres as three decades ago and Forest Service scientists believe the acreage burned may double again by midcentury." The U.S. Global Change Research Program predicted that wildfires will increase, especially in the Southwest. "These changes are often driven by multiple factors, including changes in temperature and drought patterns, wildfire, invasive species and...

The Environmental Protection Agency isn’t responding to claims by Todd Hennis, owner of the Gold King mine in Colorado that the agency coerced him to grant access to his property. Once taking over, of course, EPA’s incompetent attempts to remove debris created a massive 3 million gallon toxic waste spill from the mine. Hennis told the CBS Denver affiliate that unless he allowed the EPA to have access and authority to conduct operations on the site the agency had threatened him with daily fines of $35,000. “When you’re a small guy and you’re having a $35,000-a-day fine accrue against you,...

"Faster than ever before.” That’s how one headline from the Weather Channel described current changes in Great Lakes water levels. But the article itself acknowledged that Lakes Huron and Michigan, which come together in the Straits of Mackinac and so are considered one lake by hydrologists, actually rose faster 65 years ago. So why did the headline writer call the current rise “faster than ever before?" For more than a decade, those who claim man-made global warming is "settled science" exploited below-average Great Lakes water levels to promote their hypothesis. Although the period from 1999 to 2013 set fewer records...

U.S. households are saving hundreds of dollars a year because natural gas prices are low, but that’s about to change. Astudy by NERA Economic Consulting has found new regulations on power plants mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) will increase natural gas prices to 2007 levels, virtually guaranteeing these savings will soon be wiped out. A study by the Brookings Institution found natural gas prices have plummeted as horizontal hydraulic fracturing, also known as horizontal “fracking,” has caused U.S. natural gas production to skyrocket to all-time highs, making the United States the world’s top producer of...

Catholic Expert: Pope’s New Encyclical Denounces Radical Environmentalism SAN DIEGO (June 18, 2015) — A Catholic expert said today that the news media and other observers are misinterpreting Pope Francis’s new encyclical on environmentalism, Laudato Si.“Some in the media are portraying the encyclical as if Pope Francis is a secular environmentalist, when in reality the encyclical is sharply critical of environmental ideologies that don’t recognize mankind’s unique place in creation,” said Jimmy Akin, senior apologist for Catholic Answers, the largest lay-run apostolate of Catholic apologetics and evangelization in the United States.Akin said the Catholic Church’s longstanding teaching on caring for...

One kid says that his family’s farm has been damaged by drought and wildfire. Another says that his childhood home has been devalued by rising sea levels. A third alleges an assault on his whole culture as man-made climate change upends the natural world. These and 18 other “youth plaintiffs” (ages 8 to 19) sued the federal government on Wednesday, walking a first-of-its-kind constitutional claim up the courthouse steps in Eugene, Oregon. The kids argue that inaction on climate change is a violation of their right to life, liberty and property. And they demand that President Obama, seven federal departments...

DENVER — Unlike BP, which was fined $5.5 billion for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, the EPA will pay nothing in fines for unleashing the Animas River spill. “Sovereign immunity. The government doesn’t fine itself,” said Thomas L. Sansonetti, former assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s division of environment and natural resource. New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez and other lawmakers have called on the EPA to hold itself to the same standards as it would a private company in the aftermath of Wednesday’s accident, in which an EPA-led crew uncorked a 3 million-gallon spill of orange wastewater from the...

From his backyard in Durango, Colorado, Tom Bartles can see the Animas River, which was stained an unnatural orange. The Environmental Protection Agency accidentally released millions of gallons of pollutants into the water last week, turning the typically blue water to the color of mustard. "Everybody in town knew it was coming. It was hard to wake up in the morning and see an orange river," Bartles, 52, told CNN. "Many of the locals in this region are probably going to experience a certain level of mourning." [Snip] Officials said they believe the spill carried metals, mainly iron, zinc and...

In President Obama’s first big speech to Congress, just a month after he took office, he said, “I ask this Congress to send me legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon.” They didn’t. Indeed, largely because of Obama’s own words on the campaign trail, it became clear that under his plan for a cap-and-trade system, “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket” and that if “somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It's just that it will bankrupt them.” These facts became well known and contributed directly to the smashing defeat of his proposed cap-and-trade legislation during his first...

Industry blasts suggestion as harmful to the country. A conservation group that has succeeded in dealing recent legal setbacks to western Colorado coal mines called Thursday for a phase-out of federal coal leasing to help combat climate change. “It’s time for the Interior Department to shut it down,” Jeremy Nichols, Climate and Energy Program director for WildEarth Guardians, said in a news release. The group outlined a plan for ending the federal coal program over 10 to 25 years through a moratorium on leasing publicly owned coal, retiring existing leases that aren’t producing, honestly reporting the climate impacts of the...

The sage grouse population has exploded in the last two years, growing by nearly two-thirds from more than 49,000 males in 2013 to more than 80,000 this year. ... This is encouraging news for the bird, and for the people whose lives would be turned upside down by the federal government if it still insists on listing the critter as an endangered species on the brink of extinction. The report considered the population across the bird’s 11-state habitat, with specific news on the growth in Colorado numbers ... The report falls on the heels of a gloom and doom forecast...

BUFFALO, NY - "It's not unprecedented, but it is weird when you think about it," said Storm Team 2 Meteorologist Patrick Hammer, when remarking on the snow piles that still exists near Central Terminal on the Queen City's east side. The snow was piled there following the "Snowvember" storm which occurred 8 months ago. Today, despite it being late July, two snow piles remain, although hidden in plain sight. That's because to anyone unfamiliar with their real composition, the snow piles looks more like a non-descript earthen berms.

(CNSNews.com) - The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced Friday it is investing up to $100 million in biofuels with the goal “to double the number of fuel pumps capable of supplying higher blends of renewable fuel to consumers, such as E15 and E85.”“A typical gas pump can deliver fuel that contains a maximum 10% ethanol (E10), which limits the amount of renewable energy most consumers can purchase at the pump, despite the fact that our farmers now produce record amounts of renewable biofuels,” the USDA press release says.“This new investment seeks to double the number of fuel pumps capable of supplying...

ST. CLAIRSVILLE, Ohio - In May, Murray Energy, which sits along the old National Pike here in eastern Ohio, told nearly 1,500 workers at five of its West Virginia mines that their jobs were eliminated. In Ohio, 249 Murray jobs were gone; nearly 170 employees were out of work in Illinois. The announcement wasn't an isolated one. Mines are being boarded up and thousands of coal jobs are vanishing across America, in part because of competition from abundant natural gas but in larger part because of new federal regulations limiting carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants. One month later, Murray...

Part of President Obama's new plan is to cut carbon pollution from power plants by 32 percent by 2030. President Barack Obama will Monday unveil what he called the “biggest, most important step we’ve ever taken” to fight climate change, a sensitive issue central to his legacy. The White House will release the final version of America’s Clean Power Plan, a set of environmental rules and regulations that will home in on the pollution from the nation’s power plants, setting limits on power-plant carbon emissions. Laying out how climate change was a threat to the health, well being and security...

The unique display, on one of the world's most recognisable structures, was aimed at sparking conversations about mass extinction. Pictures of snow leopards, tigers and various sea creatures were shown. A 350ft (106m) image of Cecil, the famous lion killed in Zimbabwe earlier this month, also appeared. [Snip] In all 160 species were shown, including marine mammals, insects, and even the shadow of King Kong climbing up the building.

Canada has given oil sands a dirty reputation, but a breakthrough, commercially viable technology has caught the eye of a former Exxon Mobil president who is putting it to use to clean up Utah’s billions of barrels of oil sands. Imagine extracting high-quality oil out of the estimated 32 billion barrels buried in Utah’s oil sands, without creating the toxic wastelands that have resulted from oil sands projects in Western Canada. And imagine doing it at a cost that can still turn a profit in today’s oil price slump. That would be highly enticing to some of the large operators...

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that the agency is investigating the killing of Cecil the Lion, saying it will “go where facts lead.” The agency made the announcement via Twitter Thursday. Also Thursday, the Eden Prairie Police Department said that, while they will be stepping up neighborhood monitoring, they will not be providing personal protection for the dentist who killed a protected lion in Zimbabwe. “Because of the increased traffic in the neighborhood of Walter Palmer’s residence, the Eden Prairie Police Department is monitoring the neighborhood to ensure the safety and security of the residents and their property,”...

LAUDATO SI’ A letter from Pope Francis on the Care of our Common Home “Praise be to You” (“Laudato Si”) – Pope Francis’ environmental letter --- is a different kind of encyclical, and invites a different kind of response from most of its predecessors. In this essay I hope to put the spotlight on the ways this encyclical is unprecedented, and also selectively highlight its positive contributions to Catholic Social Thought. Historically, encyclicals were any official teaching letters concerning Catholic doctrine on faith and morals. They were sometimes addressed to bishops in a particular area, or sometimes to the bishops...

From Progressives Today: “Republicans and conservatives are the enemy. They are expendable. They will be targets in the Revolution when it comes” writes Roland Windsor Vincent, in a recent post on his blog, Army Of The Revolution. The entry, entitled “Protect Animals And The Environment. Shoot Republicans“, centers around animal rights and how “active Republican and conservatives voters are enabling the Animal Holocaust” and “If we were to start shooting Republicans, we would likely not harm a single friend of animals or the environment.” You hear about something like this and you want to think of it as an anomaly....