Free Republic

In an unprecedented move, a US judge has given a group of 21 youths permission to sue the federal government for threatening their future health and security by failing to take sufficient action against climate change, despite being aware of the risks. "This decision is one of the most significant in our nation’s history," said the kids' attorney, Philip Gregory. "The Court gave America’s youth a fair opportunity to be heard ... The next step is for the Court to order our government to cease jeopardising the climate system for present and future generations." The lawsuit was brought before Oregon...

BREWER, Maine — When Ken and Jo-Ann Arbo moved into their home in Eddington 22 years ago, they thought they found the perfect place to live.“I hunt right there. I fish out there. I snowmobile out there,” Ken Arbo said of the woods and fields near the couple’s home. “That is why we moved out there.”Now the Arbos face the real possibility of moving again.Their Lambert Road home is within the path of the controversial I-395/Route 9 connector, a proposed two-lane road from Brewer to Eddington meant to ease heavy truck traffic and improve safety on nearby routes 46 and...

As every ten-year-old who ever got a sweater for a birthday present has been told, “It’s the thought that counts.” That seems to be the guiding principle at the Department of Energy and the California Public Utilities Commission when it comes to solar power. The latest example is the $2.2 billion Ivanpah solar thermal plant in California. (Note: Solar thermal plants do not use solar panels to directly convert sunshine to electricity, they use sunshine to boil water that then drives conventional turbines.) Here’s the story so far, Ivanpah: Is owned by Google, NRG Energy, and Brightsource, who have a...

PINSON, Ala. -- At 8 a.m. on a Saturday, the rumble of bulldozers and other earth-moving equipment was already audible in Ardell Turner's modest home in this rural hamlet north of Birmingham. Not far away, they once mined coal. Now state and local leaders are seeking prosperity through one of the nation's largest and priciest road projects. On planners' maps, the Northern Beltline will be a 52-mile, six-lane interstate that will effectively complete a loop around Birmingham, Alabama's largest city. More than a half-century after the Beltline's conception, work on a small segment began last year within a mile of...

“Natural gas is a good, cheap alternative to fossil fuels,” former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi famously intoned. (Psssst. Ms. Nancy, natural gasis a fossil fuel.) “If I thought there was any evidence that drilling could save people money, I would consider it. But it won’t,” President Obama said in 2008. “We can’t drill our way out of the problem” of high energy prices and disappearing supplies, he still insisted two years later. How shocked he must be now. Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing – aka, fracking – has unleashed a gusher of oil and natural gas, sent oil...

"The responsibility for that lies with protesters, who took violence into their own hands. But in any campaign, responsibility starts at the top. Any candidate is responsible for the culture of a campaign. And when you have a campaign that disrespects the voters, when you have a campaign that affirmatively encourages violence, when you have a campaign that is facing allegations of physical violence against members of the press, you create an environment that only encourages this sort of nasty discord," Cruz said

.....Loretta Lynch acknowledged Wednesday that there have been discussions within the Department of Justice about possibly pursuing civil action against so-called climate change deniers.

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) on Tuesday slammed the administration’s handover of $500 million to the U.N. Green Climate Fund, asking a State Department official how the “handout to foreign bureaucrats” could be justified at a time when there were “real problems” that need to be addressed at home. Barrasso told Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources Heather Higginbottom he viewed the payment to the “new international climate change slush fund” — the first installment of a $3 billion pledge — as both a misuse of taxpayer dollars and a violation of legislation that prohibits federal agencies from spending federal funds...

The National Science Foundation has spent more than $400,000 on a study that published scientific results on the "relationship between gender and glaciers." The paper "Glaciers, gender, and science," published in January 2016, concluded that "ice is not just ice," urging scientists to take a "feminist political ecology and feminist postcolonial" approach when they study melting ice caps and climate change. "Glaciers are key icons of climate change and global environmental change," the paper by Mark Carey, a professor at the University of Oregon, explained. "However, the relationships among gender, science, and glaciers–particularly related to epistemological questions about the production...

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Sen. Barack Obama began peddling his national healthcare system. On more than one occasion, he pointed to Canada and the United Kingdom as examples of a workable national healthcare system. When I first heard him point to them, I instantly thought of Rachel, a work acquaintance who lived and worked in the United Kingdom. She was experiencing abdominal pains and having problems eating for months before England’s National Health Service doctors finally diagnosed the problem to be her gall bladder. The doctor said it needed to be removed. However, from the time they wrote the...

In the midst of an Upper Peninsula winter, the thoughts and hopes of many local officials and residents of the Marquette area are centered on Grand Rapids. That’s where Judge Robert Holmes Bell of the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan is presiding over the case known as Marquette County Road Commission v. United States Environmental Protection Agency. On July 10, 2015, the road commission filed a lawsuit challenging the EPA’s decision to block construction of a 21-mile-long county road (CR 595) that would shorten the route between the Eagle Mine and its ore processing facility...

Frustrated that nobody seems to care about climate change, "the country's biggest individual political donor during the 2014 election cycle" has pledged even more in 2016. Tom Steyer spent nearly $75 million in the 2014 midterms, reports Politico. He intends to "open his wallet even wider" now.But just what do his millions get him in this "crucial election"? Based on history, not much.In 2014, his NextGen Climate Action group specifically targeted seven races. Only three went his way, i.e. to Democrats.In Iowa, the group "invested in billboards and television and radio, newspaper and web ads," to target Republicans and "agitate...

Following increasing concerns about the safety of recycled tire material used on synthetic turf fields, the Obama administration announced Friday a federal study to look into potential health risks. The material in question -- ground-up waste tires -- has been a source of debate across the country since late 2014, when parents and health and environment advocates began demanding studies about whether repeated contact with the material could cause cancer. That's the year a University of Washington soccer coach came forward with a list of a few dozen young athletes with cancer who regularly played on turf fields -- surfaces...

The host of the Jacki Daily show has had an impressive career in energy, law, and politics. Now playing also on station KWEL in Midland-Odessa! Most recently, Jacki served as General Counsel to an engineering firm specializing in energy, national security and environmental cleanup. Previously, she served many years as legal counsel on Capitol Hill to the Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and the former Ranking Member of the Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee, advising on the oversight of federal agencies. Prior to her career in Washington, she worked as a corporate litigator, and as an Assistant...

The Marquette County Road Commission announced that it has filed a lawsuit formally challenging a decision by the federal Environmental Protection Agency to block construction of a county road (CR 595) that would shorten the route between a new minerals mine and a processing facility. The suit was filed July 10 in the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan. “The EPA, in its objection to the construction of County Road 595, has once again overstepped its bounds and demonstrated its politically motivated agenda,” said Sen. Tom Casperson, R-Escanaba. “The agency, without reason or merit, has hamstrung...

On January 26, 2006, former Vice President, current climate alarmist and centimillionaire Al Gore told the Associated Press's David Germain that "unless drastic measures to reduce greenhouse gases are taken within the next 10 years, the world will reach a point of no return." . Tuesday, as DC and much of the Northeast finishes digging out from a serious and possibly historic weekend snowstorm, will be the tenth anniversary of Gore's "planetary emergency" warning. The "global warming" true believers in the establishment press will never hold Gore accountable for his nonsense, which is why going to alternative sources such as...

A gas leak deep under Los Angeles has been spewing 1.6 million lbs. of methane each day, with no immediate end in sight. The months-long leak in Porter Ranch is already the worst in California's history, and environmental advocates fear it could have a long-term impact on the climate. While methane does not stay in the atmosphere for as long as carbon dioxide, it traps radiation more effectively, making it a significant contributor to global warming.

Bedbugs have apparently taken up a long-term residency in Chicago based on a new report from pest control company Orkin. Chicago topped Orkin's "Top 50 Bed Bug Cities" list for the fourth year in a row. In all, fourteen cities in the Midwest made the list, more than any other region, according to Orkin. The pests were spotted in multiple cities in Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, and Kentucky. Orkin based its findings on the number of bedbug treatments employees conducted between January and December of 2015, according to the pest control company. The list includes both residential and commercial treatments. [Snip]...

The perils of climate change are well known, but rising sea levels could also alter human evolution, scientists have claimed. Rising sea levels could force communities to live in underwater or semi-aquatic towns which could change out physiology. Dr Matthew Skinner a paleoanthropologist from the University of Kent, claims that humans could evolve to have webbed hands and feet and less body hair so they could move quickly through the water. Our eyes would even become more like cats, so we could see in the murky gloom of seas and rivers and our lungs would shrink as we became used...

A Frightening History of the Militant Greens Robert Zubrin’s book, Merchants of Despair, shows how some of the most tragic events of the 19th and 20th centuries were inspired by radical environmentalists who used the “green” agenda to mask scary ambitions.