Free Republic

Would you like to lose ten pounds of ugly fat? Great! Off with your head. This old chestnut came to mind as I was perusing the now-infamous new study from Lund University’s child-averse climate scientists, advising people to save the planet by giving up their cars, avoiding air travel, becoming vegetarians, and having fewer kids. The study got rave reviews from the Guardian and Jill Filipovic, perhaps because the last item is really the primary thing. It turns out that hamburgers and SUVs are smallish indulgences next to that gurgling bundle of CO2-emitting joy. The study’s authors, Seth Wynes...

Forget about allegations of Russian interference in U.S. presidential elections for a moment, or even “collusion” between Russian officials and Trump campaign operatives. The real action is in the European and U.S. energy markets, according to a letter from two Texas congressmen to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that details what they call “a covert anti-fracking campaign” with “little or no paper trail.” Smith and Weber quote sources saying the Russian government has been colluding with environmental groups to circulate “disinformation” and “propaganda” aimed at undermining hydraulic fracturing. Commonly called fracking, the process makes it possible to access natural gas deposits....

The widening of Interstate 66 outside the Capital Beltway is bringing HOT lanes to one of the region’s most congested corridors. It also will make room for bicyclists and pedestrians — putting them on a trail next to one of the region’s busiest and most congested highways. The bike path, part of the $2.3 billion interstate expansion project, has drawn cheers and criticism from biking aficionados who welcome the addition of the trail but say, if built as proposed, users will be too close to cars whizzing by on the interstate and exposed to toxic exhaust fumes. For about five...

A fifth of male fish are now transgender because of chemicals from the contraceptive pill being flushed down household drains, a study by has suggested.  Male river fish are displaying feminised traits and even producing eggs, the study found. Some have reduced sperm quality and display less aggressive and competitive behaviour, which makes them less likely to breed successfully.

RUSH: Here’s another thing. Do you remember the Gulf oil spill? What is the main thing you remember, aside from the actual spill in the news, what’s the main thing that you remember about the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? That’s right, they couldn’t find the oil. It was the biggest oil spill in the history of oil spills — they couldn’t find the oil. Do you remember they even had field trips? They had little schoolkids from grade school, and they put ’em on buses and drove ’em down to the Gulf Coast and they gave...

LONDON — The rest of the planet bears a warning for President Trump’s plan to lean heavily on private business in conjuring a trillion dollars’ worth of American infrastructure: Handing profit-making companies responsibility for public works can produce trouble. In India, politically connected firms have captured contracts on the strength of relationships with officialdom, yielding defective engineering at bloated prices. When Britain handed control to private companies to upgrade London’s subway system more than a decade ago, the result was substandard, budget-busting work, prompting the government to step back in. Canada has suffered a string of excessive costs on public...

For over two years now, environmental activists and anti-industry groups have been raging against the U.S. government, the European Union, and practically anybody else that would listen about the herbicide glyphosate. Glyphosate is a weed killer and the main ingredient in RoundUp.  Weed killers are obviously a critical tool for American farmers and farmers around the world. The left-wingers are attacking weed killers despite the chemical receiving a clean bill of health from both the EPA and Europe’s main food safety and chemical authorities. PRI.org reported late last year that “in November 2015, the European Food Safety Authority, or EFSA,...

Title and link only, due to restrictions. Essentially about the crummy contracts certain truckers submit to. Many of these issues arise from CA's CARB law that essentially banned all trucks older than 2015 forcing drivers and industries to spend mega bucks on new equipment and updating equipment. A classic case of what Bastiat call the seen and the unseen and a good example of Leonard Read's, "I Pencil," in practice. http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html

TAMPA — Hillsborough County leaders voted Tuesday to move forward with a plan to add 90 miles of toll lanes to Tampa Bay's interstates despite continued opposition from the people whose neighborhoods would be impacted the most by the project. The Hillsborough County Metropolitan Planning Organization — a 16-person board which approves transportation projects — listened to more than 3½- hours of public comment on its Transportation Improvement Program, which lists the county's priorities for the next five years. The TIP includes dozens of projects, from road maintenance to bike paths. But the evening's debate centered around only one project:...

Worldwide coal production fell by a record amount in 2016, energy industry analysts reported on Tuesday. According to an annual report from BP, global coal production fell by 6.2 percent in 2016, the largest decline since BP began reporting the total in 1950. The decline was driven by shrinking coal production in the U.S., down 19 percent, and China, down 7.9 percent.

The world's first commercial plant for capturing carbon dioxide directly from the air opened yesterday, refueling a debate about whether the technology can truly play a significant role in removing greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere.

Least terns. A federal lawsuit. Greenpeace. Vandals. Industrious beavers. Angry homeowners. Bureaucratic delays. These were among the obstacles and setbacks that had to be overcome before the Creek Turnpike was built. At one point, the chairman of the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority declared it a “total disaster” and exclaimed: “The Creek Turnpike in Tulsa, God only knows when that’ll be completed,” John Kilpatrick said, as reported by the Tulsa World’s Wayne Greene on Oct. 19, 1990. “If we had it to do all over again, we wouldn’t do that project,” the exasperated Kilpatrick said after federal bureaucrats held up construction of...

WE, GENEVA RESIDENTS CONCERNED ABOUT THE POISONED FOUNDRY ZONE, DEMAND: •An apology from the city government to the community •All communications from the city about the foundry zone in both English and Spanish, and an interpreter at council meetings •Signage and fencing on the foundry site alerting people of the contamination there •An immediate public and independent investigation of what the city knew, when they knew it, and why they didn’t tell residents •Private residences must be decontaminated before the foundry site •No new development before our neighbors are cared for •The city must inform every resident in the contamination...

After years of angst over whether to extend Route 53 north into Lake County, the Illinois tollway moved with dizzying speed last week approving a $25 million study of the project. But while the board's vote took seconds, there were hours of fraught testimony from environmentalists fearful of pollution, residents worried about losing their homes, commuters sick of sitting in traffic and construction industry representatives lobbying for jobs. Here are five take-aways from a momentous week: 1. Promising to pay for the extension could be a game-changer. Unlike his predecessors, Chairman Bob Schillerstrom pledged that if Route 53 is extended,...

There were not many open seats at a pair of meetings last week over proposed routes that would send Interstate 11 through the Tucson area. Many of those in attendance were there to speak against two of the alternatives, which run west of Saguaro National Park West in the Avra Valley.“I understand the need to provide ways for people to move around," said Kimberly Baeza, "But it doesn't have to come at the expense of our open landscapes and beautiful Sonoran Desert.”The meeting is part of the second step in selecting the route I-11 could take through Arizona. The freeway...

Highly recommend this 3:45 video clip!!! [excellent video clip of Ambassador Bolton explaining that the real issue about the "Paris Accord" is all about the left's efforts to enact global governance over the USA and all nations. China and India (huge emitters) would not even have to begin to consider limits before 2030, but meanwhile the international bureaucrats would get their hooks deeper into the USA and every country. President Trump says NO to the global bureaucracy.]

HIGHLIGHTS o Trump's shrill speech has cast a shadow on PM Modi's expected visit to US later this month. o Dates for the PM's trip have not been formally or officially announced yet. o The White House has penciled in June 26-27 for first meeting between Trump and Modi. WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump unloaded on India among other countries during an epic rant on Thursday while announcing American withdrawal from the Paris climate change accord . The shrill speech, replete with claims of American victimhood at the hands of the rest of the world, casts a chill on Prime...

Moscow | National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, has made a new controversial claim yesterday during an interview, saying that he possesses some classified information proving that the CIA is behind the “theory of Global Warming”. Snowden, who lives as a fugitive in Russia after leaking documents about the NSA’s surveillance programs, has made some previously unreported allegations during an interview with the Moscow Tribune. Mr. Snowden says the CIA first orchestrated the spread of the “Global Warming scare” in the 1950s, in order to divert the attention of the scientific community, from the dangers of the weapons race and...

Despite heavy lobbying from G7 leaders, President Donald Trump declined to endorse the Paris Climate Agreement in a joint pledge of support for one of former President Barack Obama’s signature achievements in office.

White House National Economic Council director Gary Cohn, a former Goldman Sachs banking executive, has reopened the U.S. government’s war on coal in direct contravention of directions from President Donald Trump. “Coal doesn’t even make that much sense anymore as a feedstock,” Cohn said in Europe on Air Force One, while speaking for the White House to the press, the New York Times’ Brad Plumer noted. “Natural gas, which we have become an abundant producer, which we’re going to become a major exporter is, is such a cleaner fuel,” Cohn continued. Cohn’s comments against the coal industry come as he...