Free Republic

After again shutting power to hundreds of thousands this week, California’s utility PG&E disclosed Thursday that it had discovered a broken jumper cable by the ignition site of a wildfire blazing across Sonoma County. The company has warned of more blackouts this weekend and perhaps for the next decade as it refurbishes its aging grid. Gov. Gavin Newsom is trying to deflect political blame. “It’s about dog-eat-dog capitalism meeting climate change. It’s about corporate greed meeting climate change. It’s about decades of mismanagement,” Mr. Newsom declared. But Democrats for years have treated PG&E as their de facto political subsidiary. The...

Grocery shopping had never been one of my favorite activities, but it never used to be as cumbersome as it is now. I'd fill up the cart with food, wait in line at the check-out counter and kibitz with the cashier as the bagger loaded up—and double-bagged—my groceries. Now, the lines are much slower because bagging has become an ordeal thanks to the "Earth-protecting" plastic-bag ban the state had passed a few years ago. Consider what happens now. Store employees can't simply place your food in the needed bags. They have to ask how many bags shoppers want to buy....

Hazardous Waste Day: the Saga Continues. This story should have been dead yesterday but it is not.Let me explain.Raj and I left for Hazardous Household Waste (HHW) collection day, which ran from 8:00 am till 2:00 pm,  at 7:55 am. The rear hatch of the Jeep was filled with toxic, hazardous waste materials: mostly stains, strippers and other oil based paint products, some half full 5 gallon pails of latex paint (I know, it can be dried and dumped but do you know how long it takes to dry a half-full pail?), old gasoline, toxic yard chemicals an old monitor...

Going solar isn’t necessarily any protection from California’s new “planned” power outages, and local residents and businesses are enduring a lot more than just a few inconveniences. Bloomberg’s Chris Martin has a story on California’s troubles with one of my favorite headlines ever: “Californians Learning That Solar Panels Don't Work in Blackouts.” Apparently, many of California’s would-be Earth-savers had no idea that just putting solar panels on their roofs doesn’t mean they’ll have power when PG&E switches it off. As Martin explains:

Natural gas developers in Pennsylvania are hoping a recent water quality report by the Susquehanna River Basin Commission could squelch plans for a fracking ban that’s currently being considered by the neighboring Delaware River Basin Commission. The SRBC’s Remote Water Quality Monitoring Network report, which was released last month, revealed that water quality scores at 14 of the 16 stations in the basin were in the “good” or “excellent” categories According to a fact sheet from the Susquehanna commission, the monitoring stations are located in areas where active drilling takes place, as well as areas free of development, in order...

A precautionary boil water advisory has been issued for nearly 900 households in parts of Pittsburgh’s West End neighborhoods after a water main broke on Mount Washington Saturday afternoon. The boil water and flush advisory applies to portions of Ridgemont, Westwood and Elliott, according to the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority. Many residents in the area had no water service or experienced low water pressure due to the break, which occurred around 3:30 p.m. along a 16-inch water main on Virginia Avenue at Kearsarge Street, the PWSA said. PWSA officials said the break was isolated and normal water service was...

Greta Thunberg became the poster child for climate hysteria and fraud by sailing across the Atlantic in a supposedly “zero-carbon” yacht, the Malizia II, which in fact was made out of petroleum products from stem to stern ... Malizia II, like the rest of the yachts in the Imoca 60 class, is constructed from high-tech carbon fiber composites to make it ultra light and fast. It is the ultimate play thing of the wealthy elite. These boats are made of hydrocarbons, not to mention all the energy it took to make them. Carbon fiber composites are primarily made from propane...

Interstate 10 is now three lanes both ways between Tucson and Casa Grande, but your commute probably won’t get faster. The Arizona Department of Transportation projects I-10 could be bumper-to-bumper all the way to Casa Grande during rush hour by 2035. The route currently carries around 60,000 vehicles daily, and that could quadruple depending on the region’s growth, according to an ADOT spokesperson. John Moffatt, director of economic development for Pima County, said those backups won’t just be bad for commuters. He said they will hurt trade with Mexico. “Trucks are like water. They find the path of least resistance...

The extremist, antisemitic LaRouche PAC claimed responsibility for the “troll” at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) town hall on Thursday, who said we must “eat the babies” in order to save the planet from climate change. The bizarre moment unfolded at Ocasio-Cortez’s town hall at the Queens Public Library on Thursday after a woman stood up and proclaimed that we must “eat the babies” to save the planet from climate change, leaving the New York lawmaker dumbfounded. “A Swedish professor [said] we can eat dead people, but that’s not fast enough. So I think your next campaign slogan has to be...

NAVARRE BEACH, Fla. (WEAR) — Navarre Beach will no longer be wheelchair accessible. Last spring, Santa Rosa County invested over $8,000 to install mobi-mats. The mats ran almost to the water's edge with places for wheelchairs to turn off and park along the beach. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection are now calling the mats an "environmental violation." They add the county didn't seek approval to install the mats. Subsequently, the mats have now been removed. VIDEO AT LINK..................

If we expect to create a prosperous future fueled by low-cost, clean energy, it’s time to recalibrate the way we think about renewables. That requires us to move beyond the once cutting-edge view that solar power is a key ingredient in lowering greenhouse gas emissions. Ironically, a frequent target of environmentalists, Duke Energy, is showing us that’s not the case. In fact, Duke documents show the negative impact of deploying solar power on the electric grid.

The Trump administration unveiled a fuel proposal Friday that would buoy corn farmers and ethanol producers while alienating the nation’s oil industry. The proposal from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would require oil refineries to blend more ethanol into gasoline, a minimum of 15 billion gallons of each year. The rollout marks the latest twist in a months-long feud between two groups viewed by President Trump as key supporters in his base: farmers and the oil and gas industry. “Once again the president has demonstrated he’s a champion for our nation’s farmers and for rural America,” a senior EPA official...

Greta Thunberg Sings Swedish Death Metal, becomes an instant YouTube favorite.

While the climate strike and Greta Thunberg may have the limelight this week, the unwavering truth of climate and energy policy remains: people are unwilling to pay the costs associated with reducing carbon dioxide emissions. A recent poll from the Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation shows that support for reducing carbon dioxide emissions withers under the slightest bit of scrutiny. The poll shows people favor taxing the wealthy to pay for increasing electricity costs, which is pretty much par for the course on every issue, and raising taxes on energy, even if that leads to higher prices. ... when people are...

Greta, 16, shed tears on Monday during a passionate speech at the UN Climate Summit, as she slammed world leaders for "stealing my childhood". The youngster has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, selective mutism and OCD. During a debate on Good Morning Britain, Piers said he felt "uncomfortable" during her speech, knowing she has come from a "damaged background which should not be ignored". But co-host Susanna said she found it difficult listening to Piers having a go at her. She said: "I find it very uncomfortable you criticising her. I think describing her as 'unstable' it is very unfair."...

Before Greta Thunberg captured the world's attention with her rousing speech on the climate crisis, the 16-year-old activist already had a packed schedule. This week, the Swedish teen delivered a commanding address at the United Nations Climate Action Summit. Last week, she organized a global climate strike across 139 countries. She was even nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Here's where the Swedish climate activist is going next, said the organizers of the global climate strike. She won't go back to school: She won't return to Europe for at least nine months, but she's staying busy. She'll tour Canada and...

That late-night kebab might be considered a guilty pleasure, but could it one day be seen as a crime against the planet? Will the time come when the only means of procuring a slab of Aberdeen Angus is from a dodgy dealer with a cool box? The barrister Michael Mansfield has suggested that we should have new laws against ecocide – practices that destroy the planet – and that under them, meat could be targeted. “I think when we look at the damage eating meat is doing to the planet, it is not preposterous to think that one day it...

This week is climate action week where climate change cultists will be holding all sorts of marches and school strikes to demand action on “climate justice.” I do believe that the climate is changing (as it always does) and that man is a contributor to it. I think how much man contributes to it is up for debate. But to be honest I don’t take most climate change cultists seriously and the few that I do take seriously I believe are extremely dangerous for individual liberty and human flourishing. Why? Most seem to use the “climate justice” bandwagon as an...

Mika Brzezinski asked former Secretary of State John Kerry why he isn't running for president against Donald Trump in 2020, during a Monday interview about the Ukraine phone call scandal and climate change activism. Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, appeared on "Morning Joe" to discuss his new climate change group, "World War Zero," and other political issues, when he was hit with the question at the very end of the interview. "So Mr. Secretary, before you go — of course, we won’t put you in the awkward position of talking about the other Democratic candidates, but some might ask...

There is always a bitter sort of irony in watching videos of the unveiling of a flashy new iPhone on your own scuffed and scratched years-old device. As reviews of the new iPhone 11 rolled in this week — and I watched them on my trusty iPhone SE from 2016 — I almost immediately started doing the math in my head to figure out if I could afford the shiny new phone. But this year's parade of iPhone reviews was a bit different. Where most reviews have traditionally recommended readers upgrade every two years, The New York Times, for example,...