Free Republic

Events have failed to fulfill the prophecy. Preachers have suddenly been struck dumb by uncertainty. Believers are understandably nervous and some, under their breath, are abandoning the dogma. These sentences could have been written at the end of the day on October 22, 1844, about the Millerites, a religious sect started in upstate New York. Preachers had told their followers that Jesus would return to earth that day. He failed to show. But the subject here is not Millerism, but another kind of religious faith: the faith of the global-warming alarmists. And while it’s not likely to have the impact...

The Connecticut legislature extended the two-year ban on wind turbines, striking down regulations that would have allowed for the construction of the renewable energy projects. The legislature's Regulation Review Committee on Tuesday voted 10-3 to reject the proposed wind regulations by the Connecticut Siting Council. The members were concerned about who would dismantle the structures if the owners ever went out of business. This is the third rejections of the proposed regulations since the state placed a moratorium on wind turbine development in 2011. It also marks the first rejection since June, when the legislature passed a comprehensive energy strategy...

It’s now been just over five years since TransCanada first filed an application for a presidential permit to build a cross-border pipeline, but that hasn’t done anything to temper the radical eco-lobbies’ relentlessly combative campaign based on nothing more than untenable arguments and outrageous outrage. Points for their steadfast commitment, I suppose, but those points are completely negated by these out-of-touch green groups’ and millionaire donors‘ refusal to contend with the facts that the southern portions of the Keystone pipeline are already in operation or nearly complete, that the pipeline will be used to ship domestic oil too, and that...

The Environmental Protection Agency’s recently announced decision to, in effect, ban the construction of traditional coal-fired power plants in the United States is a non-solution to a hypothetical problem, enacted upon a legal basis that is shaky and an economic basis that is nonexistent. The cost-benefit analysis is almost entirely one-sided: The costs will be very high, and the benefits the EPA hopes to secure will remain out of reach. The EPA is demanding that new U.S. plants that will use coal to generate electricity must meet standards that today are met by no commercial coal-fired plant operating anywhere in...

Ruth Patrick, whose studies of freshwater ecology in the 1930s helped galvanize the later environmental movement and whose success in a profession dominated by men charted a course for other female scientists, died Sept. 23 at a retirement community in Lafayette Hill, Pa. She was 105.

PROFESSOR Tim Flannery has been sacked by the Abbott Government from his $180,000 a year part time Chief Climate Commissioner position with the agency he runs to be dismantled immediately. Environment Minister Greg Hunt called Prof Flannery this morning to tell him a letter formally ending his employment was in the mail.

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog Global warming scientists finally admit that their computer models exaggerate the amount of global warming I’ve always suspected that the computer models that scientists use to predict global warming were programmed to exaggerate the amount of global warming.And now, the scientists who write these computer programs have finally admitted that that is indeed the case.The Telegraph reports:Top climate scientists admit global warming forecasts were wrongTop climate scientists have admitted that their global warming forecasts are wrong and world is not heating at the rate they claimed it was in a key report.One of the central issues...

One of the many arguments that the rabidly anti-fracking, eco-radical crowd have been using to try and discredit hydraulic fracturing as a welcome boon to both our environment and our economy is the claim that the process itself leaks an unacceptable amount of methane into the atmosphere. Methane, they insist, is an especially potent greenhouse gas, so that on net start-to-finish evaluation, natural gas really isn’t any cleaner than coal and those studies about natural gas contributing so hugely to the United States’ recently decreased carbon emissions can’t really be that accurate.Unfortunately for them, a brand new study concludes that...

A leaked copy of the world’s most authoritative climate study reveals scientific forecasts of imminent doom were drastically wrong. The Mail on Sunday has obtained the final draft of a report to be published later this month by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the ultimate watchdog whose massive, six-yearly ‘assessments’ are accepted by environmentalists, politicians and experts as the gospel of climate science. They are cited worldwide to justify swingeing fossil fuel taxes and subsidies for ‘renewable’ energy. Yet the leaked report makes the extraordinary concession that the world has been warming at only just over half...

Children living near nuclear power plants do not have an increased risk of developing leukaemia, a study says. Experts looked at data on 10,000 children diagnosed under five between 1962 and 2007, and where they lived. The British Journal of Cancer study is not the first to rule out a link - but previous studies' methods were challenged. Cancer Research UK said the results were "heartening" but added monitoring should continue. Leukaemia is the twelfth most common cancer in the UK, but accounts for a third of all cancers diagnosed in children. Around 500 new cases were diagnosed in children...

Anti-human radical environmentalism continues to advance with no push back in sight.Boulder, Colorado appears on the verge of passing a “nature rights” law, which give the birds and the bees, the flowers and the trees a putative right to life equal to our own. From the Denver Westword News story: Natural wonder: Boulder County has a reputation for leading the state in matters of open space, animal rights, environmental protections and all-around tree-hugging. But next week may present the acid test for local officials’ greeniness.On Wednesday, September 18, the county planning commission will listen to a presentation from staff and...

When it opened its timber doors three years ago, this £7million ‘eco primary school’ was applauded for its environmentally friendly credentials. It was heated by solar power and its plumbing system relied on rain collected from the roof, which was made of locally grown sweet chestnut. Sadly, the zero-carbon building is not quite as sustainable as the designers had hoped. In fact, thanks to a series of water leaks and mouldy walls, pupils are now being taught in tents erected in the school grounds. The local authority in Devon has already spent £250,000 to investigate the problem, and plans to...

The vaunted scientific consensus around manmade global warming may be exaggerated, according to a study by the Global Warming Policy Foundation. A May 2013 report by climate scientist John Cook and fellow researchers found that among “abstracts expressing a position on [manmade global warming], 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.” This is misleading, writes Andrew Montford of GWPF, since the methodology of Cook’s report reveals that the researchers cast such a wide net to create the 97 percent consensus that it encompasses people who don’t believe in catastrophic global warming. To be part of the...

In an effort to highlight the impacts of global warming, four fun loving environmentalists decided to row the Northwest Passage in Canada, which used to be cut off by ice accumulation. Unfortunately, their trek was cut short by seasonally cold temperatures and – you guessed it – ice. “After learning that ice choked much of the route ahead, the group decided to end their trip at Cambridge Bay, about halfway to Pond Inlet,” reported CBC. Apparently there is just not enough global warming happening right now. (Maybe the group should have driven around town in a Hummer a few times...

elief was tempered with caution in Western Massachusetts on Wednesday as news spread that the Vermont Yankee nuclear power station plans to shut down late next year. New Orleans-based Entergy Corporation made the announcement on Tuesday, citing the availability of cheap natural gas and the current economy, which has made it less profitable to operate a nuclear power plant. “This was an agonizing decision and an extremely tough call for us,” said Leo Denault, Entergy’s CEO in a statement released to the media. The company said it will begin shutting down at the end of its current fuel cycle in...

Don’t get rid of that clothesline. It could be the wave of the future, as envisioned by a roomful of people who turned out Wednesday at the Senior Center for the city’s first Community Energy Forum. Some 90 people showed up for the forum, according to Northampton’s Energy and Sustainability officer Chris Mason. They threw out ideas about conserving energy and going green that ranged from cutting down on gasoline use to reducing greenhouse gases to using the city’s landfill for solar energy. ”It was a smashing success,” said Mason. City Councilor Jesse Adams, who was in attendance, said the...

As of Tuesday, the Earth's ecological budget for the year has maxed out. For the rest of the year the planet will operate on an ecological deficit. And it's only August. So claims the Global Footprint Network, which calls today "Earth Overshoot Day," its annual estimate of when human consumption exceeds the planet's ability to regenerate its resources for the year. "It's a bit of a gimmick, I admit," said the group's president Mathis Wankernagel,in a phone interview from Switzerland. "It's not that tomorrow I won't be able to eat potatoes anymore." But, he said, it's meant to make a...

Nothing brings the most useless people in society together like an environmental protest. I thought the unwashed groups of green cultists and fading celebs opposing the Keystone XL pipeline were brainless until we were exposed to the ‘Line 9’ protesters. There isn’t one neuron firing in the entire crowd. Not one.

Calling it “too late” for a legislative solution, proponents of expanding the state’s 5-cent bottle deposit law to more types of beverage containers said they are taking their decade-long fight to the people, filing a ballot petition with the attorney general Wednesday afternoon. Referencing unsuccessful attempts to push the proposal through the Legislature, Janet Domenitz, executive director of MassPIRG, said people who favor adding the deposit to sports drinks, water and other juice drinks have been patient for long enough. “It is time for the citizens’ voices to be heard,” she said standing in front of the state office tower...

Why isn't there more use of geothermal energy for power plants? Here's another use for fracking: expanding access to hot rocks deep beneath Earth’s surface for energy production. In April Ormat Technologies hooked up the first such project—known in the lingo as an enhanced geothermal system, or EGS—to the nation's electric grid near Reno, Nev. "The big prize is EGS," enthuses Douglas Hollett, director of the Geothermal Technologies Office at the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE). "The key is learning how to do it in a reliable way, in a responsible way." By some estimates, the U.S. could tap as...