Free Republic

Environmentalists have cheered the decision by the Obama administration to tap Recreational Equipment Inc. CEO Sally Jewell as secretary of the interior, a position to be vacated by Ken Salazar. “In Jewell, President Obama chose a leader with a demonstrated commitment to preserving the higher purposes public lands hold for all Americans – recreation, adventure, and enjoyment,” Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune said in a statement. “Jewell’s unique experience and her love of America’s outdoors will be invaluable to the stewardship of the waters, lands and wildlife we’ve been entrusted to protect for our children,” said Frances Beinecke, president...

Hubby snapped photo of some anti-fracking grafitti in the People's Republic of Ithaca.

FrackNation is the film that will tell the truth about fracking. There are two sides of every story and then there is the truth. FrackNation is the film that will tell the truth about fracking. People across the US told us that everything we had heard about fracking was wrong. They say that anti-fracking campaigns, one-sided media coverage and moratoriums and bans have damaged the lives of thousands of people who are now desperate to have their voices heard. Journalist Phelim McAleer faces threats, cops and bogus lawsuits questioning green extremists for the truth about fracking. McAleer uncovers fracking facts...

France's Green party has proposed to parliament a law which extends the nation's ban on shale oil and gas exploration to all drilling methods, Green party MP Francois-Michel Lambert said in a statement Wednesday. The question of whether France should mine its significant shale gas potential is high on the agenda of a national debate on energy which will frame 2013 policy decisions. "It is time to definitively close the door on non-conventional hydrocarbon [drilling]" said Lambert, proponent of the draft law. This is something the Socialist government has not been willing to do, instead choosing to outlaw hydraulic fracturing,...

SUPERIOR, Arizona — An Arizona mining company announced Friday it will suspend shaft and drilling work at its Superior operation and eliminate about 400 jobs, saying the moves are the result of continued uncertainty around a proposed land exchange. Resolution Copper Mining officials said they will try to place affected workers in other jobs within the company. Some workers could be placed in positions with one of Resolution's owners, London-based Rio Tinto...

Early on last night, a voter asked about gas prices, leading to a rather heated exchange about a variety of energy-policy measures, including drilling leases. Eventually, moderator Candy Crowley tried to focus on a narrow point: "Mr. President, could you address ... what the governor said, which is: If your energy policy was working, the price of gasoline would not be $4 a gallon here. Is that true?" President Obama explained that "world demand's gone up," but I suspect some viewers were still confused about the overarching policy. We haven't really delved into this in earnest since February, so let's...

In its strongest ever warning, Ofgem said there may have to be “controlled disconnections” of homes and businesses in the middle of this decade because Britain has not done enough to make sure it has enough electricity. The regulator's new analysis reveals the risk of power-cuts is almost 50 per cent in 2015 if a very cold winter causes high demand for electricity. It predicts Britain will face power shortages because old coal and oil plants are being forced to shut down under the European Union’s environmental regulations. This will partly be replaced by wind farms, but they are less...

DETROIT: The fledgling electric car business is in turmoil as predictions about potential sales have proven to be wildly optimistic despite volatile fuel prices and plenty of media hype. Weak consumer demand is hitting both the big automakers like General Motors and Nissan -- which have failed to meet sales targets on the plug-in Volt and all-electric Leaf -- and smaller start-up firms trying to carve out a piece of a very small niche. "Electric vehicles don't make any more sense today than they did in 1912," says Sean McAlinden, an analyst with the Center for Automotive Research in Ann...

Pew and their posse have underwritten a crusade by Canadian environmentalist nonprofits to obstruct the development of the Great White North’s oil sands resources. That obstruction in turn obstructs the possibility of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would connect Canada’s booming oil production with American refineries, and thereby boost both nations’ GDP, create thousands of new jobs, and reduce America’s dependence on oil from nations that are rather less friendly than Canada.

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (AP) -- Former Vice President Al Gore is slated to speak at the opening of Nova Southeastern University's $50 million coral reef research center. The South Florida center will focus on protecting coral reefs around the world and will cultivate coral species in nurseries for re-introduction to the ocean. Florida is home to most of the nation's coral reefs. Nova received a $15 million dollar federal stimulus grant to help fund the center. University officials said the center has created 22 new academic jobs, 300 construction jobs and will employ 50 graduate students....

John Lennon's son has said that a woman who disagreed with his viewpoint 'should have been aborted'. Sean Ono Lennon, the musician son of the late Beatle and Yoko Ono, became so enraged with a woman on Twitter who called him and his mother hypocritical that he told her: 'You are an argument for abortion.'

Called "arguably the greatest American in the 20th century," during his 95 years, Norman Borlaug probably saved more lives than any other person. He is one of just six people to win the Nobel Peace Prize, the Congressional Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And yet Borlaug, who died three years ago today, is scarcely known in his own country. Born in Iowa in 1914, Borlaug spent most of his life in impoverished nations inventing, improving and teaching the "Green Revolution." His idea was simple: Make developing countries self sufficient in food by teaching them how to use...

When President Barack Obama blocked the Keystone Pipeline, Republicans said the move would encourage Canada to pursue oil deals with China instead of the United States and cede a massive chunk of North American oil assets to the communist nation. Now, with China's state-run oil company CNOOC poised to cut a $15.1 billion deal--the largest ever foreign acquisition for a Chinese company--with Canadian oil company Nexen, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) are in full backpedal mode.

Like this wasn't exactly the way we expected this to go...Remember last year when the admin was all about how awesome the drilling jobs in Alaska were? Not so fast, buddy. Now, though, the re-energized environmental lobby is pressuring the Administration to drag its feet on the OCS exploration. At the heart of the environmental lobby’s argument is a false choice between economic development and environmental preservation. In fact, Shell’s efforts to advance scientific understanding of the Arctic’s oceans, wildlife and coastal areas has been praised by the Alaska SeaLife Center, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Obama’s...

Shooters have been blamed for starting a number of fires recently in tinder-dry western states, where conflagrations have erupted near shooting ranges. One, Arizona’s Sunflower Fire, has been positively traced to irresponsible members of a bachelor party who fired an incendiary shotgun shell into the underbrush: The Sunflower Fire — which has burned nearly 18,000 acres of the Tonto National Forest and is not fully contained — began in mid-May after five Arizona men gathered to celebrate the upcoming May 19 nuptials of Bryan Reeder. The group — all in their mid-20s — traveled from Mesa to the Sycamore Creek...

The massive western wildfires could have been avoided with intelligent forest management and less hysteria from the greens. As I write these lines, vast wildfires are sweeping through my home state of Colorado and other areas of the American west. Last week, two of my employees had to leave work early to rush home to evacuate their families from imminent danger. Hundreds of houses have already been destroyed, and thousands of acres of trees incinerated, and unknown myriads of wild animals burned alive. This disaster was predictable, and promises to get worse. Over the past decade, from British Columbia to...

We, perhaps, will never be able to reckon the entire extent to which the Environmentally ill and the EPA have caused the loss of life, limb, and monetary resources due to their obsessive love for Gaia, their Mother Earth. Frankly, I think they have done more harm to their Ma, than we could ever guess.New Mexico, as well as other western states, have been the latest victims of an out of control environmental policy as directed by out of control Democrats, especially in the Obama administration as of late. As Spain goes broke from going solar, as Obama works toward...

The Obama administration backtracked Wednesday and announced it will not declare the dunes sagebrush lizard an endangered species, saying voluntary efforts by New Mexico and Texas have headed off the need for the federal government to step in. The listing of the lizard as endangered become a major test case of the Endangered Species Act as energy companies and local residents battled the federal government for 18 months, declaring victory after the government said it wouldn’t invoke the act. Environmental groups criticized the move, saying the Interior Department ignored the science that shows the lizard’s habitat is threatened — which...

When Sacramento officials proposed putting solar panels on an old city landfill two years ago, they did so with the intention of providing clean energy to thousands of homes. However, in a twist that surprised many at City Hall, the people who might be expected to celebrate such a green venture ended up being the plan's loudest critics. Environmentalists and wildlife advocates argued that the field in Sutter's Landing Park – sitting atop a mound of buried trash that boasts majestic views of the downtown skyline – is a key feeding ground for the threatened Swainson's hawk. The hawks, a...

The Environmental Protection Agency held 12 hours of stacked hearings in Washington, D.C. and Chicago on Thursday in favor of a regulation that analysts have concluded would kill the building of new conventional coal plants in the U.S. Among the participants scheduled to testify in consecutive five minute blocks throughout the day were multiple representatives from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and environmental activists from the Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace. The proposed rule, reported by The Washington Post in March, limits the amount of greenhouse gases emitted...