Free Republic

Coal's future as a major energy source is being undermined by market forces, government regulations and moral arguments.

The booing was nearly as loud as the cheering when Bill Clinton stepped to the microphone in this remote mountain hamlet deep in the depressed heart of coal country. In the audience at the local elementary school Thursday night was a sizable contingent of coal miners and their families, many wearing helmets and T-shirts declaring their support for Donald Trump. […] The event here was Bill Clinton’s fourth in a long day of campaigning across Kentucky, where his wife faces a similar backlash in next week’s primary. …

Two thousand environmental protesters blockaded a coal mine in Germany on Friday as part of an international campaign against the use of fossil fuels. The activists, dressed in white overalls and equipped with breathing masks, blocked access to the open cast Proschim mine close to the Polish border, according to an AFP journalist at the scene. The group unfurled banners on excavation machinery, with slogans including “Keep it in the ground” and “Climate crime scene” as organizers said that the action would last all weekend. […] The “Break Free” campaign was the brainchild of several environmental lobby groups including Greenpeace...

When Wyoming rancher Andy Johnson decided to create a stock pond for horses and cattle on his 8-acre property, he did what any conscientious landowner would do. He got permits from both the state and local government before moving any dirt. What he didn’t count on was a power-mad Environmental Protection Agency.

A Gallup poll [1]released on Friday shows that the number of Americans who identify as environmentalists has dropped 36 points, from 78 percent in 1991 to 42 percent in 2016. There has also been a decline in Americans expressing concern about environmental problems, such as pollution. The Earth Day poll [1] is conducted annually by Gallup. The polling firm cites the politicization of environmental issues as one possible reason for the decline, highlighting the growing partisan gap in those who identify as environmentalists. A large percentage of Americans (Republicans and Democrats) – 78 percent – considered themselves environmentalists in 1991....

And in 2013, Randall Donohue, a research scientist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Australia, published research showing very similar findings to those found by Idso and others. Donohue used satellite images and found the Earth is greening, which seemingly runs counter to arguments made by environmentalist activist that global warming is causing mass droughts and tree and plant death. “Lots of papers have shown an average increase in vegetation across the globe, and there is a lot of speculation about what’s causing that,” Donohue noted a press release.

Friday is Earth Day for the left and you’ll hear no end of crowing about it. Not by accident, it also coincides with the day that the Paris Climate Agreement supposedly goes into effect. This plan, which President Obama signed onto in a non-binding fashion without any sort of blessing from Congress, signals the start of something very different: the prospect of rapidly rising energy costs in America for no discernible payoff. For that reason, those in the energy community have chosen to counter Earth Day by naming April 17-23 “Green Energy Poverty Week.”

U.S. solar energy company SunEdison Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Thursday, becoming one of the largest non-financial companies to do so in the past 10 years. Once the fastest-growing U.S. renewable energy developer, SunEdison embarked on an aggressive acquisition strategy that left it struggling with $12 billion in debt. In its bankruptcy filing, the company said it had assets of $20.7 billion and liabilities of $16.1 billion as of Sept. 30. Although solar project developers such as SunEdison continue to benefit from robust demand, their shares have been hit by investor concerns that demand could fall in...

My power is out. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, EPA. Thanks, envirowackos. (But then again, a tree might have fallen.)

A new batch of studies confirming the close relationship between global temperature and ocean level finds that seas are rising at the fastest rate since nearly 1000 BC.

Germans' daily habits are becoming a "burden" on the environment, according to a report on Tuesday by Germany's Federal Environmental Agency (UBA). Germans' demand for meat and non-seasonal produce are the two factors with the biggest impact on the environment and climate, according to the report. [...] The pressure to grow more and more crops to feed animals often leads to deforestation in developing countries, reducing the Earth's ability to absorb greenhouse gases. ...

Le Bourget (France) (AFP) - Nobel laureate Al Gore said at the Paris climate summit on Thursday that humanity must change how it lives, travels and grows food in order to avert global warming catastrophe. "Do we really have to change the energy and transportation and agriculture and forestry systems in the world and shift to a low-carbon pattern?" the former US vice president asked in a speech. "The answer is 'Yes'... because now the answer is coming from nature itself," he said. Gore pointed to a string of extreme droughts, record-breaking downpours and high tides, along with melting Arctic...

Former CIA Acting Director Mike Morell says the reason why the Obama administration wouldn't bomb and destroy ISIS oil wells was out of concern about "environmental damage." Discussing President Barack Obama's thinking prior to the Nov. 13 ISIS attacks in Paris, Morell, who served as acting director twice while he was the agency's deputy director, tells interviewer Charlie Rose there's "now a sense of urgency that there wasn't before." ...

The United States and Cuba are set to sign their first accord on environmental protection since announcing plans to re-establish diplomatic relations. Under the deal, scientists at U.S. marine sanctuaries in Florida and Texas will cooperate with their counterparts at two Cuban reserves on preservation and research. ...

Royal Dutch Shell will cease exploration in Arctic waters off Alaska’s coast following disappointing results from an exploratory well backed by billions in investment and years of work. The announcement was a huge blow to Shell, which was counting on offshore drilling in Alaska to help it drive future revenue. Environmentalists, however, had tried repeatedly to block the project, and welcome the news.Shell found indications of the oil and gas in the well in the Chukchi Sea about 80 miles off Alaska’s northwest coast, the company said Monday in a release from The Hague, Netherlands. However, the petroleum was not...

Humans’ status as a unique super-predator is laid bare in a new study published in Science magazine. The analysis of global data details the ruthlessness of our hunting practices and the impacts we have on prey. It shows how humans typically take out adult fish populations at 14 times the rate that marine animals do themselves. And on land, we kill top carnivores, such as bears, wolves and lions, at nine times their own self-predation rate. But perhaps the most striking observation, say authors Chris Darimont and colleagues, is the way human beings focus so heavily on taking down adult...

Oil and gas producers in one of the most active drilling areas in the country have had to make concessions to not disturb species such as the lesser prairie chicken and the dunes sagebrush lizard. Now industry officials in parts of Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico may have four other species to contend with: make way for the Cascade Caverns salamander, the Arizona toad, the alligator snapping turtle and the Rio Grande cooter. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Tuesday it is giving what it calls “status reviews” to the four amphibians and reptiles found in the Southwest as...

Ethical food does not matter to most Britons, a survey has revealed, showing that half of people say they do not care where their food comes from. Almost half of people (48 percent) surveyed said they would not necessarily stop buying products from a company if they discovered it was acting unethically, when surveyed by consumer research company Mintel. Of the 15,000 UK shoppers who were questioned, only a quarter (24 percent) said that the range of ethical products on offer influenced which shops they visited. More than half of UK consumers say that organic food is too expensive to...

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, late as usual, arrived in Rome Tuesday morning to pontificate at the Vatican about the dangers of climate change. Delayed by fog that forced his plane to land in Milan, de Blasio arrived 80 minutes after his allotted time to speak at the gathering of mayors invited by the Vatican. Once he was given time to speak, though, he waxed eloquent about “powerful corporate interests,” adding, “Is it not the definition of insanity to propagate corporate policies and consumer habits that hasten the destruction of the earth?”

Congressional Republicans are pushing back against proposed dietary guidelines that urge Americans to consider the environment when deciding what foods to eat. House and Senate spending bills say the guidelines must focus only on nutrition and diet. That’s a clear effort to thwart a recommendation by the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee that eating a diet higher in vegetables and other plant-based foods is better for the environment than eating a diet based more on foods from animals. The advice from a government advisory panel of independent doctors and nutrition experts has raised the ire of the meat industry. The dietary...