Free Republic

The helicopter rescue crew is coming to take me away, ha-haaa! They're coming to take me away, ho-ho, hee-hee, ha-haaa! To the funny farm. Where I can find banana peanut butter milkshakes sprinkled with delicious carbon credits. We thought it was a joke and so we laughed, we laughed when I had said that proving global warming had trapped us in ice and that I'm going MAD!!! And U.K. Guardian reporter Laurence Topham has proclaimed himself going mad (along with his craving for banana peanut butter milkshakes) in this rather morose video diary in which he discovers that that the...

No rules yet for recycling mercury-containing alternatives A federal ban on inefficient light bulbs goes into effect Jan. 1, 2014, almost seven years after it was announced with fanfare by a then-rookie Conservative government. But the tough regulations are being watered down, and there are no federal rules yet on recycling a class of bulbs that meet the new standard but contain toxic mercury.

The Earth Justice website paints a bleak picture of strip mining which has “devastated Appalachia,” claiming that “in the past few decades, over 2,000 miles of streams and headwaters that provide drinking water to millions of Americans have been permanently buried and destroyed. An area the size of Delaware has been flattened. Local coal communities routinely face devastating floods and adverse health effects.” If so many miles of streams that provide drinking water to millions had been buried, how do these millions get their drinking water? I also wonder if the cancer rate and lung-related illnesses are higher in these...

Nick Clegg’s party has unveiled proposals to only allow ultra-low carbon vehicles on UK roads by 2040. The controversial measures would mean millions of petrol and diesel cars being forbidden. Only electric vehicles and ultra-efficient hybrid cars would be allowed on UK roads under the Lib Dem plans. However, petrol and diesel vehicles would still be allowed for freight purposes. … The Lib Dems also want to introduce a system of road pricing in congested areas. … As part of the party’s plans to create a “zero-carbon” Britain, the Lib Dems could also embrace nuclear power and shale gas exploration....

A person who is actually a climate skeptic (and WUWT regular) applied for and was granted a training slot in Chicago this week. http://climaterealityproject.org/leadership-corps/ and has graduated as one of the 1500 people that attended the event. For obvious reasons, I can’t reveal the person’s name, but I can reveal the communication I received last night. The ‘mole’ writes:

An all too familiar scene was enacted on the campus of Swarthmore College during a meeting on May 4th to discuss demands by student activists for the college to divest itself of its investments in companies that dealt in fossil fuels. As a speaker was beginning a presentation to show how many millions of dollars such a disinvestment would cost the college, student activists invaded the meeting, seized the microphone and shouted down a student who rose in the audience to object. Although there were professors and administrators in the room — including the college president — apparently nobody had...

‘No such thing as ethical oil,’ Al Gore tells Toronto audience IVAN SEMENIUK The Globe and Mail Published Tuesday, May. 07 2013, 10:44 PM EDT Last updated Wednesday, May. 08 2013, 7:41 AM EDT Declaring that “American democracy has been hacked,” former U.S. vice-president Al Gore told a Toronto audience that his countrymen needed to wake up to the special interests that have a grip on the levers of power in the U.S. Congress and are able to block legislation on a range of policy issues including his signature cause, global climate change. Mr. Gore added that he felt action...

Enjoy the footage of Liberal environmentalists showing each other how much they love trees, but also showing the world how crazy they are... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElJFYwRtrH4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

April 21, 2013 Earth Day co-founder killed, composted girlfriend Remy Melina Ira Einhorn was on stage hosting the first Earth Day event at the Fairmount Park in Philadelphia on April 22, 1970. Seven years later, police raided his closet and found the "composted" body of his ex-girlfriend inside a trunk. A self-proclaimed environmental activist, Einhorn made a name for himself among ecological groups during the 1960s and '70s by taking on the role of a tie-dye-wearing ecological guru and Philadelphia’s head hippie. With his long beard and gap-toothed smile, Einhorn — who nicknamed himself "Unicorn" because his German-Jewish last name...

The Economist and other journalism icons are beginning to reassess their position on global warmingThe overwhelming consensus on global warming among journalists may be cracking. Last week, the world’s most prestigious newsmagazine – The Economist – backed away from its past alarmist position, saying that “If climate scientists were credit-rating agencies, climate sensitivity would be on negative watch.” The Economist now discounts the high-end estimates of warming coming from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as being unlikely if not far-fetched. Carbon taxes offer economic pain for little to no environmental gain Kenneth P. Green: Whether or not one...

A California billionaire is pledging to spend as much of his fortune as necessary to make climate change “the defining issue of our generation.” Tom Steyer, who made his riches as a hedge fund manager, told The Hill on Tuesday that he wants to make climate change a campaign issue for years to come and Democratic support for environmental protections as widespread as support for gay marriage and immigration reform. “The goal here is not to win. The goal here is to destroy these people. We want a smashing victory,” Steyer said of candidates he judges to be on the...

I checked first, thinking this was some April Fools joke, it appears legit. (h/t to Tom Nelson and Skiphil)Climate Alarmist Jim Hansen leaving NASA on Wed. to devote himself to legal and political activism:Hansen retiring from NASA to press legal and activist efforts At the same time, retirement will allow Dr. Hansen to press his cause in court. He plans to take a more active role in lawsuits challenging the federal and state governments over their failure to limit emissions, for instance, as well as in fighting the development in Canada of a particularly dirty form of oil extracted...

March 24 is Palm Sunday, which means that millions of Christians across the country will be celebrating Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem by carrying palm leaves, often shaped in the form of a cross, into their places of worship. Where do these palms come from? Most likely they have been imported from one of a few Latin American countries: Guatemala, Belize, or southern Mexico, for instance. And most likely, they have been harvested in a manner that is harmful to the environment. Harvesters are often paid by volume rather than quality, and they have a strong incentive to cut as many...

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) -- The founder of Sea Shepherd left the environmental group's fleet of anti-whaling ships before they docked in Australia on Wednesday, though the government says it has no reason to arrest him at the moment. Three Sea Shepherd ships docked at the southern port of Williamstown after weeks of harassing Japanese whalers in the Antarctic Ocean during the annual whaling season. The Washington state-based organization, which the United States' largest federal court last month labeled "pirates," said [Paul] Watson, a 62-year-old Canadian, had left the fleet before it reached Australia for fear of arrest. His whereabouts have...

The Los Angeles Times ran a Thursday editorial by Middlebury College Professor Bill McKibben arguing that allowing millions of illegal immigrants into America will reduce global warming. “I feel it's urgent that we get real immigration reform, allowing millions to step out of the shadows and on to a broad path toward citizenship,” wrote McKibben. “It will help, not hurt, our environmental efforts, and potentially in deep and powerful ways.” McKibben says that while the average American has a larger carbon footprint than a person living in the developing world, bringing more immigrants to America would likely reduce their tendency...

**SNIP** -- It would impose a fee, starting at $20 per ton of carbon emissions (or the methane equivalent), at nearly 3,000 production facilities, such as coal mines, oil refineries and natural gas processing plants. This way, the fee would be imposed on the fossil-fuel producers themselves, responsible for an estimated 85 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Congressional Research Service. The carbon fee would raise $1.2 trillion in revenue over 10 years, according to Boxer and Sanders' estimate. They say the legislation alone would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2025--and further reductions would...

Environmental activists make money telling us all how terrible things are; climate scientists appreciate the help promoting their data, we do have a bit of a train wreck coming at us emissions-wise, but climate scientists also know there is a risk of backlash if there are too many hyperbolic claims, and that 'green fatigue' will set in if every change in temperature and every storm is attributed to global warming. That's why even the IPCC, no wallflower when it comes to using media talking points, wishes media would not attribute local weather to climate change(PDF). And then there is the...

When Thomas Steyer — a San Francisco billionaire and major Democratic donor — discusses climate change, he feels as if one of two things is true: What he’s saying is blindingly obvious, or insane. It’s a somewhat shocking statement for someone who’s in the running to succeed the cerebral Steven Chu as energy secretary. Granted, he’s a long shot — the leading contender is MIT professor Ernest Moniz, who served as the department’s undersecretary during the Clinton administration — but his backers say his strength lies in combining business savvy with an activist’s passion. But it’s not as if Steyer,...

In his State Of The Union address on February 12, President Obama made it clear that action by the federal government on global-warming legislation will be a major priority in his second term. He declared that “for the sake of our children and our future, we must do more to combat climate change.” The president went on to regurgitate the standard boilerplate claims of the global warming alarmists. He averred: Now, it’s true that no single event makes a trend. But the fact is the 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15. Heat waves, droughts,...

“If you build it,” an Iowa corn farmer was told in the movie Field of Dreams, “they will come.” That worked out so well for all concerned that the federal government is reviving the approach, with some slight edits. “If we mandate it, the science will come,” seems to be Washington’s motto. Instead, government has ended up replacing science with, well, fiction. Consider the push for renewable fuels. It’s easy to see why lawmakers would want to encourage Americans to grow energy rather than dig it out of the ground. But in their eagerness to create an industry, lawmakers...