Free Republic

Foreign governments concerned about climate change may soon be spending more time dealing with Sacramento than Washington. President-elect Donald J. Trump has packed his cabinet with nominees who dispute the science of global warming. He has signaled he will withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement. He has belittled the notion of global warming and attacked policies intended to combat it. But California — a state that has for 50 years been a leader in environmental advocacy — is about to step unto the breach. In a show of defiance, Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, and legislative leaders...

California Gov. Jerry Brown has suggested that the State of California could bypass the administration of President Donald J. Trump and work directly with foreign governments in advancing the cause of climate change, the New York Times reports. Last May, Gov. Brown signed a climate change deal between twelve regional and provincial governments in seven countries, committing to reduce the “greenhouse gases” that trap heat in the earth’s atmosphere and are thought to drive global warming. The aim was to show that California was committed to tackling the issue, even if Congress and the courts were not prepared to rubber-stamp...

Environmentalists are really worried that your home's Christmas lights will ruin the planet. They worry that both the manufacturing processes of the lights and the electricity needed to power them will generate lots of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. They worry that the lights are manufactured in China and thus the amount of CO2 emissions generated during their construction is effectively unknowable. [Snip] Christmas lights aren't the only pressing issue troubling the minds of environmentalists this holiday season. The left-leaning news website Huffington Post encouraged readers to consider the environmental impact of Christmas trees in an article this month comparing the...

As with the economy, government intervention can have unintended consequences. In Europe, the push to go green actually endangered lives through noxious air pollution. London, Paris and European governments “aggressively promoted diesel vehicles,” The Washington Post reported on Dec. 20. Why? For the environment, of course. Governments used policy to steer people away from carbon-dioxide emissions and toward diesel as the better choice. But the attempt to go green backfired as nitrogen dioxide emissions from diesel vehicles are shortening lives and clogging lungs, according to the Post’s London bureau chief Griff Witte. London has become the “global leader” in nitrogen...

More fake news from the Weather Channel, which last week attacked Breitbart for writing the truth about global cooling, and which has now launched a similarly politicized and gratuitous attack on the Florida sugar cane industry. Florida sugar growers, it claims in a ten-minute mini-documentary fronted by its toothsome Hit Girl presenter Kait Parker, are responsible for the outbreak of toxic algae blooms on Lake Okeechobee in the summer. If true, fair or accurate this would represent serious investigative journalism: the algae, which invaded a 33-square mile section of the Florida’s largest lake in May this year, caused havoc to...

On her 12 p.m. ET hour show on Monday, MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell advanced liberal fears that Donald Trump was compiling a “hit list” of Energy Department officials who pushed Obama administration climate change policy by sending around a “very controversial questionnaire” about the issue. Speaking to White House correspondent Kristen Welker, Mitchell fretted: “There was a very controversial questionnaire that their energy transition team sent out to everyone in the Energy Department at the high levels asking for the names of anyone who helped negotiate the Paris climate change accord....It was viewed by a lot of people at Energy...

New Day co-anchor Chris Cuomo on Thursday continued the media freak out over Donald Trump picking a climate change doubter to run the Environmental Protection Agency. He even outrageously compared those with similar beliefs to past opposition of interracial marriage. While discussing the appointment of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to run the EPA, Cuomo ranted to CNN co-anchor Alisyn Camerota, “People thought the world was flat.” He continued, “People thought blacks and whites shouldn't marry. People thought blacks shouldn't be equal. That doesn't mean you accept it as fact as a leader.”

Despite thermometers worldwide saying 2015 was the hottest year on record and 2016 promises to have been even hotter, Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that it’s actually getting colder. 1. This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bu*****t has got to stop. Our planet is freezing, record low temps,and our GW scientists are stuck in ice — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2014 2. Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump Obama’s speech on climate change was scary. It will lower our standard of living and raise costs of fuel & food for everyone. 1:31 PM - 26 Jun 2013 5. Donald J. Trump...

Holy cow! Dairy farmers are balking at crazy climate change legislation that will rob America’s middle class of affordable dairy products.The Golden State used to be a place you could visit for a relaxing vacation filled with sunshine, palm trees and bayside avocado burgers—and then fly home to live a relatively free life—leaving California residents to cope with the “crazy” aspects of the state, like sky-high taxes. Not anymore. California is America’s largest milk-producing state. Thanks to new regulations from CA Gov. Jerry Brown, one thing is certain: if you love milk and cheese, significantly higher costs are coming your...

The urgent threat of climate change means there is “no time to despair” over the election of Donald Trump, according to former vice-president Al Gore, who hopes that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will join an escalated climate campaign against the president-elect. Gore told the Guardian he remained hopeful Trump would reverse some of his positions on climate change but predicted an unprecedented backlash from environmentalists over the next four years.

The Democrat Party has learned no lessons after the drubbing it took at every level of government on election day if its recent moves are any indication. While the state of California is drafting rules to literally curb the supposed global warming effects of cow farts, the Democrat Party in the House voted to keep Calif. Rep. Nancy Pelosi as its minority leader. The vote to keep Pelosi isn’t a big surprise but the move to create regulations for California farmers to curb the effect of cow flatulence is both stunning and absurd. “If we can reduce emissions of methane,...

California’s desire to combat so-called global warming has led it to attack what it believes is deadly even if it is often silent – cow flatulence. According to an AP report, the self-proclaimed leading agricultural state is now focusing on what it calls “greenhouse gases” produced by dairy cows. In spite of opposition from farmers, California Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation that regulates heat-trapping gases from livestock businesses for the first time. Cattle and other farm animals produce methane, a gas that is referred to as a greenhouse gas and alleged to be more potent than carbon dioxide as a...

Donald Trump, after stating that he was going to reinstate waterboarding "and worse" for terrorists, now says he is against waterboarding. He also says global warming, which he once said was a hoax created by the Chinese to make U.S. manufacturing uncompetitive, may be caused by man-made activities. Donald Trump seemed to acknowledge that humans contribute to climate change Tuesday in a meeting with New York Times reporters, moving closer to widely held scientific opinion but away from the Republican Party line. He is keeping an "open mind" when it comes to climate issues, he said. "I think there is...

NASA’s top climate scientist Gavin Schmidt has warned President-Elect Donald Trump that the planet just won’t stand for having a fully-fledged climate denier in the White House. Good luck with that one, Gavin. Or “Toast” as we’ll shortly be calling you… Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), told the Independent: “The point is simple: the climate is changing and you can try to deny it, you can appoint people who don’t care about it into positions of power, but regardless nature has the last vote on this.” Unfortunately, Schmidt doesn’t feel so strongly on the issue...

United Nations delegates agreed to put off writing any rules for the recently ratified Paris climate agreement to 2018 after President-elect Donald Trump, who’s opposed the agreement, won a surprising election victory. UN delegates came away with little more than a pledge to reconvene by December 2018 to write rules for the global warming agreement despite extending their two-week summit in Marrakech, Morocco an extra day. News outlets are reporting nearly 200 countries reaffirmed their pledges to fully implement the Paris deal, which aims to somehow keep projected global warming below 2 degrees Celsius. But Trump’s surprise election victory shocked...

In my special Donald Trump Victory Edition Delingpole podcast on Thursday, I describe how I’ve been feeling since I heard the happy news. Like a baby sea otter on MDMA, basically: frolicking and swooping and frisking and diving in the lovely warm, salty water made up entirely of the tears of Hillary voters, greens, and the bien-pensant wankerati. If you’ve accidentally strayed over here from Buzzfeed, Salon, Slate, or similar, you will probably see this as evidence of my cruel and vindictive personality. On the contrary, I’m saying this stuff because I’m nice and because I care: some really, really...

One of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s wealthiest donors said he plans on spending as much money necessary to fight President-elect Donald Trump and his pro-fossil fuel positions. Billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer told reporters Tuesday that he intends on crafting a multi-pronged strategy engaging voters and anti-Trump activists once the former reality TV star takes residence in the White House. “We have always been willing to do whatever is necessary,” the former hedge fund manager said when asked about the amount of money he was willing to dump into the system to destroy Trump’s agenda. Steyer’s position closely...

Last week, a group of 21 young people, aged 9 to 20 years, won the right to sue the US government for its inaction in mitigating climate change, when an Oregon federal judge ruled that the plaintiffs' lawsuit was valid and could proceed in court. The chief legal counsel for the plantiffs, Julia Olson, had this to say about the significance of the ruling, urging outgoing President Obama to come to an agreement with a binding court order before Trump's inauguration early next year: We have a President-elect who is an obvious climate denier and both political branches controlled by...

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency is telling staff to quickly finish up the last round of regulations before President-elect Donald Trump enters the Oval Office next year. "As I've mentioned to you before, we're running — not walking — through the finish line of President Obama's presidency," EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said in a staff memo obtained by the Washington Examiner after Trump was declared the winner of Tuesday's election. The agency is currently working on regulations for the oil and gas sector, and is finalizing new annual regulations for the nation's ethanol mandate and renewable fuel blending...

The Department of Interior’s blog [1] stated Thursday that the biggest threat to seven of the most iconic landmarks in the United States is climate change. “Climate change is the biggest threat to our national parks,” the blog stated. “It’s not just a future threat -- we’re seeing the impacts right now at national parks and other public lands across the country. “We must #ActOnClimate to ensure that current and future generations can enjoy America’s most treasured places,” the blog stated. “If we don’t, we will have to say goodbye to these iconic views.” Here are the seven places the...