Free Republic

Video...Comic relief. Public service announcement: the border wall is even more problematic because animals and birds might be impacted. I wish I was kidding, but MSNBC ran a segment with biologist Jeff Corwin, where the latter said jaguars, the Mexican gray wolf, bats, and some birds might be impacted by the border wall’s construction. VIDEO “It would be an unprecedented environmental catastrophe,” said Corwin to host Craig Melvin. Melvin began the segments discussing Rep. Raul Graijalva (D-AZ) and the Center for Biological Diversity’s lawsuit against the federal government over the border enforcement project. In California, the state legislature is considering...

In the latest in radical climate doomsaying, a new report warns that fossil fuel consumption will need to be reduced “below a quarter of primary energy supply by 2100” to avoid possibly disastrous effects on global temperatures. In their report, titled “Pathways for balancing CO2 emissions and sinks,” a team of eight scientists warns that “anthropogenic emissions need to peak within the next 10 years, to maintain realistic pathways to meeting the COP21 emissions and warming targets.” The statement was immediately repackaged by environmentalists to read: “Scientists say we have ten years to save the earth.” As is always the...

Science centers that were supposed to be the “cornerstone” of the Department of the Interior’s “climate change response strategy” don’t have the proper controls in place to prevent wasteful spending, according to an internal audit. The inspector general’s office found Interior Department’s climate science centers (CSC) and landscape conservation cooperatives (LCC) could be wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on duplicative research grants. “We found that CSCs and LCCs had no formal process to coordinate the prevention of duplication in research grants, which could limit accessibility of information by Federal, State, local, and private-sector decisionmakers and place DOI at increased risk...

Federal contractor hauls off 835 dumpsters of trash and debris from protest sites The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wrapped up its $1.1 million cleanup of the Dakota Access pipeline protest camps on federal land in North Dakota, hauling away 835 dumpsters of remaining trash and debris. The site, once occupied by thousands of environmental demonstrators, is now vacant. [Snip] Corps Capt. Ryan Hignight said a total of 8,170 cubic yards of debris was removed from the three camps — Sacred Stone, Oceti Sakowin and Rosebud - all within the flood plain on federally managed land. "In total, there were...

A cleanup to prevent an "environmental disaster" is underway at a protest camp near the Dakota Access Pipeline. The camp had been occupied by thousands of environmentalists and Native Americans who were demonstrating against the pipeline project. It was the Native Americans who requested help with the cleanup, as massive amounts of garbage, human waste, teepees, and abandoned vehicles must be removed before the spring thaw when flooding is expected.

Have you ever noticed you can tell a lot about the character of a person or persons by how they clean up after themselves? Remember the massive tea party rallies and demonstrations? After they ended and everyone went home, the grounds were usually left in better shape than when the rally began. Not so of the large women’s rally in Washington last weekend. Take a look at what they left behind:

A group of 25 environmental activists stormed West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin’s office Tuesday morning, demanding he vote against President-elect Donald Trump’s picks for key administration posts. Activists carried a sign that read, “Democrats: You’re not climate deniers. Don’t vote like them.” Activists are specifically urging Manchin, a pro-coal Democrat, to vote against the confirmation of former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson as secretary of state and Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator.

Climate Central just ran this piece, which the Washington Post picked up on. They claimed the US was “overwhelmingly hot” in 2016, and temperatures have risen 1,5°F since the 19th century. The first problem with their analysis is that the US had very little hot weather in 2016. The percentage of hot days was below average, and ranked 80th since 1895. Only 4.4% of days were over 95°F, compared with the long term average of 4.9%. Climate Central is conflating mild temperatures with hot ones. They also claim US temperatures rose 1.5°F since the 19th century, which is what NOAA...

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...