Free Republic

Former Vice President Al Gore compared the Trump administration to an experiment that’s “terminated early for ethical reasons,” in an interview with MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell that also touched on the upcoming election and man-made global warming. On global warming, Gore repeated to Mitchell the line he uses in nearly every speech: “Every night on the television news is like a nature hike through the book of Revelation.”

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam is poised to implement a new regulation without legislative approval to join 10 other states in a climate change agreement based on restricting carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants.But lawmakers, policy analysts, and tea party activists in Virginia who oppose what they consider costly regulations of industry are raising questions about the economic and scientific arguments underpinning the proposed rule.They say the Virginia General Assembly should have a straight up-or-down vote on Northam’s plan, in part to ensure that any revenue the governor raises from “carbon trading” is collected and dispersed in a manner consistent...

A warmer world makes for nastier hurricanes. Scientists say they are wetter, possess more energy and intensify faster. Their storm surges are more destructive because climate change has already made the seas rise. And lately, the storms seem to be stalling more often and thus dumping more rain. Study after study shows that climate change, in general, makes hurricanes worse. But determining the role of global warming in a specific storm such as Hurricane Florence or Typhoon Mangkhut is not so simple — at least not without detailed statistical and computer analyses.

Climate change is here now, and it’s time to urgently ask ourselves: What kind of future do we want to work toward? The air we breathe is key to answering this question. Global warming is not just manifesting in devastating fires, floods and heatwaves; its causes are impacting nearly every breath we take. A recent World Health Organization report said that nine out of 10 people on the planet breathe dangerous air, and an estimated 7 million premature deaths a year are caused by air pollution-related diseases, including stroke and heart disease, respiratory illness and cancer. The most vulnerable people...

"...It was no surprise that Gov. Jay Inslee was promising the state would take the feds to court over a proposed change in the Clean Power Plan rules regarding coal-burning generating facilities. "...The real surprise was one of Inslee’s reasons for challenging the proposed rule to allow states more control over emissions from coal-burning power plants, a reason that suggests either an unfamiliarity with geography or meteorology. (1st money quote - from the village idiot): "...“We’re breathing smoke from Mississippi,” he told reporters. “We’re breathing smoke from the rest of the United States.” "...Weather patterns generally go from west to...

Three Central Valley elected officials have added their names to a petition urging Gov. Jerry Brown to end oil and gas production in California — a move that, if successful, would heavily impact Kern's economy and county property tax revenues...........

Everyone knows the real reason people like Donald Trump are sceptical of climate change is that conservatives are fundamentally anti-science. Some doubt science because it conflicts with their religious beliefs; others because its implications might mean radically shifting the global economy in an anti-growth or heavily statist direction, which goes against their free-market ideology; others because, being conservative, they are prisoners of their dogmatism, need closure and fear uncertainty. I hear this all the time from lefties on social media. And there seems to be some evidence to support it.At least there is if you believe studies like The Republican...

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) overwhelmingly passed a resolution on Friday evening saying it welcomes donations from fossil fuel industry workers and “employers’ political action committees.” Critics of the newly passed resolution are calling it a reversal of the DNC’s recently adopted ban on accepting donations from fossil fuel companies’ political organizations. DNC Chairman Tom Perez sponsored Friday’s resolution that allows the committee to accept contributions from “workers, including those in energy and related industries, who organize and donate to Democratic candidates individually or through their unions’ or employers’ political action committees.” Perez, who served as Labor Secretary in the...

U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) sent a letter to Bank of the West President and Chief Executive Officer Nandita Bakhshi pushing back on the bank’s decision to no longer conduct business with companies engaged in the exploration and production of coal, oil and natural gas. Bank of the West, headquartered in San Francisco, CA, has 23 branches with dedicated employees who work hard to serve communities and families across Wyoming. In his letter, Barrasso condemned the San Francisco headquarter’s attack on Wyoming’s communities and businesses that depend on fossil fuels for energy security, jobs and economic growth. “This misguided and...

Deadly fires have scorched swaths of the Northern Hemisphere this summer, from California to Arctic Sweden and down to Greece on the sunny Mediterranean. Drought in Europe has turned verdant land barren, while people in Japan and Korea are dying from record-breaking heat. Climate change is here and is affecting the entire globe -- not just the polar bears or tiny islands vulnerable to rising sea levels -- scientists say. It is on the doorsteps of everyday Americans, Europeans and Asians, and the best evidence shows it will get much worse. Remarkably, scientists can now work out in just a...

California Gov. Jerry Brown says his state is in "uncharted territory" with the current slew of intense wildfires and he warns that climate change has made the situation "part of our ordinary experience." "[The] predictions that I see, the more serious predictions of warming and fires to occur later in the century, 2040 or 2050, they're now occurring in real time," Brown said at a news conference on Wednesday in Sacramento. "You can expect that — unfortunately — to continue intensifying in California and throughout the Southwest. We are part of that process," he said. Brown said that only a...

Nearly everything we understand about global warming was understood in 1979. By that year, data collected since 1957 confirmed what had been known since before the turn of the 20th century: Human beings have altered Earth’s atmosphere through the indiscriminate burning of fossil fuels. The main scientific questions were settled beyond debate, and as the 1980s began, attention turned from diagnosis of the problem to refinement of the predicted consequences. Compared with string theory and genetic engineering, the “greenhouse effect” — a metaphor dating to the early 1900s — was ancient history, described in any Introduction to Biology textbook. Nor...

The youths argue they have a right to “a climate system capable of sustaining human life,” and that the government had violated the public trust doctrine to the detriment of future generations.

Former Vice President and climate change activist Al Gore called a new heat record set in Oman “ominous” in a tweet Saturday.“Another ominous record has been set,” Gore said. “The city of Quriyat, Oman, hit an overnight LOW of 108.7 degrees Tuesday- likely the highest minimum daily temp recorded on Earth. For those suffering from the heat in the U.S. this weekend, be safe and stay cool!”

The retirement of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy could allow the nation’s highest court to change its mind on whether the Environmental Protection Agency has to fight climate change. As a crucial swing vote, the Reagan appointee joined liberals in a landmark 5-4 decision in 2007 that the EPA is required to address climate change if its own scientists found that it posed a risk to public health. Two years later the agency made exactly that determination, issuing a scientific document known as the endangerment finding. “We’re not going to get another Kennedy who’s going to play that moderating role,”...

Young people will be left to pick up the bill for climate change because politicians are dodging the issue, a UK report warns. The government must act faster to cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from road traffic, homes and farming, the Committee on Climate Change says. Without action, the coming generation will have to pay much more to curb emissions in a heating world. The government says it is committed to being a world leader on climate change. It will introduce its low-carbon transport plan soon. The advisers are "acutely concerned" at the UK's lack of progress in cutting the...

JinkoSolar Holding Co. is the world’s largest maker of solar panels after four previous top companies tripped up in the past decade ... Many of the top producing companies have had problems with quality control. ... China’s large solar industry has stoked fears of a slow-developing environmental crisis as the country’s solar panels and infrastructure age and need to be replaced. (RELATED: Old Solar Panels Causing An Environmental Crisis In China) China has yet to develop a plan for disposing broken solar panels, which are difficult to recycle. The effect could be up to 20 million metric tons of waste...

Over 16,000 pro-life Christians have recently signed a petition asking that the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge be protected from drilling. The reason we are speaking out is because we are "called by God to be a steward of America's majesty." And the Arctic Refuge is one of the most majestic places in our nation. Unfortunately, the Arctic Refuge has never been more imperiled. After four decades of attempts, last year drilling proponents succeeded in attaching an amendment allowing drilling to a must-pass spending bill. Even past staunch Republican defenders of the Arctic Refuge voted the wrong way this time. Before...

VIENNA (AP) — Arnold Schwarzenegger is urging President Donald Trump to join in efforts to promote green energy, saying he would have "a lot of victories." The former California governor spoke Tuesday at the R20 Austrian World Summit, an offshoot of a Schwarzenegger climate change initiative. Schwarzenegger has sparred with Trump, who last year announced the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate accord. Schwarzenegger said: "Those of you who resist because you can't imagine success without fossil fuels: we ask you to join us. Everyone. Also you, President Trump: Join us." He added: "You said ... you want to have...

Karenna Gore, director of the Center for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary, urged the Catholic Church and other “faith communities” to become climate change activists and preach about taking action on the issue. “I actually think that [preaching is] one of the main things that could actually break through on this issue. One of the ways that we could break through on this issue is if people really start to think deeply on another level about it; on a moral and spiritual level and are moved from a different kind of place to take action, to raise it with...