Free Republic

LINK West Antartic Ice Sheet began melting away 10,000 years ago: study WASHINGTON (AFP) Jan 04, 2003 The West Antartic Ice Sheet began melting away some 10,000 years ago and should continue to shrink, according to a study released Friday. A team of researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle found that rock fragments were left behind by glaciers that disappeared over 10,000 years ago, according to the study out Friday in the latest issue of Science. "This work establishes a background pattern of steady decline in the West Antarctic ice sheet," said John Stone, an associate professor of...

Pope Francis had sharp words Saturday for people who are saying his brief exchange with Bernie Sanders at the Vatican is meddling in the U.S. presidential race, recommending they “find a psychiatrist.” The pope made the remarks hours after Sander, the Vermont senator seeking the Democratic nomination, said they met briefly at the Vatican and discussed such issues as income inequality and climate change. The pope later told reporters aboard a plane bound for Greece that he shook hands with Sanders, wife Jane, and another couple as he was leaving the Vatican. “This is called good manners, and it is...

Pope Francis greets a group of Syrian refugees upon landing at Rome's Ciampino airport April 16, 2016. The Vatican City population of about 800 grew by 12 as Pope Francis put three families of Syrian refugees aboard the papal plane before leaving Greece.The Vatican said in a statement that the pope "desired to make a gesture of welcome regarding refugees" by taking in the families, which include six children. "These are all people who were already in camps in Lesbos before the agreement between the European Union and Turkey.""The Pope's initiative was brought to fruition through negotiations carried out by...

Three Syrian refugee families flew to the Vatican with Pope Francis on Saturday following the pontiff's brief but provocative visit to a Greek island at the center of the European migrant crisis. "The Pope has desired to make a gesture of welcome regarding refugees, accompanying on his plane to Rome three families of refugees from Syria, 12 people in all, including six children," the Vatican said in a statement after the pope's plane took off from Lesbos, Greece. His trip to Lesbos was aimed at thanking the Greek people for welcoming refugees and to meet with migrants as the European...

Pope Francis has taken 12 Syrian migrants back with him to the Vatican after visiting a camp on the Greek island of Lesbos. The three families boarded the papal jet as the pontiff departed following his trip......

Landmark event on 22 April to mark the record for highest number of countries signing an international treaty A record number of more than 130 countries will sign the landmark agreement to tackle climate change at a ceremony at UN headquarters on 22 April, the United Nations said on Thursday. [ ] The UN said signatures from over 130 countries, including more than 60 heads of state and government, would surpass the previous record of 119 signatures on the opening day for signing an international agreement. That record is held by the opening day signing of the Law of the...

Meet Abu Ammaar Yasir Kazi. He's not some crazy Imam in the Middle East. He’s a college professor at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, who was described by New York Times Magazine as "one of the most influential conservative clerics in American Islam." In lectures to students at this American college, he blasts those in his class as being filthy and impure. He then steps up his vitriolic diatribes, by tearing into Christians, where he compares them to feces and urine, saying they are the "most evil of evils." He then instructs his students that they should engage in jihad...

Media coverage of Pope Francis’ Amoris Laetitia typically noted that it reaffirmed the Catholic Church’s opposition to gay marriage. Slate’s William Saletan acknowledges the literal truth of that reporting, but suggested in an April 8 article that the document contains seeds that will sprout into Vatican acceptance of same-sex unions, though he admits that process “might take centuries.” Saletan argued that in time, the Church will extend Amoris Laetitia’s treatment of infertile heterosexual couples to same-sex couples: “This double standard, between homosexuality and other forms of infertility, is the cracked pillar at the foundation of the church’s policy against same-sex...

"In Bitter, Bizarre First Post "Love" Homily, Pope Lashes Out at Critics, Calls Judas "This Poor Repentant Man," Blames Jewish Priests for Judas' Death (They Were Bad Confessors and had No Mercy)The Pope appears to be growing increasingly unhinged." Is the aggressive crazy talk a response to perceived opposition or a post Amoris victory lap? Vatican Radio reports on today's homily at Santa Marta. The first part deals not with Judas but with those who clutch to "the letter" of the law. It is impossible to believe that Francis is not referring to opponents of the "pastoral solutions" proposed in...

Climate change is a “global crisis,” and addressing it will bring “economic dislocation,” including job losses, Sen. Bernie Sanders said at Thursday’s CNN-hosted Democrat debate in Brooklyn. “Pope Francis reminded us that we are on a suicide course,” Sanders said. “Our legislation understands, …that there will be economic dislocation. It is absolutely true. There will be some people who lose their job. And we build into our legislation an enormous amount of money to protect those workers. It is not their fault that fossil fuels are destroying our climate. But we have got to stand up and say right now,...

If Bernie Sanders becomes president, America's fracking boom will be in danger. This week the Democratic presidential candidate called for a national ban on fracking, the controversial drilling technology that has not only led to a massive boom in oil and natural gas, created thousands of new jobs but also been linked to water contamination and even earthquakes. "If we are serious about combating climate change, we need to put an end to fracking, not only in New York and Vermont, but all over this country," Sanders said during a speech in Binghamton, New York this week. The anti-fracking crusade...

It’s easy to be against a policy when you don’t understand how that policy actually impacts your life. I believe that this is the case with one of Bernie Sanders’ proposals. Sanders has said multiple times that he would ban the process of hydraulic fracturing, but to my knowledge he has never addressed what the impact of such a ban might be. So let’s investigate. The technique of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking” had been around since the late 1940s and has been used extensively to promote higher production rates from oil and gas wells. Fracking involves pumping water, chemicals and...

Democratic presidential candidate and Vermont Sen.Bernie Sanders was invited to Vatican City to make a speech about income inequality. Despite the Vatican initially saying there would be no meeting between Sanders and Pope Francis, one happened anyway Saturday morning. Because of the political nature of the meeting, the Vatican initially had tried to distance itself from Sanders' visit, reports CBS News correspondent Seth Doane. But the Pope did meet Sanders and his wife in a brief meeting. On a terrace overlooking Vatican City, Sanders told CBS News "beauty" "resonated" from Pope Francis. "Are there pictures of this meeting with the...

Editor's Note: This column was co-authored by Ron Arnold.A self-appointed coalition of Democratic state attorneys general is pursuing civil or criminal racketeering actions against ExxonMobil, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and other organizations. The AGs claim the groups are committing fraud by “denying” climate change. The charge is bogus.What we contest are false assertions that “humans are creating a dangerous climate change crisis.” We do not accept false claims that “the science is settled” and will not be limited to discussing only “what we must do now to avert looming climate catastrophes.”That’s not just constitutionally protected free speech. It is the foundation of...

The U.S. Department of Energy published data last week with some amazing revelations -- so amazing that most Americans will find them hard to believe. As a nation, the United States reduced its carbon emissions by 2 percent from last year. Over the past 14 years, our carbon emissions are down more than 10 percent. On a per-unit-of-GDP basis, U.S. carbon emissions are down by closer to 20 percent. Even more stunning: We've reduced our carbon emissions more than virtually any other nation in the world, including most of Europe. How can this be? We never ratified the Kyoto Treaty....

Drinking water and the “human food chain” affecting thousands of people are seriously threatened, because the Environmental Protection Agency polluted a Colorado river with toxic metals waste, a government document shows.But that’s not what EPA has been telling the public since the agency’s August 2015 accident that turned the Animas River yellow for nearly two weeks, threatening the main source of drinking and working water for residents in three states and the Navajo Nation.The EPA polluted the Animas River with 880,000 pounds of dangerous metals like lead and arsenic after it intentionally breached the Gold King Mine in August. EPA released a statement shortly...

The Vatican says Pope Francis has no plans to meet with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders when the Democratic presidential candidate speaks at a Vatican conference on Friday. Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi told reporters Thursday that the pope has no plans to either address the conference or meet with Sanders. Lombardi said: "I'm not expecting anything."

Al Gore is back in the news, prominently seen in a March 29 press conference led by New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, where Schneiderman and his fellow AGs announced the latest effort to use racketeering laws to prosecute ‘climate change deniers.’ Minutes after first thanking Gore for attending and noting how his 2006 movie galvanized the world’s attention about the urgency to act on climate change, Schneiderman spoke of how the group was working to find creative ways to “enforce laws being flouted by the fossil fuel industry and their allies in their short-sighted efforts to put profits...

Ted Cruz was talking about over regulation of business on CNBC this morning and made a reference to this video. Since I hadn't seen it before I thought it was worth sharing. The ignorance of the Sierra Club president here is just astounding.

Galileo was jailed for heresy when he spoke against the theory that the Earth was the center of the universe. Thankfully, the Catholic Church no longer calls for imprisoning scientists or politicians who question popular opinion — only some Social Justice Warriors still demand jailing heretics. The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) posted a video to YouTube on Thursday with Bill Nye ‘The Science Guy,’ discussing whether “climate deniers” and energy CEOs should be jailed like war criminals. “We’ll see what happens, was it appropriate to jail the guys at Enron?” Nye asked. “Was it appropriate to jail people...