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Archaeological sites suggest climate may not have been directly linked to cultural and technological innovations of Middle Stone Age humans in southern Africa... The Middle Stone Age marked a period of dramatic change amongst early humans in southern Africa, and climate change has been postulated as a primary driver for the appearance of technological and cultural innovations such as bone tools, ochre production, and personal ornamentation. While some researchers suggest that climate instability may have directly inspired technological advances, others postulate that environmental stability may have provided a stable setting that allowed for experimentation. However, the disconnection of palaeoenvironmental records...

Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse recently told people gathered in New York City that global warming “denial” hurts U.S. soldiers in the field and that the “main problem” with the military is its reluctance to join the climate crusade. “The problem has been that the uniformed military has been reluctant to put its voice into – or its image into this fight,” Whitehouse said, according to a YouTube video posted Thursday. [dcquiz] “But, it’s hard to put a panel of people in uniform in front of the Environmental and Public Works Committee and say, you know, I’m a general,...

[Original text, a sermon, had no title/headline. The above headline was tacked on by the BeautySoAncient Blog] Homily preached by the Reverend Peter M. J. Stravinskas, Ph.D., S.T.D., on 3 July 2016, the external Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul (Extraordinary Form), at the Church of the Holy Innocents, New York City. “On this past Wednesday, the Church Universal (all 23 of her rites) and the Orthodox Churches as well celebrated the Solemnity of the Apostles Peter and Paul. This morning, we are observing its so-called “external” solemnity for the benefit of those who were not able to participate in...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Climate change. We have more on that today. John Kerry, the former Vietnam War veteran who served in Vietnam, has come out and finally admitted that ISIS is a bigger threat than climate change. This... I know it's funny, but Kerry admits that all this time he and Obama and everybody in the Regime have been claiming that climate change represents the biggest threat. But now it's ISIS! Now, why change? Why do this? I mean, climate change and the Democrat Party are inseparable. And the Democrats are making it the number-one issue. There are reasons --...

During an event at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars on Thursday to discuss how women are disproportionately affected by climate change in developing countries, Jane Harman, president and CEO of the center, said that many of the refugees around the globe today are being displaced by climate change. Harman said it is in the interest of the United States to “build resilience” in these countries to prevent migration and even terrorism. “It seems to me that the U.S. has a direct interest in building government capacity, which will build resilience in the countries you’re talking about,” Harman said....

Hillary Clinton, courting young voters and the broader Democratic base, has promised to one-up President Obama on climate change, vowing to produce a third of the nation's electricity from renewable sources by 2027, three years faster than Mr. Obama, while spending billions of dollars to transform the energy economy. A half-billion solar panels will be installed by 2020, she has promised, seven times the number today, and $60 billion will go to states and cities to develop more climate-friendly infrastructure, such as public transportation and energy-efficient buildings. She would put the United States on track to reduce greenhouse gas emissions...

The activists, including Naomi Oreskes and Bill McKibben, recently coordinated with attorneys general (AG) culminating with a March 29 press conference, led by New York AG Eric Schneiderman and joined by former Vice President Al Gore. There the “unprecedented coalition”—as Schneiderman’s press release called it—was announced: the newly formed AGs for Clean Power. Though “vague” on their specific plans, 17 AGs (16 Democrats and 1 Independent) have, as the Huffington Post reported: “committed to pursuing an all-levers approach” to, as Gore said: “hold to account those commercial interests that have been, according to the best available evidence, deceiving the American...

Over the last 8 years, Michelle Obama has evolved into an exemplary world traveler. Compliments of the struggling U.S. taxpayer, the FLOTUS consistently indulges in at least five or six multi-million dollar vacations per year.In March, if things get boring, Michelle, mother Marian, and daughters Sasha and Malia, either fly solo or use Dad (if he’s not golfing) as an excuse to pamper their weary bones with an all expense paid “working vacation.” Like clockwork, the girl gang jets off to destinations such as Cuba, China, Japan, Qatar, Argentina or Cambodia. Predictably, there’s always a June pre-Martha’s Vineyard vacation where...

July 4, 1876 was the grandest day San Francisco had ever seen. For weeks, the city prepared for the young nation's centennial. They draped American flags and bunting on every doorway and balcony in town. In glowing terms, the San Francisco Bulletin reported that huge paintings of Revolutionary War heroes were placed in "conspicuous places here, there and everywhere." Businesses were on their third straight day of celebration closures. Reverends in the town's Protestant churches gave centennial-themed Sunday sermons. Catholic churches held a special High Mass. On the bay and on land, revolutionary battles were reenacted for thrilled crowds. Thousands...

Human activities have little to do with the Earth's current warming trend, according to a study published by the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA). In fact, S. Fred Singer (University of Virginia) and Dennis Avery (Hudson Institute) conclude that global warming and cooling seem to be part of a 1,500-year cycle of moderate temperature swings. Scientists got the first unequivocal evidence of a continuing moderate natural climate cycle in the 1980s, when Willi Dansgaard of Denmark and Hans Oeschger of Switzerland first saw two mile-long ice cores from Greenland representing 250,000 years of Earth's frozen, layered climate history. From...

TONY Abbott must return as leader of the shattered Liberals after Saturday’s election disaster. ..... True, Abbott ideally needs months more to repair the image that a smart-arse media tore to shreds, feeding off his sometimes dumb mistakes. But who else but Abbott could hope to fix what Turnbull has just smashed? This election result has been a near-total catastrophe for the Liberals, who have been left without a mandate, platform, unity, honour or real power after letting Turnbull hijack their party last year. Turnbull, a man of the ABC Left, then ditched the Liberals’ base, Liberal principles and even...

Earlier this month a federal court in California ruled that a farmer plowing his land without a permit from the federal government is breaking the law. In 2013, the Army Corps of Engineers, without any notice or due process, ordered the owners of Duarte Nursery to cease use of their land for allegedly violating the Clean Water Act (CWA). The violation: plowing. The California court agreed with the federal government’s action, despite the fact the CWA specifically exempts normal agricultural activities like plowing from regulation. This overreaching assertion of federal power is not an isolated incident. For decades, the EPA...

Pope Francis delivers his blessing during the Angelus noon prayer he celebrated from the window of his studio overlooking St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, July 3, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini) In a new interview with an Argentine journalist, Pope Francis says there's a wing of the Catholic Church that "says no to everything," and while he's going ahead, he has no intention of launching a crackdown: “I don’t cut off heads. That was never my style. I’ve never liked doing that," he said. ROME-Pope Francis has vowed in a new interview that he won’t be slowed down by...

The two bloggers who have perpetuated this misinformation are Robert Scribbler, who describes himself as ” a progressive novelist, non-fiction writer and emerging threats expert,” and Paul Beckwith, who is working on a PhD with “a focus on abrupt climate system change” at the University of Ottawa. Scribbler says the cross-equator flow is a manifestation of man-made global warming, supported by the hypothesis that disproportionate heating of the Arctic is destabilizing the jet stream. “The Hemispherical Jet Streams have moved out of the Middle Latitudes more and more,” he writes. “More and more it has invaded regions both within the...

VATICAN CITY, July 1 (Reuters) - Former Pope Benedict says in his memoirs that no-one pressured him to resign but alleges that a "gay lobby" in the Vatican had tried to influence decisions, a leading Italian newspaper reported on Friday. The book, called "The Last Conversations," is the first time in history that a former pope judges his own pontificate after it is over. It is due to be published on Sept. 9. Citing health reasons, Benedict in 2103 became the first pope in six centuries to resign. He promised to remain "hidden to the world" and has been living...

The Pope Emeritus reportedly admitted to the diary in a book-length interview to be published in SeptemberBenedict XVI kept a diary throughout his papacy but plans to destroy it, according to an Italian newspaper. The retired pope apparently admitted to the diary in a new book-length interview to be published in September. The historic book, called The Last Conversations, follows the format of previous book-length interviews Light of the World and Salt of the Earth and shares the same German author, Peter Seewald. The Corriere della Sera newspaper, which has acquired the rights to publish excerpts of the book in...

You may not have noticed but our sun has gone as blank as a cue ball. As in, it’s lost its spots. According to scientists, this unsettling phenomenon is a sign we are heading for a mini ice age. Meteorologist and renowned sun-watcher Paul Dorian raised the alarm in his latest report, which has sparked a mild panic about an impending “Game of Thrones”-style winter not seen since the 17th century. “For the second time this month, the sun has gone completely blank,” Dorian says. “The blank sun is a sign that the next solar minimum is approaching and there...

The United States Forest Service severely damaged a forest road and trail in Northwestern Idaho earlier this month, raising serious questions about the agency’s ability to care for federally-managed lands. During the first weekend in June, several members of Northwestern Gold Prospectors Association (NWGPA) planned to attend a gathering to prospect private claims in the Bedrock Gulch and Eagle Creek areas. When the prospectors arrived, Forest Road 152 was blocked with cement barricades and hundreds of felled trees. ... Photographs from that day show large logs laid crosswise and laterally on the trail, covered with hundreds of large pine branches...

You might remember that Andy Johnson, the rancher from Wyoming, just won his case this week against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). That battle concerned their environmentally friendly stock pond on their private property. The EPA demanded that he remove the pond and threatened him with fines of $37,500 per day if he did not comply. The case was settled this week and the Johnson Family are happy. However… He is not the only citizen that the EPA has targeted. More cases are coming to light on the extreme overreach of this organization. Disabled Navy veteran Joseph Robertson, 77, of...

SYDNEY (AFP) – Australia's outback Aborigines will be among the worst affected by climate change as soaring temperatures likely cause more disease and spur distress about the changing landscape, a new report shows. The expert report, published in the latest edition of the Medical Journal of Australia, argues that the country's remote indigenous communities are the most vulnerable to changing environmental conditions. "Their vulnerability to climate change is intensified by the social and economic disadvantage they already experience -- the result of factors that include decades of inadequate housing and public services, and culturally inappropriate medical services," the journal said...