Free Republic

I am speaking on behalf of the United States of America because my negotiators cannot,” Abigail Borah, a youth delegate to the 2011 Durban climate negotiations, yelled from the conference floor. “I am scared for my future,” she cried, silencing Todd Stern, the Obama administration’s chief climate negotiator. “We need an urgent path to a fair, ambitious, and legally binding treaty.” Now the Obama administration is signaling that there will be not be a new climate treaty. According to a report in Wednesday’s New York Times, the path to a treaty has come to an end, 14 months before the...

First they showed us the melting ice caps. But we just said: "Yeah. It's what ice does in summer." Then they showed us the drowning polar bears. But we just said: "Proves nothing. And anyway the polar bear population has increased fivefold in 50 years, which hardly sounds like a species under threat." Then they showed us the Hockey Stick. But we just laughed and made amusing videos about Michael Mann. But then, they showed us their ultimate weapon: grainy, arty, black and white portraits of climate scientists with concerned expressions on their faces. It was then that we knew...

(CNSNews.com) – Secretary of State John Kerry has called climate change “the biggest challenge of all that we face right now,” and his French counterpart has warned of climate “chaos” in 500 days, and now the U.N. climate change chief is implying that climate change can be viewed on a par with the deadly Ebola outbreak. Christiana Figueres told a World Health Organization (WHO)-hosted event in Geneva Wednesday that “we are not very far” from the point where climate change should be declared an international public health emergency, according to her prepared remarks. Under international health regulations, a PHEIC is...

For many scientists, educators, environmental activists and citizens, the topic of global warming and climate change is alarming. Many agree change is the offset — change in how we live, our legislation and how people are educated about the issue. During a House Democratic Policy Committee hearing about global warming and climate change hosted by state Rep. Steve McCarter, D-154, Aug. 26, professors, a meteorologist, state representatives, representatives from local environmental agencies and residents filled Curtis Hall in Cheltenham Township to listen, question and offer solutions, to what many say is an issue that needs be addressed now. “Numerous studies...

Submitting the U.S. to the international community’s will — without the consent of Congress In yet another demonstration of contempt for the Constitution, President Obama and his administration are pursuing what the New York Times characterizes as a “sweeping international climate change agreement to compel nations to cut their planet-warming fossil fuel emissions”—absent any input from Congress. The Constitution requires a two-thirds majority approval by the Senate to ratify any legally binding treaty. The Obama administration plans to sidestep that requirement by calling the agreement a “politically binding” deal that would substitute for an actual treaty. It would consist of...

Wintershall's head of exploration and production warned Thursday that Germany's 'Energiewende' (or Energy Transition) dream of pursuing an economy powered by the wind and the sun is in danger of turning into a nightmare. Speaking to energy journalists at the ONS exhibition in Stavanger, Norway, Wintershall Executive Director Martin Bachmann said he was concerned about figures recently published by Statistics Norway that showed overall investment in Norway's petroleum sector will drop by EUR 6 billion ($7.9 billion) next year. "That is actually bad news for Europe's security of supply and I think Germany – as the biggest market in Europe...

The EU advisers have been telling the U.N. secretary-general that the process of annual agreements by which individual states have already signed away much of their sovereignty and independence has now gone far enough for the final stage to be achieved without anyone really fighting back. The one thing neither the EU nor the U.N. has sufficiently understood is the wisdom and prescience of your Founding Fathers. Mr. Obama may mark his “X” on the draft world-government treaty (it won’t be called that, of course, but that is what it will be). But unless two-thirds of the Senate can be...

The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed global warming regulations aren’t just about stemming global temperature rises — according to agency’s chief, they are also about “justice” for “communities of color.” “Carbon pollution standards are an issue of justice,” said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy in a teleconference call with environmental activists. “If we want to protect communities of color, we need to protect them from climate change.” McCarthy is referring to the EPA’s proposed rule that would limit carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants. The agency says the rule will not only help fight global warming, but will also improve public...

The New York Times has a splashy front page article today that’s sure to warm the hearts of global warming fanatic. It likely will cause opponents of so-called climate change to burn with the rage of a thousand suns. In fact, we should not get excited at all. President Obama is working on a non-binding international agreement on climate change. It would “name and shame” countries that don’t comply with its strict standards. Those pushing this agreement believe it has “legal and political magic.” In reality, it won’t be worth the paper it’s written on. Obama cannot get a climate...

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is working to forge a sweeping international climate change agreement to compel nations to cut their planet-warming fossil fuel emissions, but without ratification from Congress. In preparation for this agreement, to be signed at a United Nations summit meeting in 2015 in Paris, the negotiators are meeting with diplomats from other countries to broker a deal to commit some of the world’s largest economies to enact laws to reduce their carbon pollution. But under the Constitution, a president may enter into a legally binding treaty only if it is approved by a two-thirds majority of...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Global warming is here, human-caused and probably already dangerous — and it's increasingly likely that the heating trend could be irreversible, a draft of a new international science report says. The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on Monday sent governments a final draft of its synthesis report, which combines three earlier, gigantic documents by the Nobel Prize-winning group. There is little in the report that wasn't in the other more-detailed versions, but the language is more stark and the report attempts to connect the different scientific disciplines studying problems caused by the burning of fossil...

Emily Gosden, The Telegraph August 26, 2014 The "pause" in global warming may last another decade before surface temperatures start rising again, according to scientists who say heat is being stored in the depths of the Atlantic and Southern Oceans. Global average surface temperatures rose rapidly from the 1970s but have been relatively stable since the late 1990s, in a trend that has been seized upon by climate sceptics who question the science of man-made warming. Climate change scientists have proposed more than a dozen theories to explain the "hiatus", which they say is a "distraction" from the widespread consensus...

Edelman global CEO Richard Edelman said in a conversation with an editor of Vice’s Motherboard blog that former US CEO Mark Hass was fired from the agency in part because of the way he responded to an investigation into PR agencies’ work with climate-change deniers. Quoted by Motherboard senior editor Brian Merchant, the chief executive of the world’s largest PR agency said, "We fired the head of our US [division] in part because of that stupid note he wrote, about, you know, how we don’t answer these kinds of things." In response to inquiries from the Climate Investigations Center that...

Maunder Minimum and Global Warming“Why We’re Definitely Not Headed for Another Ice Age.” When I saw that headline in Newsweek, I thought, do they know something that I don’t? But once I read the article, it left me wondering how in the world they came to that conclusion. It reminds me of the great retort by paleontologist Robert Bakker to those who did not agree with his belief that many kinds of dinosaurs were birds. “There are still a few of my colleagues who think if it walks like a duck, breathes like a duck and grows like a duck,...

The 96 years of measuring the water levels of the Great Lakes done by the Army Corps of Engineers represents a relative sliver of time compared to the thousands of years prior to 1918 when no one was keeping track of these levels. Nonetheless, in recent years global warming adherents were citing low water levels on the Great Lakes as evidence of global warming. Now that Great Lakes levels are no longer low, they are seizing on the recent wet weather in southeast Michigan to advance their arguments. The 4.7 inches of rain that swamped Detroit on Aug. 11 was...

I see that both the Farmer’s Almanac and Joe Bastardi (the other Joey B) are predicting another El Nino winter, which means a stormier and colder than normal winter, especially along the east coast. That could prove to be a bit of a problem since power companies apparently took Barry at his word that “if somebody wants to build a coal plant, they can — it’s just that it will bankrupt them.”  So they didn’t. And they’re closing the coal plants they do have: “In order to comply with the new Obama era EPA regs, American Electric Power, which supplies...

Are you a scientist trying to convince the public of the validity of your pet theory? Well, forget about presenting boring scientific evidence to support your premise. Instead you need to get in front of a mirror and practice facial expressions of deep concern and present that to the public to convinve them of your theory. If you think that is goofy, then that is exactly what the Huffington Post did to convince their readers that global warming scientists were really, really concerned about their pet cause which is losing public interest in their dire warnings namely because they failed...

Researchers say they have found more than 500 bubbling methane vents on the seafloor off the US east coast. The unexpected discovery indicates there are large volumes of the gas contained in a type of sludgy ice called methane hydrate. There are concerns that these new seeps could be making a hitherto unnoticed contribution to global warming. The scientists say there could be about 30,000 of these hidden methane vents worldwide. Previous surveys along the Atlantic seaboard have shown only three seep areas beyond the edge of the US continental shelf.

British Botanists conducting a Summer survey of Scotland’s tallest mountain, Ben Nevis, have been stunned to find evidence of recently formed multi-year ice fields, areas of compacted snow, some of which weigh hundreds of tons. According to the BBC; “Hazards common in arctic and alpine areas but described as “extremely unusual” in the UK during the summer have been found on Ben Nevis. A team of climbers and scientists investigating the mountain’s North Face said snowfields remained in many gullies and upper scree slopes. On these fields, they have come across compacted, dense, ice hard snow call neve. Neve is...

BRITAIN could freeze in YEARS of super-cold winters and miserable summers if the Baroabunga volcano erupts, experts have warned. Depending on the force of the explosion, minute particles thrust beyond the earth’s atmosphere can trigger DECADES of chaotic weather patterns. Tiny pieces of debris act as billions of shields reflecting the sun’s light away from earth meaning winter temperatures could plunge LOWER THAN EVER before while summer will be devoid of sunshine. The first effect could be a bitterly cold winter to arrive in weeks with thermometers plunging into minus figures and not rising long before next summer. The Icelandic...