Free Republic

Are you a "believer" a "denier" ... or an "agnostic"? When you put together a large group of people who are all certain that they can predict what will happen 100 years from now, a group that demonizes those who stray even a little from their beliefs, a group claiming that if everyone follows them, we will be saved, but if they don't we will be doomed - then in most cases, that group is called a religion. Like most religions, this group also elevates the importance of mankind, so much so that humans are viewed as having more power...

Voters aren't buying climate hysteria and left-wing efforts to reduce personal freedoms.

There’s a debate raging on the Senate Floor right now over the Keystone XL Pipeline, and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D – CA) is lamenting how dirty the air is where the pipeline will end, Port Arthur, TX. Specifically, she is using a photo of a playground in the Texas city located near oil refineries showing dark plumes of smoke pouring into the sky and an entirely overcast sky. She claims the air will become even worse if the pipeline is approved. I’ve done graphic design for many years now and can tell when something is most likely Photoshopped. This is...

While everyone is watching to see how low oil prices will affect U.S. shale drillers, natural gas production continues to rise. Each month, the U.S. posts new production highs (see chart), and 2014 is shaping up to be a record year for natural gas drillers. With production ratcheting upwards, the U.S. has been able to achieve record levels of storage injections, building back inventories after last winter walloped the east coast and depleted supplies. The abundance of natural gas is allowing utilities to increasingly burn the fuel in power plants for electricity – a well-known trend that continues to accelerate....

All 50 U.S. states, including President Barack Obama’s home state of Hawaii, dropped to freezing or below on Tuesday, reports the National Weather Service.

If you asked a scientist to create a test-tube liberal, chances are his product couldn’t hold a candle to Maria Luisa Tucker. Tucker, a new mother, is celebrating the arrival of her little bundle of joy by mooning over the “environmental impact of procreation.” Really. For a Nov. 13 piece for Alternet, Tucker asked, “Does Having a Child Make Me an Environmental Villain?” In it, Tucker outlined her “main source” of “maternal guilt:” “the mere fact that I created a person.” “Specifically,” she wrote, “an American person who will inevitably leave a large carbon footprint.” Her inspiration came from her...

Extreme cold weather is gripping large parts of the United States, with temperatures of freezing or below recorded in many parts of the country. Four people have died as a result of the conditions in New York state and the bad weather has spread as far south as Alabama and Florida. Alpa Patel reports.

The focus of the 2014 Group of 20 summit meeting in Brisbane, Australia, was on stimulating economic growth across the industrialized world. Thanks, though, to President Obama’s grandstanding and attempted sabotage of the agenda as laid out by the host country, climate change also came to prominence. For several months prior to the G-20, and despite strong Australian resistance, radical environmental groups had been lobbying for inclusion of global-warming issues on the meeting’s agenda. Mr. Obama was happy to oblige them. His endorsement of the U.S.-China Joint Announcement on Climate Change just before the G-20 was a signal that he...

Heavy snow has stranded many motorists on a western New York highway. Some tips on what to do if you find yourself stuck in the snow: Pull off the highway and make yourself visible to rescuers. Turn on hazard lights and tie a bright cloth to your antenna or door handle. Call 911 from your cellphone, if you have one. Be prepared to describe the location, the condition of your companions and the trouble you’re having. Don’t hang up until you know whom you’ve spoken with and what will happen next. Stay in your vehicle.…

D’Aleo, now chief forecaster at WeatherBell Analytics, was one of the few meteorologists to accurately predict a colder-than-normal November. He expects several major East Coast snowstorms and “widespread below-zero temperatures” that will plunge much of the nation into a deep freeze for as long as six weeks this winter. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it snows in Atlanta, Dallas, and Birmingham,” he told CNSNews.com. “We’ve been talking about this being another one of those historic winters since the spring. The summer before last, we had seen last winter as being one that people near the Great Lakes would remember for...

The San Francisco Bay Area city of Berkeley will decide whether to slap stickers on gas pumps warning that burning fuel contributes to global warming in a plan that’s a first of its kind in the country. […] A spokeswoman for the Western States Petroleum Association, an oil-industry lobbying group, has said the labels reflect the state’s and Berkeley’s opinions and would force “unwanted speech in violation of the First Amendment.” …

The largest solar power plant of its type in the world - once promoted as a turning point in green energy - isn't producing as much energy as planned. One of the reasons is as basic as it gets: The sun isn't shining as much as expected.

The White House on Monday essentially dared Republicans to try and stop President Obama’s climate-change agenda, with officials bragging that even after the GOP takes control of the Senate in January, there is nothing that can be done to stop a host of controversial new actions. On a conference call with reporters, White House counselor John Podesta said the administration will move ahead on the issue despite Republican efforts to stand in the way. He even called out incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell by name, saying the Kentucky Republican will not succeed in trying to slow executive action on...

For some reason, I don’t find it surprising that Oregon is a hotbed of climate alarmism. Thus, when the Portland Tribune recently published an article describing how Oregon’s “warmer climate imperils our health,” it seemed appropriate to look further into the claims being made. Apparently, climate change in Oregon will lead to “less snow on Mount Hood? [but] we can live with that.” Interesting, given how there has been no significant trend in maximum overwinter snowpack on Mount Hood since records began in 1981. Indeed, according to an article in 2012 at ABC News Cleveland, snowpack in the Cascade Mountains...

The earth is allegedly in the midst of a 30-year cold spell, as is apparently evident from the early icy spell across many parts of North America, as well as last winter being, “One of the snowiest, coldest, most miserable on record,” according to USA Today. The man who made the claims is climatologist John L. Casey, who is also a former space shuttle engineer and NASA consultant. According to Casey, who just released a new book entitled, Dark Winter: How the Sun Is Causing a 30-Year Cold Spell, a radical shift in global climate is underway, as the Earth...

Casey says the evidence is clear that the earth is rapidly growing colder because of diminished solar activity. He says trends indicate we could be headed for colder temperatures similar to those seen in the late 1700s and early 1800s when the sun went into a "solar minimum" — a phenomenon with significantly reduced solar activity, including solar flares and sunspot. .... If "Dark Winter" is right, that means the nation is busily preparing for the wrong calamity. "We don't have 10 years," Casey warns. "We've squandered during President Obama's administration eight years . . . and we didn't have...

From the University of Hawaii ‑ SOEST“This summer has seen the highest global mean sea surface temperatures ever recorded since their systematic measuring started. Temperatures even exceed those of the record-breaking 1998 El Niño year,” says Axel Timmermann, climate scientist and professor, studying variability of the global climate system at the International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa.From 2000-2013 the global ocean surface temperature rise paused, in spite of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. This period, referred to as the Global Warming Hiatus, raised a lot of public and scientific interest. However, as of April 2014 ocean warming has...

Outer walls standing 10 metres tall and 12 metres wide formed a rectangular shape... Walls on the inside were smaller, at about one metre-tall, forming the outline of buildings, with a large building in the centre of the site. Some of the walls and panels were covered with lime plaster painted with horizontal red striped... 'The building was most likely of the post-and-beam construction characteristic of Chinese architecture from the T’ang Dynasty,' wrote head archaeologist Irina Arzhantseva in a report published in The European Archaeologist in 2011. 'Finds of burnt timber fragments point to the use of the typical Chinese...

Environmentalists say they’ve moved past their 19th century patron saint John Muir because he represents the monied, white privilege that continues to haunt the environmental movement to this day, the Los Angeles Times reports. In an effort to connect more with Latinos and African Americans, some environmentalists are considering ditching Muir as their intellectual godfather. Environmentalists say that while they respect his ideas, they represent rich, Anglo-Saxon values that likely alienate minority communities. “Muir’s legacy has to go,” Jon Christensen, a historian at the University of California in Los Angeles’s Institute of Environment and Sustainability, told the Times. “It’s just...

There is an idiom that parents and employers likely put in practice when an important task has to be completed correctly; “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.” President Obama certainly understands that sentiment with a slight variation; if the nation wants anything done at all, the President has to do it himself due to Republicans who have done nothing since January 2009. Sometime next week, after waiting patiently for Ted Cruz to order House Republicans to take up, and pass, the Senate’s bipartisan immigration reform, the President will take action on immigration reform. The...