Free Republic

Global warming 55 million years ago suggests a high climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide, according to research led by Mark Pagani, associate professor of geology and geophysics at Yale and published in the December 8 issue of Science. For some years, scientists have known that a massive release of carbon into the atmosphere caused the ancient global warming event known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) that began about 55 million years ago. The geologic record shows that the resulting greenhouse effect heated the planet as a whole by about 9 F (5 C), in less than 10,000 years. That...

Close window Published online: 9 February 2006; | doi:10.1038/news060206-9 Methane burps disproved?Gassy emissions no longer in suspect dock for melting the last ice age.Quirin Schiermeier Strange ice: no evidence that melting methane triggered global warming after the last ice age.© Punchstock Methane escaping from the sea floor to the atmosphere has been a popular suspect for causing rapid climate changes during and at the end of the last ice age. But new data derived from a Greenland ice core have delivered a killer blow to the idea. Methane (CH4) is a much stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. It...

A massive methane explosion frothing out of the world's oceans 250 million years ago caused the Earth's worst mass extinction, claims a US geologist. Similar, smaller-scale events could have happened since, which might explain the Biblical flood, for example, suggests Gregory Ryskin of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois1. And they could happen again: "It's a very conjectural idea but it's too important to ignore," says Ryskin. Up to 95% of Earth's marine species disapeared at the end of the Permian period. Some 70% of land species, including plants, insects and vertebrates, also perished. "It's arguably the single most important event...

San José (United States) (AFP) - The acceleration in climate change and its impact on agricultural production means that profound societal changes will be needed in coming decades to feed the world's growing population, researchers at an annual science conference said. According to scientists, food production will have to be doubled over the next 35 years to feed a global population of nine billion people in 2050, compared with seven billion today. Feeding the world "is going to take some changes in terms of minimizing climate disruption," said Jerry Hatfield, director at the National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment....

The fact that Barack Obama appears almost obsessed with the earth’s perfectly normal climate-changing patterns, but the myth of ‘climate change’ has nothing to do with him being a champion of the environment at all. It has nothing to do with Barack Obama being a believer in or falling for former Vice President Al Gore’s greatest con job. The explanation is really very simple. Climate change fits into the Obama agenda for “fundamentally transforming” the United States of America. His goal all along has been to change the United States from its position as the world economic and military leader,...

A senior US scientist has expressed concern that the intelligence services are funding climate change research to learn if new technologies could be used as potential weapons. Alan Robock, a climate scientist at Rutgers University in New Jersey, has called on secretive government agencies to be open about their interest in radical work that explores how to alter the world’s climate. Robock, who has contributed to reports for the intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC), uses computer models to study how stratospheric aerosols could cool the planet in the way massive volcanic eruptions do. But he was worried about who...

Global Science Report is a feature from the Center for the Study of Science, where we highlight one or two important new items in the scientific literature or the popular media. For broader and more technical perspectives, consult our monthly “Current Wisdom.”—On Page 3 of Friday’s Washington Post is (yet another) lurid climate story, this time about mega-droughts of several decades that are going to pop up in the Pacific Southwest around 35 years from now. The findings are based upon the UN’s climate model suite that, according to our presentation to the American Geophysical Union, is in the process...

The west coast sees rising levels of ozone because of emissions from fast-developing Asian countries while the southeast sees increasing ozone from uncontrolled growth of the invasive species kudzu Thirty percent of the ozone- one of the primary components of photochemical smog found in the skies above the western United States during the spring- comes from coal-fired factories in East Asia (primarily China and India). (1) In about one week, winds carry ozone formed by emissions from cars, factories, and power plants in Asia to the US west coast, where it can add to locally generated pollution, worsening smog in...

So I opened the email and to my surprise up popped "SAVE THE ERF" from Ford. The narcissism of this junk science has reached it's peak "imo" in every aspect of our lives feeding us the propaganda of Big Government and Socialist agendas. Those people who are doing this have no clue how truly useless they've become when they take junk science like this and promote it thinking they're going to Save the Planet. What audacity and utter incompetence. Fellow humans must be in an out of control egotistical state to actually think that we can control this planet. Earthquakes,...

A major development occurred today in the scandal surrounding the Washington Post’s attempt to advance Democratic Party talking points by falsely linking Koch Industries to the Keystone Pipeline. In the unlikely event that you are not already familiar with the story, you should begin by reading this post and this one, as well as the one from last October where I dismantled the International Forum on Globalization report that was the basis for the Washington Post’s story of March 20. The facts, very briefly, are these: Koch Industries has no interest in the Keystone Pipeline; it has not lobbied in...

Instead of a no-spy deal, the US has begun a Cyber Dialogue with Germany. In a Spiegel interview, John Podesta, a special advisor to President Barack Obama, speaks of the balance between alliances and security and says that changes are being made to NSA espionage practices. […] “(W)ith respect to what German citizens think, the United States has a pretty good track record of standing up for values of global democracy, of free expression, of protecting the rights of individuals, of trying to ensure that people are not discriminated against, of not suppressing free speech. Every country has a history...

Hillary Clinton's expected campaign chairman has an eclectic record that includes UFO advocacy and having to apologize for comparing Republicans to killer cultists. John Podesta, a senior White House aide, will leave his government job in February for Clinton's campaign, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. "The precise role Mr. Podesta would play in a Clinton campaign is unclear. People familiar with discussions said he likely would be campaign chairman, should she decide to run," The Journal reported. Despite the ambiguity, it is clear from additional reports that Podesta is expected to at least hold a "senior title" in Clinton's...

Hillary Clinton faces a stiff challenge in constructing a lean and mean campaign team that avoids the drama and leaks that hurt her 2008 effort. Clinton is working with an enormous Rolodex that includes aides and advisers from her days as senator and secretary of State, as well as from her husband’s time as president. Many of those people want very badly to be a part of another Clinton campaign — and possibly another administration. Democratic strategists and political observers say it will be particularly difficult for Clinton to winnow it down because of the growing network surrounding her and...

John Podesta built his reputation as a Democratic Party wise man by trying to salvage the second terms of two presidents. He’s about to duck out of the White House to try to engineer the election of a third. Podesta served as Bill Clinton’s final White House chief of staff in the 1990s and is closing out a yearlong stint as counselor to President Barack Obama. After departing the White House later this week, his next act will be steering Hillary Rodham Clinton’s expected 2016 campaign for president. For months, Podesta has balanced his allegiance to both Obama and Clinton,...

Outgoing senior Obama adviser John Podesta reflected on his latest White House stint Friday, listing his favorite moments and biggest regrets from the past year. Chief among them: depriving the American people of the truth about UFOs.

SAN JOSE, California (AP) – As bad as recent droughts in California, the Southwest and the Midwest have been, scientists say far worse “megadroughts” are coming – and they’re bound to last for decades. “Unprecedented drought conditions” – the worst in more than 1,000 years – are likely to come to the Southwest and Central Plains after 2050 and stick around because of global warming, according to a new study in the journal Science Advances on Thursday.

Renewables, are not just inefficient, unnecessary, and deadly to wildlife, but they were also a disaster of planning and management. The list of dollars and euros destroyed in the Glorious Renewables Quest has gone “nuclear”. The World Economic Forum estimates $100 billion Euro has been wasted, but its even worse than it looks. I had to read their opening sentence twice. I thought it read “European countries could have saved approximately $100 billion if each country had invested in the most efficient energy source.” I was thinking they could have saved that sort of money by using coal instead of...

Since President Obama is sticking with his narrative that climate change is effecting more Americans than terrorism is, it's time to take a hard look at the “settled science” he's hanging this idea on in the first place. First, let's address the claims that human beings are doing irreparable harm to our environment, and adversely affecting our climate through our failure to cut back enough on carbon emissions. About a year ago, Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, testified before the Senate on this issue. The inconvenient truth for climatologists is that Moore totally disagrees with them, and will not lay the...

Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber submitted his resignation Friday. He met with his senior staff and administration officials before the official announcement, sources with direct knowledge told KOIN 6 News. The resignation will take effect as of 10 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2015. Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown will become the next governor.