Free Republic

The instant analysis on cable TV of President Donald Trump's decision to dump the Iran deal had a weary resignation to it: He said he would do this. Indeed, he had. Trump repeatedly promised on the campaign trail to pull out of the deal and had made it a target from the time that President Barack Obama first entered into it in 2015. His exit from the agreement is another instance of the Trump paradox: The president who says more outlandish and untrue things than anyone who has ever occupied the office of the presidency is also extraordinarily determined to...

France’s President Emmanuel Macron urged Germany to take on the mantle as a leading force reforming Europe at a “historic moment” for the bloc, hours before he was due to receive a key award Thursday for his efforts in boosting EU cohesion. With Berlin so far proving resistant to his flagship reform proposals for the European Union such as a common finance minister or budget, Macron stressed the importance for the bloc to speak with one voice. At a time when the United States is going its own way in ditching the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate accord,...

Don’t believe the latest study you read in the headlines, chances are, it could be wrong, according to a new report by the National Association of Scholars that delves into what it calls the “use and abuse of statistics in the sciences.” The report broke down the issue of irreproducibility, or the problem that a lot of scientific research cannot be reproduced. The report took aim at unverifiable climate science, but also critiqued medical studies, behavioral research and other fields. The 72-page report took the matter a step further in calling the issue a politicization of science. “Not all irreproducible...

A state board in California has approved a proposal to require solar panels on all new homes beginning in 2020, a measure that would increase the cost of new construction but provide savings on utilities — and help the state meet ambitious targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. California, which is routinely a leader in environmental regulatory efforts, would be the first state in the country with such a requirement. Several cities, including San Francisco and South Miami, Fla., have residential solar panel requirements. The new rule in California would cover all low-rise residential buildings, although houses that are frequently...

The United Nations says an additional round of global climate talks is being scheduled for September ahead of the annual ministerial summit at the end of the year. […] At issue are the precise rules countries have to stick to in fulfilling the 2015 Paris climate accord, as well as questions of funding for poor nations and how to close the gap between what governments have pledged to do and what’s needed to meet the goal of keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius. …

It’s one thing to read about rising sea levels — quite another to watch as rising seas inundate low-lying regions to reshape familiar coastlines. That’s just what you can do with EarthTime, a new online tool that blends satellite photos of Earth with data from university research programs, government agencies, and nongovernmental organizations to create eye-popping animations showing how seas rise in tandem with temperatures to swallow up low-lying areas. It’s not a pretty picture. “Sea level rise is a profound threat,” Michael Mann, director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center and a noted expert on the effects...

Nearly half of the Democratic National Committee's staff are now people of color and 51 percent are women, according to a new report to be published by the DNC Monday. The report was prepared as the party responds to criticism that it has taken minority voters for granted while overlooking them for jobs and contracts. The DNC became more diverse as it staffed back up after its post-2016 election lull, seeing a big jump in the number of Latinos (from 5 to 22) and smaller increases in the number of African-Americans (from 22 to 30), Asian-American/Pacific Islanders and LGBTQ people...

As temperatures in the East Valley were predicted to hit over 100 the early part of next week, some climate researchers predict Arizona could be unlivable by 2050. Not all climate forecasts are so dire, but experts say Arizonans need to prepare for extreme heat and related events. The problem is not centuries in the future, they say; it’s immediate. The state’s average temperature is projected to increase by more than 10 degrees by 2090, according to States at Risk, a project through Climate Central, a nonprofit news organization aimed at showing Americans the impacts of climate change. This means...

If Floridians residing in coastal communities presume sea level rise is a turn-of-the-century problem for future generations, a group of scientists is delivering a weather forecast they may consider unsettling. Five Florida communities - Cape Sable (the southern point of the peninsula), Key Biscayne, Key West, the Lower Keys and the Middle Keys - could experience recurring tidal flooding unrelated to any storm events by 2035, according to their study. Three of those locations - Cape Sable, the Lower Keys and Middle Keys - already find themselves partially submerged at times but the forecast says their frequently inundated areas will...

Student groups placed signs displaying refugee statistics along the walkways of the Arts Quad to foster discussion about the global refugee crisis, including the plight of climate change refugees. The South Asian Council installed the signs in collaboration with Cornell Welcomes Refugees and Climate Justice Cornell for People’s Climate Week. “I think the U.S. should provide sanctuary to those who it has indirectly and directly, temporarily and permanently, displaced by being the highest greenhouse gas emitter (and largest contributor to climate change) for most of modern history despite its fairly modest population density,” said Elizabeth Chi ’18, former campaign coordinator...

A working paper recently published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond concludes that global warming could significantly slow economic growth in the US. Specifically, rising summertime temperatures in the hottest states will curb economic growth. And the states with the hottest summertime temperatures are all located in the South: Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Arkansas, and Arizona. All of these states voted for Donald Trump in 2016. This paper is consistent with a 2015 Nature study that found an optimal temperature range for economic activity. Economies thrive in regions with an average temperature of around...

Tesla CEO Elon Musk attacked sell-side analysts from Bernstein and RBC apparently because they supported short sellers of Tesla stock. Tesla is at a critical point in its 15-year history, losing vast amounts of money while still riding a high stock price.Musk hasn't endured this serious a threat to his vision since Tesla's early days, and the strain is showing. If you were the CEO of a company that had been around for 15 years, never posted an annual profit, but had seen a nearly 1,000% appreciation in your stock and were considered — by some — to be the...

Former CIA Director Michael Hayden has some advice for colleagues who ask whether they should take a job working for President Trump: Don’t do it. You will only endanger your own future and reputation. Hayden said it’s been hard to watch top Trump administration officials defend an often indefensible president. “The longer they were in the administration, the more their personal credentials were being threatened,” Hayden said. “At what point do you stop being a guard rail and become an enabler and a legitimizer?” Hayden's new book, “The Assault on Intelligence: American National Security in an Age of Lies,” serves...

The clean energy transition and other initiatives to decarbonise Europe’s economy will represent 25% of EU spending under a seven-year EU budget plan put forward by the European Commission on Wednesday (2 May). Another key aspect is whether the EU will commit to stop funding fossil fuel projects like gas pipelines, which environmentalists claim risk locking Europe into unnecessary infrastructure. “I’m not sure it’s reached the upper layers of the Commission yet,” Gaventa said. Other parts of the budget could prove controversial, like a proposal to allocate 20% of revenue from carbon trading to the EU budget, as well as...

A Finnish climate group is raising $500,000 to carve President Donald Trump’s face onto an arctic iceberg. In an attempt to prove global warming exists, a Finnish group called Melting Ice wants to carve a 115-foot ice sculpture of Trump’s face into a glacier for an effort they call "Project Trumpmore." Etc...

The weather in France has been very varied in recent weeks, but nobody could have expected snow on April 30th. Many residents of the northern French region of Normandy woke up on Monday to find a considerable layer of snowfall on their rooftops and cars. The mercury dropped to around zero in many parts of the historical region, with the departments of Eure and Seine-Maritime registering the lowest temperatures. In the city of Rouen, the wind chill made it feel like a frosty –5°C in the early hours of the morning. It may have only been a couple of centimeters...

Concrete is one of the most widely used building materials in the world, but it also is responsible for about 5% of all global carbon dioxide emissions according to the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Those emissions result directly from the conversion of limestone into cement and indirectly by burning fuel to heat the limestone to 1400º C, the temperature required to initiate the conversion process. “Cement manufacturing is highly energy and emissions intensive because of the extreme heat required to produce it. Producing a ton of cement requires 4.7 million BTU of energy, equivalent to about 400 pounds of...

I did it. I descended into the heart of liberal darkness, Berkeley, California and attended the Tenth International Conference on Climate Change: Impacts & Responses. As you may have guessed, I’m a climate change skeptic. And while this conference was interesting and gratifying for a number of reasons, it did not change my view as a climate change skeptic, but in fact, reinforced it. My own presentation (for solving climate change while making a huge profit – i.e., the Republican way) was not widely attended, but the conversation was lively and I gained some allies. Without further ado here are...

California’s air pollution levels are among the worst in the country, and climate change is making the situation worse, according to a new report from the American Lung Association. Despite the state’s efforts to reign in air pollution, 90 percent of California residents are exposed to unhealthy air at some point during the year, according to the State of the Air 2018 report. While air pollution is bad for everyone’s health, low-income communities, children, seniors, and people with underlying health problems tend to be most impacted when ozone and particle pollution levels soar, experts said. Afif El-Hasan, a pediatrician in...

LINK ONLY per posting guidelines: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-30/climate-linked-spending-set-to-rise-to-a-quarter-of-eu-budget