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They appear to be shrinking in size as they react to changes in climate, according to new research from Durham University. The researchers studied the impacts of changes in temperature on the body size of Alpine Chamois, a species of mountain goat, over the past 30 years. To their surprise, they discovered that young Chamois now weigh about 25 per cent less than animals of the same age in the 1980s. In recent years, decreases in body size have been identified in a variety of animal species, and have frequently been linked to the changing climate. However, the researchers say...

Never let it be said that Mother Nature doesn’t appreciate irony. A new study led by researchers at Occidental College and the University of California at Santa Barbara has found that the oil platforms dotting the California coast are fantastic for sea life. In a 15-year study, researchers found that the ecosystems that build up around artificial rigs host 1,000 percent more fish and other sea life than natural habitats such as reefs and estuaries. The California rigs outstripped even famously rich ecosystems such as the coral reefs of French Polynesia. Now, as a big fan of artificial reefs, I...

Europe’s leaders are about to consign the Earth to the risk of dangerous climate change, a UN expert says. Prof Jim Skea, a vice-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says the EU’s plan to cut CO2 emissions 40% by 2030 is too weak. He says it will commit future governments to “extraordinary and unprecedented” emissions cuts. The Commission rejected the claim, saying the 40% target puts Europe on track for long-term climate goals. Prof Skea believes governments are setting targets by what appears to be politically achievable rather than what is necessary to transform the way we make...

Ron Klain is a sharp-elbowed Democratic political operative with no medical expertise. Tapping him as “Ebola czar” may not be the president’s best move when, as it is, no one can believe a word the Obama administration says. And that’s not just because Mr. Klain is yet another lobbyist recruited despite Mr. Obama’s vow that his administration would shun lobbyists. Klain was also a central player in the president’s Solyndra fraud, which soaked taxpayers for over half a billion dollars for the benefit of Obama cronies. In Faithless Execution, I recount the Solyndra fraud. It never got the attention...

Debbie Dooley is not a tree-hugger -- in fact she bills herself as a radical right-wing grandmother, and she is a founding member of the national Tea Party and a leader of the Atlanta Tea Party group. But Dooley is also an outspoken proponent of distributed solar generation and other forms of renewable distributed energy. She will be the featured speaker next week at the Wisconsin Solar Energy Industries Association’s Solar Social Speakers series -- as advocates in the state say solar is under attack by elected officials, regulators and major utilities. While in Wisconsin, Dooley will also visit a...

Targets for renewables are unattainable, futile – and will cost us trillions of pounds. Some time in this century, we reached a state of clever-silly unanimity over green policies, especially carbon emission controls and renewables targets. All parties (except five brave Tories voting against) voted for the second reading of the Climate Change Act in 2008. So, for some years, we humoured the climate-change lobby, and nodded our heads gravely when experts told us we must help save the planet. But most of us behaved like churchgoers listening to boring sermons. We accepted what we were told, on the unspoken...

A company owned by the husband of Democratic senator Kay Hagan of North Carolina received taxpayer money for a green energy project through the federal stimulus of 2009, later revising down the project's estimated cost and keeping the difference. Don Carrington at the Carolina Journal, a publication of the conservative John Locke Foundation, has the scoop on how JDC Manufacturing, co-owned by Chip Hagan kept savings from a stimulus grant instead of returning the money to taxpayers: The company’s original application stated the total project would cost $438,627, and said JDC would contribute “leveraged funds” amounting to $187,983, or 43...

A new financing offering could make home solar cheaper and more attractive to homeowners, and keep the adoption of home solar growing. The offer, announced by SolarCity this week, is a loan that allows homeowners to install their own solar system on their roof for little or no money down, and pay less for electricity. Previous plans, while popular, turned off some because the solar company owned the system. "The value proposition is becoming clearer and less complicated for consumers," says Patrick Jobin, an analyst at Credit Suisse. "Solar is going mainstream." SolarCity's new loan deal and current similar deals...

The Green movement was the last segment of German Society to admit its complicity with National Socialism and the horrors of the holocaust. While countless historical books have decried the industrial nature of the holocaust, such works fail to explain the motive behind the greatest crime of the 20th century. The Nazi economy and its industry were merely the means by which the holocaust was implemented and paid for. “Nazi Oaks” describes the anti-Semitic historical background of the early German green movement in the 1800’s that was later absorbed by National Socialism under the biological umbrella of ‘scientific’ Social Darwinism....

Sweden's new Social Democrat prime minister Stefan Loefven unveiled what he called a "feminist" government including Green Party ministers for the first time in the Nordic country. ... Sweden is in a serious situation -- unemployment has become entrenched at high levels, school results have collapsed and the welfare system has major shortcomings ...

From Greenpeace’s “Save the Arctic” page. COPENHAGEN — Danish toy maker Lego said Thursday it won’t renew a deal allowing Shell to hand out Lego sets at its gas stations in some 30 countries, following a viral campaign protesting Arctic drilling. Environmental activists Greenpeace launched in July a video showing an Arctic landscape with a Shell drilling platform made of Lego bricks covered in oil. Lego CEO Joergen Vig Knudstorp said the protest “may have created misunderstandings among our stakeholders,” adding the company didn’t want to be embroiled in the environmental campaign. The world’s largest toy maker “should never...

The EPA is poised to “do an IRS” — similar to what the tax agency had to do with dismissed top official Lois G. Lerner — and officially notify the National Archives that it may have lost key electronic records, according to a think tank that’s suing to get text messages under an open-records request. Justice Department lawyers told a federal court on Tuesday that the alert will be coming soon, in a case that’s shaping up as a significant battle over whether government agencies are required to keep cellphone text messages as “official” records. In this case, researcher Chris...

Climate change captured the nation’s attention over the past week as an estimated 400,000 people marched through the streets of New York City to raise a collective voice of alarm about the effects of a warming planet. Just days before the march, the issue got a spotlight in Flagstaff thanks to a visit from Katharine Hayhoe, an evangelical Christian and climate scientist who is becoming one of the rising stars in the climate change conversation. Her message about the harmony between faith and climate change earned her a spot on Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in...

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A new Gallup poll out this morning, September 24, 2014, found that 58% of Americans strongly want a third political party choice in the candidates because the two older parties "do such a poor job" representing the people. This number is little changed from a Gallup poll asking the same question in 2007. The third largest political party is the Libertarian Party, yet its candidates face unfair hurdles of ballot access and media exclusion. Many states in the nation purposely raise the bar for Libertarian Party candidates to have their name printed on the ballot alongside the Republican and Democratic...

Cary Shineldecker, the homeowner who warned his community that the margin of safety was inadequate at Lake Winds wind plant near Ludington, is now a member of the Mason County Planning Commission. This same commission initially failed to heed his warning but it has learned a lot since then. “What we’re seeing with Cary Shineldecker being appointed to the Mason County Planning Commission is part of a growing pattern,” said Kevon Martis, director of the Interstate Informed Citizens Coalition, a nonprofit organization that is concerned about the construction of wind turbines in the region. “New local politicians are being produced...

Renewable energy has become a potent rallying cry uniting Hollywood and the Beltway. “We can move our economy town by town, state by state to renewable energy and a sustainable future,” Leonardo DiCaprio says in his eight-minute climate movie Carbon, released in August. In his fiscal-showdown speech during his first term, in April 2011, President Obama put Paul Ryan’s proposals for a 70 percent cut in clean energy at the top of his list of reprehensible and unnecessary reductions. “These aren’t the kind of cuts you make when you’re trying to get rid of some waste or find extra savings...

Dozens of former world leaders are expected to converge on Minneapolis in October 2015 for an international summit on climate change and democracy, organizers announced Monday. The conference, called “Minnesota 2015: Democracy for a Sustainable Future,” is designed to draw people from around the globe to explore ways that democratic nations can reduce greenhouse emissions. “It takes it beyond ‘here’s the challenge, here’s the problem,’ ” said Orlyn Kringstad, executive director of the U.S. branch of Partnership for Change, one of the cosponsors. “It’s [about] what needs to be done and how governments around the world can support those efforts.” The...

Hundreds of environmentalists plan to "shut down" the New York Stock Exchange Monday to protest the relationship between global warming and Big Business. Scores of protesters marched towards the exchange in lower Manhattan bringing traffic to a standstill by midday Monday for an event dubbed #FloodWallStreet. They planned to march a few blocks north to Wall Street and stage a "sit-in" until forced to leave.

The one-day GreenStorm campaign blitz raised more than $250,000 for Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado, along with Senate hopefuls Bruce Braley of Iowa and Rep. Gary Peters of Michigan. ... The GreenStorm fundraiser was also supported by ProgressivesUnited PAC, the Voices for Progress PAC, the National Resources Defense Fund PAC, and the Population Connection Action Fund..