Free Republic

<p>A San Antonio, Texas couple had build a 'tiny house' to commit themselves to 'green living' but the entire home ended up being stolen.</p> <p>Casey Friday says, "It was depressing, devastating, made me angry and shocked all at the same time."</p>

People who own all-electric cars where coal generates the power may think they are helping the environment. But a new study finds their vehicles actually make the air dirtier, worsening global warming. Ethanol isn't so green, either. "It's kind of hard to beat gasoline" for public and environmental health, said study co-author Julian Marshall, an engineering professor at the University of Minnesota. "A lot of the technologies that we think of as being clean ... are not better than gasoline."

"In 1993, the [Volvo Environment] Prize went to Professor Paul R. Ehrlich of Stanford University and Professor John P. Holdren of the University of California in Berkeley, whose work laid the foundations of our understanding of how the dynamics of population growth, rising living standards and changing technology, as well as the relationships between them, interact in the context of environmental problems." List of past winners (and their work) from 1990 - 2014 Professor Paul R. Ehrlich, Professor John P. Holdren

International climate talks in Lima, Peru, are entering their final week, with few hints of whether a newfound optimism that marked the start of negotiations will ultimately translate into an agreement that would rein in climate change. Poorer nations are struggling to nail down significant, steady funding from industrialized countries to help them cope with the damage from climate change and to develop their economies without relying on fuels such as coal. Over the years, participants at U.N. climate talks estimated that $75 billion to $100 billion annually in public and private funding was needed to help poor countries cope...

Was It Too Soon to Be Sustainable? Warren, Vt. — Dotty Kyle and Eric Brattstrom had an ambitious vision for the home they would build when they sold their bed-and-breakfast here seven years ago and retired. They were environmental and community advocates, so they wanted it to be as sustainable as possible — ideally net-zero, producing as much energy as it used. And because they would be living on a modest fixed income, they needed to make sure it was inexpensive to maintain. But they didn’t want to scrimp on luxury or size, so against their architect’s advice they insisted...

The Fox News Channel's "Kelly File" anchor Megyn Kelly and Congressman Al Green (D-TX) sparred over the decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown on Monday. Green started out by denouncing the rioting, saying "I do not respect those who engage in dastardly deeds.

Business groups are joining with local government representatives and conservative lawmakers to criticize the Environmental Protection Agency’s water jurisdiction proposal, imploring the Obama administration to rescind it. Opponents of the proposed rule say the EPA’s effort to redefine its authority over creeks, ponds and wetlands is written so broadly that it could put millions of new miles of rivers and streams under federal control, along with ditches, puddles and dry creek beds. Such a change would be a major impediment to commerce, as businesses could suddenly need permits for all manner of routine activities like building fences or digging ditches,...

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...

WASHINGTON — President Obama will soon announce that the United States will contribute $3 billion to a new international fund intended to help the world’s poorest countries address the effects of climate change, according to a senior administration official. Mr. Obama is expected to make the announcement at a summit meeting of the Group of 20 industrial powers this weekend in Brisbane, Australia, on the heels of his landmark announcement this week that the United States and China will jointly commit to curbing greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade.

Arnold Klann had spent two decades on his planet-friendly enterprise: making transportation fuel from plant waste. But two years ago, the CEO and President of Irvine-based BlueFire Renewables recalled, “We were thinking of shutting down the business.” Grants from the U.S. Department of Energy had dried up, as private banks, tightening credit in the wake of the financial crisis, refused to match government funds. Now, it seems, China is coming to the rescue. BlueFire announced Thursday that The Export-Import Bank of China has issued a letter of intent to provide a $270 million loan to build BlueFire’s first commercial plant,...

CARB and Tesla Motors have fooled us all. Tesla will keep selling cars as usual but, quietly, they will be earning 9 ZEV credits for each of them rather than the 4 they legally deserve - on the basis of a few thousand battery swaps that never actually took place. By the time everybody realizes what has happened, it will be too late.

The unrestricted use of fossil fuels must end soon if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change. That is the central message of a stark new report from the UN-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC urges that by 2050, most of the world's electricity must - and can - be produced from low carbon sources. Fossil fuels, without carbon capture and storage (CCS), should be phased out "almost entirely" by 2100. It re-states many familiar positions: Warming is "unequivocal" and the human influence on climate is clear Since the 1950s the observed changes are unprecedented over decades...

While campaigning for election to his first term, President Barack Obama promised to create 5 million green jobs in 10 years. Once in office, he maneuvered Congress into passing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, a $840-billion spending spree that included about $90 billion for energy and, of course, green jobs. Results have not been spectacular. In fact, they testify to core problems of governmental profligacy. The expenditure of public money on green jobs, politically defined, has not lived up to its marketing as an unemployment cure. It has, in fact, failed. The DOE web site now...

The Obama administration published a small library's worth of climate change documents on Friday, outlining 38 federal agencies' vulnerabilities to global warming and how they will address them -- as well as a separate and even larger set of new government-wide plans to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions and achieve new targets for sustainability. In many cases, the vulnerabilities revealed are stark. The Department of Agriculture, for instance, sees "the potential for up to 100 percent increase in the number of acres burned annually by 2050" by wildfires, according to its new adaptation report. The agency notes that fire...

Billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer is turning to actor Woody Harrelson and director Darren Aronofsky in a new ad urging voters to “take the fight against climate change to the ballot box.” The 30-second ad buy, narrated by Harrelson, and directed by Aronofsky, declares the climate fight is one people “will win,” but voting on Election Day is key. “They told us the world was flat and insisted it was the center of the universe,” Harrelson states in the ad as images of the earth in black and white flicker on the screen. “[They] said that cigarettes were harmless.” “Now they...

Environmental groups are on track to spend more than $85 million on key races this year, more than ever before, according to an internal memo. The record spending comes as green groups are worried about the fate of the Senate and the future of President Obama’s climate agenda, which they say is crucial to helping the U.S. and other nations curb greenhouse gas emissions and stave off disastrous climate impacts. A memo circulated among five of the nation’s top environmental organizations, and provided to The Hill, summarizes in detail the plan hatched by the groups to put climate change on...

Elite Army Green Berets are knocking the performance of the Afghan National Army, telling war tales of its soldiers hiding and quitting the fight.The Green Beret criticisms, contained in a U.S. Central Command “friendly fire” investigative file, provide a window into the flaws of a national army more than a decade in the making.The Special Forces soldiers gave poor marks to the institution that is supposed to keep Afghanistan’s democratically elected governments in power. The security force must rebuff an expected Taliban offensive, on its own, once all American troops leave after 2016.The soldiers gave statements to investigators after going...

At 2 pm sharp I had been prepared to make a statement in the House honouring the Dalai Lama, whom I will be seeing on Friday in Vancouver, and calling for China to respect human rights in Tibet. By 4 pm I was to be testifying in the Senate committee studying my private members bill for a National Lyme Disease strategy. Well, that was what was supposed to happen. Instead it has been a day of tragedies and shock. As I write this, I am still in lock-down. With seven of my staff in Confederation Building, our office door is...

ANCHORAGE - The Pebble Partnership is suing the Environmental Protection Agency in federal court, seeking more details on what it calls “secretive meetings” by the agency with environmental groups and anti-Pebble activists. Pebble claims it filed a Jan. 22 Freedom of Information Act request with the EPA for any communications concerning the project between senior EPA officials, including Administrator Lisa Jackson, and a group of 16 people and organizations. The National Resources Defense Council, Trout Unlimited, the Bristol Bay Native Corp., and Sen. Mark Begich, as well as some of their employees, were listed specifically. So were anti-Pebble activists Alan...

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...