Free Republic

We are entering a mass extinction that threatens humanity's existence, researchers have declared. Researchers say a new study shows 'without any significant doubt' that we are entering the sixth great mass extinction on earth. The study says that the window for conserving threatened species is rapidly closing. The study shows without any significant doubt that we are now entering the sixth great mass extinction event,' said Paul Ehrlich, the Bing Professor of Population Studies in biology and a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment who led the research.The new study, published in the journal Science Advances,...

When Wisconsin’s new state treasurer Matt Adamczyk took office in January, his first act was to order a highly symbolic change in stationery. Adamczyk, a Republican and one of three members of the board that oversees a small public lands agency, “felt passionately” that Tia Nelson, the agency’s executive secretary, should be struck from the letterhead. As soon became clear, his principal objection to Nelson, daughter of former Wisconsin governor and environmentalist-hero Gaylord Nelson, was that in 2007–08 she had co-chaired a state task force on climate change at the then-governor’s request. Adamczyk insisted that climate change is not germane...

If a website from a progressive group is to be believed, state workers in Wisconsin cannot even say the words "climate change." So the scottaway.com website, developed by an operation called Forecast the Facts, allows readers to click a red button on the screen and get alternative words to use, like "weather roulette" and "extended Popsicle season." One tongue-in-cheek offering: "In the U.S., FREE OUTDOOR HEATING is predicted to cause more heat waves, flooding, wildfires, sea level rise and drought." Forecast the Facts, a project of the progressive Citizen Engagement Laboratory, says it developed the website in response to government...

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Conservationists are drawing a line in the scrubland, vowing to fight any attempt by the state to expand logging and cattle grazing throughout Florida's 171 state parks. Florida Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Jon Steverson, appointed in December by Gov. Rick Scott, set off a furor last month when he suggested in a series of newspaper guest columns that Florida expand grazing and timber harvesting in its state parks as a way to offset the cost of running them. In the columns, which ran in newspapers throughout Florida, Steverson said state parks hosted more than 27...

It’s no surprise that we lead the world in incarcerations when you see that the whole process has been monetized and profitable. States of Incarceration: The Global Context http://www.prisonpolicy.org/global/ Here Are All Of The Nations That Incarcerate More Of Their Population Than The U.S. Yeah, we’re actually number one and that’s not a good thing. No country incarcerates a higher percentage of its population than the United States. At 716 per 100,000 people in 2013, according to the International Centre for Prison Studies, the U.S. tops every other nation in the world. Among OECD countries, the competition isn’t even close...

In 1848, the discovery of gold in California lead to one of the most dramatic population shifts in US history. People hoping to strike it rich migrated from all over the country, South America, and even as far as China. The non-native American population of California went from under 1,000 to over 100,000 in a little over one year. Today, there is another gold rush taking place in Washington D.C. as political entrepreneurs seek to strike it rich by mining the climate change mother lode. According to the 2013 Federal Climate Change Expenditures Report to Congress, the Federal Government is...

Over the last two years, I’ve dabbled with paleo, cacao, almond milk, seaweed, aloe vera and coconut water. My friends tell me I’m a “health hipster”. And what’s wrong with that? But then I learned that my chia seed addiction might have a real impact on the global food industry: this year, analysts from Credit Suisse warned that the consumer migration from carbs to proteins would damage the baking and milling industry, all because people are having ham and eggs for breakfast instead of Shreddies or toast. And there’s worse: what about the environment? What if my taste for goji...

The Obama administration wants to declare that greenhouse gas emissions from airplanes are harmful, which would set up regulations to limit the pollution. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a proposed “endangerment finding” Wednesday, which would formally conclude that carbon dioxide and any other greenhouse gases from commercial airplanes contribute to climate change and harm the public health and welfare. The move is a major win for environmentalists, since aircraft are the largest source of greenhouse gases that the EPA is not either regulating or planning to regulate. But the EPA’s proposed solution to the airplane climate problem — adopting...

Republican lawmakers are cutting scientists from the Department of Natural Resources who worked on issues related to climate change, pollution and mining. Republicans claim the cuts are designed to refocus the DNR on hunting and fishing. But Democrats say the GOP is retaliating against researchers in areas they oppose for political reasons. “It has to be political,” Rep. Chris Taylor, D-Madison, a member of the Legislature’s budget committee, said of the cuts. “The public hasn’t called for this. Most people in the state want decisions about the environment to be based on science, not politics.” Republican Gov. Scott Walker, an...

Abundant, reliable, affordable oil and natural gas empower people. They support job creation, mobility, modern agriculture, homes and hospitals, computers and communications, lights and refrigerators, life and study after sundown, indoor plumbing, safe drinking water, less disease and longer lives. Hydrocarbons make plastics, pharmaceuticals and synthetic clothing. They create fertilizers and pesticides, to improve crop yields, reduce food prices and improve nutrition. But Sierra Club, 350.org and other radicals want to keep America’s oil and natural gas bounties in the ground. They block leasing, drilling and fracking. They block pipelines that transport oil and gas to refineries, power plants, factories...

Epic Fail: ‘Climate Change Voters’ Attempt To Protest Scott Walker NH Cruise With ‘Floating Iceberg,’ People Dressed As Moose Before Walker went on a fundraising cruise on Lake Winnipesaukee, Americans United For Change (AUFC)—a liberal organization—announced it would be organizing a counter-protest to Walker’s cruise. A couple things made this different than any normal protest, however. First off, the people “protesting” Walker on global warming—who they called “climate change voters”—would be dressed as moose. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, they’d be on a “floating iceberg” behind Walker.................................. ...........In fact, the protest was so successful that Sirius XM’s The David Webb...

“Green” started as the stand against pollution. To the “greenies,” that pollution seldom seemed small enough, especially when the pollutants were made by evil humans rather than by nature itself. Green is no more good for saving the environment than it is for protecting the people. Green wears the badge of hypocrisy. Being green requires minimizing pollutants in products, places, people, and the environment. But it depends on what is a pollutant and how little of it is little enough. The EPA, for example, has declared CO2 a pollutant, the invisible, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic substance that sustains all life on...

Imagine, for just a moment, the following scenario: The year is 2019 — two years into the first term of President Scott Walker. The Royal Dutch Shell corporation proposes a massive expansion of its existing drilling operation in the Arctic Ocean. Shell officials note that there have been no major accidents since their first exploratory wells became operational, and that doing so will provide a big boost to an American economy sliding into recession. President Walker, whose base is furious that he has only eliminated half of all federal food stamp and welfare programs, jumps into action. He orders Interior...

The green energy movement in America is dead. May it rest in peace. No, a majority of American energy over the next 20 years is not going to come from windmills and solar panels. One important lesson to be learned from the green energy fad’s rapid and expensive demise is that central planning doesn’t work. What crushed green energy was the boom in shale oil and gas along with the steep decline in the price of fossil fuel that few saw coming just a few years ago. An International Energy Agency report concedes that green energy is in fast retreat...

“Todd Myers is an eco-mythbuster. He exposes trends among modern environmentalists that are based more on ‘feel-good’ sentimentality than on scientific reality. If you truly care about the environment, then you should read this book.” Alex B. Berezow, Ph.D., Editor of RealClearScience.com Wherever we turn, politicians, businesses and activists are promoting the latest fashionable “green” policy or product. Green buildings, biofuels, electric cars, compact fluorescent lightbulbs and a variety of other technologies are touted as the next key step in protecting the environment and promoting a sustainable future. Increasingly, however, scientific and economic information regarding environmental problems takes a back...

The GOP’s destructive Vietnam mythology: How the right’s self-glorifying delusions led to decades of avoidable war It only took about five years from the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, for the American right to succeed in burying the moment under mounds of revisionist horse shit. Ronald Reagan, speaking at a campaign appearance in the summer of 1980, said, It is time that we recognized that [the American War in Vietnam] was, in truth, a noble cause… We dishonor the memory of 50 thousand young Americans who died in that cause when we give way to feelings of guilt...

For the 45th annual Earth Day on Wednesday, President Obama will elevate global warming to the top of the list of environmental threats currently facing Americans, in a speech at the Everglades National Park. The trip, his first to the fragile but vital "river of grass" that, following decades of human interference now occupies a fraction of its former sprawling range in southern Florida, also comes with a heavy dose of politics. Winning the state will be key for any presidential candidate in the 2016 race, and two leading contenders for the Republican nomination, former governor Jeb Bush Senator Marco...

Lexus liberals ignore how their climate change agenda hurts the less fortunateBarack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren and the whole gang of Democratic leaders claim that one of their highest priorities is to lift up the middle class and reduce the income gap between rich and poor.That goal collides with what they admit is their very highest priority: stopping climate change. Their agenda is driven by the millionaire and billionaire Democratic donors who make the party possible. But the agenda also involves making energy, home heating, transportation and just about everything else less efficient and more expensive to the middle...

Jake Pultorak chuckles at the mention of “range anxiety,” the fear among some electric vehicle owners that their car's battery will run out of juice before the driver can find a charger. “I had that as a gas-car driver, but the anxiety was over how much I had to pay to get where I was going,” said Pultorak, 44, of Franklin Park, who has owned an all-electric Tesla Model S for about two years. Worries at the gas pumps have diminished over the past nine months as the global crash in oil prices brought the cost of gasoline to its...