Free Republic

Climate: As alternate-energy champ Spain's green economy slides into recession, a German professor says if American "climate illiterates" don't follow, the Copenhagen climate conference will fail. And the bad news is? King Canute, the Viking king of England, Norway and Denmark, was the legendary king whose sycophantic followers praised his power and wisdom. As the story goes, he once stood on the shore and commanded the waves to halt. Rather than exercising his ego, he in fact was giving his followers a lesson in reality — the power of man over nature is finite and inconsequential. In December, the world's...

Minnesota has been an unofficial testing ground for using ethanol to fuel vehicles, but after years of steady increases, interest appears to be waning. Despite a push from the governor and an increase in the number of so-called flexible-fuel vehicles on the road — which can run on either gasoline or a mostly ethanol blend — sales of E85 have dipped in recent months, beyond the normal decline in winter months. In February, sales of E85, a cleaner-burning fuel consisting of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, hit their lowest mark since 2006, according to a new report by...

Regulation: Ignoring the first rule of holes, a bankrupt state passing out IOUs welcomes an EPA waiver allowing it to further kill its economy. Too bad the state can't stop the air pollution imported from a growing China. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday granted California its long-standing request — denied by the Bush administration — for a waiver to allow it to impose even more stringent air pollution rules than currently required by the federal government.The way is now clear for implementation of a 2002 state law requiring new cars to increase their fuel economy 40% by 2016....

Recession: Polls show Americans care most about jobs right now, and couldn't care less about global warming. So why does the economic stimulus plan attempt to marry the two?In Washington, there's a breathless rush to turn the economy around by greening it. But are "green-collar" jobs and green infrastructure really the jobs and industries of the future that our "brilliant" new economic planners claim? Most Americans don't seem to think so. According to the latest Pew Research poll, they rank the "economy" and "jobs" as the nation's top two priorities. The "environment" stood 16th out of 20, and "global warming"...

CHARLOTTE, VT. — Dave Matthews Band announced today that it has arranged for NativeEnergy and Clean Air-Cool Planet to offset 100 percent of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from all of its touring activities since 1991. By offsetting the CO2 pollution that touring activities, such as transporting gear, powering stages and air travel generate, Dave Matthews Band is taking a proactive role in fighting global warming and helping Native America begin to restore sustainable homeland economies in balance with the Earth. This announcement comes at the beginning of Dave Matthews Band 2006 summer tour, which kicked off on May 30th...