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Apple CEO Tim Cook is joining the CEO Council for Sustainable Urbanization, a group formed by the Paulson Institute and the China Center for International Economic Exchanges in order to divert the environmental impact of China's urban growth. "Apple is committed to running our global operations on 100 percent renewable energy and we're working hard to reduce emissions throughout our global supply chain," Cook said in prepared statement from the Paulson Institute. "We look forward to participating in the CEO Council's effort to advance China's green transformation and hope to do our part in helping China reach its climate goals."

Judging from one of the three designated presenters at the rollout of the Green Encyclical on June 18, the Encyclical appears likely to be worse than critics feared. Rorate Caeli gives us the details: The Vatican has just revealed in today’s Bollettino the line-up of speakers for the official presentation of the “Environment Encyclical”, Laudato Si, on June 18 at the New Synod Hall. – Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace; – His Eminence Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) of Pergamon, representing the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Orthodox Church; – Prof. John Schellnhuber, Founding...

A trio of activists from the Natural Resources Defense Council wrote a 110-page draft that became Obama's latest global-warming plan Two lawyers and a graduate of a Berkeley program advocating a 'sus­tainable envi­ron­ment and a just society' crafted the document in 2010The move is seen as revenge against the second Bush administration for allowing energy producers to advise the White House in secret meetingsThe document's lead scientific author now helps run a global-warming super PAC run by billionaire liberal Tom SteyerPresident Barack Obama’s aggressive and controversial Climate Action Plan grew out of a draft proposal from one of America's...

"Over four decades ago, Americans from all walks of life came together to tackle a shared challenge," declared President Obama in his Earth Day address. "The first Earth Day was a call to action for every citizen, every family, and every public official. It gave voice to the conservation movement." In fact, well before the first Earth Day, millions of Americans "came together" in a “conservation movement.” Alas, to President Obama and most of his staff those millions of Americans mostly belonged to those insufferable rustics who “cling to guns and bibles.” To wit: The Pittman-Robertson Act (1937) imposed an...

The Cost Of Green: In the midst of an unparalleled energy boom, U.S. electricity prices have skyrocketed to new highs. This paradox is a result not of the free market, but of runaway government "green" regulation. Unnoticed by virtually everyone except the sharp-eyed folks at CNSNews.com, new federal data show that electricity prices have never been higher. In November, the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Electricity Price Index hit 202.284, an all-time record and nearly 20% higher than just six years ago. This might strike some as strange, given the private-sector shale-fracking boom going on in the Midwest, Northeast and Texas,...

The UK is facing its greatest risk of blackouts since 2007/08 in the coming winter. The National Grid, responsible for balancing the country’s supply and demand of energy, last week has given this warning because Britain’s reserves of electricity have halved in 12 months. The UK and the USA are in the same boat here. Both countries have governments that have – or pretend to have — fallen for the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) theory hook, line, and sinker.

Ain’t prosperity grand? We have so much to eat in this country that we toss nearly half of it in the trash. At least that’s the finding of a recent study conducted by a prominent environmental organization. From the Los Angeles Times:

Not sure about the posting rules for this one, so just click the link.

Perhaps no river crossing in Yosemite Valley has been more photographed than the historic Stoneman Bridge: a single, arching span faced with rough-hewn granite that provides a dramatic foreground to Half Dome, the park's most iconic natural marvel. Yet the 205-foot bridge is slated for possible removal under proposed plans for restoring the natural flow of the Merced River. As a federally designated "Wild and Scenic River," some say its course should be shaped only by nature as it meanders through the valley — and bridge abutments alter that course. The future of the roughly 80-year-old Stoneman and two other...

A COALITION of environmental activists has developed an extraordinary secret plan to ruin Australia's coal export boom by disrupting and delaying key projects and infrastructure. The strategy includes mounting legal challenges to up to a dozen key mines and exploiting the Lock The Gate movement against coal-seam gas to put pressure on governments to block mining. A funding proposal for the Australian anti-coal movement, obtained by The Australian, declares that 2012 and 2013 are critical years to stop tens of billions of dollars of investment and says the aim of the strategy is to "disrupt and delay" projects "while gradually...

Ann Arbor officials are considering an expansion of the Greenbelt district boundaries one mile east into Salem Township and one mile west and south into Lodi Township.The Greenbelt Advisory Commission recommended the expansion plan at its Sept. 14 meeting, and GAC Chairman Dan Ezekiel, a local science teacher, appeared before the Ann Arbor City Council Monday night to lobby for its approval by council."The result would be to add seven sections in Lodi and three sections in Salem, and a section is a square mile," Ezekiel told council members.The council voted 9-1 to give initial approval to the expansion, with...

[snip] ....What's going on? "The desire to disbelieve deepens as the scale of the threat grows," concludes economist-ethicist Clive Hamilton. He and others who track what they call "denialism" find that its nature is changing in America, last redoubt of climate naysayers. It has taken on a more partisan, ideological tone. Polls find a widening Republican-Democrat gap on climate. Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry even accuses climate scientists of lying for money. Global warming looms as a debatable question in yet another U.S. election campaign. From his big-windowed office overlooking the wooded campus of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades,...

How glorious, watching investigative reporters on primetime news meticulously dissect the $535 million Obama-Solyndra connection while co-anchors squeeze in comprehensive charts and detailed explanations on where all of the taxpayer’s stimulus money went since Obama needs another ‘this-will-fix-it’ $300 billion; oops, now $400 billion; hold it, ok, $450 billion. No? Fine, but [the] MSM wouldn’t also be ignoring Project Gunrunner and the Obama-GE connection simply because AP Members such as The Washington Post and CBS receive $ millions in ObamaCare subsidies, i.e., bribes? I mean, that would be a conspiracy...

The American Renewable Energy Day conference in Aspen didn't cite Gore by name, but one of the opening speakers on Thursday suggested that audience members adopt aggressive tactics when dealing with climate deniers. Jigar Shah, CEO of an organization called the Carbon War Room, told the audience they must “confront the liars” on climate change issues or they are “part of the problem.” Shah urged them to “make a scene in public” by confronting politicians or speakers who suggest that alternative energy isn't a viable option for handling power needs and reducing carbon emissions. ... Lester Brown...founder and president of...

Times of international turmoil are great moments for domestic governments to make important announcements they don’t want to be noticed. Especially if the announcement involves a sudden reversal in policy that could seriously embarrass the government. So Friday afternoon was an ideal time for Ontario’s Liberal government to take a big chunk of its alternative energy program and chuck it overboard. .. After years of touting wind projects as a critical piece of the alternative energy puzzle, the government let slip — very quietly — that offshore wind projects are no longer part of the game plan. Turns out there...

HARTFORD — Gov. Dannel P. Malloy this morning named Yale University professor and environmental expert Daniel C. Esty to lead his recently announced state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. Esty, 51, serves as director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and Yale's Center for Business and the Environment. In 2007 and 2008, Esty served as Presidential candidate Barack Obama's campaign adviser on energy and the environment. Malloy earlier this week revealed his plans to consolidate the state Department of Environmental Protection with the Department of Public Utility Control, for the new Department of Energy and Environmental...

I recieved a Propane delivery today at $4.04 a gallon. Luckily I am a Paraniod FReeper so the hit was $222 for 55 gallons Before I took precautions I used about 800 gallons a year, Heating and Cooking, this price is insane. Anyother horror stories out there.

SMO — City Manager Rod Gould has denied two applications for new flight schools at Santa Monica Airport, citing the "particularly intense environmental impacts" the schools would have had. The move went against a recommendation from Airport Director Bob Trimborn but was in keeping with guidance from the Airport Commission, which last month voted 3-1, with one abstention, to urge denial of the applications. The schools, the Flight Academy and Angel City Flyers, had sought to operate a maximum of three airplanes for flight instruction. The Flight Academy, which is based in Washington state, had applied to operate one plane,...

San Francisco's last fossil fuel power plant will start the new year by shutting down. The Potrero Hill plant, one of the dirtiest in California, will cease operations on Jan. 1, state officials are expected to announce today. The plant, operated by Houston-based GenOn Energy Inc., formerly Mirant Corp., could be fired up in the event of a dramatic power emergency before being decommissioned permanently on Feb. 28, officials said."Cross your fingers," said Yakout Mansour, president of the California Independent System Operator, which oversees the state power grid. "It would have to be something very significant for us to need...