Free Republic

".....Yuma,Colorado, a farming town of 3,500 people near the Kansas border, celebrated last month as homegrown Republican Cory Gardner was elected to the U.S. Senate. Gardner, a high school football player and the son of a farm equipment dealer, defeated incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Udall to help the GOP gain control of the Senate in the second-most expensive congressional race of all time.Gardner represented Colorado’s 4th Congressional District for four years, an expansive territory that covers the mostly flat and rural eastern third of the state. Farmers there mostly grow corn to feed cattle, and water comes from the quickly...

If educators scare students too much about the threat of climate change, they may "succumb to denial," a teachers' guide by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) warns. In its guide, "Teaching Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness," NOAA presents seven "essential principles": 1.Sun is primary energy 2.Climate is complex 3.Life affects climate; climate affects life 4.Climate is variable 5.Our understanding of climate 6.Humans affect climate 7.Climate change has consequences Principle 7 - "Climate Change Will Have Consequences for the Earth System and Human Lives" - warns educators that scaring students can cause them to succumb to denial: "Alarming students and...

The climate change movement has gained such unstoppable momentum in the past decade that it comes as a surprise when anyone prominent has the guts to stand up against it. It is even more surprising when that someone is the co-founder of the Weather Channel. John Coleman, though, has decided that the theory of man-made global warming is no longer scientifically viable. Having closely studied the topic of climate change for years, Coleman insists that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has it all wrong. “There is no significant man-made global warming at this time, there has been none in...

Here is something you don’t see every day, a satellite image showing a sizable amount of snow cover on the big island of Hawaii. While snowfall on the big island is nothing new, commonly seen on the mountains on Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, (top and bottom arrows respectively in the photo) seeing snow this early in the season on the mounatins is somewhat rare.

The world is warming. The beasts are dying en masse. The oceans are rising. The deserts are roasting. It's the survival of the fittest out there, guys. Who's going to win, evolutionarily speaking? Men or women? It turns out that warming temperatures may have a surprising gender bias—in favor of women. That's the conclusion of a team of Japanese researchers who have discovered a "statistically significant" association between climate change—including rising temperatures and extreme weather events—and the birth rates of boys and girls in Japan. Warmer temperatures have accompanied an increased proportion of female babies in the population, and a...

A professor is blaming climate change and overpopulation for the creation of the terrorist group ISIS. Charles Strozier, Professor of History and the founding Director of the John Jay College Center on Terrorism and Kelly Berkell, research assistant at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, wrote a blog piece in the Huffington Post called “ How Climate Change Helped ISIS,” where they argue that a four-year drought in Syria, from 2006 through 2010, “devastated the livelihoods of 800,000 farmers and herders; and knocked two to three million people into extreme poverty.” "If more Americans knew how glacial melt contributes...

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has updated their policy guidelines (PDF) concerning contraceptives for children under 18, recommending that the first line of defense against pregnancy for adolescent girls should be implantable contraception such as an IUD or a sub-dermal hormonal implant. The AAP says that because young girls cannot be trusted to remain abstinent, reliably take a daily birth control pill, or use condoms, the best way to ensure they do not become pregnant is to fit them with a “long-acting reversible contraceptive” – a device that, once installed, will either provide a continuous dose of hormones designed...

Stardust got in their eyes. In the spring a group of astronomers who go by the name of BICEP announced they had detected ripples in the sky, gravitational waves that were the opening notes of the Big Bang. The finding was heralded as potentially the greatest discovery of the admittedly young century, but some outside astronomers said the group had underestimated the extent to which interstellar dust could have contaminated the results - a possibility that the group conceded in its official report in June. Now a long-awaited report by astronomers using data from the European Space Agency’s Planck satellite...

Scientists now believe that global warming is to blame for extreme cold snaps in North America during the winter months – and that it will only keep happening. The "polar vortex" that plunged Canada and the U.S. into historical cold last winter is said by researchers to have occurred because melting polar ice changes weather patterns, according to a study published earlier this month.

Is the government monkeying around on your dime? The National Institutes of Health is reportedly spending $3.9 million over five years to study the effects of excessive drinking on monkeys. …

The home-cooked meal has long been romanticized, from ’50s-era sitcoms to the work of star food writer Michael Pollan, who once wrote, “far from oppressing them, the work of cooking approached in the proper spirit offered a kind of fulfillment and deserved an intelligent woman’s attention.” In recent years, the home-cooked meal has increasingly been offered up as the solution to our country's burgeoning nutrition-related health problems of heart disease and diabetes. But while home-cooked meals are typically healthier than restaurant food, sociologists Sarah Bowen, Sinikka Elliott, and Joslyn Brenton from North Carolina State University argue that the stress that...

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO), headquartered in Geneva, is releasing videos that predict what weather reports will be like in 2050 These are based on what happens if climate change is allowed to continue Earth's average temperature could rise by more than 4°C (7.2°F) by the end of the 21st century, according to researchers This could lead to more extreme weather around the world such as storms, droughts and flooding The videos are being released ahead of the UN Climate Summit 2014 What will weather reports be like in 2050? Rather dramatic and unnerving if climate change gets out of...

A consumer group is predicting a rush for powerful vacuum cleaners as an EU ban on many best-performing products looms. Which? said that from September 1, companies will be unable to manufacture or import any vacuums with motors above 1,600 watts under rules designed to boost energy efficiency and tackle climate change.

I have a love-hate relationship with Whole Foods Market. On the one hand, I love their fresh produce, their baked goods, and many other food choices there. On the other hand, they have embraced anti-science positions in the interest of keeping everything "natural."

"Star Trek: Voyager" actor Robert Picardo says he way too old to experiment with Bill Nye the Science Guy ... in the bedroom. Picardo is asking a judge to stop his soon-to-be ex-wife from spreading rumors he's in a gay relationship with Nye.   The actor says in court docs -- obtained by TMZ -- Linda Pawlik lured him over to her house July 4th by falsely telling him the family dog was missing.  While he was there, he claims Linda had a P.I. attach a GPS device to his car. Days later ... Linda started telling family friends the...

One of the world's largest food companies says it's about to take a big bite out of global warming. General Mills, maker of Cheerios, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and Wheaties, said Monday that it will set a target to limit air pollution throughout its entire supply chain next summer. This marks the first time the food giant has pledged to measurably rein in greenhouse-gas emissions from its agricultural suppliers of ingredients like soy and sugarcane. Environmental watchdogs say the effort is significant. According to Oxfam, air pollution created by the agricultural industry makes up a quarter of total greenhouse-gas emissions worldwide....

A new poll offers details on the way citizens of the world think about climate change, and U.S. participants are looking particularly ignorant to the risks of global warming. Only one in four Americans said climate change was a "major threat," making the U.S. the least concerned nation.

Climate change skeptics have suggested a recent slowdown in the warming of the Earth is evidence that global warming is a farce and that climate models can't be trusted, but new research suggests the slowdown, or "pause," was not a significant disruption of larger trends. The planet has been slowly warming over the last century or more. But in the last 15 years, that rate of warming has slowed. Temperatures are still high by historical standards; but between 1998 and 2013 they were slightly below what climate models had predicted. A small number of scientists and policy makers have pointed...

"Paedophilic interest is natural and normal for human males,” said the presentation. “At least a sizeable minority of normal males would like to have sex with children … Normal males are aroused by children.” Some yellowing tract from the Seventies or early Eighties, era of abusive celebrities and the infamous PIE, the Paedophile Information Exchange? No. Anonymous commenters on some underground website? No again. The statement that paedophilia is “natural and normal” was made not three decades ago but last July. It was made not in private but as one of the central claims of an academic presentation delivered, at...

BBC report: “Impartiality in science coverage does not simply lie in reflecting a wide range of views, but depends on the varying degree of prominence (due weight) such views should be given.” LONDON, July 7 (UPI) --In an internal report released today by the BBC trust addressing the broadcaster's impartiality in science reporting and the gender balance of its contributors and presenters, the BBC has officially taken the position that it will be giving climate change deniers less airtime in an effort to provide more accurate reporting that better reflects the weighted view of the scientific community. When they set...