Free Republic

Around the world, institutional investors — including pension funds, insurance companies, philanthropic endowments, and universities — are grappling with the question of whether to divest from oil, gas, and coal companies. The reason, of course, is climate change: Unless fossil-fuel consumption is cut sharply — and phased out entirely by around 2070, in favor of zero-carbon energy such as solar power — the world will suffer unacceptable risks from human-induced global warming. How should responsible investors behave in the face of these unprecedented risks? American universities are on the front line of this debate, pushed by their students, who are...

As the first major snowstorm of 2015 bears down on the Northeast, many pundits have taken the opportunity to mock the idea that humans are changing the climate. After all, it's very difficult to think "global warming" when your car is buried in snow. Still, all this doesn't necessarily mean that this particular blizzard was caused by, or made more intense by, human activity. Spotting the fingerprints of climate change in the middle of a blizzard is no easy task. But here's one thing we do know: As the climate continues to change, we can expect more weather like this.

... "'I'm not a scientist' won't be a winner in the presidential field," Republican strategist Ford O'Connell said of the now common response Republican lawmakers and candidates offer when asked about climate change. With the national party largely silent on the issue, conservative environmental groups like ConservAmerica are stepping up efforts to sharpen the Republican message. In recent months they have held meetings for like-minded conservatives and met with lawmakers and aides in a bid to help craft a new Republican environmental platform. Attempts to strike a softer tone will collide with entrenched resistance, primarily from the donor network in...

Don’t pick a political fight with Pope Francis? The title of Rachel Lu’s recent essay and the timidity behind it reminds me of a old Jewish joke. Max and Moishe are being escorted to the execution chamber in a Nazi prison. In a sudden gesture of defiance, Max raises his arm and gives the guards his middle finger. Horrified, Moishe pulls his arm down and blurts, “Please, Max, don’t make waves.” Just so all the reflexive excuses for Pope Francis’ dismaying behavior and increasingly obvious ideological bent. Lu forgets there exists such a thing as a loyal opposition. She cites...

NEW DELHI — President Obama pressed India on Tuesday to do more to curb the pollution that is choking its capital and contributing to global climate change, as he wrapped up a visit that yielded no meaningful breakthrough on the issue. While India and the United States agreed to cooperate in promoting cleaner energy, Mr. Obama left after three days without the sort of specific commitment to curbing greenhouse gases that he won in China last year. Instead, he used a farewell speech before his departure to argue that India had an obligation to step up, despite its economic challenges.

Marxist wealth redistribution The President is convinced that he has been elected to make sure everyone gets their “fair share” - paid for by taking it from those he has determined somehow have an unfair share. Of course he doesn’t use the term unfair share, but if someone has been denied their fair share then someone else must have more money than they are supposed to have, in other words, an unfair share. The real unfair share, though, is the wealth appropriated by our corrupt federal government that is so often misused, misplaced and stolen. All this wealth appropriation the...

The first day of the World Economic Forum in Davos was dominated by calls for 2015 to be a year of action on climate change. But while some in the business community worry about sustainability, there is plenty of evidence that the vast bulk of business executives give it no consideration at all. “We are seeing the accelerated impact of climate change,” World Bank boss Jim Yong Kim said in a speech on Wednesday. “Last year was the hottest on record. That matters. Extreme weather is real. It’s a complete no-brainer to move towards cleaner, more livable cities.” Yet according...

Greeks began voting on Sunday in an election expected to bring to power the radical leftist Syriza party, which has pledged to take on international lenders and roll back painful austerity measures imposed during years of economic crisis. Barring a huge upset, victory for Syriza, which has led opinion polls for months, would produce the first euro zone government openly committed to cancelling the austerity terms of its EU and IMF-backed bailout programme. After its most severe crisis since the fall of the military junta in 1974, Greece's economy has shrunk by some 25 percent, thousands of businesses have closed,...

Say conservatives have their way with Obamacare, and the Supreme Court deals it a death blow or a Republican president repeals it in 2017. Some people who got health insurance as a result of the Affordable Care Act may lose it. In which case, liberals like to say, some of Obamacare’s beneficiaries may die. Columnist Jonathan Chait wrote recently that those who may die are victims of ideology — “collateral damage” incurred in conservatives’ pursuit “of a larger goal.” If these are the stakes, many liberals argue, then ending Obamacare is immoral. Except, it’s not. In a world of scarce...

FRISCO — With the EPA set to decide in May whether aircraft carbon pollution endangers public health or welfare, the battle over airline industry emissions in heating up. This week, six major green groups called on the EPA and the Federal Aviation Administration to move quickly to set emission standards to curb greenhouse gas pollution from the nation’s aircraft fleet. “The Obama administration needs to finally hold the airline industry accountable for its massive greenhouse gas emissions,” said Vera Pardee, a senior attorney with the Center’s Climate Law Institute. “The EPA has delayed action for years, and our climate is...

2014 was, according to NOAA and NASA, the warmest year on record for the entire world. Locally, it was also the hottest year in California’s history. The world’s climate is changing, at least according to science and data. 2014 was also the year of Frozen, Disney’s animated musical blockbuster about two sisters and a snowman (more or less), amassing over $1.2 billion in worldwide box office receipts and billions more from countless sing-a-long showings, DVD sales, and merchandise since its November 2013 release. And now, in 2015, we’re learning where these two seemingly disparate facts intersect: the State Department’s Admiral...

The symbolic doomsday clock moved to three minutes before midnight on Thursday because of the gathering dangers of climate change and nuclear proliferation, signalling the gravest threat to humanity since the throes of the cold war. It was the closest the clock has come to midnight since 1984, when arms-control negotiations stalled and virtually all channels of communication between the US and the former Soviet Union closed down. $cientists suggested that the greater danger lay in the failure of leaders to recognise and act on climate change. “Stunning government failures have imperiled civilisations on a global scale,” Benedict said. “World...

President Barack Obama's State of the Union address drew the second-lowest television viewership in 15 years. According to Nielsen data, 31.7 million viewers watched Tuesday night's prime-time address on broadcast and cable networks. That's the lowest television viewership for a State of the Union address since President Bill Clinton's final speech.

United States senators are now on the record on the question of whether climate change is "a hoax." The Senate on Wednesday passed a measure stating that "climate change is real and is not a hoax" by a margin of 98-1. The amendment was designed in part as a jab at GOP Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, who has questioned the science of climate change. Inhofe voted for the measure, arguing that the true "hoax" is that climate change is the result of human activity. "Climate is changing, and climate has always changed, and always will, there's archeological evidence of...

Just saw a local Miami tv station using video from the government web site with an "interview" of Obama, where he spews some crap about how his goal is to outline for the nation how he is going to make sure things are fair, now that we have "made it through the crisis". I nearly spit my coffee out. We are not out of a crisis. My point is that these kind of videos are NOT a proper use for news....and I expect that if a REPUBLICAN president put out this type of "interview", the media would ignore it....on the...

The White House wants President Obama to play the part of Robin Hood at Tuesday’s State of the Union address. Obama hopes to use the big speech to remove a blemish of his presidency: an economic recovery that has left wage growth behind. Obama wants to move forward with all of these populist proposals for the poor and middle class, and he wants to do so by taking from the rich in the form of higher taxes on the wealthy and Wall Street.

Tom Steyer is telling potential supporters that if he were to run for Senate in California, he would set policy goals related to climate change, taxes and public education. If he does not meet certain goals in six years, Steyer would pledge not to run for a second term. The billionaire environmentalist and former hedge fund manager spent $74 billion in the midterm elections in an effort to elect more lawmakers who want to fight climate change. Steyer also wants to ensure that the highest income earners pay effective tax rates that are at least the same level as the...

President Obama plans to call for billions in tax increases on top earners – including a hike in investment tax rates -- in order to fund new tax credits and other measures the White House claims will help the middle class. The president's proposals, which also include eliminating a tax break on inheritances, are likely to be cheered by the Democratic Party's liberal base when they are announced Tuesday night in his State of the Union address. However, the tax increases are all but certain to be non-starters with the new Republican majority on Capitol Hill. The president's address --...

London: A new study has recently revealed that manicured lawns are major source of greenhouse gases, which contribute to global warming. Grass lawns soak up carbon dioxide, which is stored in the soil after the cut grass rots and so, like trees, they are considered good for the planet. But Dr. Chuanhui Gu of Appalachian State University in the US said that once the energy expended by mowing, fertilizer use and watering are taken into account, lawns actually produce more greenhouse gases than they soak up. The study is published in the Journal of Environmental Management.

Socialism: Venezuelans are being arrested for posting Internet photos of shortages in stores. So let's get this straight: Murder and mayhem are de facto legal in that crime pit, but posting evidence of socialism's failure merits jailing. As socialism plays out to its logical conclusion in Venezuela, the specters of long lines, rationing, troop enforcers, bizarre edicts and desperate statements are now the order of the day. Not only have more than a dozen Venezuelans been arrested for posting photographs of empty store shelves on social media, three governors have responded to long lines by — prohibiting them; ordering the...

Three new studies offer new proof of how bad the earth's fever has gotten. It’s not often that the climate change deniers get clobbered three times in just two days. But that’s what happened with the release of a trio of new studies that ought to serve as solid body blows to the fading but persistent fiction that human-mediated warming is somehow a hoax. Good news for the forces of reason, however, is bad news for the planet—especially the oceans. “Today’s news is a clear and undeniable warning for all of us that we need to cut climate pollution and...

Students across the United States are getting a taste of progressivism. And it doesn’t seem to please their palates. The implementation of Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity lunch standards is encountering backlash from students and school administrators across the country. The program seems to have taught them a valuable lesson in the realities of progressivism -- that when American voters give up power to busy-body progressives, the result is more control over their lives and the loss of individual liberties. They responded to this newfound reality with boycotts, social media angst, and filled trash cans instead of filled bellies.According to the Government...

There are times when a little piece of news comes in from some far flung corner of the world and it’s necessary to wonder whether one should laugh or cry about it all. So it is with this remarkable story from Venezuela. The wonders of Bolivarian Socialism are so great that governors in some parts of the country have decided to ban queuing. No, really, I promise you that I am not making this up. Here’s the news about the queuing: Governors in three Venezuelan states have banned overnight queuing amid huge and sometimes rowdy lines around shops across the...

Pope Francis said Thursday he is convinced that global warming is "mostly" man-made and that he hopes his upcoming encyclical on the environment will encourage negotiators at a climate change meeting in Paris to make "courageous" decisions to protect God's creation.

The world's oceans are now rising far faster than they did in the past, a new $tudy says. The current sea level rise rate — which started in 1990 — is 2.5 times faster than it was from 1900 to 1990, according to a $tudy published Wednesday in the journal Nature. Scientists say that faster pace of sea level rise is from melting ice sheets in Greenland and West Antarctica and shrinking glaciers, triggered by man-made global warming. "We're seeing a significant acceleration in the past few decades," said $tudy lead author Carling Hay, a geophysical researcher at Harvard University....

Although most of us worry about other things, climate scientists have become increasingly worried about the survival of civilization. For example, Lonnie Thompson, who received the U.S. National Medal of Science in 2010, said that virtually all climatologists "are now convinced that global warming poses a clear and present danger to civilization." Informed journalists share this concern. The climate crisis "threatens the survival of our civilization," said Pulitzer Prize-winner Ross Gelbspan. Mark Hertsgaard agrees, saying that the continuation of global warming "would create planetary conditions all but certain to end civilization as we know it." These scientists and journalists, moreover,...

FULL TITLE: Volcanoes are cooling Earth: Aerosols from small eruptions have reduced global temperatures and tropical rainfall. Small volcanic eruptions over the past 20 years have been protecting the Earth from global warming, according to a new study. Scientists have confirmed that droplets of sulphur-rich aerosols spewed into the upper atmosphere by volcanoes have been reflecting sunlight away from the Earth. Until recently it was thought that only particularly large eruptions had any noticeable affect on the climate. This could have helped decrease the global temperatures by between 0.05°C to 0.12°C over the past 15 years. Since 1998, the warmest...

The latest research on little auks, sometimes called "penguins of the north," reveals a surprising response to a rapidly warming Arctic: The birds make up for food lost to the effects of climate change by catching prey that were stunned by the cold water running off melting glaciers—another effect of climate change. The study, published Monday in the journal Global Change Biology, is the first to examine the feeding habits of little auks as Arctic ice is lost. Scientists watched the birds in Franz-Josef Land, off the northern coast of Russia, during an expedition supported by the National Geographic Society....

The economic damage caused by a ton of carbon dioxide emissions – often referred to as the "social cost" of carbon – could actually be six times higher than the value that the United States now uses to guide current energy regulations, and possibly future mitigation policies, Stanford scientists say. A recent U.S. government study concluded, based on the results of three widely used economic impact models, that an additional ton of carbon dioxide emitted in 2015 would cause $37 worth of economic damages. These damages are expected to take various forms, including decreased agricultural yields, harm to human health...

In a global warming series Eco Eye, experts warned about the catastrophic dangers of climate change, predicting significant coastal damage and the extinction of many plant and animal species. “Climate change is a reality. It’s here. That’s something as a society we haven’t bought into. It will be a very difficult problem for Dublin, Cork, Galway and Belfast,” said Professor Robert Devoy. “What is coming down the tracks is a significant warming of the planet. The last time it warmed of this order, 88 per cent of life on earth disappeared. “I have five grandchildren. Whatever time is left to...

Climate change predictions can be scary, and political opposition to climate action is fierce. But EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy says she can’t help but be optimistic about the future. McCarthy, speaking at the American Meteorological Society (AMS) annual meeting in Phoenix on Wednesday, struck a decidedly positive tone. “If there is ever a challenge where the U.S. can shine and provide leadership, it is the challenge of climate change,” she said. “The real danger and the real economic problem we face is not taking action,” McCarthy said. She emphasized the importance of the work of the thousands of weather and...

Forget the French fries. How about a side of yuca with that Big Mac? Venezuela's more than 100 McDonald's franchises have run out of potatoes and are now serving alternatives like deep-fried arepa flatbreads or yuca, a starchy staple of traditional Venezuelan cooking. McDonald's franchisers are blaming a contract dispute with West Coast dock workers for halting the export of frozen fries to the country. The dispute also caused several days of French fry rationing in Japan last month. But Sonia Ruseler, who runs McDonald's restaurants in Latin America, declined to say Tuesday why other countries in the region are...

Forty years after first taking the oath as governor of California, Democrat Jerry Brown was sworn in to an historic fourth term Monday, proposing sweeping changes to address global climate change while offering a measured approach to targeting the state’s long-term financial liabilities. Brown said he would push to reduce petroleum use in cars by up to 50 percent; increase from a third to a half the required proportion of electricity produced from renewable energy sources and make heating fuels cleaner – all within 15 years.

Fifteen months ago, academic climate scientists expressed worries that a new climate model sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) was going to harm existing modeling efforts, siphoning off talent and funding when federally funded science is short on both. The biggest concern: that the Accelerated Climate Modeling for Energy (ACME) project, meant to forecast local impacts of climate change and to be used on DOE’s future exascale supercomputers, would dilute resources from the Community Earth System Model (CESM). That model, managed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, is built on science and code...

To hear the White House tell it, the November elections never happened and 2014 was a super-duper year for President Obama. In a “Year in Review” slideshow, the White House suggests 2014 represented a “breakthrough” for America. The Obama administration takes credit for: • An economy growing at a record pace; • The longest streak of private-sector job growth on record; • The number of Americans without health insurance falling to a near record low; • Concerted action to prevent sexual assaults on college campuses; • The highest high school graduation rate in the nation’s history; • Historic steps to...

Like the Nazis, who, where actually a small percentage of Germans, the “soldiers” of the Black War on our police represent the sentiments and beliefs of a considerably larger segment of African American. Barack Obama Eric Holder Al Sharpton and Comrade Bill de Blasio have done so much to poison race relations in America that this is undeniable. In their aims attitude and ultimate goals the soldiers of the Black War on our police and the Nazis are very similar. Both regularly use(d) lies and propaganda to promote their message. Both attack(ed) weak and defenseless targets like elderly people and...

Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for efforts to enhance the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in universities and improve Party building there. "Enhancing CPC leadership and Party building in the higher learning institutions is a fundamental guarantee for running socialist universities with Chinese features well," he said. Xi said the higher-learning institutions shoulder the important tasks of studying, researching and publicizing Marxism, as well as training builders and successors of the socialist cause with Chinese characteristics. The core socialist values should be incorporated into the whole teaching process while ideological guidance should be enhanced to ensure...

Kwanzaa's roots stretch from York to Africa Kwanzaa's roots from York to Africa By Rebecca Hanlon For the Daily Record/Sunday News Updated: 12/28/2014 04:02:22 PM EST Maulana Ron Karenga, a 1958 William Penn Senior High School graduate, created Kwanzaa in 1966 as a way for those of African descent to explore their culture and bring good into the world. As an Afrocentric scholar, Karenga has said he hoped Kwanzaa would give people a deeper African-American consciousness and a sense of community within ancient African culture. The holiday kicked off Friday and will run through Jan. 1, with different celebrations and...

Larry Schweikart recently spoke at the Heritage Foundation about the newly released 10th anniversary edition of the book he co-authored with Michael Allen, “A Patriot’s History of the United States: From Columbus’s Great Discovery to America’s Age of Entitlement.” “A Patriot’s History” had a rather unusual journey from publication to fame; becoming a No.1 New York Times bestseller six years after its publication.Schweikart, a history professor at the University of Dayton, wrote the book in response to what he calls a lack of textbooks that “dealt accurately and fairly with American history.” Many of the existing classroom materials, he said,...

Less than half (46%) of U.S. kids younger than 18 years of age are living in a home with two married heterosexual parents in their first marriage. This is a marked change from 1960, when 73% of children fit this description, and 1980, when 61% did, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of recently-released American Community Survey (ACS) and Decennial Census data. Rapid changes in American family structure have altered the image of who’s gathering for the holidays. While the old “ideal” involved couples marrying young, then starting a family, and staying married till “death do they part”, the...

THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 26, 2014 Statement from the President and the First Lady on Kwanzaa Michelle and I extend our warmest wishes to those celebrating Kwanzaa this holiday season. Today begins a celebration highlighting the rich African American heritage and culture through the seven principles of Kwanzaa—unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith. During this season, families come together to reflect on blessings of the past year and look forward to the promises in the year ahead. As we remain committed to building a country that...

Protesters in New York announced a march on 5th Avenue to defy Mayor DeBlasio’s moratorium on demonstrations after two NYPD cops were slaughtered. The Twitter account @MillionsMarch posted a sign that said to meet at 59th and 5th. Another Twitter account posted a sign that said “No Christmas shopping as usual.”

Many parents undoubtedly think they are doing the best for their children by having them bring lunch from home instead of eating the lunches served in school. But recent studies clearly prove them wrong. Home-packed lunches, the research showed, are likely to be considerably less nourishing than the meals offered in schools that abide by current nutrition guidelines for the National School Lunch Program. That program is, distressingly, increasingly under attack. But the program must not continue to be undermined, and more schools should be encouraged to participate. Nearly 32 million of the more than 50 million children in public...

... There were many AGU talks about the climate impacts we’re already seeing. For example, human-caused global warming is amplifying many types of extreme weather like drought, heat waves, and storms. Climate and social scientists have struggled to communicate this urgency to the public. While most people accept that humans are changing the climate, few understand the urgency of mitigating these risks. This is particularly a problem for ideological conservatives. Among social scientists, a consensus is forming that more climate-specific knowledge translates into greater acceptance of the science and support for mitigation. However, facts are more effective when ideological barriers...

Some of the consequences of climate change are obvious -- shrinking polar ice caps, rising sea levels, more damaging floods -- and some are subtle. Among the latter, we can now add bad-tasting seafood. So concludes a team of researchers led by Sam Dupe of the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, recently published in the Journal of Shellfish Research. They tested shrimp raised for three weeks in seawater of average pH versus shrimp raised in acidic waters, similar to conditions that may prevail as the continued emission of excess carbon dioxide turns the oceans more acidic. Seafood is an important source...

Full Title: Why do you MANSPREAD? Woman with her tape measure confronts splay-legged men on the subway about the space they consume It is a gripe that frustrates subway riders daily: men with their legs splayed. So one woman decided to confront male commuters about the amount of space they consume. The investigation comes a month before New York City's MTA launches a campaign targeting 'manspreaders'.

Before circumstances and Providence brought me to a small, Christian liberal arts college in a sleepy northern Virginia town, I spent three years studying at the University of Illinois followed by a two year stint in the Army. Needless to say, I spent much of my early twenties participating in American party culture, and I'm lucky I made it through those years relatively unscathed. Looking back, I made a lot of foolish decisions. I put myself in a lot of compromising situations that could have easily taken a dark turn. What I have to say in the following paragraphs, then,...

"With new leaders in charge in both Washington and Havana, there have been numerous speculations about changes/improvements in U.S.-Cuba relations. For example, in December Raúl Castro floated the possibility of releasing from his gulag certain political prisoners in exchange for five Cuban spies convicted of spying, murder and other charges in the United States. The idea is a non-starter because there is no comparison between the so-called "Cuban Five," convicted in open American courts, and political prisoners, convicted without any semblance of due process, locked away in Castro's dungeons because of their opposition to his communist regime. But it did...

"On Wednesday, Obama administration officials confirmed to The Post that Cuba has freed American citizen Alan Gross. Gross, who was detained in December 2009 while working as a subcontractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development, had been accused of espionage and sentenced to 15 years in prison by Cuba. His imprisonment was a major problem in relations between Washington and Havana. Gross was not freed by accident. According to ABC News, his release is the culmination of more than a year of "secret back-channel talks at the highest levels of both governments." And, importantly, his release comes at the...

A protest put on by a group of second-graders in Massachusetts has sparked controversy, but the school says it was just teaching the kids a lesson in civics. The peaceful demonstration happened on Friday, a spokesperson for the Alma del Mar Charter School in New Bedford told ABC News today. Second-graders gathered in front of the school with signs, some that said "Honk For Justice." "A group of scholars played on the playground while other scholars held their demonstration without incident," Will Gardner, the school's executive director, said today in a statement.