Free Republic

There is a lot we could lose if we don’t get a handle on climate change. Clean air. Manageable storms. A variety of animals and plants and a few islands. But buckeyes? The state trees of Ohio? To Michigan? “Dread the thought,” said Roger Williams, an associate professor of forest management at Ohio State University. But that could happen if the world keeps warming, Williams said yesterday during a climate-change-oriented tour of the Ohio State University campus. The tour was sponsored by the Environment Ohio Research and Policy Center, an environmental advocacy organization.

The Obama administration was bankrolling America's churches as far back as 2010 in preparation for the November 2014 invasion of American sovereignty Some of Barack Obama’s most passionate Marxist minions come arrayed in priestly robes rather than business suits. Their benign-sounding, if not downright boring name “the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Committee on Migration” helps hide them from the spotlight of controversy. Everyone should be aware that being far more immersed in politics than prayer, the USCCB Committee on Migration have long been waving the cheerleaders’ pom pom for President Barack Obama’s Executive Amnesty fiat.

Like Marxism, Islam offers “totalist” (to use a word from post-structuralism) solutions to.... well, all problems. And Leftists, like most Muslims, like that. Many Leftists also deem Islam to be intrinsically anti-capitalist; as well as being (conveniently for them) anti-Western. So it's not a surprise either that John Tummon (of Left Unity) has also gone way beyond defending Muslims to now embracing all sorts of Islamic ideas and causes; including the Caliphate, the Islamic State (IS), the Ottoman Empire, the Ummah, sharia law, Islamic legal traditions and so on, although he stops short of actually quoting from the Koran or...

The world still isn't close to preventing a dangerous level of man-made warming, a new United Nations report says. That's despite some countries’ recent pledges to cut back on carbon dioxide emissions. The report looks at the gap between what countries promise to do about carbon pollution and what scientists say needs to be done to prevent temperatures rising another two degrees — the goal world leaders set in 2009. To meet it, the world has to hit a peak of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases before 2030, said the report's chief scientific editor, Joseph Alcamo-Gruber.

With limited time still in power, President Barack Obama is staking his final two years on climate change, pushing the issue to the front of his agenda as he seeks to leave an imprint on the world that will endure after he's gone. It's a strategy rooted not only in Obama's long-stated concern about global warming, but also in political reality. The emphasis on climate isn't all by choice. Although Obama has long sought to rally action against climate change, White House aides say the issue has become even more attractive after the election because it's one where Obama has...

A leading Marxist health academic played a key role in designing health policies in Massachusetts and at the Federal level, now popularly associated with both leading US presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.

You’re individually responsible to choose freely to watch this video about the TOP 5 conservative principles, according to Bill Whittle. There's no gun to your head, but it's a must watch!

Global warming is likely playing a bigger role than previously thought in dead zones in oceans, lakes and rivers around the world and it's only going to get worse, according to a new study. The researchers looked at 476 dead zones worldwide— 264 in the United States. They found that standard computer climate models predict that, on average, the surface temperature around those dead zones will increase by about 4 degrees Fahrenheit (slightly more than 2 degrees Celsius) from the 1980s and 1990s to the end of this century.

Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary Jo White said the agency will be focused on implementing rules on executive compensation. “We have three or four [rules] yet to finish, including the clawbacks,” she said in an interview with CNBC at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. The agency has already adopted six rules regarding executive compensation. Under the Dodd-Frank law, the SEC is required to create rules to return compensation that was improperly received, called “clawbacks,” and create a rule to prevent securities exchanges from listing securities of companies that have not implemented such a policy. White said among...

Economic debate since the financial crisis and Great Recession has often focused on issues like monetary policy, fiscal stimulus, unemployment and financial regulation. Yes, these are all important, but in the future we will need to pay much more attention to a relatively neglected field: population economics. Developed countries that can absorb new immigrants at a modest cost should have relatively bright futures. They will help enable a rebalancing of population that will help the entire planet. In contrast, developed countries with relatively inflexible notions of national identity, and thus with strict immigration policies, may shrink in population and lose...

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says he will increase the minimum wage by 15% starting in December. The raise, the third this year, comes amid an annual inflation rate of 63.4%. Mr Maduro said the measure and other benefits meant workers would be better off despite the inflation, which he blamed on an "economic war" the opposition were waging against him. Mr Maduro says Venezuela's economic problems are created by a greedy elite which lives off the profits of smuggling and selling goods at inflated prices.

Anyone with a basic knowledge of how ecosystems work knows how important the role of the humble bee is. But a study suggests that climate change may be making male bees too easily distracted by females to bother carrying out pollination. According to research by the University of East Anglia, warmer springs have resulted in both bees and flowers emerging earlier than usual, meaning they do not coincide with each other. This means that by the time the flowers bloom, the bees are too busy mating with females to help fertilise plants. ‘Warming by as little as 2C causes the...

Obama doesn’t like it.He’s been repudiated by the voters, and he doesn’t like it. He’s supposed to be loved by the masses, but they have turned on him. He’s supposed to be the Democratic savior, but the Democratic candidates for the most part didn’t even want to be seen with him.The man who uttered the words “Don’t worry, you have me” has no one. The emperor has lost his clothes.Where do we go from here?President Obama is going to get defensive. He’s going to get mean. He’s going to do whatever he wants, the Constitution be damned.He’s not just a...

Venezuela is hosting a meeting that's meant to be a unique chance for environmental activists from around the world to talk. But the conference has been marred by logistical mishaps. And some groups say they're concerned the host government is using the meeting as a platform for anti-capitalist decrees. A last-minute change in venue forced participants to scramble. That led several would-be participants to drop out, including White House climate envoy Todd Stern.

People who voted for the GOP in the congressional elections this week may be surprised to learn they chose a militant climate change denier to oversee federal efforts to deal with climate change. The widespread expectation is that, when Republicans take charge of the Senate in January, Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe, a vehement foe of those who believe human exploitation of fossil fuels is contributing to a sharp rise in global temperatures, will be chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. No matter what they may have thought they were doing in the voting booths on Nov. 4, what...

President Obama was hunkered down at the White House today as election returns rolled in for what is forecast to be a punishing night for his party. But in Florida, North Carolina, Connecticut and Wisconsin, he made some stealthy last-minute virtual cameos, lending his voice to Democratic candidates in tough races. “This is it, Florida,” Mr. Obama says in a spot on WEDR, a Miami radio station with a predominantly African-American audience, recorded for Charlie Crist, the Democratic candidate for governor. “Don’t let anyone or anything keep you from voting.” In an ad in North Carolina, Mr. Obama asks voters...

Venezuela is stepping up efforts to combat shortages and rising places so families can have a merry Christmas complete with 12-cent sacks of sugar and 50-cent chickens. President Nicolas Maduro announced Friday that he is deploying hundreds of inspectors to enforce the government's price regulations, which set the cost of everything from milk to toothbrushes artificially low. "Today we deploy, and in November and December you will see that we have guaranteed a happy Christmas for the people," he said during televised remarks.

The unrestricted use of fossil fuels must end soon if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change. That is the central message of a stark new report from the UN-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC urges that by 2050, most of the world's electricity must - and can - be produced from low carbon sources. Fossil fuels, without carbon capture and storage (CCS), should be phased out "almost entirely" by 2100. It re-states many familiar positions: Warming is "unequivocal" and the human influence on climate is clear Since the 1950s the observed changes are unprecedented over decades...

Gen. Wesley Clark placed part of the blame for the Syrian Civil War on blamed climate change in a discussion on Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time.” Clark said “It’s what was behind a lot of the violence in Syria, it’s happening in East Africa, it’s happening in West Africa. Right now.”

The equation seems fairly simple: The more the world's population rises, the greater the strain on dwindling resources and the greater the impact on the environment. The solution? Well, that's a little trickier to talk about. Public-health discussions will regularly include mentions of voluntary family planning as a way to reduce unwanted pregnancies and births. But, said Jason Bremner of the Population Reference Bureau, those policies can also pay dividends for the environment. "And yet the climate-change benefits of family planning have been largely absent from any climate-change or family-planning policy discussions," he said. A 2010 study published in the...