Free Republic

There was a time in America — and it wasn't even so long ago — that liberals cared a lot about working-class people. They may have been misguided in many of their policy solutions — e.g., raising the minimum wage — but at least their hearts were in the right place. Then a strange thing happened about a decade ago. Radical environmentalists took control of the Democratic Party. These leftists care more about the supposed rise of the oceans than the financial survival of the middle class. The industrial unions made a catastrophic decision to get in bed with these...

Hillary Clinton owes Bernie Sanders’ campaign an apology, the campaign said Friday. Clinton on Thursday accused Sanders’ camp of “lying,” alleging that his campaign has been claiming Clinton accepts money from the fossil fuel industry — a statement she forcefully rejected when confronted by an environmental activist. “I think she probably owes the senator an apology for that because the senator is not lying about her record,” Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver told MSNBC. “He’s talking about her record. He’s talking about her practices. She obviously doesn’t like it, but that doesn’t make it lying because you don’t like it.”...

Take a look at this abstract from the journal Progress in Human Geography: ………………………………………………………………………Glaciers, Gender, and Science:A FEMINIST GLACIOLOGY: framework for global environmental change research Mark Carey, M Jackson, Alessandro Antonello, Jaclyn Rushing ABSTRACT Glaciers are key icons of climate change and global environmental change. However, the relationships among gender, science, and glaciers – particularly related to epistemological questions about the production of glaciological knowledge – remain understudied. This paper thus proposes a feminist glaciology framework with four key components: 1) knowledge producers; (2) gendered science and knowledge; (3) systems of scientific domination; and (4) alternative representations of glaciers. Merging...

Washington could become the first state in the nation to impose a direct tax on carbon emissions from fossil fuels such as coal, gasoline and natural gas. A ballot measure before the state Legislature would create a carbon tax of $25 per metric ton of fossil fuel emissions burned in Washington, while reducing taxes. ...

Wood Mackenzie's report, cited by the energy news service Platts, said about 3.4 million barrels' worth of oil a day was not profitable below $35 a barrel. According to the International Energy Agency, the world's supply is 97.07 million barrels a day. While today's oil prices are below this threshold, the report suggests the price at which US shale and other producers would be forced out of the market is lower than previously thought. As Platts writes, "For many producers, being cash negative is not enough of an incentive to shut down fields as restarting flow can be costly and...

If Donald Trump is the Tony Soprano of American politics, Ted Cruz is a less-affable version of Mr. Haney from Green Acres (Ok - not quite, but sort of! Do feel free to say, H&R readers, which movie character is a better fit with Cruz). But the only thing cleverer than Cruz's impression of Inigo Montoya in Princess Bride (and not the least because it irritates Billy Crystal and the insufferably self-righteous Mandy Patinkin so much) is the campaign strategy he devised in Iowa to defeat the ethanol cartel and win the primary, I note in my column at The...

When Obama carried out his Solyndra con game, he broke the same law that Martha Stewart went to prison for breaking In 2009 the Obama administration gave $535 million to Solyndra, claiming that it would create 4,000 new jobs. However, instead of creating those 4,000 new jobs, the company went bankrupt. It was later revealed that the company’s shareholders and executives had made substantial donations to Obama’s campaign, that the company had spent a large sum of money on lobbying, and that Solyndra executives had had many meetings with White House officials. It was also revealed that the Obama administration had...

From the “fresh melt water will disrupt the planet” department, except that this ongoing alarm has already been debunked by NASA, see: NASA refutes Mann and Rahmstorf – Finds Atlantic ‘Conveyor Belt’ Not SlowingIllustration depicting the overturning circulation of the global ocean. Throughout the Atlantic Ocean, the circulation carries warm waters (red arrows) northward near the surface and cold deep waters (blue arrows) southward. Image credit: NASA/JPL Melting Greenland ice sheet may affect global ocean circulation, future climateUniversity of South Florida and international scientists find influx of freshwater could disrupt the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, an important component of global...

Last year, 42 North American drillers filed for bankruptcy, according to law firm Haynes and Boone. It's only likely to get worse this year. Experts say there are a lot of parallels between today's crisis and the last oil crash in 1986. Back then, 27% of exploration and production companies went bust. Defaults are skyrocketing again. In December, exploration and production company defaults topped 11%, up from just 0.5% the previous year, according to Fitch Ratings. That's a 2,000%-plus jump. It's just the beginning, says John La Forge, head of real assets strategy at Wells Fargo. If history repeats, people...

**SNIP** 1. Biologist Paul Ehrlich predicted in the 1970s that: "Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make," and that "The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years." 2. In January 1970, Life reported, "Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support... the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution... by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half..." 3. In...

Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries are scooping up farmland in drought-afflicted regions of the U.S. Southwest, and that has some people in California and Arizona seeing red. Saudi Arabia grows alfalfa hay in both states for shipment back to its domestic dairy herds. In another real-life example of the world's interconnected economy, the Saudis increasingly look to produce animal feed overseas in order to save water in their own territory, most of which is desert. Privately held Fondomonte California on Sunday announced that it bought 1,790 acres of farmland in Blythe, California -- an agricultural town along the...

A brutal new year selloff in oil markets deepened on Monday, with prices plunging more than 6 percent to new 12-year lows as further ructions in the Chinese stock market threatened to knock crude into the $20s. On Monday, China's blue-chip stocks fell by another 5 percent and overnight interest rates for the yuan outside of China soared to nearly 40 percent, their highest since the launch of the offshore market. Morgan Stanley warned that a further devaluation of the yuan could send oil prices spiraling lower still, extending the year's nearly 15 percent slide. While China's ructions are spooking...

The “fair and equitable” piece is where the Obama administration is most vulnerable, said David Gantz, a trade law professor at the University of Arizona College of Law. “The issue becomes, if there is a very detailed procedure for approval or disapproval of pipelines, whether the U.S. followed those procedures or whether it went beyond the criteria or procedures,” Gantz said. “I would say the U.S. is pretty vulnerable on that one issue,” he said, “in part because the White House staff and others essentially said, ‘we know we’re doing this politically and to make a statement,’ but the regulations...

The ethanol mandate, known formally as the Renewable Fuel Standard or RFS, is an object lesson in misguided government policy surviving long after its original rationales have been destroyed. The national security rationale was that oil was scarce, but now we're the world's leading oil producer and have begun exporting crude. The environmental rationale was that ethanol would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but since a landmark study was published in Nature in 2008 we've known: "there's little doubt that ethanol is making global warming worse." Even the jobs rationale fails. Per the Congressional Budget Office: "roughly the same amount of...

With some hasty blogging--and exacerbated by an Iowan's mistaken assertion about the ethanol mandate, Ted Cruz's shrewd answering, and the ethanol lobby's odd response--I contributed to some confusion about Ted Cruz's views on the ethanol mandate. (For the sake of candor, my original [probably misleading] post is at the bottom of this article.) Sen. Ted Cruz in 2013 co-sponsored the "Renewable Fuel Standard Repeal Act," which would immediately repeal the ethanol mandate. In 2014, he introduced a broad energy bill that would wind down the mandate over five years, slashing the federally mandated volume of renewable fuels (including corn ethanol)...

BENGHAZI, Libya, Jan 6 (Reuters) – Fires caused by clashes between Islamic State militants and guards near Libya's biggest oil ports have spread to four oil storage tanks that were still burning on Wednesday, a guards spokesman said. Ali al-Hassi said the Petroleum Facilities Guards were in control of Es Sider and Ras Lanuf ports, but that skirmishes continued. At least nine guards were killed and more than 40 injured in fighting around the perimeter of the area on Monday and Tuesday. Hassi said guards had recovered bodies of 30 Islamic State fighters, and had also captured two military tanks...

HOUSTON, Texas – The Cruz for President campaign announced Congressman Steve King to serve as a National Co-Chair for Cruz. King endorsed Cruz in November of last year saying that Cruz is the "one man that stands out as the courageous conservative whom I believe can restore the soul of America." King is a seven term Congressman who has been a consistent leader fighting for conservative issues like securing our border, protecting life and marriage and our Constitution. King has joined Cruz on the road in Iowa this week during the "Cruzin' for Caucus" Iowa bus tour, hitting 28 counties...

SIOUX CENTER - During a bus tour stop in Sioux Center, Iowa last night, Senator Ted Cruz expressed support for the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) through 2022. Responding to a question from an ethanol investor from Iowa about whether he would allow the landmark energy program to continue through its current expiration in 2022, Sen. Cruz responded by expressing support for the RFS through 2022. Senator Cruz also expressed passionate support for breaking through the so-called "blendwall." That "blendwall" makes it illegal for ethanol to expand its market penetration, and I intend to eliminate the EPA blendwall to get rid...

The recent editorial by Douglas Burns on the Texas connection between Ted Cruz and Congressman Steve King missed the mark on several important points as it relates to ethanol. Senator Cruz’ opposition to the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) is, as the author points out, based on “ideological rigidity, an unbudging conservatism and refusal to break from his own established boundaries of where the government should and shouldn’t go.” Does that make him anti-ethanol? I suppose if the RFS was the sole measuring stick, then perhaps. But a fundamental misunderstanding regarding Cruz is the accusation that he completely dismisses ethanol and...

Professional Pandering -- Desperate Cruz, Dependent on Iowa, Flip-Flops on Ethanol Subsidies... Posted on January 6, 2016 by sundance In what can only be noted as "typically Cruzian" the Senator who sponsored the "Renewable Fuel Standard Repeal Act", which would have immediately repealed the ethanol mandate, has now reversed course and claims to support continued Iowa Corn Subsidies. The pandering flip-flop becomes "brutally Cruzian" when the campaign for Ted Cruz denies the current change in position by pointing to a prior change in position; saying, in effect: when Senator Ted Cruz decided to run for President he changed his position,...