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  • Push to counter disinformation at COP30 climate summit

    11/03/2025 6:26:46 AM PST · by Oldeconomybuyer · 25 replies
    Deutsch Welle ^ | November 3, 2025 | By Stuart Braun
    This year's pivotal UN climate summit in Brazil faces a tidal wave of fake news and disinformation that aims to deflate any unified front on a rapid energy transition away from fossil fuels. COP30 comes at a time when US president Donald Trump, the leader of the world's largest historical carbon polluter, has launched an unprecedented assault on climate and renewable energy programs. Meanwhile, the Climate Action Against Disinformation coalition (CAAD), a global climate watchdog, is asking media and Big Tech to screen "harmful false content" about climate for their audiences, and to be transparent about the source of any...
  • Do Californians Realize How Badly They’re Getting Ripped Off?

    11/01/2025 5:36:07 AM PDT · by MtnClimber · 47 replies
    Issues & Insights ^ | 31 Oct, 2025 | John Merline
    Let’s say you paid top dollar to go to a fancy, five-star restaurant, and the waiter served you warmed-over McDonald’s. Would you ever go back? Maybe, if you didn’t know any better. I started thinking about that after I recently changed my residency from Virginia to California (for reasons I won’t go into) and noticed that my state income taxes had gone up by more than 33%. Over the course of the year, I will pay California $2,115 more than I’d been paying in Virginia, which is hardly a low-tax state (Virginia has the 14th highest income tax burden in...
  • Why an entire Calif. town is standing up against the high-speed rail

    10/31/2025 4:31:33 PM PDT · by nickcarraway · 16 replies
    SFGate ^ | Oct 31, 2025 | Andrew Pridgen
    'You can't just destroy small communities along the way'An impassioned and oftentimes angry cohort from a small California city turned up ready for a fight this week in opposition to the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s proposal to bisect the town. On Monday, residents of Shafter, a rural town of 22,000 just about 20 miles northwest of Bakersfield, showed up en masse to provide almost two hours of unanimous testimony opposing the plan to their city council. Individual pleas from community members often began calmly and then crescendoed into yelling (or even escalated to holding back tears) following a presentation by...
  • A Cautionary Solar Tale: Billions Wasted Thanks to a Rush to Market

    10/30/2025 12:38:18 PM PDT · by E. Pluribus Unum · 15 replies
    RealClear Energy ^ | October 29, 2025 | Gary Abernathy
    Back in the late 1970s there was a popular wine commercial with the film director Orson Welles reminding us that “some things can’t be rushed,” and concluding with what became a famous catchphrase: “We will sell no wine before its time.” One of the biggest yet least discussed problems with the race to establish the solar industry before the subsidies run out is that the product has arguably been rushed to market before it is perfected. The construction is getting ahead of the expertise – meaning that billions of dollars could be invested in solar devices that are soon to...
  • ‘Scamming became the new farming’: inside India’s cybercrime villages

    10/30/2025 2:38:40 AM PDT · by marcusmaximus · 18 replies
    Guardian UK ^ | 10/30/2025 | Snigdha Poonam
    On the surface, the town of Jamtara appeared no different from neighbouring districts. But, if you knew where to look, there were startling differences. In the middle of spartan villages were houses of imposing size and unusual opulence. Millions of Indians knew why this was. They knew, to their cost, where Jamtara was. To them, it was no longer a place; it was a verb. You lived in fear of being “Jamtara-ed”. Over the past 15 years, parts of this sleepy district in the eastern state of Jharkhand had grown fabulously wealthy. This extraordinary feat of rural development was powered...
  • Scientists blame climate change for Hurricane Melissa: Catastrophic storm was made 4 TIMES more likely by global warming

    10/30/2025 5:55:31 AM PDT · by Oldeconomybuyer · 73 replies
    Daily Mail UK ^ | October 30, 2025 | By XANTHA LEATHAM
    Hurricane Melissa – the most powerful storm in Jamaica's history – was made four times more likely by climate change, according to a study. The catastrophic category 5 hurricane struck the island on Tuesday, bringing sustained winds that peaked at 185mph, flash floods and landslides. Now, experts have warned that our over–reliance on oil, gas and coal increased both the likelihood and intensity of the storm. Looking ahead, hurricanes like this will only get worse unless global warming is urgently curbed, they added. 'Man–made climate change clearly made Hurricane Melissa stronger and more destructive,' Professor Ralf Toumi, director of the...
  • Trump Administration Stood Against Global Carbon Tax Scheme

    10/17/2025 11:35:33 AM PDT · by E. Pluribus Unum · 1 replies
    Liberty Nation ^ | Oct 17, 2025 | John Klar
    The economy and the environment hang in the maritime balance.A big, beautiful brouhaha went down between the Trump administration and a globalist initiative by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to impose a tax on the world’s shipping industry. Amid growing doubt about the scientific legitimacy of alarmist claims of human-caused climate change, the same international bodies that have led the charge against carbon dioxide for decades now seek to launch a complex new scheme that will impose huge costs on maritime shipping. Within these machinations were the usual seeds of inflation, control, and a vision for a one-world domination by...
  • Stop the UN Global Climate Tax on American Ships

    10/15/2025 7:57:55 AM PDT · by MtnClimber · 15 replies
    AMAC Newsline ^ | 15 Oct, 2025 | Stephen Moore
    Later this week the United Nations will hold a vote on a multibillion-dollar climate change tax targeted squarely at American industry. Without quick and decisive action by the White House, this U.N. tax on fossil fuels will become international law. This resolution before the International Maritime Organization will impose a carbon tax on cargo and cruise ships that carry $20 trillion of merchandise over international waters. Roughly 80% of the bulkage of world trade is transported by ship. The resolution is intended to advance the very “net zero” carbon emissions standard that has knee-capped European economies for years and that...
  • Trump, Meloni, Milei Say UN Climate Scam Must Go

    10/09/2025 7:17:38 AM PDT · by MtnClimber · 15 replies
    RealClear Energy ^ | 8 Oct, 2025 | Duggan Flanakin
    President Trump was not a happy camper when he stepped off a faulty escalator on his way to address the United Nations General Assembly recently. By the time he had finished speaking, many in that self-important assemblage were in an even worse mood. Trump was not the only world leader firing bullets into the UN’s climate and environmental policies that heretofore have been deemed sacrosanct but are now exposed as economy killers. While China is not subject to the UN’s meddling scrutiny, Europe and Africa (and the U.S.) are. While Trump devoted the bulk of his address to foreign policy...
  • Scientists seek to turbocharge a natural process that cools the Earth

    10/08/2025 11:39:45 AM PDT · by E. Pluribus Unum · 45 replies
    The Washington Post ^ | October 8, 2025 6:00 a.m. EDT | Kate Selig
    Terradot, a carbon removal company, is using “enhanced rock weathering” to sequester carbon by spreading crushed volcanic rock over farmland.STATE OF SÃO PAULO, Brazil — Across vast stretches of farmland in southern Brazil, researchers at a carbon removal company are attempting to accelerate a natural process that normally unfolds over thousands or millions of years. The company, Terradot, is spreading tons of volcanic rock crushed into a fine dust over land where soybeans, sugar cane and other crops are grown. As rain percolates through the soil, chemical reactions pull carbon from the air and convert it into bicarbonate ions that...
  • New Tactics, But Climate Crusaders Running Out of Options

    10/07/2025 6:04:01 AM PDT · by MtnClimber · 16 replies
    American Greatness ^ | 7 Oct, 2025 | Gary Abernathy
    Desperate to stay relevant, climate activists now claim they can trace individual heat waves to specific oil companies—just as Washington steps away from their agenda. In the wake of a federal government no longer serving as its obedient lapdog, the desperate lengths to which the climate cult goes to maintain its standing are increasingly imaginative. Case in point: CNN recently reported that “for the first time, scientists have quantified the causal links between worsening heat waves and global warming pollution from individual fossil fuel and cement companies, pushing the boundaries of extreme weather event research in multiple surprising ways.” In...
  • The world's first carbon border tax will soon go live - shaking up global trade

    10/01/2025 7:16:48 AM PDT · by zeestephen · 30 replies
    CNBC (Business News Web Site) ^ | 30 September 2025 | Sam Meredith
    The European Union is poised to fully implement the world's first carbon border tax from Jan 1st...The EU is poised to implement the climate policy as part of an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote cleaner production processes outside the bloc.
  • Harvard’s “They/Them” Professor Teams With House Dems To Spend Your Taxes On Research Promoting Trans Youth Violence

    09/29/2025 8:48:21 AM PDT · by DFG · 16 replies
    Natalie G Winters Substack ^ | 09/29/2025 | Natalie Winters
    The assassination of Charlie Kirk by a radical transgender activist has once again spotlighted the growing militancy inside the LGBTQ+ protest movement. What the mainstream media won’t tell you is that this rising wave of aggressive activism isn’t happening in a vacuum. It’s being carefully studied, organized, and in some cases directly subsidized by U.S. taxpayer dollars. At the center of this network sits Erica Chenoweth, a Harvard professor who identifies as nonbinary and uses “they/them” pronouns. Chenoweth has built a career researching how youth and LGBTQ+ activists can be mobilized in protest movements, focusing less on morality or safety...
  • Colbert, Strong Blame George H.W. Bush For Impending Climate Doom

    09/27/2025 9:11:55 AM PDT · by Rummyfan · 40 replies
    NewsBusters ^ | 26 Sep 2025 | Alex Christy
    No Republican is safe from CBS and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’s wrath, not even former President and quintessential moderate George H.W. Bush. According to Colbert and actor Jeremy Strong on Thursday, “we risk losing essentially everything” to climate change, and it is Bush’s fault. Colbert teed up Strong, “You have a documentary about our burning world.” An appreciative Strong took the opportunity to promote the project, “Yeah, I executive produced an incredible documentary called The White House Effect that is coming out on Netflix at the end of next month. It’s coming out on Netflix on October 31,...
  • Obama Presidential Center deposits just $1M into $470M reserve fund aimed to protect taxpayers

    09/27/2025 10:04:04 AM PDT · by Libloather · 40 replies
    Fox News ^ | 9/27/25 | Michael Dorgan
    When the Obama Foundation snagged a sweetheart deal to build its beleaguered Obama Presidential Center on a Chicago public park, it pledged to create a $470 million reserve fund to spare taxpayers should the project ever go belly up. But new tax filings show the foundation has only deposited $1 million into the fund and has not added to it in years, with critics saying the empty promise could potentially leave Chicagoans on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars. Under its agreement with the city, the foundation was required to create the fund, known as an endowment, in...
  • Bank of England urged to do more to tackle climate crisis

    09/25/2025 4:17:37 PM PDT · by MinorityRepublican · 20 replies
    The Guardian ^ | Wed 24 Sep 2025 | Heather Stewart
    A coalition of 10 campaign groups is calling on the Bank of England to do more to tackle the climate crisis, a decade after the then governor Mark Carney warned of the “tragedy of the horizon”. Carney, now prime minister of Canada, argued in a speech at Lloyd’s of London in September 2015 that the short time-horizons of politicians and policymakers made it difficult to tackle the climate emergency, despite the threat it posed to the global financial system. Carney said: “The combination of the weight of scientific evidence and the dynamics of the financial system suggest that, in the...
  • Feeling Green? NY Times Nauseous Over Trump’s Rebuke of Climate Hysteria at UN

    09/25/2025 7:14:19 AM PDT · by JV3MRC · 12 replies
    NewsBusters ^ | 9/25/2025 | Joseph Vazquez
    ​​​​​​As expected, President Donald Trump’s rebuke of the climate change hysteria in front of the pious apparatchiks at the United Nations sent the media into a tailspin, with The New York Times leading the pack. Times climate reporters Somini Sengupta and Lisa Friedman snorted at Trump following his September 23 speech at the U.N. for alleging that the so-called “scientific consensus on global warming was created by ‘stupid people’” and having “lashed out at wind turbines, environmentalists and allies around the world while dismissing the dangers of climate change.” Sengupta and Friedman railed that Trump’s remarks were “an extraordinary diatribe...
  • Over $2B California Solar Plant Built To Last, Now Closing Over Inefficiency

    09/24/2025 3:15:47 AM PDT · by CFW · 21 replies
    Daily Caller ^ | 9/24/25 | Hailey Gomez
    The partially taxpayer-funded Ivanpah Solar Power Facility in California’s Mojave Desert is set to shut down in 2026 due to inefficiency in generating solar energy, according to the New York Post. The $2.2 billion plant, which features three 459-foot towers, was greenlit in 2010 and completed in 2014. According to the New York Post the closure stems from the site being “outpaced by solar photovoltaic technology” and proving both inefficient and costly. The shutter of the site comes more than a decade ahead of its original 2039 end date, according to the Associated Press. Speculation about Ivanpah’s early closure began...
  • $2.2 billion solar plant in California turned off after years of wasted money: ‘Never lived up to its promises’

    09/23/2025 6:39:30 PM PDT · by dynachrome · 86 replies
    NY Post ^ | 9-23-25 | Michael Kaplan
    Seen from the sky, the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility in California’s Mojave Desert resembles a futuristic dream. Viewed from the bottom line, however, Ivanpah is anything but. The solar power plant, which features three 459-foot towers and thousands of computer-controlled mirrors known as heliostats, cost some $2.2 billion to build. Construction began in 2010 and was completed in 2014. Now, it’s set to close in 2026 after failing to efficiently generate solar energy. In 2011, the US Department of Energy under former President Barack Obama issued $1.6 billion in three federal loan guarantees for the project and the Secretary of...
  • Has Climate Math Been Rigged This Whole Time?

    09/23/2025 9:01:51 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 36 replies
    Scitech Daily ^ | September 21, 2025 | Utrecht University
    New research reveals that climate fairness calculations have long favored wealthy, high-polluting nations by letting them delay urgent action while shifting responsibility onto vulnerable countries. Credit: Shutterstock Scientists have uncovered a hidden bias in climate pledges that rewards big polluters and penalizes vulnerable nations. Past calculations allowed high emitters to dodge responsibility and delay action. The new approach emphasizes historical responsibility, demanding steep cuts from wealthy countries and funding for poorer ones. Climate Goals Under Scrutiny Climate efforts are falling short of the Paris Agreement’s targets. To stay on track, each country is expected to contribute its ‘fair share’ of...