Free Republic

The climate alarmists just can’t catch a break. NASA is reporting that the sun is entering one of the deepest Solar Minima of the Space Age; and Earth’s atmosphere is responding in kind. So, start pumping out that CO2, everyone. We’re going to need all the greenhouse gases we can get. “We see a cooling trend,” said Martin Mlynczak of NASA’s Langley Research Center. “High above Earth’s surface, near the edge of space, our atmosphere is losing heat energy. If current trends continue, it could soon set a Space Age record for cold.” The new data is coming from NASA’s...

Disturbing research on how climate change is hurting our emotional well-being. Climate change is a major stressor in contemporary life. There is not a single day that we don’t read about the hazards of climate change, learn about a horrible disaster plausible connected with climate change. For those of us who accept the science, we often feel outrage at people - especially those in power - who not only refute climate change, but roll-back efforts intended to address the hazards facing our planet and species. In addition to outrage, shame, sorrow, helplessness, fear, disgust, resilience eroding cynicism, and the like......

... As Catholic Christians, we are called to value life "in all its stages." This means we are also called to value that which sustains life, which includes things like health care, food and the environment, that is, creation. In fact, if we profess to be pro-life, we must necessarily be pro-creation. The U.S. bishops, in their document "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship," explain that the "culture of life begins with the preeminent obligation to protect innocent life from direct attack and extends to defending life whenever it is threatened or diminished." Clearly, this applies to environmental degradation that directly...

More people would give up meat for edible bugs if they believed they were tasty and trendy. The thought of rising sea levels and more intense heatwaves are enough to keep you up at night. But while we all know the situation is getting more serious, most of us are preoccupied with work, doctor’s appointments and paying bills – and these immediate, visceral worries win every time. Reducing our meat intake is crucial to avoiding climate breakdown, since food production accounts for about a quarter of all human-related greenhouse gas emissions, and is predicted to rise. In western countries, this...

In a windowless conference room, Republican Senate candidate Martha McSally was asking executives at a small crane manufacturing company how the GOP tax cut has helped their business when one woman said: “I want to ask you a question about health care.” Marylea Evans recounted how, decades ago, her husband had been unable to get health insurance after developing cancer, forcing the couple to sell some of their Texas ranch to pay for his treatment. Now she was worried about Democratic ads saying McSally, currently a congresswoman, supported legislation removing the requirement that insurers cover people with pre-existing medical conditions....

In 1985 my family moved to Israel for two years, playing our part in reclaiming a heretofore unclaimed portion of our Biblical patrimony. *snip* In those years, Israel was governed primarily under socialist economic principles. Always a democracy, Israel’s governing institutions nevertheless were founded by deeply non-religious and even anti-religious secular socialists who had fled Tsarist Russia in the late 1800s. For half a century, until the Menachem Begin earthquake election of 1977, Israel was governed by coalitions led by the leftist Labor Party. They had built the socialist kibbutzim (agricultural socialist collectives) that the liberal media idealized. These were...

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler came under fire over a viral video showing Antifa protesters blocking traffic and harassing drivers, but he says he supports the decision by police to watch from a distance without getting involved. “I was appalled by what I saw in the video, but I support the Portland Police Bureau’s decision not to intervene,” he said at a Friday press conference. “This whole incident will be investigated.” The video posted by journalist Andy C. Ngo showed protesters, including members of Antifa and Black Lives Matter, blocking an intersection and attempting to direct traffic at while officers on...

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez appeared on MsNBC with Chris Hayes last week ago to discus her views on how to properly represent her constituents in Congress. Alex Parker at Redstate spotted a jarring similarity between Ms. Know-Nothing and another amazingly clueless young lady: Miss Teen South Carolina 2007: Of course Caitlin was running for a beauty contest title and Alexandra is running for, well, you know. But her answer is equally epic: (from Redstate) On October 5th, Alexandria appeared on MSNBC to let loose a few more syllables to…well…you’ll see.Host Chris Hayes gushed:“How are you going get along with these people...

The events of the last two years show that Americans know how to choose up sides and fight each other. But if we had to, could we put aside our differences and fight together? We are about to find out. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we are running out of time. This is not a hoax. It is not a theory. It is not a natural cycle of warming and cooling. It is a man-made catastrophe that demands a national effort unlike anything this country has seen since World War II. As in 1941, what’s required now...

As a scientist who’s spent the past decade helping natural-resource managers in federal, state and tribal governments prepare for climate change, I’ve become used to giving terrible news. I thus often find myself feeling like an oncologist delivering a stream of devastating prognoses. Also like an oncologist, I find myself and others scrutinizing my bedside manner: am I being too cold, clinical and detached as I describe an apocalyptic future? As scientists, we are trained to present information clearly and dispassionately to avoid the appearance of bias. Unfortunately, this communication style falls desperately flat when speaking to the public, making...

From low-emission cows to robotic soil management, the farming industry will have to explore new approaches in the wake of a UN warning that the world needs to cut meat consumption or face worsening climate chaos. Cow farts are a major source of greenhouse gas, but researchers – who collect the gases in bags fitted to cows – have found there is considerable natural variation from animal to animal. If the low-emission cows could be bred with each other, this could bring down these emissions, they say. Researchers in other countries are also looking at changing feed to make cattle...

He's absolutely right. Voters would do well to heed his warning......According to him, if Democrats succeed in implementing their single-payer proposal, "costs will spiral out of control. Taxes will skyrocket. And Democrats will seek to slash budgets for seniors' Medicare, Social Security and Defense." (to pay for it) A government takeover of the health system would be a fiscal nightmare. .."Medicare for all" would cost the federal government an additional $32.6 trillion in spending over its first 10 years, according to a recent analysis by Charles Blahous at the Mercatus Center. Even if the government doubled the amount of federal...

The international panel charged with reining in climate change said this week that the world needs to take "unprecedented" steps to remake its energy, transportation and agriculture systems to avoid the worst effects of global warming. What the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change did not discuss was an even more radical potential response - one that would re-engineer Earth’s stratosphere to create a massive heat shield by effectively duplicating the fallout that follows a volcanic eruption. This kind of revolutionary “solar geoengineering” - known by some as the “Pinatubo Strategy,” after a volcano whose 1991 eruption shrouded the planet in...

Hurricane Michael isn't a truly "natural disaster." Neither was Harvey in Houston. Nor Maria in Puerto Rico. Yet we continue to use that term. Doing so -- especially in the era of climate change -- is misleading if not dangerous, according to several disaster experts and climate scientists I reached by phone and on Twitter. "The phrase 'natural disaster' is an attempt to lay blame where blame really doesn't rest," said Kerry A. Emanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at MIT and a global expert on hurricanes. It's not about semantics, said Ksenia Chmutina, a lecturer at Loughborough University in...

A report by the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food says beef consumption needs to fall by as much as 90% in western countries to combat climate change. The report's lead author, Dr Marco Springmann, told Today that individuals should aim to eat just one portion of beef, pork or lamb a week.

Climate change is bringing the heat for polar bears - and things are not looking good. The latest development? A shift in their diet, which may soon include regular gorging on blubbery whale carcasses, scientists say. And, as Craig Welch reports for National Geographic, humans are to blame. The planet’s rising temperatures are steadily melting northerly sea ice, which Arctic polar bears depend on to access their favorite seal-flavored suppers. During the warmer months, when the ice sheets shatter, some bears simply fast on land, waiting until hunting bridges freeze again. But with each passing year, the number of toasty...

Preventing an extra single degree of heat could make a life-or-death difference in the next few decades for multitudes of people and ecosystems on this fast-warming planet, an international panel of scientists reported Sunday. But they provide little hope the world will rise to the challenge. The Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its gloomy report at a meeting in Incheon, South Korea. In the 728-page document, the U.N. organization detailed how Earth's weather, health and ecosystems would be in better shape if the world's leaders could somehow limit future human-caused warming. Among other things: — Half as...

I was thinking of starting a ping list for a weekly Quote thread regarding the government and other topics. Please let me know if this will be useful for this forum and please add your own quotes.

Socialism is hot.Famous actors recently made a commercial proclaiming that "democratic socialism" creates some of the best parts of America. It's "your kids' public school" (says Susan Sarandon), the "interstate highway system" (Rosario Dawson), "public libraries" (Jay Ferguson), "EMTs" (Ethan Embry), "workers who plow our streets" (Max Carver) and "scientists" (Danny DeVito).Wow. I guess every popular thing government does is socialism.The celebrities conclude: "We can do better when we do them together."There is sometimes truth to that, but the movie stars don't know that America's first highways were built by capitalist contractors. They also probably didn't notice that the more...

California’s policymakers have condemned Californians to endure contrived scarcity, unaffordability, and inconvenience in all of the basic necessities of life. This is a crime, but it’s not a conspiracy. Rather, it is caused by a collection of powerful special interests whose political agendas align.