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Freaked Out Over SuperFreakonomics Global warming might be solved with a helium balloon and a few miles of garden hose. By BRET STEPHENS Suppose for a minute—which is about 59 seconds too long, but that's for another column—that global warming poses an imminent threat to the survival of our species. Suppose, too, that the best solution involves a helium balloon, several miles of garden hose and a harmless stream of sulfur dioxide being pumped into the upper atmosphere, all at a cost of a single F-22 fighter jet. Good news, right? Maybe, but not if you're Al Gore or one...

The Herald newspaper says the graffiti sprayed on buildings associated with the Skotdal family is visible from Highway 522. The message appears to be a followup to last month’s sabotage at the KRKO (1380) transmitter site that toppled a whole tower. It says, in part: “MBA KRKO/Snotdol [sic] Empire. If you continue to risk killing children, mother earth and her creations, all your holdings are targets.“ This extra-long graffiti message ends this way: "Authentic ELF [Earth Liberation Front]? Ask ATF/FBI about restricted water mains. Little water, better burn. ELF.” KRKO recently turned on its new 50-kw daytime facility, a move...

Here is a video report from Poland on an Oak Tree planted in honor of Adolf Hitler that some people want to see cut down, and others want to remain as a reminder of the past. The tree controversy gives some insight into the Nazis' apparent fascination with trees, perhaps because of the ancient rituals of teutonic tree worship. It is estimated that six million Poles died at the hands of the Nazis, with three million of them being Jews. . . . . (Watch Video)

Life's not easy if you're an organic-eating, tree-hugging, SUV-eschewing, carbon-footprintless, gender-identity-indifferent, diversity-celebrating, nonjudgmental (well, except for those damn U.S. flag pins) vegan pacifist. Just ask Gerald and Helen Goode, the First Couple of PC America. They forget to check a box when adopting an African baby, and when little Ubuntu arrives, he's a white South African. They cart home free elephant dung from Barnum & Bailey for their organic garden, then remember that the circus exploits animals. They've raised their dog Che to be a vegan, but the neighborhood sure has a lot of missing squirrels. Welcome to The Goode...

WHAT is your carbon legacy - not the emissions you are personally liable for, but those of your descendants? Ask Paul Murtaugh, a statistician at Oregon State University in Corvallis.If you have a child, he says, you and you partner are each responsible for half its emissions. If that child has kids, one-quarter of their emissions are down to you, and so on. How it adds up depends on population trends and emission changes in the future.Murtaugh used UN population projections, which say that after 2050, birth rates in all countries will be 1.85 children per woman, on average....

Jack Bauer Now Uses Recycled Weapons Fox will announce today that thriller "24" is going green. Whether Kiefer Sutherland, who plays agent Jack Bauer, will start slamming terrorist suspects' heads into tables made from salvaged pine beams, or making close call getaways in helicopters fueled by leftover french fry oil, is unclear. But according to a New York Times article yesterday, the network has stepped things up to become the first "carbon neutral show." Fox has "hired consultants to measure the carbon-dioxide output from the production, started using 20 percent biodiesel fuel in trucks and generators, installed motion monitors in...

HOULTON, Maine — James Hogan was a logger at Louisiana Pacific Corp. for 21 years when he was first laid off in 2004. He spent four years scrounging odd jobs and selling personal property to keep solvent before getting hired as a woodloader at Treeline Inc. of Lincoln in July 2008. The 46-year-old town man had almost recovered from that financial disaster, clearing $600 for a 55-hour workweek, when Treeline laid him off on Jan. 28. Since then, Hogan has searched for logging work from Fort Fairfield to Bangor without success.

Actress Ashley Judd says a wolf management program backed by Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is "incredibly savage ... it's not right, it's not appropriate, it makes no sense on any level." Appearing on CNN's "Larry King Live," Judd repeated her criticism of a program that allows hunters firing from aircraft to shoot wolves to thin the numbers of the animals. Judd recently appeared in a video for the Washington-based Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, which also opposes the Palin-backed aerial hunting program. Referring to the former Republican vice presidential candidate by name in the video, Judd says that Palin is...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Five months after suing to keep polar bears off the U.S. threatened species list, Alaska's government said Wednesday it plans to issue a similar challenge to block federal protections for a struggling population of beluga whales in Cook Inlet, a mature oil-producing basin. Former vice presidential hopeful Gov. Sarah Palin said the energy-rich state believes the Endangered Species Act protections for belugas announced in October by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are unwarranted.

Berkeley’s latest tree-sit ended almost before it began when the lone remaining branch-percher descended to earth Tuesday morning, followed by two acacias a few hours later. Campus community relations director Irene Hegarty said that only one of the two tree-sitters who took to the branches was still aloft when community members talked him down. “He walked away, though he was cited and released for trespassing by university police a couple of blocks away,” she said. Arborists made short work of the trees, leaving five or six five-foot logs and a pile of wood chips for use at the park. “They...

I usually post videos in the DUmmie FUnnies on weekends or late at night. However, for this VIDEO I have to make an exception because it is probably the FUnniest video I have ever seen on YouTube. It shows a bunch of tree huggers who belong to the Earth First eco group in the North Carolina forest (most likely these are hippies who live in Asheville) mourning over trees. And they don't just shed a few tears. They are flat out bawling. Their Drama Queen antics are absolutely hilarious! And that hippie chick waxing poetic over a rock is...

Four tree-sitters began climbing down from an 80-foot-tall redwood tree near Memorial Stadium this afternoon after UC Berkeley officials agreed to create a committee that will oversee future campus development, a spokesman for the protesters said. UC officials declined to comment on the reported deal, saying they will speak after the nearly 2-year-long standoff ends. But protesters atop the tree pumped their fists in a show of victory. Before climbing down, one of the protesters, nicknamed Huck, shouted, "We love you" to cheering supporters below. The protesters' deal with the university does not include amnesty from criminal charges, said their...

BERKELEY - Crews began cutting down trees next to Memorial Stadium at UC Berkeley late Friday, 21 months after activists climbed into the trees to protest the university's plan to raze them to build a $140 million sports training center center. Work crews with chainsaws and bulldozers arrived at the university grove Friday and by 4 p.m. six trees had been chopped down. Clad in black ski masks, the four remaining tree protesters who were driven into a single redwood several months ago, remained in the tree Friday and at times sparred with arborists, tossing a bottle and branches toward...

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. - A federal judge has overturned a decision by the U.S. Forest Service to allow oil and gas drilling near a forest and a river in Michigan's northern Lower Peninsula. ADVERTISEMENT U.S. District Judge David Lawson of Detroit ruled Thursday the agency had acted "arbitrarily and capriciously" in 2005 by giving Savoy Energy LP of Traverse City a permit to drill an exploratory well near the Au Sable River's south branch. (cont...)

About 25 University of California, Berkeley, police officers and a cherry-picker have converged at the Berkeley Oak Grove, where five climbers are being threatened and may have to come down today, according to Save the Oaks spokesman Doug Buckwald. Buckwald said he began receiving calls on an emergency phone network from climbers who "have sent word by cell phone their belief that this is it - they are coming in to get them right now." Protesters have been in the trees since UC regents voted in December 2006 to approve a plan to build a sports training center and other...

Carbon Cult sickos are under fire for an interactive website that tells children they should die because they emit CO2. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation's "Planet Slayer" site invites young children to take a "greenhouse gas quiz", asking them "how big a pig are you?". At the end of the quiz, the pig explodes, and ABC tells children at "what age you should die at so you don’t use more than your fair share of Earth’s resources!" It's one of a number of interactive features that "Get the dirt on greenhouse without the guilt trips. No lectures. No multinational-bashing (well, maybe...

How did your Earth Hour go? My husband and I enjoyed it so much, we want to try to do it weekly.

Sen. John McCain and his staff have been adamant for days that his upcoming overseas trip to Britain, France and Israel is not political. /snip ...Apparently, though, there will still be room for fundraising. McCain's campaign has sent out an invitation for a March 20 luncheon at Spencer House -- the neo-classical home built for an ancestor of Diana, the late Princess of Wales -- "by kind permission of Lord Rothschild OM GBE and the Hon. Nathaniel Rothschild." The price to attend is $1000 to $2,300. And the dress code for the event? "Lounge suits" -- British for business...

BERKELEY - Two men climbed into trees at the University of California, Berkeley oak grove this morning and tossed down supplies used by tree sitters, a grove spokesman said early Tuesday. The tree sitters themselves had not been removed by 8 a.m. Doug Buckwald, who has been involved with the tree sit since it started in December 2006, said two men climbed into an oak tree and a redwood tree and tossed food, water and other supplies used by tree sitters onto the ground. It was not immediately clear if ropes and pullies were being cut as well. The tree...

Open borders + campaign finance hypocrisy + eco-radicalism = McCain’s billionaire national finance co-chair Jerry Perenchio By Michelle Malkin • January 28, 2008 09:50 AM Scroll down for updates…meanwhile: “Romney, McCain call each other ‘liberal’… 1peren003.jpg Meet Jerry Perenchio. He’s a National Finance Co-Chair of the McCain 2008 campaign and the billionaire founder of Spanish-language media conglomerate, Univision. He also heads up a charitable foundation that has showered gobs of money on extremist green lobbying groups. Take open-borders zeal, add campaign finance hypocrisy, mix with eco-radicalism, and presto: The perfect, multiculti-profiteering McCain money buddy. Here’s his official bio on the...

The overriding environmental issue of these times is the warming of the planet. The Democratic hopefuls in the 2008 campaign are fully engaged, calling for large — if still unquantified — national sacrifices and for a transformation in the way the country produces and uses energy. The Republicans do not go much further than conceding that climate change could be a problem and, with the notable exception of John McCain, offer no comprehensive solutions. In 2000, when Al Gore could have made warming a signature issue in his presidential campaign, his advisers persuaded him that it was too complicated and...

Critics have long believed environmentalists were planning global domination. The problem with making a credible case against such an ambitious plan was simple: no environmental leader had published one. Yet conflicts over global warming, world trade, multinational corporations, population control, sustainable futures, and transnational government left little doubt that environmentalists in fact shared the unspoken aim of wielding supreme power over a green future. But there was no proof. For years, critics, lacking hard evidence, were reduced to piecing together a jigsaw puzzle of suspicious environmentalist actions - funding from huge charitable trusts, ties to the broader "progressive" community, and...

A cold, abrupt end to a honeymoon By: DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer Encinitas couple that fled Witch Creek fire returns home after cruise ship sinks off Antarctica ENCINITAS -- Three times since marrying June 11 in a beachside ceremony at La Jolla Cove, Trevor Takayama and Torrey Trust have dodged disaster. In August, the Encinitas couple fled an approaching hurricane while camping in a Costa Rican rain forest, on a summerlong honeymoon tour of Central and South America. In October, the Witch Creek fire forced the newlyweds to evacuate the hilltop three-bedroom home she grew up in, near Manchester...

Cannot be posted due to copyright issues: http://blog.wired.com/cars/2007/11/who-is-the-gree.html

BERKELEY, Calif. -- On Sunday evening a Memorial Oak Grove tree-sitter fell from the supply-line that is used to ferry food, water and people into and out of the tree-sit protest. The traverse-line was created after the university erected a fence around the tree-sitters and spans from a tree inside the fenced in area to a tree outside the fence. Nathaniel Hill, the fallen tree-sitter, was moving on the traverse line to meet his father, Carl Hill, who had come from the east coast to visit his son. Hill was taken to Highland Hospital where he was treated for a...

The growth in human population and rising consumption have exceeded the planet's ability to support us, argues John Feeney. In this week's Green Room, he says it is time to ring the alarm bells and take radical action in order to avert unspeakable consequences. We humans face two problems of desperate importance. The first is our global ecological plight. The second is our difficulty acknowledging the first. Despite increasing climate change coverage, environmental writers remain reluctant to discuss the full scope and severity of the global dilemma we've created. Many fear sounding alarmist, but there is an alarm to sound...

# BERKELEY: Anyone who won't come down from perch faces fine and five days in jailAnyone living in a tree outside Memorial Stadium must come down from his perch or face a $1,000 fine and five days in jail, an Alameda County Superior Court judge ruled Monday. Judge Richard Keller has broadened an earlier preliminary injunction that evicted David Galloway, 36 -- the only tree sitter previously known to UC Berkeley officials by name -- to include "all other persons acting in concert or participating with (the tree sitters)," according to his ruling. "This latest ruling makes it all but...

A COUPLE of days before Al Gore was awarded his Nobel Peace prize, Michael Burton, an English High Court judge and apparently a fine film critic, ruled that Al's Oscar-winner An Inconvenient Truth was prone to "alarmism and exaggeration" and identified nine major factual errors. For example, the former vice-president predicts a rise in sea levels of 6m "in the near future". "The Armageddon scenario he predicts," declared Burton, "is not in line with the scientific consensus." I'll say. The so-called scientific consensus of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests rising sea levels across the next century of somewhere...

I am occasionally asked why it is that so many Europeans display reflexive anti-Americanism, and I force myself to choose from a salad of possible answers. One of these is the resentment that I can remember feeling myself when I lived in England in the 1970s: the sheer brute fact that American voters who knew nothing about Europe (and cared less) could pick a president who had more clout than any of our elected prime ministers could exert. America could change our economic climate by means of the Federal Reserve, could use bases in Britain to forward its policies in...

If you're wondering who's largely to blame for the alleged heating up of the climate you need look no further than Jane Fonda. That's what "Freakanomics" columnists Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt suggest in Sunday's New York Times Magazine. "If you were asked to name the biggest global warming villains of the past 30 years, here's one name that probably wouldn't spring to mind: Jane Fonda. But should it?" the authors ask. According to Editor & Publisher, the two cite Fonda's anti-nuclear thriller "The China Syndrome," which opened just 12 days before the Three Mile Island accident in...

In 2004, history professor Naomi Oreskes performed a survey of research papers on climate change. Examining peer-reviewed papers published on the ISI Web of Science database from 1993 to 2003, she found a majority supported the "consensus view," defined as humans were having at least some effect on global climate change. Oreskes' work has been repeatedly cited, but as some of its data is now nearly 15 years old, its conclusions are becoming somewhat dated. Medical researcher Dr. Klaus-Martin Schulte recently updated this research. Using the same database and search terms as Oreskes, he examined all papers published from 2004...

Former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney said Tuesday that black voters should consider voting for third-party candidates. Speaking to a sparsely attended Green Party gathering, the Georgia Democrat railed at her party and said black voters should not automatically vote Democratic, as an overwhelming majority now do. "We have to be willing to do something that we've never done before so that we can get some things we've never had before," said McKinney, who is black. During the 2000 presidential election, McKinney said, Democrats "didn't even fight for your right to vote and your right to representation," referring to allegations that...

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - A group of campers tied a peeping Tom suspect to a tree, keeping him bound until police arrived. Richard H. Berkey, 63, was charged with private indecency, a misdemeanor, by sheriff's deputies who were called to the Big Fan Campground near Bagby Hot Springs last weekend, according to Clackamas County Detective Jim Strovink. Campers told deputies they recognized Berkey from a similar incident at the campground last year and wanted to make sure he didn't get away. The 2006 incident was reported to police but did not result in charges. "Last year, we took down his...

Campers tie up man accused of peeping at women Campers tied this man to a tree after they believe they caught him peeping at women going to the bathroom at a campsite near Estacada over the weekend.     Story Published: Aug 22, 2007 at 12:36 PM PDT Story Updated: Aug 22, 2007 at 6:10 PM PDT By KATU Web Staff   ESTACADA, Ore. - A group of campers over the weekend caught a man they say was watching women go to the bathroom in the woods - a man who allegedly told them he had been doing similar...

When Gareth Groves brought home his massive new Hummer, he knew his environmentally friendly neighbors disapproved. But he didn't expect what happened next. The sport utility vehicle was parked for five days on the street before two masked men smashed the windows, slashed the tires and scratched into the body: "FOR THE ENVIRON." "The thought of somebody vandalizing it never crossed my mind," said Gareth Groves, who lives near American University in Northwest Washington. "I've kind of been in shock." Police said they see small acts of vandalism in the area from time to time, but they have not seen...

Al Gore maintains that he won't seek the Democratic nomination for president in 2008 -- but his actions seem to belie his words. Gore has kept himself very much in the public eye as the White House races kicked into gear, providing plenty of evidence that he's eying another run for president: His award-winning global warming documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" brought him back into the limelight last year. His new book "An Assault on Reason" is a best seller, and when he launched his national book tour in May, one observer said the event seemed "more like a campaign stop...

FEW people in Africa would get to see Al Gore and his troupe of rock-star ecologists strutting their stuff last weekend - because most have neither television nor electricity. That's just as well, because they would be aghast at LiveEarth's bizarre message. In Africa, we have much more serious things to worry about than climate change. Indeed, if they achieve their objective, the concerts will have done harm to the people of Africa. Britain's former Secretary of State for the Environment, David Miliband, recently said that the rest of the world cannot aspire to the UK's standard of living because:...

Green Dating – Are You An Ecosexual? Heather Buchanan Friday, July 13, 2007 The “green” buzzword has infiltrated our consciousness in terms of what we eat and how we recycle and when we drive to the store or walk. Now it’s even entered the equation of “Your carbon-footprint-free place or mine?” The question is: Are you an ecosexual? The concept of green dating used to be restricted to SWM seeks SWF to share life in yurt with long walks in protest rallies and vegan restaurants. But even if you don’t throw around words in personal ads like “family oriented pagan...

BERKELEY-- Here's a bit of irony: The tree sitters who have been living in a grove of historic oaks they want to save are being accused of lopping off the top of a redwood and a cedar to make room for at least one sleeping platform. "They have not been cited because we don't know who the responsible (person) is ... it's still under investigation," said Mitch Celaya, UC Berkeley's assistant police chief. "The trees are permanently damaged. It's not like the top of the tree is going to grow back." Since early December, a small group of people have...

On the 23 of June, I had the opportunity to attend the Friends of Trees Conference in Barcelona. It has taken me a few weeks to digest all the information, which I, together with about 900 other people managed to inhale: The fumes of change, the organic revolution, the climate crisis, the need for solidarity and action. It was a most overwhelming task: and Al Gore's redundant joke of: "I used to be the next president of the United States," has hardly helped ease the intensity of the situation. The crowds clapped at every comment made by the speakers, who...

Scouts' firing range irks residents Neighbors say clay shooting events disruptive By Ivan Moreno, Rocky Mountain News July 7, 2007 ELBERT - Neighbors say the Peaceful Valley Scout Ranch is anything but that. The realization came after an explosion of shotgun blasts from the camp in May, when Boy Scouts held a two-day clay shooting fundraiser. "It sounded like Hamas had a training camp next door," said Elbert County Sheriff William Frangis, who fielded numerous calls from people who live near the ranch. The Scouts say no one complained to them. Although the camp has had a shooting range for...

PETA has a message for Michael Moore: You’re the Sicko. The animal-rights group is blasting the filmmaker as a hypocrite for criticizing the U.S. healthcare system in his new documentary, “Sicko,” because they say he’s in such poor health himself. “There’s an elephant in the room, and it is you,” PETA president Ingrid Newkirk wrote in a letter to Moore. Newkirk urged the rotund Moore to become a vegetarian, which many nutritionists say is a good way to lose weight, and visit PETA’s Web site GoVeg.com for veggie recipes. Writes Newkirk: “As they say at Nike (sorry!): ‘Just do it.”

Marines To Conduct Gregory Canyon Exercise; Environmentalists Criticize Plan To Conduct Training At Old Dairy By: DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer Thursday, June 21, 2007 NORTH COUNTY (San Diego)-- An old dairy at the planned Gregory Canyon landfill will become an anti-terror training ground next month for 40 to 60 Marines from Camp Pendleton, a military official said Wednesday. Local environmentalists said they are worried the exercise could damage the fragile environment near the San Luis Rey River or ignite a wildfire in a tinder-dry area at one of the driest times of the year. Marine officials said care will...

GREAT BARRINGTON, Massachusetts (Reuters) - A walk down Main Street in this New England town calls to mind the pictures of Norman Rockwell, who lived nearby and chronicled small-town American life in the mid-20th Century. So it is fitting that the artist's face adorns the 50 BerkShares note, one of five denominations in a currency adopted by towns in western Massachusetts to support locally owned businesses over national chains. "I just love the feel of using a local currency," said Trice Atchison, 43, a teacher who used BerkShares to buy a snack at a cafe in Great Barrington, a town...

Recycling worsens global warming Chris Mellor June 4, 2007 Fancy some contrary thinking? Try this; if you want to save the planet from global warming, don't recycle. There is lots of muddled thinking around global warming. The UK government is proposing to have all goods marked with a carbon index to indicate their friendliness or antipathy to global warming. The index would measure the amount of carbon emitted during the goods' manufacture and whether it can be recycled or not. Recycled? What has that got to do with global warming? My instinctive reaction was: none. Why on earth should sticking...

NBC Universal will devote a whopping 75 hours of air time to showing Al Gore’s "Live Earth: The Concerts for a Climate in Crisis.” And if Gore decides to run for president in 2008, the event would be "one of the largest ever, if not the largest, in-kind contributions to a presidential campaign,” according to The Media Research Center’s NewsBusters.org, a Web site dedicated to combating liberal media bias. In addition to devoting all of NBC-TV’s Saturday, July 7 prime time to the concerts, CNBC will carry seven hours of coverage from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. EDT, Bravo will...

Two more eco-terrorists sentenced Last modified Friday, June 1, 2007 7:40 PM PDT By: Associated Press - EUGENE, Ore. -- A federal judge sentenced two women to prison Thursday for their roles in arson fires around the West that caused more than $40 million in damage over a five-year period. Suzanne Savoie and Kendall Tankersley were the fifth and sixth of 10 radical environmentalists to be sentenced in U.S. District Court in Eugene after they pleaded guilty to arson and conspiracy. All were members of an underground cell of the Earth Liberation Front known as "The Family." U.S. District Judge...

Environmentalist Gets 13 Years In Arson Fires ASSOCIATED PRESS May 24, 2007 EUGENE, Ore. – Declaring fires set at a police station, an SUV dealer and a tree farm to be acts of terrorism, a federal judge yesterday sentenced the first of 10 members of a radical environmental group to 13 years in prison. U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken commended Stanislas Meyerhoff for having the courage to “do the right thing” by informing on his fellow arsonists after his arrest, but declared that his efforts to save the Earth by setting fires were misguided and cowardly, and contributed to an...

Early coverage of Al Gore's new book, The Assault on Reason, has focused on the fact that the book is largely an assault on the Bush administration. But they have glossed over the most significant and alarming theme that Al Gore has taken up: his alleged defense of "reason" includes a justification for government controls over political speech. Judging from the excerpts of Gore's book published in TIME, his not-so-subtle theme is that reason is being "assaulted" by a free and unfettered debate in the media--and particularly by the fact that Gore has to contend with opposition from the right-leaning...

Apple board member and former US vice president Al Gore would win the presidency if he ran for election, says Apple CEO Steve Jobs. "If he ran, there's no question in my mind that he would be elected," Jobs told Time Magazine. "But I think there's a question in his mind, perhaps because the pain of the last election runs a lot deeper than he lets most of us see." The report explains the background Gore's strenuous campaigning to persuade people to address the growing threat of climate-change caused environmental collapse. "We have dug ourselves into a 20-foot hole, and...