Free Republic

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...

It is becoming harder to get away with lying in the age of independent media. Progressives in particular are struggling to safeguard the sacred belief that the planet is on the verge of melting because naughty plebeians keep driving SUVs and using air conditioning.Climate change devotees are willing to lie to defend this article of faith. Ray Sanders, an engineer by trade, realized this as he double-checked the calculations of the Met Office, the U.K. government agency responsible for guessing whether it will rain in Blighty tomorrow.The Met is also known for making bold prognostications about the conditions expected half-a-century...

Naomi Klein is by all accounts a wonderful person – warm, low-key, modest, committed and enormously hard-working. She also looks terrific in a crisp white shirt, which is what she wore for a recent photo shoot for Vogue. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Vogue is interested in fashionable intellectuals, and right now there’s no intellectual more fashionable than Ms. Klein. She told Vogue that her new book, This Changes Everything, is “a book about climate change for people who don’t read books about climate change.”

Imagine a world without McDonald’s, Nike, or Kraft Foods. A world where the budget-conscious and time-strapped have nowhere to grab a quick bite, where almost no one drives a car, where television is extinct. Sound pretty bleak? This is the utopian vision of the Adbusters Media Foundation. “We will wreck this world,” Kalle Lasn declares in his book Culture Jam: How to Reverse America's Suicidal Consumer Binge -- and Why We Must. That, quite simply, is the goal of the Vancouver-based organization he founded and runs. A self-described group of “anarchists” and “neo-Luddites,” Adbusters are not merely environmentalists, animal-rights activists,...

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...

Editor’s note: We expected the leftist thought police at Google would declare that this editorial was “unreliable” and “harmful“— because it blasphemes the climate religion — and strip its AdSense ads from the page. And we were right! (See below.) Al Gore famously warned that sea level rise caused by man’s use of fossil fuels was going to kill us. Barack Obama implied that he had magic powers that would control surging sea levels. A fresh study shows just how dishonest this pair and the many others who did their best to misinform the public have been. Gore’s 2006 propaganda...

Environmental organizations lost their bid Tuesday to immediately access $16 billion in grant money that was frozen by the Trump administration earlier this year. In a split decision, a three-judge panel from the DC Circuit Court of Appeals found the Trump administration was within its rights to stop $20 billion from the Biden-era Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund that was promised to eight groups. “While some grantees may be forced to shutter their operations during the litigation, their harms do not outweigh the interests of the government and the public in the proper stewardship of billions of taxpayer dollars,” Tuesday’s ruling...

When researchers abandon empirical observation in favor of predetermined conclusions, science transforms into propaganda -- something far more dangerous than the simple ignorance perpetuated. In climate sciences, funding agencies and international political bodies have dictated outcomes while authentic scientists faced systematic marginalization for questioning the prevailing narrative. The issue of climate change generates fierce debate among scientists, yet the public mostly gets a sanitized representation of nearly unanimous agreement. This is a pernicious deception given the high stakes: Climate science influences public policy that drives huge sums in public and private expenditures across industries -- from energy to agriculture --...

Today, House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chairman Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) led a letter to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler and Director Haoxiang Zhu, seeking information on a proposed rule change to permit the listing of Natural Asset Companies (NACs) on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

Not soon after the general election, and within two weeks of each other, two major financial institutions have left a United Nations Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA). This is after they joined three years ago, pledging to require environmental social governance standards (ESG) across their platforms, products and systems. According to the "bank-led and UN-convened" NZBA, global banks joined the alliance, pledging to align their lending, investment, and capital markets activities with a net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, NZBA explains. Since April 2021, 145 banks in 44 countries with more than $73 trillion in assets have joined NZBA, tripling...

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — About 50 Senegalese women climate activists hit the streets of Dakar Saturday to demand climate justice ahead of COP29 in a march held annually since 2021, but that organizers say is particularly pertinent this year. Participants yelled “Down with capitalism! Down with polluting countries!” as they marched through Dakar’s Medina neighborhood, carrying banners and signs demanding protection of Senegal’s resources and calling for a decarbonized future. “It’s been four years that we’ve been marching, and nothing’s changed. They’re spending billions to do their conferences, but they owe us billions in compensation,” said Cheikh Niange Faye, a...

A Portland Antifa activist and "No Kings Day" recruiter has been arrested on felony charges in Portland after allegedly carrying out an attempted bombing attack on the freeway. Alexander Robert Wick, 38, of Portland, was booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center on felony charges including first-degree attempted arson, unlawful manufacture of a destructive device, possession of a destructive device, and first-degree criminal mischief. He also faces two additional misdemeanor charges of menacing and second-degree disorderly conduct, according to jail records. On June 14, Wick allegedly began throwing traffic cones and boards with protruding nails into the lanes of traffic...

Carbon dioxide, we’ve been told over and again, is the enemy that must be subdued if we are to avoid catastrophic global warming. It is, however, a faulty premise. Physics, not politics, tells us that man’s CO2 emissions will not cause catastrophic climate change nor an increase in extreme weather. “The common belief that CO2 is the main driver of climate change and the EPA Endangerment Finding assertion that ‘elevated concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere may reasonably be anticipated’ to endanger the public health and welfare are scientifically false,” conclude the authors of a new paper. Richard Lindzen...

Yesterday, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the proposed repeal of the Biden-era’s Clean Power Plan 2.0, which ruled that coal-fired and many new natural gas power plants must capture and store over 90% of their carbon emissions by the 2030s—or shut down by 2040. It’s a costly mandate, resting on shaky legal and technical foundations. Americans would be fortunate to have it repealed. President Biden issued his Clean Power Plan 2.0 after the Supreme Court ruled in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency that President Obama’s Clean Power Plan 1.0 exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) statutory authority. The Court’s...

Why this story matters.. The discovery of a prehistoric river valley and forested landscape beneath the East Antarctic ice sheet sheds light on the continent's ancient climate and may improve scientific understanding of Antarctica's response to climate change. Ancient Antarctic landscape.. Uncovering evidence of rivers, valleys, and dense forests beneath Antarctica can enhance understanding of the continent's prehistoric environment and biodiversity. Climate history and change.. The findings provide valuable information about past warm and even tropical conditions, aiding scientists like in predicting how the Antarctic ice sheet might react to future climate shifts. Warm climate.. Researchers believe Antarctica featured a...

A widely used federal website that publishes information about changing weather patterns, drought conditions, agricultural best-practices, atmospheric changes and greenhouse gas emissions will no longer be updated, according to current and former employees familiar with the site. The website will stop publishing new content on July 1. The site, climate.gov, is operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). As of 2021, it received nearly one million visitors every month, and was one of the most trusted sources of climate-related information in the U.S., according to public surveys about the site. A staff of 10 people wrote content and...

To combat climate change, German towns and cities are busily implementing “heat plans”. Germany has ambitious climate neutrality goals, aiming to be climate-neutral by 2045. The lives of millions of people are at risk! The so-called Heat Planning Act went into force in January 2024 and legally obliges municipalities to develop these plans. Larger cities (over 100,000 inhabitants) have until mid-2026 to do so, and smaller towns until mid-2028. One key aspect is adapting to summer heatwaves and protecting public health. This includes measures such as public awareness campaigns about staying safe during heatwaves, establishing cooling centers and long-term urban...

Israel has warned its military will "take whatever measures are necessary" to prevent a boat carrying pro-Palestinian activists and humanitarian aid reaching Gaza. ... Katz said the blockade's purpose was to "prevent the transfer of weapons to Hamas" and was essential to Israel's security as it seeks to destroy the Palestinian armed group Hamas. He warned in a post on X on Sunday: "I have instructed the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] to act to prevent the 'Madeleine' [sic] hate flotilla from reaching the shores of Gaza - and to take whatever measures are necessary to that end." Addressing the crew...

A cargo ship carrying 3,000 cars, including 800 electric vehicles, caught fire off the coast of Alaska and continues to burn. The Coast Guard says that all 22 crew members escaped the ship and were picked up by two nearby freighters. The ship, a Liberian-registered car-carrier named "Morning Midas," was on its way to Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexico, from Yantai, China.. ... the Coast Guard is going to let the ship burn, since trying to put out a lithium-ion fire is nearly futile. ... In 2022, the Felicity Ace, a car carrier slightly larger than Morning Midas, sank in the Atlantic...

Climate campaigner Greta Thunberg and other activists will set sail Sunday for Gaza on a humanitarian ship aimed at protesting Israel's war on the territory, a French-Palestinian lawmaker said. The trip is organised by the Freedom Flotilla, a coalition of groups opposed to the blockade on humanitarian aid for Gaza that Israel imposed on March 2 and has only recently begun lifting. Rima Hassan, a European Parliament member also taking part in the trip, said the operation had "several aims: to condemn the humanitarian blockade and ongoing genocide, the impunity granted to the state of Israel and raise international awareness."...