Free Republic

Joe Biden is old. Like each of us, he comes from a particular place in history, in his case the LBJ years. And that’s one big reason why his first term has been so full of accomplishment: His age, often cited as the greatest obstacle to his reelection, is actually his superpower. The first presidential election in which Joe Biden was eligible to vote featured Lyndon Johnson beating Barry Goldwater. History remembers LBJ’s presidency as chaotic because of his tragic adventuring in Vietnam, but in other respects it was remarkable. His Great Society echoed Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal (FDR was...

With a younger generation increasingly focused on the problem of rising global temperatures, prominent environmental activist and author Bill McKibben is launching a new grassroots movement to mobilize older Americans to combat climate change and to work on related social justice issues. McKibben, 60, has partnered with co-founders Akaya Windwood, a 65-year-old nonprofit consultant, and Vanessa Arcara, a millennial who worked at 350.org, to mobilize older Americans. Their new group, known as Third Act, is having a soft launch this week and a full-fledged rollout early next year. “Third Act is for people like me — that is to say...

The leader of a radical eco-extremist group celebrated President Joe Biden canceling the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, even as the move killed thousands of jobs. Co-founder of 350.org and New Yorker contributor Bill McKibben bellowed in a recent op-ed that “In his first hours in office, Joe Biden has settled—almost certainly, once and for all—one of the greatest environmental battles this country has seen [killing the Keystone XL].” He proceeded to praise how “the story behind that victory illustrates a lot about where we stand in the push for a fair and working planet.” McKibben fawned how he...

Democratic Congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York said the “Green New Deal” plan she supports would be used to achieve liberal “economic, social and racial justice” goals along with fighting global warming. “[W]e can use the transition to 100 percent energy as the vehicle to truly deliver and establish economic, social and racial justice in the United States of America,” Ocasio-Cortez said at a Tuesday panel discussion alongside Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and environmental activist Bill McKibben. The soon-to-be New York representative has spent her time in Washington, D.C. promoting a “Green New Deal” to transition the U.S. to 100...

Experts decry 'pie in the sky' environmental plan Since sweeping into Congress atop a wave of far-left support, Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) has been very clear what her number one goal is: a Green New Deal for America. The freshman congresswoman first attracted attention to the proposal when she joined more than 200 protesters staging a sit-in in support of a GND in Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's (D., Calif.) office. Since then and with Ocasio-Cortez's backing, the idea has swept through left-leaning media, attracting fawning reviews. It also has the support of a number of prominent left-wing environmental activists:...

It seems a little churlish to prod Jerry Brown on carbon issues. He's done as much as any leader in the world to move forward on the climate and energy crises that are the defining challenges of our time. All of California's environmental measures have been aimed at reducing the demand for energy, and none at slowing down the production of fossil fuel. Supply and demand are two equal halves of this fight; if we don't recognize that fact we simply will not solve the climate conundrum. With his time in elective office winding down, Brown has the rare chance...

RUSH: Friday night, HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher. He spoke with environmentalist wacko and author Bill McKibben about his efforts to convince people that climate change is real. You know, if it was real, you wouldn’t have to convince people. That’s the thing about science. If it’s real, there’s no convincing. You don’t have to sell science. Science doesn’t need a marketing plan. Science doesn’t need a political action committee. Science doesn’t need donors. Science doesn’t need to run ads. Science is, by definition, science. It’s tested to the point of infallibility, and only then are conclusions published. And...

Even as Democrats publicly and loudly decry corporatist political “dark money,” billionaire Democrats and other donors funnel hundreds of millions to radical and violent causes.   Barely a week had passed after Donald Trump’s historic upset in the November 8 presidential election, but some of the world’s richest individuals were already launching a counteroffensive. George Soros and his fellow deep-pocket funders of the Democratic Party and left-wing causes gathered with a lineup of party activists and luminaries from Hollywood, K Street, and Wall Street for a three-day “investment conference” (November 15-17) at the luxurious Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, D.C....

The activists, including Naomi Oreskes and Bill McKibben, recently coordinated with attorneys general (AG) culminating with a March 29 press conference, led by New York AG Eric Schneiderman and joined by former Vice President Al Gore. There the “unprecedented coalition”—as Schneiderman’s press release called it—was announced: the newly formed AGs for Clean Power. Though “vague” on their specific plans, 17 AGs (16 Democrats and 1 Independent) have, as the Huffington Post reported: “committed to pursuing an all-levers approach” to, as Gore said: “hold to account those commercial interests that have been, according to the best available evidence, deceiving the American...

“Though additional work always remains, the physical sciences have completed their core task when it comes to climate change,” says Bill McKibben... "What we don’t know is how to stop ourselves from harming the climate, which is why this book and the social sciences are so important.” Edited by environmental sociologists Robert J. Brulle, PhD, a professor in Drexel University’s College of Arts and Sciences, and Riley E. Dunlap, a professor at Oklahoma State University, the book highlights new things by presenting climate change as a completely social phenomenon, implanted in behaviors, institutions and cultural practices. “We need to develop...

WASHINGTON — A Twitter post recently caught the eye of Bill McKibben, the environmental advocate and godfather of the Keystone XL pipeline protests. It included an image from “The Simpsons” showing Homer and his family basking in mountains of cash in their living room, followed by a report on Hillary Rodham Clinton’s appearing at a fund-raiser with a lobbyist from the Keystone fight. Mr. McKibben’s environmental organization, 350.org, has been trying to raise awareness about the ties it sees between lobbyists for the oil pipeline and former aides to Mrs. Clinton. He promptly shared the post with his 150,000 Twitter...

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part 3 of a three-part series. Click to read part 1 and part 2.The fossil-fuel divestment campaign now sweeping America’s college campuses is a window onto much that is wrong with our culture and our politics. The fate of America’s free-enterprise system — long the engine of our prosperity and security — now hangs on a generation increasingly skeptical of the system’s premises.Surely doubts about capitalism held by America’s 20-somethings have been greatly magnified by climate change. Yet it is not changing global weather patterns but the deteriorating climate of intellectual interchange in the nation’s academy — and the...

The target is fossil fuels, but the goal is an end to economic growth.Horse-drawn plow at the Mother Earth Farm in Orting, Wash. You may not have heard of the fossil-fuel divestment movement yet, but you will soon. While the campaign to have universities sell off any stock they may hold in large fossil-fuel companies is still in its infancy, the effort has spread to hundreds of campuses in just the past few months. This ambitious crusade to save the planet from global warming by crushing the world’s fossil-fuel producers is the brainchild of Bill McKibben, arguably America’s foremost environmentalist,...

Our free-enterprise system is facing a legitimacy crisis, especially among the young.Activist Bill McKibben Slowly but surely, America’s free-enterprise system has been bleeding cultural support. To be sure, Occupy Wall Street’s open anti-capitalism flamed out, and direct challenges to the system are few. Yet appearances are deceiving. Just prior to the 2012 election, a series of polls showed the millennial generation (ages 18–30) about evenly split between positive attitudes toward capitalism and socialism. We needn’t take that support for socialism literally in order to recognize that America’s free-enterprise system is facing a legitimacy crisis, especially among the young. The manner...

Record droughts, a melting Arctic and changing worldwide weather patterns - are these the early signs of an environment on the verge of collapse? To look at these issues and more we had a chance to speak with the well known environmentalist Bill McKibben. Bill is a founder of the grassroots climate campaign 350.org, which has coordinated 15,000 rallies in 189 countries since 2009. He is the author of a dozen books about the environment, beginning with The End of Nature in 1989, which is regarded as the first book for a general audience on climate change. Bill is a...

American actress Daryl Hannah is arrested in front of the White House along with other environmental protesters opposing a planned oil pipeline from Canada to the US Gulf Coast. Hannah was released after paying a $100 fine, following her arrest for failure to obey a lawful order, said US Park Police spokesman Sergeant David Schlosser. More than 70 people were arrested in the Tar Sands Action protest on Tuesday, which is named after efforts to block the proposed Keystone XL pipeline project to bring oil sands petroleum from Canada to Texas refineries.

White House misses deadline for solar panels By: Darius Dixon June 21, 2011 09:17 AM EDT The official onset of summer signals the Obama administration's unmet deadline to install solar panels at the world's most famous address: 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced in October that after a nearly three-decade hiatus. the White House would once again have a solar water-heating system mounted on its roof, as well as photovoltaic cells. Chu said the panels would be up “by the end of this spring." Spring ended Monday, and the panels aren't there. "The Energy Department remains on the...

Bill McKibben '82 has founded 350.org, a worldwide action group that this weekend (Oct. 23-25) will promote demonstrations on every continent. McKibben was at Harvard's Memorial Church for a 90-minute "climate convocation" sponsored by 17 groups. Author and climate activist Bill McKibben '82 ascended into the pulpit of the Memorial Church at Harvard University on Oct. 18, a stage so grand that legend puts it "10 feet above contradiction." McKibben's message is that the Earth is warming rapidly, that climate change is too late to stop, but that it is not too late to act. Acting means getting humankind, with...

If there were a Society of Global Warming Alarmists, Bill McKibben might get kicked out for being too much of a worry wart . . . You've probably seen those phone-message forms with boxes to be checked in ascending order of urgency ranging from "FYI—no need to return call" all the way up to "the future of Western civilization hangs in the balance." We might see that last category as light-hearted exaggeration, but it's no laughing matter to McKibben. In his jeremiad in today's LA Times literally entitled "Civilization's last chance," McKibben solemnly declares that "the world looks a little...