Free Republic

The plan we are most likely to adopt to address climate change will cost far too much and do next to nothing. The fight over the science of warming is over, yes. But the debate over the solution to global warming hasn't even begun. I. A False Choice On a family visit to Kenya long before he became president of the United States, Barack Obama declared that he wanted to go on safari. His Kenyan half sister, Auma, chided him for being a neocolonialist."Why should all that land be set aside for tourists," she asked, "when it could be used...

Which is worse, paying for stuff you use . . . or being constantly harassed for using it? There is talk of drought, these days, in several states of our union. And governments, local and state, are becoming draconian. Further, the moralistic crowd is out, telling us to conserve water as if it were a moral imperative on the order of Do No Murder or Thou Shalt Not Steal. This is the world of hyper-regulation of hydro-usage, the penalizing — even criminalizing — of consuming “too much” H2O. To deal with its drought, California now regards it as criminal to...

The world will run out of fresh water long before it runs out of oil, with the potential for major deficits by 2030, the chairman of bottled water giant Nestle said. "We have a major water management crisis," Peter Brabeck-Letmathe told CNBC on the sidelines of the Credit Suisse Asian Investment Conference on Tuesday. "We are destroying 20 percent more water for human consumption than there is available." Around 1.2 billion people, or almost one-fifth of the world's population, live in areas of physical scarcity, and 500 million people are approaching this situation, according to data from the United Nations....

YouTube/thegatesnotesBill Gates has taken to his blog to discuss the latest project from the philanthropic Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: a machine that transforms human waste into clean water and electricity. According to Gates, at least 2 billion people worldwide don't have access to adequate sanitation, with human waste often polluting the water supply and remaining untreated.The "Omniprocessor" aims to help with this problem. Its development is led by Seattle-based engineering firm Janicki Bioenergy.The machine extracts water from sewage that's piped in or delivered to the facility. The dry sewage is then incinerated to generate steam, which powers the entire...

Bill Gates and friends have developed a simple system to convert human feces into electricity, fresh water and pathogen-free ash – and no stink! In a quest to find a way to end the tragic death of more than 700,000 children annually from drinking bad water, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has sponsored a variety of waste treatment programs in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Janicki Bioenergy develops and manufactures a variety of sizes of this system. It uses the combustible biomass (roughly 20% of the feces) to heat mass quantities to ~2000 degrees Fahrenheit. The super-heated steam from...

They took a bucket of muddy, bacteria-laden water. Added a bit of white powder. Stirred. And within minutes, standing amid 100 refugees in war-torn Liberia, researchers from Johns Hopkins University had produced what seemed like a magic trick: Clear, drinkable water. "I couldn't believe it when I saw it," Hopkins researcher Shannon Doocy said of her work last year. "The people in Liberia couldn't believe it." The powder, developed by Procter & Gamble Co. with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is now headed for its biggest test yet: the tsunami zone. Relief agencies, led by AmeriCares of...

Time Managing Editor Richard Stengel writes how climate change is threatening man's ability to kill polar bears. By Jeff Poor Business & Media Institute 9/25/2007 Now we must save the polar bear – so that we can kill it? In the October 1 Time Magazine – an issue that is dedicated to “who owns the Arctic” – Managing Editor Richard Stengel compares two Arctic regions that have been affected by the warmer swing in temperatures in the northern regions of Norway and Canada. Stengel reported on two different Arctic attitudes based on what two Time reporters are telling him. In...

A former member of Greenpeace who became disillusioned with what he saw as bad eco-science urged a United Nations climate change conference to "save the world" by ignoring global warming. "Climate change is a huge thing, but there is very little that we can do about it," Bjorn Lomborg told CNSNews.com following a speech in Buenos Aires on Monday.

Who dinosaured Michael Crichton? Was it a comet or just the responsibility of being America's prophet of doom? In his new book, State of Fear, Crichton once again ascends to the pulpit to warn us of an impending horror. Like the diabolical Japanese businessmen in Rising Sun and the corporate vixen in Disclosure, these new shadowy forces, Crichton says, lurk among us, poised to wreak havoc. They're among America's fiercest enemies. They're … environmentalists. State of Fear is a 600-page tirade about global warming. Crichton thinks environmentalists have become overheated about the threat and have substituted demagoguery for hard science....

Should be titled, "Court acts illegally on energy": Court Voids a Bush Move on Energy by Matthew L. WaldJanuary 14, 2004The rule, which applies to central air-conditioners for houses, was one of several published by the Clinton administration during its last few days in office. It was effectively rescinded in a memorandum sent by Andrew H. Card Jr., chief of staff in the Bush White House, to the Energy Department, which formally acted in the early months of the new administration. Tuesday's decision, by a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York,...