Free Republic

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press office repeated the Los Angeles Times’ description of the RRA as “a new local authority” that would “buy burned lots, rebuild homes and offer them back at discounted rates to the original owners.”.. A controversial California bill that would have created a powerful “Resilient Rebuilding Authority” for the Los Angeles fires was put on temporary hold by state Sen. Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica, in response to widespread community concerns. “I appreciate the input of the folks who have weighed in about the bill, and along with legislative colleagues have decided that it would be best for...

Nearly a decade before catastrophic flash flooding in Kerr County…several local officials were hard at work convincing their peers to buy into a new early flood warning system. The once “state of the art” program installed along the Guadalupe River back in the 1980s was in desperate need of an upgrade, they argued… “I’m not trying to put a dollar on a life or a flood, but the fact of the matter is floods do happen, and we need to be prepared for them,” then-Kerr County Commissioner Bob Reeves noted during a series of public meetings that began in 2016....

A slow-moving storm that dumped more than a foot of rain in the Texas Hill Country has killed 27 people, with dozens more missing, and officials are saying they weren’t prepared because the National Weather Service got the forecast wrong. Wonder if Donald Trump and Elon Musk laying off 600 National Weather Service staffers earlier this year could have had anything to do with that? …Deadly flash floods are, unfortunately, not uncommon – 10 teens at a summer camp died during a flash-flood event from a storm that dumped 11 inches of rain in Kerrville in 1987, and 13 people...

A new rite published by the Vatican on Thursday will allow priests to celebrate a Mass to exhort Catholics to exercise care for the Earth, in the latest push by the 1.4-billion-member global Church to address global climate change. For centuries, Catholic priests have been able to celebrate special Masses to pray for their country, give thanks after a harvest or ask God to end a natural disaster. The new "Mass for the care of creation," prepared by two Vatican offices, allows priests to pray that Catholics will "lovingly care" for creation and "learn to live in harmony with all...

The education news outlet Chalkbeat recently highlighted a Denver, Colo. elementary school that’s teaching students as young as age 3 about environmental damage. Mental-health professionals praise their efforts, saying the lessons can help prevent “eco-anxiety,” a “chronic fear of environmental doom.” The mental-health industry’s logic is self-serving: Introduce kids to the idea of Earth’s demise, then step in to manage their worry. Climate catastrophism has come to the classroom — and, as one educator put it, it’s “scaring the kids to death.” Human beings aren’t born aware of our supposed environmental crisis. The fear of climate change — and therapists’...

The ink is dry. Hawaii has officially become the first state in the nation to impose a climate tax. It’s called the Green Fee. The name sounds harmless. The impact is anything but. Senate Bill 1396 is now law. It tacks on a 0.75% increase to the Transient Accommodations Tax. That means every hotel stay, every short-term rental, every cruise ship docking in the islands will now carry a new surcharge. The state expects this to rake in $100 million annually. This isn’t a symbolic gesture. It’s a full-scale revenue engine. The money will be funneled into climate resilience projects....

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...

Preaching climate justice while arriving in a half-a-billion-dollar superyacht? That’s the kind of cinematic irony Lauren Sánchez served at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, pulling off a Leonardo DiCaprio moment of her own. The Amazon founder’s fiancée made her Cannes debut while being honored at the prestigious Global Gift Foundation charity gala for her environmental efforts through the Bezos Earth Fund and her work in social justice with This Is About Humanity, an organization that reunites families separated at the US-Mexico border. Interestingly, the soon-to-be Mrs. Bezos was joined by tech tycoon Jeff Bezos and their permanent third wheel, the...

Three activists banned from campus for three years A professor was among several climate protesters who during commencement defaced the statue of Andrew Dickson White, one of Cornell University’s founders, as a message to stop the school’s “fossil fuel complicity.” Early Saturday morning, the group Cornell on Fire, a “coalition of Cornellians and community members calling for a just and comprehensive university-wide response to the climate emergency,” put a blindfold over White’s face along with a poster protesting Cornell’s association with the fossil fuel industry, The Cornell Daily Sun reports. According to a press release from the group, Scientist Rebellion...

The world is on the brink of a climate apocalypse—one caused not by gradual greenhouse emissions but by a sudden exchange of nuclear weapons, a possibility made more salient by the current conflict between India and Pakistan. While the long-term effects of emissions are uncertain, we know that a nuclear war would result in an immediate nuclear winter. When we think about nuclear apocalypse, we tend to think of the immediate effects: thermonuclear explosions that incinerate cities and vaporize populations. But the worst consequences unfold long after the weapons have detonated. A major thermonuclear exchange would shroud the atmosphere in...

Space junk in Earth's orbit may increase because of the effects of the same heat-trapping gases that are polluting the air and warming the planet, according to a recent study. What's happening? A team led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers determined that, with Earth's warming, space debris could accumulate enough to reduce the low Earth orbit area available for satellites by between a third and 82% by the year 2100, as the Associated Press detailed. The reason for this, per the study published in Nature Sustainability in March, is that climatic changes high above ground could reduce the effectiveness...

A total of 10 bodies have been found in rivers in the Portland, Oregon area since mid-April, two of which were found in May alone. The 10th body was found by authorities on Saturday on the Willamette River and was recovered at Portland's Cathedral Park, per KPTV. The identity of the person or the cause of death has yet to be released. Earlier in May, after the discovery of the eighth body, the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) said in a press releasethat the number of bodies recovered in a short time frame is "not unusual, though it is tragic."...

When Pete Buttigieg was the Secretary of Transportation under President Biden (and whoever was actually making the calls at the White House during that time), one of the more glaring examples of bloated bureaucracy came in the form of what was required in order to qualify for government grants for infrastructure projects: Shortly after taking office, the president signed an executive order mandating that the beneficiaries of 40 percent of all federal climate and environmental programs should come from "underserved communities." The order also established the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, which monitors agencies such as the Department of...

The Trump administration is starting to deal with the climate/net zero fraud by cancelling government contracts and rolling back government regulations. However, it has not yet addressed the root cause of the climate scam. This is the use of fraudulent climate models to create the illusion of CO2 induced global warming, now rebranded as climate change/extreme weather. Until this underlying fraud is eliminated, there is always the risk that a future administration will resurrect the climate cabal. The climate modelers need to be held responsible for their actions. This includes penalties for damages caused to U.S. agriculture, energy infrastructure, etc....

On April 14 I recorded a podcast with Tom Nelson. He has since posted a slightly edited version on his YouTube site. Go to this link if you would like to watch it — about an hour long. The main subject is the sordid history of EPA’s Endangerment Finding and efforts of people including myself to get it rescinded. The good news on the Endangerment Finding front is that EPA under new Administrator Lee Zeldin is very much on the job of eliminating the EF. Of course, once it has been rescinded it will face a blizzard of legal challenges....

Former Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday on MSNBC’s “Chris Jansing Reports” that Pope Francis was not “living in some alternative world,” so he understood the climate crisis. Kerry said, “He boldly stood up in front of Congress despite the fact there were some denialists there. He spoke the truth. And the climate crisis presents us, ironically, with one of the great economic opportunities of all time. And I think that, you know, the Holy Father knew that there were jobs there, but also the people who get most affected by the downside of what’s happening are the...

The U.S. Navy officially scrapped a Biden-era “climate action” plan for the force on Tuesday, signifying the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to refocus the military towards warfighting. “Today, I’m focusing on the warfighters first, and I’m rescinding the Biden administration’s climate action program. Our focus needs to be on lethality and our warfighters,” Navy Secretary John Phelan announced in a video message. Released in May 2022, the Climate Action 2030 program contained a series of actions and goals the Department of the Navy (DON) has taken or planned to undertake to tackle what Biden Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro characterized...

TORONTO - The Canadian Securities Administrators says it has indefinitely paused work on developing new mandatory climate disclosures and updating diversity reporting rules in response to recent developments in the United States. Stan Magidson, chair of the CSA, says it made the decision to support companies because of the rapid shift in the global economic and geopolitical landscape. He says the regulator will instead focus on making Canadian markets more competitive, efficient and resilient. In recent years, there’s been a push to require companies to report more details on what climate-related risks they face and how they plan to address...

In a post on January 28 — a week into President Trump’s second term — I urged that it is time to “purge the climate scam from the federal websites.” Trump 1.0 did a remarkably poor job of taking control of communications on the climate issue on websites like those of EPA, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Transportation. Are they doing any better this time? They have definitely taken some significant steps to address this issue here in the early weeks of the new administration. For example, on April 15 the Guardian ran a piece with the...