Free Republic

For years, the government has been issuing guidelines about healthy eating choices. Now, a panel that advises the Agriculture Department is ready to recommend that you be told not only what foods are better for your own health, but for the environment as well. That means that when the latest version of the government's dietary guidelines comes out, it may push even harder than it has in recent years for people to choose more fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole grains and other plant-based foods — at the expense of meat....

**SNIP** The Obama administration continued its attack on coal-fired power plants, which provide about 40 percent of US electricity. In June, the EPA proposed new restrictions on carbon emissions that would make it vitually impossible to build a new coal-fired plant in the US. At the same time, more than 1,200 new coal-fired plants are planned across the world, with two-thirds to be built in India and China. In his 2007 Noble Prize acceptance speech, former Vice President Al Gore warned that the arctic ice could be gone in “as little as seven years.” But arctic sea ice rebounded in...

hether one observed Christmas or Hanukkah — or any other seasonal festivity — there was a nice little gift included for the drivers of this nation. Gasoline prices, in case anyone hasn't noticed, are down, way down. The average price of a gallon of unleaded in Maryland by Christmas week was in the neighborhood of $2.53, according to AAA, and there were some stations in the Baltimore area selling it for as little as $2.22. lRelated The cheap oil dividend One year ago, average gasoline prices were about $1 per gallon higher, which means a typical fill-up is saving drivers...

JOHN Howard has criticised Barack Obama for “wading into domestic political differences on climate change” during his recent visit to Australia for the G20 leaders’ summit. The former prime minister said the US President’s speech to the University of Queensland in Brisbane “could have been phrased differently”. ..... Mr Obama’s passionate speech to a young audience ­during the G20 summit embarrassed the Prime Minister, caused outrage among members of the Queensland government and drew public criticism from Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. ..... Queensland Premier Campbell Newman said he was not about to criticise Mr Obama as “our guest” but the...

Scientists are beginning to question the ramifications of a giant Delaware-sized methane hot spot high up in the air. The “giant plume” is the largest collection of greenhouse gas in the air above the U.S. and is likely the result of natural gas leaks. It’s located over a stretch of desert in Southeast New Mexico, and NASA scientists have studied the methane cloud as a potent climate changer for the past three years. When it first appeared, scientists questioned its existence. “We couldn’t be sure that the signal was real,” NASA researcher Christian Frankenberg told the Washington Post. But NASA...

...The church is prioritizing climate change just months after the Scripps Institution of Oceanography's Veerabhadran "Ram" Ramanathan organized a Vatican meeting on the issue. Ramanathan said the discussion, which spanned four days in May, was encouraging. "The Vatican agreed that we need a massive mobilization of public opinion about the seriousness of the issue, and why it's our responsibility to be good stewards of the planet," he said. Ramanathan is a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. He believes religious leaders are now in a better position than scientists to inspire action....

Along Florida's most famous slice of waterfront, the water is taking a bigger and bigger bite. As the level of the Atlantic Ocean has pushed higher, it has begun gobbling up the shoreline along Cape Canaveral. A railroad that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration built along the beach in the 1960s began being routinely covered by waves during storms. Meanwhile, dunes were leveled that once protected Kennedy Space Center, no matter how high the tide. Scientists from the University of Florida and the U.S. Geological Survey began studying the problem in 2009, finding that what was going on could...

The pontiff plans to issue a rare and controversial plea for Catholics to consider the environment. Recent polls show his message just might resonate. Pope Francis has ambitious environmental plans for 2015. Come March, he will deliver a 50 to 60-page edict urging his 1.2 billion Catholic followers to take action against climate change. The Pontiff will make his announcement during his visit to the Philippian city of Tacloban, which was ravaged by typhoon Haiyan, which killed thousands in 2013. But within his global congregation, many conservative Catholics are expected to oppose the pope’s environmental views. The message comes months...

Pope Francis continues his groundbreaking progressive approach to Catholicism with plans to expand next year on one of his favorite causes: climate change and protecting the environment. The pope is expected to make climate change a large part of his leadership efforts throughout 2015, according to ThinkProgress.org, using the papacy to encourage the 1.2 billion Catholics to protect the environment as “God’s creation.” Pope Francis has even gone as far as to call the destruction of the rainforest a sin, and cautioned Catholics and non-Catholics alike that protecting the environment is a sacred matter, going as far as back as...

  Rebecca Solnit wrote in Salon.com that “The Age of Capitalism is over”.  Oh my, where to start? At the beginning seems a good place as any.  Solnit was thrilled to hold a land auction notice from post-Jacobin France—Thermidorian France for the historically-minded.  Thermidorian France was no more compassionate to live (mostly, to die) in than the Jacobin version which oversaw the execution of tens of thousand civilians, and the wanton destruction of anything associated with Christianity.  This short period in France’s mottled past, from 1795 to 1799, abolished everything other than the whims of its leaders.  And this sent...

Following a visit in March to Tacloban, the Philippine city devastated in 2012 by typhoon Haiyan, the pope will publish a rare encyclical on climate change and human ecology. Urging all Catholics to take action on moral and scientific grounds, the document will be sent to the world’s 5,000 Catholic bishops and 400,000 priests, who will distribute it to parishioners.

Think electric cars are the only form of transportation that can save the world from the dangers of the gas-powered engine? A new study warns that they could actually have the opposite effect. Gannett’s Cincinnati website cites the findings of a study to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences next week. In it, co-author and University of Minnesota engineering professor Julian Marshall explains the findings. “It’s kind of hard to beat gasoline [for the environment]… A lot of the technologies that we think of as being clean … are not better than gasoline.” Electric cars...

Skiers trying to make their way to and from French Alps resorts were plunged into chaos on Saturday night as 15,000 cars were trapped on the roads and emergency overnight centres were set up to shelter trapped tourists. Across the Savoie region, thousands of people were trapped in their cars, snowed in their chalets or stranded at airports as long-awaited snow finally dumped on the Alps - several feet, in some places.

The Doom message version 48.2a (subclause i) has been released.Forget methane clathrate pits, now extra plant growth (blame CO2) could cause  global soil to unleash massive amounts of carbon.Carbon dioxide (aka “pollution”) feeds plants. This is bad (didn’t you know?). An all new “first” computer model with plants, soil, and fungus, warns us that more plants could get soil microbes excited which might break down more soil carbon and release it into the air. Disaster! It’s a could-be-might-be-catastrophe. (At  least until paragraph 6 — see that caveat below).In the meantime this is is so big, it’s practically nuclear — the...

Severe weather in the form of tornadoes is not something people expect on Christmas week but a storm system on Dec. 23 brought tornadoes to Mississippi, Georgia and Louisiana. As the storm moved, NASA’s RapidScat captured data on winds while NOAA’s GOES satellite tracked the movement of the system. NASA’s RapidScat instrument flies aboard the International Space Station and captured a look at some of the high winds from the storms that brought severe weather to the U.S. Gulf Coast on Dec. 23. In addition, an animation of images from NOAA’s GOES-East satellite showed the movement of those storms and...

**SNIP** That New Year’s Eve an interview with expedition leader Chris Turney was beamed live to Times Square in New York. Two days later, the rescue effort entered a new phase. With no icebreaker able to smash way through, a Chinese helicopter, Xue Ying, or “Snow Eagle”, rose into the air for the first of five flights to ferry passengers from the stricken ship to the Aurora Australis. A core crew remained behind to sail vessel home once conditions allowed. Media interest in the expedition faded after the rescue, but in the year since Turney and his team have been...

Editor's note: This article was co-authored by Chris Skates. In a recent interview with National Public Radio host Diane Rehm, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt said his company “has a very strong view that we should make decisions in politics based on facts. And the facts of climate change are not in question anymore. Everyone understands climate change is occurring, and the people who oppose it are really hurting our children and our grandchildren and making the world a much worse place. We should not be aligned with such people. They’re just literally lying.” While he didn’t vilify us by name,...

From fusion energy to honeybee colony collapse, President Obama comes across as a serious science geek, says his chief advisor on science and technology. He's no secret Muslim. But President Obama is a secret science geek who "ponders honeybee colony collapse disorder, fusion energy, and climate change," when the cameras aren't rolling. That's according to John Holdren, Mr. Obama’s chief adviser on science and technology, who in an interview with NPR, revealed his boss's little-known secret obsession.

Try to avoid making this face when dealing with a climate change skeptic this holiday. bark/flickr, CC BY By Will J Grant, Australian National University and Rod Lamberts, Australian National University The end of the year is nigh and it’s a time for Christmas and New Year parties and gatherings. In the southern hemisphere that means barbecues and beaches. In the northern hemisphere it’s mulled wine and cozy fireplaces. But for all of us, it probably means we’ll be subjected to at least one ranting, fact-free sermon by a Typical Climate Change Denier (TCCD). You know the drill. Make an...

I have a feeling that somebody on the White House staff is going to be sitting down for a little holiday chat with Obama science advisor Eric Holdren. (Not to be confused with Eric Holder, but that’s another story.) The official Assistant to the President for Science and Technology held an online Q&A where he fielded questions submitted by the public. The former professor at both Harvard and Berkeley read one question about whether or not climate change was the result of the activities of man or the natural cycles of the planet. In this video supplied by MRC...