Free Republic

As New York approaches the Green Energy Cliff, developments are starting to come more quickly. When last I addressed the subject on March 6, there had just been “leaked” a three-page memo from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) to the Governor’s office, revealing that implementation of what New York calls its “cap and invest” program — actually, an artificial scarcity program intentionally designed to drive prices up and impoverish the people — would cost every New York household thousands of dollars in increased energy costs. (I put the word “leaked” in quotes because most knowledgeable...

Facts are a harsh mistress. And nobody seems more incapable of grasping facts than Democrats in general, and New York's Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul in particular. In her latest embarrassing slip-up, the climate law she supported, and the Empire States ever-more-onerous taxes are driving all the wealthy people, the people who start and run businesses and provide jobs, out of the state. Now, because of the green policies, utility rates are climbing, meaning that a big chunk of the rest of the residents of New York are looking to the exits as well. Now Governor Hochul wants to delay full...

Gov. Kathy Hochul is finally admitting that the “climate” law she’s long supported is toxic to New York’s economy and to “affordability” — but she only wants to delay the death sentence. We’ve warned for years that the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act is leading the state to disaster — and for no purpose except to honor the delusions of green extremists and further the political ambitions of first Gov. Andrew Cuomo and now Hochul. Neither one ever admitted the fundamental idiocy; even now, when she says “a climate policy that leaves working families behind is not a...

Kick up your recliner chairs because you’re not going to believe this one! TIME magazine is out with a new report prophesying that climate change threatens to make us all lazy slobs! “Scientists Warn of Health Risks As Climate Change Reduces Physical Activity,” read the knee-slapper headline from TIME reporter Simmone Shah. Shah waved around a new wacky study published in Lancet Global Health to foam at the mouth over how “rising global temperatures due to climate change could lead millions of people to be less physically active” and will supposedly lead to an increase of half a million deaths...

Lies, disinformation and fictional accounting are the order of the day as a desperate hard-Left UK government, aided by its pet Climate Change Committee, tries to keep its impossible Net Zero controlling agenda intact. The bedrock unproven science claims surround the suggestion that recent limited global warming presents an existential threat to the planet. Statistics are routinely tortured to produce claims of up to 1.7°C warming from the pre-industrial age, notable as reported in a recent silly ‘Trump’s brave new world’ article by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Telegraph. In fact, temperatures have only risen by around 1.1°C over the last...

The Oscars 2026 might be over, but fans’ fury over “dirty” celebrities is just getting started. A picture showing trash, including discarded water bottles and snack packets, strewn across Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre has gone viral on social media — sparking backlash over the hypocrisy of the elite, who grandstand about the environment. “Aren’t some of them environmentalists?” one critic pointed out. “Where’s all that ‘protect the planet’ energy now?” “Save the mountains, keep them clean, blah blah blah … but look at the mess they leave,” another chimed in of the hypocrisy.

The Oscars 2026 might be over, but fans’ fury over “dirty” celebrities is just getting started. A picture showing trash, including discarded water bottles and snack packets, strewn across Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre has gone viral on social media — sparking backlash over the hypocrisy of the elite, who grandstand about the environment. “Aren’t some of them environmentalists?” one critic pointed out. “Where’s all that ‘protect the planet’ energy now?” “Save the mountains, keep them clean, blah blah blah … but look at the mess they leave,” another chimed in of the hypocrisy. “Nobody’s buying it anymore. As the saying goes:...

Much has been written recently about the death of expertise in America. On one subject after another, those claiming to be experts have proved to be completely wrong. Covid provided multiple examples: from the origins (did it come from a lab leak?), to the efficacy of vaccines, to the necessity of lockdowns and “social distancing.” Another famous example was the Hunter Biden laptop, stated by 50+ “experts” from the intelligence community to carry “the classic earmarks” of “Russian disinformation.” But has there been any area where self-proclaimed experts have more made fools of themselves than the area of “climate change”?...

A photo taken on October 25, 2025, shows the controlled demolition of the second of the cooling towers of the decommissioned nuclear power plant Gundremmingen in Gundremmingen, southern Germany. KARL-JOSEF HILDENBRAND / AFP. To simultaneously obliterate Germany’s nuclear sector and to cut off energy ties with Russia wasn’t simply foolish—it was self-sabotage of the highest and most unforgivable order. Europe is once again readying itself for the bitter pill of mass inflation. International energy markets are facing one-in-a-generation levels of disarray following the launch, by the United States and Israel, of Operation Epic Fury against Iran. At the time of...

The rate of global warming has surged since 2015 and is now nearly double what it was in the 1970s, according to a study1 that tackles one of the hottest debates among climate scientists. Because the past three years have shattered temperature records (see ‘Temperature boost’), researchers have been exploring whether global warming is accelerating, and if so, why. Many scientists agree that the rate at which it is increasing has picked up. This is mainly because of a reduction in air pollution following the introduction of fuel regulations for international shipping (which has resulted in fewer pollutant particles that...

Gov. Hochul has spent much of her 4 ¹/₂ years in office facing a time bomb left by her predecessor: drastic, legally binding greenhouse gas reduction targets that the state has no practical means of meeting. The 2019 Climate Act requires New York to cut greenhouse gas emissions by about one-quarter from that year’s levels by 2030. The state has made little progress toward this goal, in part because officials shuttered New York’s largest nuclear power plant in 2021. The law remains on the books, and its defenders balk at revision. If Hochul can’t persuade them to change it, Albany’s...

For a few years now, it has been blindingly obvious that New York had over-promised and over-committed on impossible “climate” goals that could not be achieved. In various posts I have referred to this as an approaching “cliff,” or perhaps as the “green energy wall.” It has been entertaining to ponder what the final disaster might look like. This week has had a lot of developments. Most interesting is the growing split among the governing Democrats between, on the one hand, those who see disaster coming and are looking for some kind of graceful exit and, on the other hand,...

Lucy Biggers was once a devoted acolyte of the climate cult, affiliated with “activists” like AOC and Greta Thunberg. Then Covid happened, and, to give credit where it’s due, Biggers saw through the lunacy, wondering how in the world the people were expected to get to zero carbon emissions—the stated goal of the climate cult—if the oppressive lockdowns and forced quarantines only resulted in a (roughly) 5% decrease over the year? (That 5% number was offered by Biggers, though don’t take it as fact because I actually don’t know myself what the numbers are.) Like many others, Biggers was depressed,...

ILULISSAT, Greenland (AP) — Fisherman Helgi Áargil no longer knows what to expect on Greenland ‘s fjords, where he spends up to five days at a time on his boat with his dog, Molly, and the ever-changing northern lights in the sky as company. Last year, his boat got stuck in ice that broke off the nearby glacier. This year, it’s been very wet instead. His income is just as unpredictable. An outing could bring him around 100,000 Danish kroner (about $15,700), or nothing at all. The Arctic’s rapidly changing climate is bringing more questions for Greenland, the semiautonomous territory...

A small cadre of activist judges and environmentalist litigators wields outsized power, crippling industries, mismanaging forests, and undermining America’s interests. With the world anxiously watching the conflict in Iran, it was no surprise that the first segment in the March 1 edition of CBS’s 60 Minutes featured an interview with Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last Shah. The second segment, however, returned to a staple theme of the CBS news team. It presented a perspective on a current issue calculated to discredit the Trump administration and its supporters. In this case it was threats leveled against activist judges...

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his pediatrician wife Priscilla Chanhave bought a waterfront mansion in Miami that’s still under construction... The property on ultra-exclusive Indian Creek Island, otherwise known as ‘Billionaire Bunker,’ was on the market for $200 million. The price that Zuckerberg and Chan agreed to pay: a colossal $170 million. A message seeking comment from Zuckerberg was not returned by press time. The couple’s move from California to Florida follows in the recent footsteps of fellow online billionaires Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who are the co-founders of Google. They’re fleeing the Golden State as California prepares to...

When California Attorney General Rob Bonta set out to sue ExxonMobil, alleging deception in its claims about advanced plastics recycling, he probably didn't expect the company would sue him for defamation. Bonta tried to get the case dismissed, but a federal judge in Texas has given the lawsuit the green light to proceed. California Attorney General Rob Bonta hoped to earn his anti-fossil fuel credentials when he filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil in 2024, alleging the company was engaging in deceptive practices related to its “advanced recycling” program. He probably didn’t expect that the company would fight back the way...

Despite being far away from civilization, a melting Antarctic’s “disastrous” consequences will ripple across the world, researchers warn. Scientists have highlighted just how high the stakes are as human-made climate change continues to rapidly warm Antarctica. A new study published in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science, models the best- and worst-case scenarios for global warming on the Antarctic Peninsula, the northernmost part of the mainland. Researchers warn that the continent’s future “depends on the choices we make today”, arguing that cutting emissions could avoid the most “important and detrimental” impacts of the climate crisis. […] Under the highest emissions...

(The Center Square) - The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Monday to hear a case over whether states can sue fossil fuel companies for damages related to climate change.The nation’s highest court agreed to hear arguments in Suncor Energy Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County. Justices on the court asked both parties to submit briefs on whether it has constitutional authority to decide the case.The case, based out of Colorado, challenges the authority of state and local governments to use nuisance laws in proceedings against fossil fuel companies.“There is no constitutional bar to states addressing in-state harms caused by...

Environmental scholar Bjorn Lomborg recently calculated that across the globe, governments have spent at least $16 trillion feeding the climate change industrial complex. And for what? Arguably, not a single life has been or will be saved by this shameful and colossal misallocation of human resources. The war on safe and abundant fossil fuels has cost countless lives in poor countries and made those countries poorer by blocking affordable energy. Since the global warming crusade started some 30 years ago, the temperature of the planet has not been altered by one-tenth of a degree -- as even the alarmists will...