Free Republic

As states race to keep plants open, California becomes a test case of how much the tide has shifted Charles Komanoff was for decades an expert witness for groups working against nuclear plants, delivering blistering critiques so effective that he earned a spot at the podium when tens of thousands of protesters descended on Washington in 1979 over the Three Mile Island meltdown. Komanoff would go on to become an unrelenting adversary of Diablo Canyon, the hulking 37-year-old nuclear facility perched on a pristine stretch of California’s Central Coast that had been the focal point of anti-nuclear activism in America....

The world’s biggest fossil fuel firms are quietly planning scores of “carbon bomb” oil and gas projects that would drive the climate past internationally agreed temperature limits with catastrophic global impacts, a Guardian investigation shows. The exclusive data shows these firms are in effect placing multibillion-dollar bets against humanity halting global heating. Their huge investments in new fossil fuel production could pay off only if countries fail to rapidly slash carbon emissions, which scientists say is vital. The oil and gas industry is extremely volatile but extraordinarily profitable, particularly when prices are high, as they are at present. ExxonMobil, Shell,...

Cleaner air in United States and Europe is brewing more Atlantic hurricanes, a new U.S. government study found. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration study links changes in regionalized air pollution across the globe to storm activity going both up and down. A 50% decrease in pollution particles and droplets in Europe and the U.S. is linked to a 33% increase in Atlantic storm formation in the past couple decades, while the opposite is happening in the Pacific with more pollution and fewer typhoons, according to the study published in Wednesday’s Science Advances. NOAA hurricane scientist Hiroyuki Murakami ran numerous...

As evidence of Russian atrocities in Ukraine mounts, the U.S. is once again grappling with our dependence on foreign oil. Although we produce more than we consume, we imported about 670,000 barrels per day from Russia last year — more than we imported from Saudi Arabia. At recent prices of $100 per barrel, that’s nearly $25 billion that fed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war machine. The U.S. ban on Russian oil helps, but is small compared to total Russian exports. So, how can we cut oil consumption and energy costs? President Biden wants electric vehicles (EVs) to comprise half of...

Researchers studying Dublin Bay have said recent sea level rise there has happened at “approximately double the rate of global sea level rise”. The study examined sea level trends over eight decades and confirmed elevated rates in recent years. Researchers at the Hamilton Institute and ICARUS Climate Research Center at Maynooth University found that the Dublin sea level rose by an estimated 1.1 mm per year between 1953 and 2016. Researchers said the overall sea level rise is “in line with expected trends”, but large variability across many decades has led to higher rates in recent years. The research published...

A climate activist who died after setting himself on fire in front of the Supreme Court on Earth Day is a buddhist who hinted at his future self-immolation with a fire emoji under a Facebook post from 2020. Wynn Bruce, 50, of Boulder, Colorado, lit himself on fire on the court's plaza at around 6.30pm Friday. He suffered critical burns and was pronounced dead at a local hospital on Saturday. On October 30, 2020, he shared a link to an online class on climate change offered by edX, a free online course platform created by Harvard and MIT. Last April,...

After Kerry laid out some of the administration’s goals, Mitchell wanted to know about concrete steps. While doing so she lamented that world events have caused gas prices to raise and people don’t like high gas prices: You know, let's—let’s-- agree that he has laid out, you know, some extraordinary goals and made some promises and that Congress does hold a lot of this in their hands. But, but there have been big events, like the war and, you know, Russian sanctions, the sanctions on Russian oil and he's had to go to the strategic reserves and put out more...

Insect numbers have plunged by half in some parts of the world due to climate change and intensive agriculture, a study has found. The combined pressures of global heating and farming are driving a "substantial decline" of insects across the globe, according to UK researchers. They say we must acknowledge the threats we pose to insects, before some species are lost forever. But preserving habitat for nature could help ensure vital insects thrive. Lead researcher, Dr Charlie Outhwaite of UCL, said losing insect populations could be harmful not only to the natural environment, but to "human health and food security,...

While it’s not entirely unusual for the Northern Plains to observe a snowstorm this late in the season, it’s the intensity of the latest storm, which is battering parts of North Dakota and eastern Montana today, that is truly “historic,” according to the National Weather Service (NWS). ... NWS said a “historic blizzard” has begun to impact the Northern Plains on Wednesday and will continue through Thursday. Heavy snow and strong winds will produce whiteout conditions. Travel across parts of eastern Montana and western and central North Dakota will be severely impacted. The regional snowfall total estimates could be as...

Sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere is the world’s only chance to avoid climate change disaster, according to a report due to be released Monday. The paper by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is expected to say that dangerous climate change will be avoided only if vast quantities of carbon dioxide are removed from the air, the Times of London reported. “Carbon dioxide removal is necessary to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions globally and nationally,” a draft version of the summary report said, according to The Times. If “negative emission” technologies fulfill their potential, it...

EXTINCTION Rebellion has blocked TEN major oil facilities across Britain today in their latest eco-mob protest. The group is working alongside supporters of Just Stop Oil in Essex, Hertfordshire and Birmingham. A statement from Extinction Rebellion reads: "The action is taking place at a crucial time: The UK public is waking up this morning to a 54% rise in the energy price cap, which charities say will leave millions of people unable to pay their bills. "The government is making a choice to continue its addiction to fossil fuels as war wages in Ukraine, instead of accelerating the transition to...

Congresswoman Greene makes some excellent arguments on the floor of Congress. AOC refuses to debate her. See video at link.

Come July, the EPA plans to retire the archive containing old news releases, policy changes, regulatory actions, and more. Those are important public resources, advocates say, but federal guidelines for maintaining public records still fall short when it comes to protecting digital assets. “Web services is the language of the government now, [but] we’re not treating it with the same sort of respect that we are paper documents,” says Gretchen Gehrke, one of the co-founders of a group that initially came together to prevent the Trump administration from destroying environmental data. The group, called Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI),...

The invasion of Ukraine has seen rapid rises in the prices of coal, oil and gas as countries scramble to replace Russian sources. But Antonio Guterres warns that these short-term measures might "close the window" on the Paris climate goals. He also calls on countries, including China, to fully phase out coal by 2040. ---SNIP--- "This is madness. Addiction to fossil fuels is mutually assured destruction." Countries must "accelerate the phase out of coal and all fossil fuels," and implement a rapid and sustainable energy transition. It is "the only true pathway to energy security."

Germany is considering reopening some of its decommissioned coal power plants in the hopes of getting a handle on its ongoing energy crisis. The reopening of shuttered plants is seen as an option as the country struggles to ween itself off of its addiction to Russian fossil fuels. While authorities have already rejected plans of delaying the decommissioning of the remainder of its nuclear power stations, a new plan involving either delaying the shut down of coal fire plants that are still in operation, or the re-opening of plants that have previously been terminated, is now on the cards. According...

After Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale attack on Ukraine on Thursday, the EU announced an initial raft of sanctions against Russia with more expected to follow. The instability and sanctions are expected to have a wide-ranging impact on gas supplies and prices in Europe, particularly in Germany and Italy, the two European countries most reliant on gas exports from Russia. Addressing Italy’s parliament on Friday, Draghi laid out plans to offset price increases and turn to alternative sources of energy. “The sanctions require us to carefully consider the impact on our economy,” he said. “The biggest concern is in the...

A new report released this week by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) looks at the causes, impacts and solutions to climate change. The report gives the clearest indication to date of how a warmer world is affecting all living things on Earth. Here are five things we learnt from it. 1- Things are way worse than we thought From the melting of the Greenland ice sheet to the destruction of coral reefs, climate related impacts are hitting the world at the high end of what modellers once expected. And much more quickly than previously assessed by the...

The upcoming polar plunge will cause temperatures across the northern United States to drop by as much as 50 degrees, during a time when war may break out in Europe. This is a reminder of how important affordable American energy sources are. Europe is weak because it is in the grip of an energy crisis with some prices soaring tenfold in the last two years. Europe depends for nearly 30% of its oil and gas supplies on Russia, while German manufacturing is particularly dependent for energy on Russia after environmentalists forced Germany to dismantle all 17 of its nuclear power...

When I was about 15 years old, I star­ted organ­iz­ing around climate change, work­ing with friends to organ­ize teach-ins at high schools and middle schools around the region. At 18, I atten­ded the United Nations Climate Confer­ence in Peru in 2014, the meet­ing that preceded the Paris climate summit, where a land­mark global agree­ment on climate change was signed. If I could go back in time, I would have never atten­ded the confer­ence — it aroused in me an over­whelm­ing feel­ing of power­less­ness and hope­less­ness that led me away from the climate move­ment for years. The huge jump in scale...

The world is unlikely to reach the 'worst case scenario' of climate change by the end of the century, according to a new study, that found efforts to reduce emissions are helping keep warning under control. The Paris Climate Agreement goal to limit global warming this century to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit over pre-industrial temperatures was set in December 2015. This urged nations to take action to reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses in order to forestal the most extreme climate change scenarios being predicted by scientists at the time - that could see temperatures rise by up to 9 degrees Fahrenheit....