Free Republic

Despite its cool Green parties and ambitious wind and solar agendas, Europe remains by far the world’s largest importer of oil and natural gas. Oil output in the North Sea and off the coast of Norway is declining, and the European Union is quietly looking for fossil fuel energy anywhere it can find it. Europe itself is naturally rich in fossil fuels. It likely has more reserves of shale gas than the United States, currently the world’s largest producer of both oil and natural gas. Yet in most European countries, horizontal drilling and fracking to extract gas and oil are...

Electric taxis will charge up wirelessly as they wait on the rank as part of a £3.4 million trial, ministers announced today. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the new technology could eventually be used by public drivers of electric cars. Ten taxis in Nottingham will be fitted with the hardware later this year. When they are parked over pads installed in the ground, their batteries will charge automatically. The system recognizes the vehicle and bills the driver for the power. The technology removes the need for cables and fixed charging points. …

ST. PETERSBURG — As she arrived to speak at the region’s first ever resilience leadership summit, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor came upon a hotel parking lot packed with cars. Hundreds of people from local governments, universities and scientific consulting firms had shown up Tuesday. Valets at the Hilton in Carillon Park double-parked vehicles, choking the entry. The scene summarized the day: a symbol both of the growing interest in climate change in Tampa Bay and the enormous hurdles officials face as they aim to curb emissions (from cars, for instance) contributing to rising seas. **SNIP** Among the first speakers was...

Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg would push for all new cars to be electric by 2035 and new buildings to produce zero carbon emissions by 2025 as part of clean energy plans he released this week. Bloomberg’s latest climate plans build off his December plan to cut the United States’ carbon emissions by 50% by 2030. That’s less ambitious than the Green New Deal that many of his competitors have embraced that calls for achieving net-zero carbon emissions within 10 years. Bloomberg’s plans do not include total costs or specifics on how they would be paid for, details his campaign...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticized Sen. Rand Paul after he claimed she said the world would end in 12 years if nothing is done about climate change. "Hey Senator! Would you like me to also take your comments out of context and pose them as your earnest position, as you have chosen to do with me?" the New York Democrat wrote Wednesday. "I assume the answer is yes, especially given that the GOP climate agenda is about as fictional as Spaceballs anyway." Paul, 57, attacked Ocasio-Cortez's position on climate change earlier in the day. "No @AOC the world will not end...

In 100 days exactly, we will strike again. On April 22, the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, young people and adults across the United States will once again take to the streets to demand climate action. Earth Day will launch three consecutive days of massive strikes, fulfilling our promise to take the climate strike movement beyond what we achieved on September 20. Inaction is not an option. This has been the hottest decade on record and last year was the second hottest ever. Since the bushfire season began in November, fires in Australia have killed 25 people, wiped out over...

British police say it was an “error of judgment” to include environmental protest group Extinction Rebellion in an official document that listed extremist organizations. The counterterrorism police unit for southeast England included the climate change protesters alongside Islamic extremists and banned neo-Nazi group National Action in a guide to “safeguarding young people and adults from ideological extremism,” The Guardian newspaper reported. The guide said that “while concern about climate change is not in itself extreme, activists may encourage vulnerable people to perform acts of violence.” …

Grasses, shrubs and mosses are growing and expanding around Mount Everest and across the Himalayan region as the area continues to experience the consequences of global warming, researchers have found. Scientists from the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom used satellite data to establish increases in subnival vegetation -- plants that grow between the tree line and the snow line -- in the Himalayas. Using NASA Landsat satellite data from 1993 to 2018, remote sensing scientists measured "small but significant" increases in vegetation cover across four height brackets between 4,150 and 6,000 meters (13,615-19,685 feet) above sea level. "There...

Planes could soon by flying in V-shape formations like migrating birds in a bid to save fuel and emissions. Airbus says flight technology is now mature enough to use the formation which would allow aircraft to effectively ride on the coattails of each other. The tactic is often seen in cycling, where racers “draft” behind leaders of the racing peloton, following in their slipstream. Within six months, two A350 planes will make a long-haul formation flight to prove the so-called “wake energy retrieval” can be accomplished, according to The Times. Then early in 2021, an airline will pair two jets,...

Train travelers in Germany have an extra reason to celebrate entering 2020 — the national railway company Deutsche Bahn is cutting prices for long-distance rides. The government wants more people to take the train. Deutsche Bahn has unrolled new prices for 2020 and made its tickets 10% cheaper for long-distance traffic, the German railway company said. The move, which went into effect on Wednesday, stems from the climate protection measures passed by the German government — the Cabinet cut the value-added tax (VAT) on rail travel in December from 19% to 7% in an effort to make train travel more...

India's capital Delhi has recorded its chilliest day in more than a century amid a severe cold wave across the northern part of the country...

The climate crisis, the digitalization of the labor market, and European solidarity on migration formed the main themes of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s traditional New Year’s address, to be broadcast on Tuesday evening. But the scale of these challenges was no reason to be discouraged, the chancellor insisted, in a speech that strived for an optimistic tone to begin both the New Year and the new decade. “I believe we have good reasons to feel confident that the 2020s, the decade that will begin in a few hours, can be good years,” she began, before ending with a resolution: “Let’s surprise...

Patricia Kambach couldn’t bear to watch a crew demolish her longtime neighbor’s home this month, so she went inside her own house in Woodbridge, New Jersey, where she has lived since John F. Kennedy was president. “I lived here 56 years, and it’s hard,” said Kambach. Hard but not rare. The state has bought and torn down 145 homes since 2013 in Woodbridge, with eight homes demolished this month alone. Dozens more are slated to be torn down in the near future. It’s all part of an effort to get ahead of climate change. Some neighborhoods in this town of...

Orlando is closing out 2019 at about a tenth of a degree behind the hottest year on record for the city, which was 2015, according to the National Weather Service. Overall, Central Florida temperatures this year are tracking along with much of the Florida peninsula, where cities from Jacksonville to Gainesville to St. Petersburg to Miami are likely to record their hottest or second-hottest years on record. “Since 2015, we have been warmer than normal consistently,” said Derrick Weitlich, climate-program leader at the National Weather Service office in Melbourne. “The majority of sites in our area have been in the...

Former Vice Preisdent Joe Biden made clear at Thursday night’s Democratic presidential primary debate that he’d sacrifice economic growth due to a boom in oil and natural gas production and potentially risk displacing hundreds of thousands of blue-collar workers in order to combat climate change. Moderator Tim Alberta asked: “Three consecutive American presidents have enjoyed stints of explosive economic growth due to a boom in oil and natural gas production. As president, would you be willing to sacrifice some of that growth, even knowing potentially that it could displace thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of blue-collar workers in the interest...

Brazil’s environment minister trolled the recent climate talks in a tweet that may have some activists seeing red. Ricardo Salles — a participant in the longest U.N. climate talks on record, which came to a disappointing end Sunday — posted an image of a meat platter in an apparent dig at environmentalists. “To offset our emissions at COP, a veggie lunch!” Salles posted in reference to the talks, which his boss, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, also has criticized. “Rich countries do not want to open their carbon credit markets,” Salles said in an earlier tweet. “They demand measurements and point...

Reindeer in the Swedish arctic are facing food supply shortages and going hungry, thanks to climate change. “If we don’t find better areas for them where they can graze and find food, then the reindeers will starve to death,” Niila Inga said. His indigenous community herds about 8,000 reindeer year-round, moving them between traditional grazing grounds in the high mountains bordering Norway in the summer and the forests farther east in the winter, The Associated Press reported. The reindeer already have been pressured by the mining and forestry industry, and other developments that encroach on grazing land. Now, their food...

The European Union’s anti-trust authority approved €3.2 billion ($3.5 billion) in subsidies aimed at helping Europe boost its lagging competitiveness in the electric battery sector. The subsidy from seven members states — Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Belgium, Sweden and Finland — will go to 17 different companies, a statement from the European Commission said. The investment injection will help generate an extra €5 billion in private investment, it added. Electric battery production is an important industry sector for the Europe, and the push for subsidies is part of a broader push led by France and Germany to make sure Europe...

For years, Kim Cobb was the Indiana Jones of climate science. The Georgia Tech professor flew to the caves of Borneo to study ancient and current climate conditions. She jetted to a remote South Pacific island to see the effects of warming on coral. […] Now she is about to ground herself, and she is not alone. Some climate scientists and activists are limiting their flying, their consumption of meat and their overall carbon footprints to avoid adding to the global warming they study. Cobb will fly just once next year, to attend a massive international science meeting in Chile....

A majority of Germans say they would consider scaling down their Christmas lights to protect the climate, a survey released on Sunday said. A total of 57% of those surveyed said they would reduce Christmas lighting or even do without it in the future, according to the survey conducted by YouGov on behalf of the German news agency DPA. Of the respondents, 11% said they would make do without any lights this year due to climate concerns, while 10% said they would do so in the future. But 35% said turning off the lights was not an option for them....