Free Republic

Germany, France, Canada, and Belgium are among 12 nations that signed on to the “Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change,” documenting the so-called “threats” that free speech and the free press pose to what U.S. President Donald Trump refers to as the climate “con job.”Signed at the United Nations’ COP30, the UN’s annual climate confab, the declaration marks the first time that “information integrity” has been on the docket for COP’s Action Agenda.The rise of independent media, social media, and the internet has created a source of non-establishment news that has elevated legitimate criticism of the so-called man-made climate-change...

BELEM, Brazil (AP) — Pope Leo XIV on Monday urged countries at United Nations climate talks to take “concrete actions” to stop climate change that is threatening the planet, telling them humans are failing in their response to global warming and that God’s creation “is crying out in floods, droughts, storms and relentless heat.” In a video message played for religious leaders gathered in Belem, Leo said nations had made progress, “but not enough.” “One in three people live in great vulnerability because of these climate changes,” Leo said. “To them, climate change is not a distant threat, and to...

Britons' anxiety about climate change plays a big role in many mental health struggles among the country's youth and can trigger guilt about having children, a new report has claimed. The report by the United Kingdom Health Security Agency (UKHSA) also suggests that yoga and visiting "climate cafés" could help stave off this "eco-anxiety" and build emotional resilience in times of change. "An awareness of climate and environmental change can also lead to emotional or psychological responses, such as eco-anxiety," it reads, defining the term as distress caused by the threat of climate change. The authors also reference "solastalgia," which...

BELEM, Brazil (AP) — The world’s climate leaders are conceding that Earth’s warming will shoot past a hard limit they set a decade ago in hopes of keeping the planet out of a danger zone. But they’re not conceding defeat. United Nations officials, scientists, and analysts are pinning their hopes on eventually forcing global temperatures back below the red line they set in the 2015 Paris Agreement, which sought to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) since preindustrial times. Busting that limit and then coming back down is called “overshoot.” In the way climate science uses the term,...

The world wants an American climate leader, and Gavin Newsom is happy to play the part — even if the country he represents isn’t quite ready to follow.BELÉM, Brazil — Gavin Newsom can’t get out of a meeting or a talk at the international climate talks here without being swarmed by reporters and diplomats eager for a quote, a handshake, a photo.On a tour Tuesday of a cultural center with Gov. Helder Barbalho, the leader of the Brazilian state hosting the talks, a passerby recognized them both. “There’s the governor,” he exclaimed. “And there’s the California governor.” Later in the...

A key Atlantic current could be pushed to the brink of collapse within decades, supposedly ushering in a new ice age and dramatically raising sea levels, climate scientists have claimed in a controversial new study published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment. The apocalyptic predictions came as a result of a collaboration between researchers at the Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOCAS) and the University of California, San Diego — weeks after one-time climate alarmist Bill Gates publicly downplayed the impact of temperature fluctuations on the planet.

Why are people panicking about the weather? Climate doomer Bill Gates thinks everyone should just calm down. He believes “climate change” is a serious problem but it won’t be the end of humanity as we know it, a 17-page memo released Tuesday by the billionaire reveals. Gates now thinks scientific innovation will curb any threats — real and perceived — to the planet’s climate and it’s instead time for a “strategic pivot” away from focusing on limiting rising temperatures to fighting poverty and preventing disease. The 70-year-old said in the memo the world’s primary goal should now work to prevent...

NEW YORK (AP) — Bill Gates thinks climate change is a serious problem but it won’t be the end of civilization. He thinks scientific innovation will curb it, and it’s instead time for a “strategic pivot” in the global climate fight: from focusing on limiting rising temperatures to fighting poverty and preventing disease. A doomsday outlook has led the climate community to focus too much on near-term goals to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that cause warming, diverting resources from the most effective things that can be done to improve life in a warming world, Gates...

“In a dramatic display of symbolism, Pope Leo XIV blessed a block of ice to challenge climate change deniers and urge political leaders to act. The gesture was performed at a global gathering south of Rome marking the 10th anniversary of Laudato Si, the late Pope Francis' ecological encyclical. Standing before a melting glacier fragment, Pope Leo invoked his predecessor's environmental legacy while chastising those who mock climate science. He called on leaders to act with courage rather than delay, and invited attendees to join the effort.”

NZBA had nearly 150 members but banks began leaving when Trump was re-elected on promise to ‘drill, baby, drill’The global banking industry’s net zero target-setting group has announced it will shut down immediately, amid faltering climate commitments around the world.The Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), which was rocked by a wave of departures after Donald Trump’s re-election, said its remaining members had “voted to transition from a member-based alliance and to establish its guidance as a framework”.“As a result of this decision, NZBA will cease operations immediately,” a spokesperson said.Sustainable investment campaigners offered mixed reactions to the move. Jeanne Martin,...

Pope Leo XIV criticized those who question the prevailing narrative on climate change during a recent gathering in Rome.The pontiff slammed those who “ridicule those who speak of global warming” and affirmed the efforts of his predecessor, Pope Francis, according to The Guardian.Leo presided over the 10th-anniversary celebration of Francis’s landmark ecological encyclical, Laudato Si (Praised Be), at a global gathering south of Rome. The encyclical cast care for the planet as an urgent and existential moral concern and launched a global grassroots movement to advocate for caring for God’s creation and the peoples most harmed by its exploitation.Leo told...

Pope Leo chides climate skeptics, embraces Francis’s environmental legacyPope Leo XIV took aim Wednesday at climate skeptics who “ridicule those who speak of global warming,” as he strongly embraced Pope Francis’ environmental legacy and made it his own in some of his strongest and most extensive comments to date.Leo presided over a 10th anniversary celebration of Francis’ landmark ecological encyclical, Laudato si’, at a global gathering held at Castel Gandolfo, the pope’s traditional summer residence south of Rome. That encyclical cast care for the planet as an urgent and existential moral concern, and launched a global grassroots movement to advocate...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — With China leading the way by announcing its first emission cuts, world leaders said Wednesday they are getting more serious about fighting climate change and the deadly extreme weather that comes with it. At the United Nations high-level climate summit, Chinese president Xi Jinping announced the world’s largest carbon-polluting country would aim to cut emissions by 7% to 10% by 2035. China spews more than 31% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. Xi and Brazil’s leader also took thinly veiled swipes on Wednesday afternoon at U.S. President Donald Trump’s attacks a day earlier on renewable energy...

When Americans hear about carbon dioxide (CO2), it’s often shown as a harmful pollutant that threatens the planet. Politicians, activists, and media outlets warn that if we don’t reduce emissions right away, disaster will happen. Preeminent “climate scientist” Al Gore told Congress in 2007, “The science is settled. Carbon dioxide emissions - from cars, power plants, buildings, and other sources - are heating the Earth's atmosphere.” He continued warning, “The planet has a fever.”What if the fever is instead a cold plunge? As CNN reminded us earlier this year, “Record-breaking cold: Temperatures to plunge to as much as 50 degrees...

It is something like central heating for north-west Europe: the North Atlantic circulation ensures that the winters are milder than elsewhere in northern latitudes. It brings warm water from the tropics up to the North Atlantic in the upper ocean layers. The warm surface of the sea in front of the European coasts heats up the atmosphere. This mild air flows to us and ensures a temperate climate. However, there are increasing indications that climate change is turning this heating off slowly but irrevocably. The Atlantic current is one of the tipping points of the global climate system - among...

The Trump administration is scrapping satellite observations of Earth that officials say go beyond the essential task of predicting the weather.Two satellite instruments that track Earth’s carbon dioxide levels will soon go offline, deemed “beyond their primary mission.” Two others meant to monitor water contamination and air pollution, including from greenhouse gases, will be removed from a future satellite mission based on orders to “deliver a weather-only instrument manifest.” The Trump administration is scrapping satellite observations of Earth that officials say go beyond the essential task of predicting the weather, according to budget documents that outline plans to reshape government...

A desert covered in solar panels and sheep could mark the beginning of the end for coal in China. Aerial view of solar panels at Gansu Dunhuang Solar Park in Dunhuang, Jiuquan City, Gansu Province of China. Credit: VCGChina is building a ‘city of mirrors’ on the roof of the world.High on the Tibetan plateau, solar panels stretch across the desert in every direction. They shimmer like a second horizon. Sheep wander between them, grazing on plants that have taken root in the shelter of the glassy rows. Locals call them “photovoltaic sheep.”The project is billed as the world’s largest...

A new law went into effect in Colorado earlier this month requiring health warning labels on gas stoves, similar to those placed on cigarette packages. It’s one example of multiple efforts, primarily in blue states, to stop consumers from using gas-powered appliances in their homes. After a Biden administration official in 2023 alluded to the possibility of a ban on gas stoves in the name of public health, legacy media outlets produced a number of “fact checks” insisting the Biden administration wasn’t going to ban gas stoves. They claimed the whole idea was just a "right-wing conspiracy." Conveniently, most of...

The fear-mongers on climate change are alive and well. The compliant media just repeat this made-up garbage every day, without questions. They should be embarrassed by such abject stupidity.Take a look at this article from July:Sounding the alarm over the financial impact for UK households, the Autonomy Institute thinktank said that climate-induced price increases for everyday food items risked pushing almost 1 million people into poverty without urgent government intervention.And of course the solution is not to eat meat; to drive cars powered by the flammable pollutant lithium; and giving up oil, natural gas, and coal. That has been the...

A new global study reveals that ancient carbon, once thought securely stored in soils and rocks, is leaking into the atmosphere via rivers. For the first time, researchers have confirmed that carbon trapped in landscapes for thousands of years or longer can return to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide escaping from river surfaces. The study, led by scientists from the University of Bristol and featured as the cover story in Nature, suggests that plants and upper soil layers may be absorbing about one additional gigaton of CO2 annually to balance this release. This highlights an even more critical role for...