Free Republic

Almost every day now, there is another headline warning about the collapsing birth rate across the developed world, and along with it, another think piece attempting to diagnose why younger generations seem increasingly reluctant to build families. This week, new figures out of England and Wales showed that the number of babies being born has fallen to the lowest level since 1977, with couples delaying parenthood until their thirties or deciding against children altogether. The total fertility rate dropped to 1.39 children per woman, the lowest level ever recorded. The explanations offered for this phenomenon tend to revolve around economics,...

Findings by academic researchers suggest that hyperscalers' AI data centers contribute to local warming, but not everyone agrees. Findings of a new study conducted by a group of academics from around the globe have revealed that land surface temperature (LST) increases by 2°C (3.6°F) on average after the start of operations of an AI data center, an effect detectable up to an estimated 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) away. The study, The data heat island effect: quantifying the impact of AI data centers in a warming world, was conducted by a dozen experts from leading universities in the UK, Singapore, France,...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The dangerous heat wave shattering March records all over the U.S. Southwest is more than just another extreme weather blip. It’s the latest next-level weather wildness that is occurring ever more frequently as Earth’s warming builds. Experts said unprecedented and deadly weather extremes that sometimes strike at abnormal times and in unusual places are putting more people in danger. For example, the Southwest is used to coping with deadly heat, but not months ahead of schedule, including a 112 degrees Fahrenheit (44.4 degrees Celsius) reading in two Arizona communities on Friday that smashed the highest March temperature...

New York is strong-arming 18 industrial-scale solar power plants into rural communities across the state despite strong opposition from locals. Schuylerville farmer Alexandra Fasulo had just settled into the idyllic acreage she purchased in 2023 when Gov. Kathy Hochul’s bulldozers came roaring in, poised to thrash 1,800 acres of protected grassland to build a 100-megawatt-capacity solar energy complex in nearby Fort Edward, NY. Worried that chemical runoff and contamination may affect her farm, Fasulo attended a town meeting last fall to voice concerns to developers and state authorities. “We were like serfs coming before a king. It was so much...

Climate hysteria, which was always about power and money, finally seems to have peaked, and President Trump helped lead the way. There has been a huge shift within the public and private sectors on climate change as it has dawned on governments and companies that the United States, under President Donald Trump, will no longer be a patsy to a cabal of international elites who seek to impose costly climate restrictions upon American businesses and international climate boondoggles upon nations. Trump’s actions are draining the climate swamp of resources, supporters, spirit, and momentum. These include defunding climate boondoggles across federal...

Apocalyptic climate-change predictions were box-office gold for Hollywood but they did untold damage to the public psyche, economy and the average man’s pocketbook. Now the United Nations’ influential climate change committee has quietly discarded the dire temperature-rise scenarios used in two previous reports predicting horrific consequences of global warming if greenhouse emissions weren’t curbed. For years, lefty outfits — based on dubious climate science — screamed about the coming climate catastrophe: The New York Times warned that “Climate Change Is Harming The Planet Faster Than We Can Adapt,” “Climate Change Is Speeding Toward Catastrophe” and “A Hotter Future Is Certain.”...

President Trump took a victory lap late Saturday after a prominent international climate change panel backed off using some of the most aggressive doomsday estimates after determining that they were not the most plausible outcomes. The United Nations-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had quietly adjusted its modeling framework of a 4–5°C warming by 2100 last month. That framework had underpinned a myriad of other analyses predicting terrifying consequences for greenhouse gas emissions. “GOOD RIDDANCE! After 15 years of Dumocrats promising that ‘Climate Change’ is going to destroy the Planet, the United Nations TOP Climate Committee just admitted that...

The climate crisis should be declared a global public health emergency by the World Health Organization, or millions more people will die unnecessarily, leading international experts have said. The independent pan-European commission on climate and health, which was convened by the WHO, concluded the climate crisis was such a worldwide threat to health that the WHO should declare it “a public health emergency of international concern” (Pheic). The international spread of vector-borne disease, such as dengue and chikungunya, as well as the health impacts of extreme weather events, global heating, food insecurity and air pollution make a Pheic necessary, said...

For almost the entirety of the half century I have lived on Earth, I have had experts, teachers, politicians and activists hectoring me about how climate change is going to destroy the planet. But this week, in The New York Times, of all places, is evidence that climate alarmism is finally cooling down. "Democrats Do Not Have To Campaign On Climate Change Anymore," blared the headline, this week, as author Matt Huber argues that voters are rather turned off by the subject. I would like to suggest that this is because it is the single most expensive lie in human...

Former Vice President Al Gore is still making climate doom predictions, 20 years after his warnings from An Inconvenient Truth proved false — this time invoking the science fiction film The Day After Tomorrow for a rapt Hollywood audience. Gore joined the first-ever Sustainability in Entertainment Honors event Thursday, organized by The Hollywood Reporter and the Sustainable Entertainment Alliance, for a keynote conversation with The West Wing star Bradley Whitford. The pair reminisced about the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, conspicuously omitting its failed prophecy that Earth’s ecosystems would reach a “tipping point” of no return, thanks to human industrial...

I spent the past couple of days attending the International Conference on Climate Change, put on by the Heartland Institute in Washington. There was a good deal of material that will be of interest to readers. A major issue addressed by multiple presenters goes under the heading “What is the proof?”, and in particular what is the proof that there is some kind of climate “crisis” coming our way. You will not be surprised to learn that for most every claim of the climate cabal, the proof is lacking. The most interesting presentation on this subject came from John Clauser....

Reality is a constant reminder of – what is real. Democrats have lost the con, lost their way, and are just lost. We still hear wild, politically charged, wheel-spinning attacks on President Trump – as he restores individual liberties, shrinks government, deports illegals, hits drug traffickers, stops state-sponsored terror, and speaks up for faith, freedom, our Founders’ genius, and biology. He is right. John Adams, vice president to George Washington, was another president with spine, often disliked for his resolve, determination, outsized personality, and penchant for action – but he got things done. Our early presidents loved the Constitution; they...

Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley announced Thursday that the Department of Energy (DOE) is canceling its Grain Belt Express project. Hawley’s X post announcing the DOE’s decision to cancel the project followed a conversation with President Donald Trump and Energy Secretary Chris Wright. The post also called the Grain Belt Express a “green scam” that is “costing taxpayers BILLIONS.” ... The Grain Belt Express was a $11 billion transmission line project designed to carry electricity from wind farms in Kansas across Missouri and Illinois to Indiana. “Energy demand is growing – our grid needs an upgrade,” the project’s website states,...

Hillary Clinton's money story is absolutely wild. We're talking about someone who went from being millions in debt to sitting on a $120 million fortune. And here's the crazy part – most of that cash didn't come from being a politician. This woman basically figured out how to turn her name recognition into a straight-up money printing machine. Hillary Clinton Net Worth: Started From the Bottom, Now She's Here Look, Hillary didn't come from money. She grew up in Park Ridge, Illinois, with a dad who ran a small fabric business and a mom who stayed home. Nothing fancy about...

A North Carolina man has been charged with murdering his mother and teenage brother just six days after being released from prison. Da’ron Jenkins, 25, had walked free on Tuesday last week after serving more than five years for stealing guns and burglarizing vehicles, WITN reported — with his mom, Dana Jenkins, 50, writing on Facebook: “MY BABY IS HOME !! LORD I THX U!!” But Jenkins was swiftly back behind bars, charged with the first-degree murders of his mom and his 15-year-old brother, Daryn Cox, who were found dead in their home in Wilson, about 40 miles east of...

FIRST ON FOX – The Biden administration buried for more than a year a final draft report that failed to prove that an increase in U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals was linked to a meaningful impact on greenhouse gas emissions, according to a copy of the findings, exclusively previewed to Fox News Digital. The Biden administration stalled the release of the information, senior Trump administration officials told Fox News Digital, delaying sharing the data with House Oversight Committee Republicans. The Daily Caller News Foundation first reported that the Biden administration "intentionally buried" the study. The impact that new...

There’s a famous quotation about the town of Bến Tre, a Viet Cong stronghold, that was at the center of the Tet Offensive. According to Peter Arnett, an unnamed major told him “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.” That quotation may not be real, but what is real is the news that Brazil is destroying tens of thousands of acres of rainforest to prepare for the upcoming COP30 climate summit, which will be held this November in Belém. Apparently, they have to destroy the rainforest, so that the climatistas can save it. Even the pro-climate change...

The Biden Administration's latest scandal reveals an alarming misappropriation of public funds that should have ignited outrage among taxpayers and watchdogs alike. Reports indicate that over $2 billion was quietly allocated to a start-up tied to Stacey Abrams, a prominent figure in the Democratic Party and a champion of unsupported election claims. This funding spree is part of the Biden administration's ongoing push to allocate climate-related initiatives, which, under the so-called "Inflation Reduction Act," is anything but what its title suggests. In reality, the $375 billion earmarked for climate initiatives can be seen as a slush fund designed to boost...

A major solar power plant project that was granted over a billion dollars in federal loans is on the road to closure, with energy experts blasting the project as a "boondoggle" that harmed the environment. In 2011, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under former President Barack Obama issued $1.6 billion in loan guarantees to finance the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility, a green energy project that consists of three solar concentrating thermal power plants in California. The facility was touted by then-Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz as an "example of how America is becoming a world leader in solar energy."...

EXCLUSIVE: Republican lawmakers are calling on the Trump administration to investigate President Biden's dismissal of a lawsuit claiming millions in fraud from a green energy project the day after the 2024 election. In 2011, President Barack Obama's Treasury Department granted Tonopah Solar Energy, LLC hundreds of millions of dollars for the construction of a green energy solar plant, the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project, in Nevada. However, the energy group was eventually sued by CMB Export, LLC for alleged fraud involving approximately $275 million of taxpayer dollars in a qui tam lawsuit, which is a case on behalf of the...